EV home charger installation: Everything you need to know

I’ve bitten the bullet. After five years of driving electric cars, I now have a charger at home.

And now that I do, I can’t believe it has taken me this long to get one.

If you don’t know much about it, the process can seem daunting and the imagined costs prohibitively expensive, but it’s actually ridiculously simple and much cheaper than you’d think.

I’ve sat down with Matt Evans, Head of Mobility at home charging provider Ohme, to break down some of the myths around EV charging.

Here’s what you need to know.

Yes and no. Yes, because it’s cheaper and makes life easier, but strictly, no: theoretically, you can use the three-pin charger included with most EVs, or you can go to a public charger.

Having a home charger means you can plug in anytime you like, when it suits you, or when electricity is cheapest. If you work from home, you can plug in at any time of day, and if you don’t, overnight is also an option. 

It also gives you the ability to top up just by a small amount, say 20 per cent, which may take a couple of hours depending on the charger and vehicle you have, or charge to 80 or 100 per cent if you have more time to spare, which could take more like seven or eight hours.

Using a charger with a regular plug takes much longer, often more than 24 hours with the vehicle continuously connected.

Visiting a DC public charger is a whole other ball game. It will cost you more; you’ll need to sit there and wait, which, again, depending on how fast the charger is, the size of the car’s battery and the maximum rate it can charge at, could take 20–30 minutes or more than an hour. 

The charging network, or infrastructure, as it’s often referred to, is fairly spread out, even in our capital cities, so there’s no guarantee that there is a charger near you, that it’s ultra-fast, or that it’s even working.

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Until a year or so ago, public charging was a nightmare for me. The nearest site was more than 30km away, and one of the plugs was always out of action.

Since Tesla installed a supercharger close to my home, it has made life much easier, but finding the time to visit it around work and family commitments has still been tricky and more expensive than charging at home.

DC fast chargers are best used for topping up your battery while travelling, such as on a road trip. I often bump into people at my local charger passing through Melbourne to regional Victoria.

“Maybe 16 months ago, OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) were really focused on public charging. So you'd buy a car, and you'd get a Chargefox voucher. But if you think about it, you've just handed your customer another problem,” says Evans. 

“Who wants to charge at a public charger if you don't have to? Nobody, right? It's expensive. There is a place for DC charging, don't get me wrong, but that's not why you buy an EV.

“A lot of different companies wanna [sic] do big DC charging and diversify; we are unashamedly just focused on the home.”

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Not at all. Most EVs come with a basic three-pin charger, but this is the slow one that will generally only charge at about 2kW. This is really a portable emergency charger and not practical for everyday use. 

Faster home chargers are either capable of 7kW or 11kW AC. The former uses a single-phase distribution system, and the latter a three-phase system. 

Most Australian homes run on single-phase. According to Evans, that’s all you really need, and it’s rare that a home’s power needs upgrading. But you can choose to upgrade to three-phase if topping up very quickly is a must for you.

“I don't care if my car's charged at 4:30 in the morning or 5:15. I'm asleep anyway,” he says.

"Unless there's a use case like you’re an Uber driver and just need a really quick turnaround, single-phase is all you need.”

My house uses a single-phase system, so the charger I have is the Ohme Home Pro.

This, and others like it, are what the industry calls 'smart' chargers because you can use them to schedule charging times to suit you. They work with an app that can show you information about the charging session, load-share with other household appliances, and even show a predicted cost.

Conversely, 'simple' chargers can’t do any of that. If you plug it in, the car will charge – that’s it.

Many car makers now include simple chargers with their vehicles, either for free as part of a temporary deal or at an added cost.

Recently, challenger brand GAC did exactly that, giving away a simple charger to the first 600 people to buy its Aion UT hatchback, but the unit couldn’t communicate with the brand’s app, and customers weren’t happy.

Read the full story on that one here.

“Some of these chargers are really poor; they don’t work, have issues or just aren’t smart, so they never utilise solar and all of these sorts of things,” Evans says.

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“The well-researched consumers say ‘I don’t want to put that on my wall, if I’m gonna [sic] spend money to get a sparky in here, I want something that’s gonna be great'.

“If you give them a [simple] charger, all you're giving the customer is another problem. Now I've got the EV, I've got the charger, which sparky do I go to? How do I do this?”

What may come as a surprise is that the unit Tesla sells is not a smart charger. According to Evans, it’s the best simple charger because it can communicate well with Tesla vehicles, but if you have a car from another brand, it won’t.

No, you don’t have to. If you have solar panels, it is theoretically possible to charge your EV for free during the day, but it depends on your panel capacity, your EV’s battery size, and any limitations in your energy plan.

