Charging your EV at home is the best way to get value for your money. But there are many different types of EV chargers available; different brands with different strengths and charging speeds.

Choosing the right strength EV charger for your home is essential for ensuring that your electric car is always topped up and ready to go.

There are two main ways to charge your electric vehicle at home: either slow charging directly from a wall outlet or with a dedicated Level 2 EV Charger.

The most common reason for charging an electric vehicle at home is to charge it overnight at far lower prices than public EV charging stations, ensuring that you have a full battery at the start of the day.

The speed of your EV charging will be determined by the type of charger you have, and to a lesser extent, your home’s electricity supply.

Charging cables that plug into your wall outlet will only be able to deliver 2.3kW of power at most. This means that if you leave your car charging overnight from 10pm to 8am it will have been able to fill your EV with 23kWh of power at most.

A dedicated Level 2 home charger should be able to give you charging speeds of 3.7kW to 7kW, with 7kW being the most common power for home chargers.

Many Level 2 EV Chargers you see advertised will also show models with 11kW or 22kW charging speeds. However, you will most likely not be able to use them at home.

Those kinds of charging speeds require a three-phase electricity supply with a power of 400 volts or more.

Very few Irish homes are equipped with a three-phase supply, so these charging speeds will more commonly be found in public charging stations.

When looking at different types and strengths of EV chargers, you need to consider the following factors about your vehicle and driving habits.

The type of electric vehicle you drive will have greatly different charging needs. A plug-in hybrid vehicle is likely to have a battery of 10kWh to a max of around 25kWh.

This is much easier to charge with a lower power charger or just using a charging cable and wall outlet than a fully battery electric vehicle, especially if the electric motor is only used occasionally.

With fully battery electric vehicles the actual battery capacity can vary greatly. Some models could have a battery as small as 25 – 30kWh, while the largest EVs can have batteries in excess of 100kWh.

The larger your battery is, the more power a charger it will require to get to full capacity if it is being run down regularly.

How often do you drive your electric car, and what length of journey do you take it on? If you have a car that is only used for short-distance trips and only needs occasional charging, then low power charging can suit your needs.

However, if you frequently take long journeys and need to charge your battery from almost being completely empty to full on the regular, then you will want a more powerful charger, such as 7kW Level 2 charger.

The ideal way to charge your EV is to do 90% of the charging at home, and only top up at public charging stations as needed on occasion.

However, if necessity does have you using public charging stations regularly, then you might not need a powerful home charger if it only has to top up the battery.

Getting a Level 2 Charger installed can be pricey, depending on the make and model of the charger you choose. The price can also be driven up further if your home needs electrical upgrades to support a charger.

A granny charging cable, on the other hand, is much cheaper. That said, there is a €300 EV charger grant which can help with that cost.

Even if you have a Level 2 home EV charger installed, there is no harm in also having a three-pin charging cable for a wall outlet in your boot.

A three-pin charging cable will cost you in the region of €200 and can be handy if you need to charge somewhere that doesn’t have a dedicated charger, but does have an outlet available.

Rapid charging stations, which deliver power of anywhere from 50kW – 350kW, charge use DC electricity. This bypasses the need for your EVs slower onboard AC-DC converter.

However, they also use a lot of power, with most models starting at around 400V requirements. They also, again, need a three-phase electricity supply. This rules them out for home charging.