Electric car query - Do we need an ultra-fast home charger?

[Pipsquiggle]

My DH needs a new car, his current one is knackered.
We are considering going electric.
His car is mainly for his hour commute each way to work - circa 90 miles each day. Or local journeys.
We had an electrician out who informed us that the electricity supply to the garage can't support an ultra fast charger.
My DH is saying he now doesn't want an electric because we HAVE to have an ultra fast charger.
My question is do we really need an ultra fast electric charger at our home? - any examples of why an ultra fast charger is or isn't necessary would be great.
TIA

Yes, as explained, it was for a hybrid with a less than 70 mile commute.

For OP's situation if a 380m range, a full charge lasts over 4 days. Small daily top ups of 90 miles would keep it almost fully charged, if starting from full or charged for longer over the weekend, for example.

We have a 7kw one but we managed perfectly happily with a 3pin plug for ages.
It would take 15 hours empty to full but the trick is to just top it up every day and don’t let it get empty. As long as you’re not doing mega mileage it’s fine. As long as you have fast public charging nearby for emergencies I’d say.

I would find it very annoying to have to plug in my car daily but appreciate not everyone feels the same. To my mind if you’re spending £40-50k on a car, there seems little point in not making the additional investment in a proper charger.

Also my electric box was so old that it wouldn’t even charge a short range car without blowing a fuse via a 3 pin plug so I may be a bit biased against them!

We don’t even have one, we charge at a service station or at work.

You won’t be able to install an ultra fast one. 7kw is enough anyway

You could just get a longer cable. Cables come in all lengths to well over 15m up to 50m. But yes, for that mileage I think you would need a 7kw home charger (EV owner).

You might get away with a plug for 90 miles per day use.

In normal conditions, my car (a BMW) gets around 2.5 miles/kWh. So, you would need to charge 36kWh for the 90 miles. Overnight, from a plug, you could get about that (depending on exactly how long).

So, if you charged it from time to time for longer or used a commercial (expensive) charger once a week, it would work.

But, obviously 7kW would be ideal.

A “self-charging hybrid” is a petrol car with a small battery which is charged from regenerative braking and from an alternator, and does not need to be plugged in. Indeed, cn not be plugged in, They are more efficient (better mpg) than pure petrol engines, but all the energy still comes from petrol.

They are not EV’s within the usual meaning of the term.

It takes 10 seconds to plug a car in. Why would having to do that be annoying? Bear in mind you’ll never need to visit a petrol station ever again. We did it every day for years.

We have a standard 7kwh and it charges our car find. Ours is a small battery one (Corsa) and it charges in just over 2 hours. Even a car with a much larger range would easily charge overnight, likely within the 5 hours of discounted electricity an EV tariff gives you.

Anyone saying it’s annoying plugging the car in every night is mad (or needs to get themselves a tethered cable if they’re wrestling a detached one every time).

We're all different and I'm not trying to convince you. You have experience of shit electrics and wouldn't be prepared to plug in the car 3 or 4 times a week, which is perfectly valid, but seems irrelevant to my posts.

I was offering a perspective to OP in case it would suit their situation considering that they have an external socket near their parking area. Also answering another PP's question about the charging cable we use.

It's not "very annoying" for me to plug ours in a couple of times a week when I use that car. My DH uses it 3 or 4 times a week and does it automatically when he gets home. If a full EV with larger range, it would only need to be 2 or 3 times a week total for our mileage, which is fairly similar to OP.

It takes about 10 - 20 seconds to plug in as I can even reach the charger and open the port on the car at the same time. The charger is always plugged in and is hung up within arm's reach of the charging port on the car.

If I was having to get a loose cable out of my boot every time, route it any distance and coil up and put it away, yes that would be tedious to do regularly.

We had a dedicated charger installed at our old house, but our current set up in the new house via an existing outdoor, weather-rated and covered new 3-pin socket on a separate circuit is actually just as easy, if not easier. Much cheaper to purchase a cable and it fully charges the hybrid in about 7 or 8 hours, or could easily recharge at least 90-120 miles overnight.

It all depends on the set up and other variables. Our hybrid is leased, so not worth spending a fortune on another charger when there is a perfectly easy, acceptable and cheaper alternative that works well for us.

It wouldn't work for you. That's understood 👍.

You need one for like an oven not just a regular plug in. On a slow charge 7kwh will charge about 20 miles per hour so to do 180 mile round trip plus a bit you will need to charge for 7 hours.

Yiu don’t need to dig up your drive or garden. The cord can be a fixed to your house and secured properly.

Yeah to each to their own. I am much less annoyed taking 20 seconds to plug in my car rather than pumping at a petrol station.

Some car brands give you a free wallbos (charger) when you buy/lease a new car. Poor homes electrics is a different issue.

Without a doubt owning an EV car is easier.

Octopus have written to us to say they are reducing their nighttime tariff to 5.2p. It will cost just over 1.5p a mile.

I wasn't saying it was an EV, I was just offering an alternative.

I have a 22kw charger because for unknown reasons my house has 3-phase electricity (always had, no idea why) but frankly given that we just plug in overnight I doubt I would notice if it was 7kw

I did the 3 pin charge for first 6 months of owning my electric car, total pain, I would have sold the car if it was a permanent situation

Because I bought a long range car so that I could drive and go. I don’t want to be faffing, nor do I want to have to park the car on the drive at all times (we live on a corner so it’s more convenient to park the car in front of the house, the drive is on the other side).

I don’t want my car to be any more annoying to drive than a petrol one. And with my set up, it isn’t. 🙂

7kw is easily enough.
3 pin maybe if you plug in 12-13 hours a night. I had to charge like that short term and it charged by approx 7 miles an hour so to get 90 miles you’d want it charging at least 12 hours a day.
Honestly I’d not have wanted to use a 3 pin longer term - it felt like a bit of a pain.

It might not be as bad as you think, we originally had ours (7kw or similar) on the side of the house with the cable trailing to the garage… until I forgot it was there in the dark, nearly garrotted myself and ripped it half off the wall. We then decided to “dig up the garden” option, but actually the electrician managed to kind of dig it up around the areas the tiles were grouted to minimise the damage, run up a short wall and into the garage where he fitted a new little consumer unit for it. Much better and quite reasonable costs

Fair enough but every single EV owner I know finds it less faff than a petrol

My car is absolutely less faff than petrol. Because I have had an EV charger fitted. Having to plug it in every time I come home for a dribble of charge is not less faff at all. I charge my car a couple of times a month, maybe more if I do a long journey. It’s so easy that I don’t have to think about it unless I go on really long journeys with heating, lights, wipers and everything else going. Also you don’t have to worry about rain with an EV charger. Wouldn’t fancy my chances with a 3 pin plug if it’s pissing down

We have a 7kw charger. Not many homes will have enough electricity entering to have higher. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying!
we manage 3 electric cars on our 7kw charger.
consider getting one that communicates with your electricity supplier’s tariff too.

We can’t have a car charger put in because we don’t have a drive and so we use a normal plug and a super long wire. It isn’t ideal but we’ve had it for 3 years now and it works for us.

I was wondering about what happens if you don't have a drive. Can you just leave a cable strung out across a pavement for hours, or do you need to cover it so it's not a trip hazard for passers by? I always think our cable is quite a trip hazard especially in the dark, but on our own drive at least we know it's there.