Some home solar systems may not generate enough electricity to recharge an EV battery from empty to full in one go, or even if they can, it could mean that your self-generated solar is not available to meet other home energy needs. 

To mitigate that problem, you could invest in a home battery, which lets you store energy from your solar panels for use when the sun isn’t shining, or just use solar for more frequent, quick top-ups.

Evans contends that the initial outlay for solar panels can be expensive, even with subsidies, and although it can be beneficial, it’s not strictly necessary because energy providers now offer tariffs to make charging EVs cheaper.

“I wouldn't get solar just because I've got an EV,” he says.

“You will save more money through dynamic tariff integration than you will from your solar.

“The car isn't often home during the day to maximise the solar. Instead, using the cheap period at night will be a big saver.”

Again, not at all. You can put a charger in your garage, yes, but you can also put it under a carport or just on the outside wall of your home. 

If you live somewhere without off-street parking, it is undeniably more complicated, although several trials are looking at ways to make this easier.

Ohme sells two kinds of chargers: the ePod and Home Pro. The former doesn’t have a cord, which is better for use outside because it is smaller and more discreet. 

The Home Pro, in contrast, comes with either a five- or eight-metre cable. Both are smart and integrate with Ohme’s app, but the Home Pro has a digital screen.

My Home Pro is located in my double garage, but the cord can also run under the door to reach my driveway.

Garage or not, though, considering beforehand where you want or need your charger to go is important because it can affect the price you’ll pay for installation.

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The further away it is from your switchboard, the more it is likely to cost.

“If your garage is detached by more than 10 metres, such as with some regional properties, for example, then [the installer] will have to dig a trench or something to get the power out there, and that’s where things start to get more expensive,” says Evans.

And it’s also important to ensure the installation area has WiFi, as EV chargers use it to communicate with smartphone apps.

Accessories can also make your charging set-up simpler and safer. If you do have to run cables across the floor, cable protectors can reduce trip hazards and prevent wear.

Wall-mounted holders are also helpful to keep cables neatly stored, and if your charger is outside, weatherproof plug covers protect your unit from rain and dust.

EV chargers must be installed by an electrician. This can be any sparky, but it’s a good idea to choose one who has experience with EV chargers because the old ‘buy cheap, buy twice’ adage is not a mistake you want to make here.

My charger was installed by the team at Victorian EV Solutions, and it was as simple as sending them a photo of my switchboard and giving them access to it, the garage and the roof space to run the cable for a couple of hours. The power had to be turned off for about 15 minutes.

“I think [choosing the right] installer is important because these guys are doing this over and over and over again,” Evans says.

“I’ve seen people get an inferior bit of hardware, just got their sparky to do it thinking ‘I'm so clever here, this has only cost me 1200 bucks’. But they didn't put the clamp in the right spot, and then none of the features work. 

“They’ve had to get the sparky back, who has charged a call-out fee because he says it’s the charger [that’s the problem].

“I think making sure that you're buying into an environment is what I would say to a family member, even if you don't buy into our environment. You want something that’s going to be stress-free.

According to Evans, if you do choose to buy a charger from a retail outlet or online and get it fitted by your preferred electrician, it’s still wise to make sure it’s “someone with a vested interest in putting the hardware on your wall and not just making money out of the install”.

Ohme backs its chargers with a three-year warranty, with a separate three-year cover for the installation. If anything goes wrong with it, you can contact Ohme rather than the electrician or vehicle manufacturer.

I’ve saved the best news for last here because, before I had one installed, I thought it would be insanely expensive and that I’d have to upgrade my switchboard, which would be even more costly.

But it’s not.

If you do want to go the route of buying an EV home charger off the shelf, you can get one for as little as $400 at Bunnings.

EVSE, Australia’s largest supplier of EV connectors and charging accessories, has residential units from around $700, while JET Charge and Zappi, for example, have some for around $1400.

Tesla’s charger is about $800, and organisations such as the RACV and energy providers like AGL also offer some, too.

Bear in mind that not all costs shown online will include installation. If that’s straightforward, then it would typically cost about $1500–$2000.

Ohme’s Home Pro costs $2345, which includes a simple installation, when bought through one of the car brands it partners with. You can also buy one through your sparky at Middy’s, but it’s cheaper to get it through the OEM.

At present, in Australia, this includes fleet companies SG Fleet and Flare and several dealer groups with more on their way, but in Europe it’s the official charger partner for Ford, Hyundai, Suzuki, XPeng and the Volkswagen Group as well as many others.

Evans’s top tips when it comes to purchasing are, firstly, to make sure to go with a reputable brand, because the unit is “an asset that is going to sit on your wall for a long time”, and to get a smart charger.