Bought an Electric Car? Don't Pay a Fortune to Charge It at Home

Most people follow the same pattern. The car arrives, the three-pin lead comes out of the boot, and it takes most of a weekend to fill the battery. Then comes a fortnight of learning which public chargers near Solihull town centre, Shirley or Touchwood are working, which app they need, and which ones are always occupied.

Then they get a charger fitted at home and stop thinking about any of it. The car charges overnight, on the cheap rate, on the drive, while nobody is doing anything.

A dedicated home charge point runs roughly three times faster than a three-pin lead and can be scheduled to run during off-peak electricity windows. That combination — faster and timed — is where the running-cost saving actually comes from.

Public charging has its place for longer journeys, and it is genuinely improving. But relying on it entirely for everyday driving is the expensive way to run an EV, and it turns a five-second habit into an errand.

This is the bit that saves money, and it costs nothing. Plenty of people order a unit based on a review, then discover it does not suit their supply, their parking or the way their house is wired.

• Tethered or socket-only depends on how you park and where the car's charge port sits
• Solar-ready features are worth paying for if you have panels, and not if you don't
• Load management may be needed if your supply headroom is tight — cheaper than a supply upgrade
• The best position for the unit is often not the first place people imagine

If you are still weighing up models, our guide to the best home EV chargers in the UK is a good starting point.

Most homes in Solihull do not need major electrical work to take a charge point. Where costs climb, it is usually distance and access rather than anything dramatic — a long run to a detached garage, or a route that has to cross hard landscaping.

Sometimes moving the charger a couple of metres removes most of that. Sometimes charging on the other side of the drive does. We will tell you if that is the case, because a shorter run is quicker for us too.

For the full breakdown, see what affects EV installation prices.

We install home charge points across Solihull and the surrounding villages, and we would rather spend ten minutes on the phone getting it right than fit the wrong unit quickly.