What is EV charging?

EV charging is an important aspect of EV ownership – why own an electric vehicle if you can’t charge it at home by yourself? As the world works towards a greener and carbon free future, many of us are looking for more renewable solutions to fit into our daily lifestyles.

Vehicles are very much part of our daily lives – for most of us, we wouldn’t be able to travel to work if it weren’t for our cars. Currently, when we run out of fuel it doesn’t take much to detour to the local fuel station, fill up and be on our way. Although electric vehicles simply need plugging in to re-charge – much like your mobile phone – it can take up to 8 hours to fully charge the vehicle. While it is all well and good your local fuel station or superstore having electric charging points, you can’t spend the whole day waiting around.

For this reason, manufacturers are now producing EV home charging points, making vehicle charging easier.

There are three ways to charge an electric vehicle – at work, using a public charging point, or at home. Home options are now becoming more popular, simply for the ease of being able to charge your car at home in a safe environment, before leaving the next day to run your errands or go to work with a full battery – every day.

Many people originally thought charging an electric vehicle at home was much like keeping power flowing to your caravan – a standard 3-pin plug to the mains, and a specialist plug end for the car. However, EV home chargers are so much more than this – they are smart, secure devices.

From July 2019, only smart EV chargers will be available to for installation at UK homes, and eligible for the £500 OLEV discount. As EV chargers are seen as a renewable technology – it only makes sense for them to be smart devices, so what does this mean? Home chargers must be capable of:

• Being remotely accessed through a smartphone

• Receiving, interpreting and reacting to digital signals

• Providing charge history and data for invoicing purposes

• Secure locking mechanisms, so only the owner can access the charger

Charging your vehicle at home is the most convenient and cost-effective way – you won’t need to wait around at a service station, or superstore, or even go without electricity. Many manufacturers of EV chargers are now creating solutions which will charge your vehicle faster than you think – for example, EVBox have created the Elvi, which charges up to 8x faster than other brands.

The typical cost of a home charging solution is roughly £1000. As part of the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme, the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) are providing households with a discount of up to £500. This incentive scheme makes the purchase of an EV home charging solution much easier, and more accessible to households across the UK.

To find out more about the EV chargers available from 50five, click here. Alternatively, take a look through our related articles below, which share more information on renewable home technologies and the future of smart devices.