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Electric Vehicle Home Charging
For most EV owners, Home (overnight) charging is an essential part of running an EV. Commercial slow and fast chargers are becoming widely available and are great when you are out and about but there is nothing more convenient than having a home charger.
A properly sized and installed AC charger is the key to efficient, reliable home charging. While very small portable AC chargers with a cord and 3 pin plug are available they are really only meant for use when you are away from home or in emergencies.
A properly sized and installed AC charger is essential for reliability and to obtain the maximum overnight charge. The choice of charger will depend on your EV and the amount of power available at your home. The charger will generally be wall mounted indoors (outside if required) and have its own dedicated electrical supply directly from your homes switchboard. Some new EV’s include a home charger as part of the purchase package otherwise a suitable 3rd party charger can be selected.
Home charging benefits include:
- Convenience – the EV can be charged overnight on your property or in your garage so it’s ready to go in the morning
- The cheapest possible electricity – while your EV is already cheap to run using night-rate electricity can cut your costs even further
- Slow overnight charging puts less stress on your EV’s Battery leading to longer Battery life
The team at Gavin Lowe Electrical are able to advise and install your EV home charger.
Types of EV Chargers
Most EV’s can be charged using either AC or DC power.
AC Chargers/Slow Chargers
These effectively transfer the power available from the local electricity supply directly to the vehicles own onboard charger.
Using the vehicles onboard charger greatly simplifies the installation of the charging station but does place limitations on the rate of charge achievable. For this reason AC charging stations are referred to as Slow Chargers and depending on the AC supply and the EV’s state of charge may take many hours to fully charge an EV’s battery.
There are three main categories of Slow Chargers:
- Very low output chargers – generally designed as portable chargers with flexible cords and three pin plugs for connection to the electricity supply. They are designed for use when you are away from home and there are no other chargers available. Charging rates are limited to 2.3kW or less.
- Home based wall mounted chargers that are hard-wired into your houses electrical supply using a dedicated circuit back to the switch board. These units typically have charging rates up to 7.4W depending on the installation.
- Publicly available Slow chargers can also be increasingly found at places such as shops, malls, public car parks, hotels and tourist attractions. These allow you to top-up your EV while you are busy doing something else. They often take advantage of a 3phase electricity supply and can offer charging rates of up to 22kW.
DC Chargers/Fast Chargers
These are used for speedy charging of your EV’s and are great when you are on the road and need to top-up in a hurry. Networks of Fast Chargers in New Zealand now allow you to travel the whole country and top-up quickly when you are on the move. Because of the cost and infrastructure required to set them up they tend to be available only at dedicated public charging stations. Fast chargers vary in capacity but in New Zealand public charging stations are typically limited to 50kW.
There are also some extremely high powered Super Chargers available to Tesla owners these can output 120kw and take as little as 20 to 30 minutes to fully charge an EV. The next generation of Super Chargers will double this figure to 250kW and Tesla have plans for 350kW charging stations.
Super Chargers are currently exclusive to Tesla and there are only a few in New Zealand but the number is growing.
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