While it is certainly a very exciting prospect to switch to an environmentally-friendly electric car, one of the most daunting aspects, especially for newcomers, is knowing which charger to use with your EV.
Luckily, we’ve put together a brief guide to give you some insight into choosing the right charger for your EV.
Types of EV chargers you need to be familiar with
To choose the correct charger for your EV, it’s important to be familiar with the different kinds available in the market: slow, fast, and rapid. The rather obvious names indicate the time it takes to fully charge up your EV’s battery. Let’s delve in further.
When you require a slow charger
Slow chargers are capable of filling up your battery at a rate of 3kW. A similar example is your average home charger which uses a three-pin household plug.
Relatively small EVs like the Nissan Leaf pack a small battery, which means it may take up to 10-12 hours to fully charge up an empty battery. But if you’re driving a larger EV like the Tesla Model 3, which packs an equally large battery, then it will probably take almost 24 hours to fully charge up.
When you require a fast charger
Fast chargers offer a power output of 7kW to 22kW, so you’re looking at almost twice the charging speed when compared to a slow charger. Most home wall box chargers have this kind of output, with often up to 11kW available in UK homes – however, availability depends more on your home’s supply rather than the wall box that you buy.
Just to give you a quick example, a 7kW charger can charge a Nissan Leaf in approximately 5 hours, whereas a 22kW public charging point can do this in about 2 hours. You’ll mostly find fast chargers in public charging points across the UK – the 7kW untethered one is the most common type, which has a Type 2 socket and allows you to use your own charging cable, should you choose.
But that’s not to say that these efficient wall box chargers cannot be installed in your home – well, that is if you have the right kind of electrical setup to support it.
When you require a rapid charger
This is the quickest way to charge your EV battery and rapid chargers are available at nearly all motorway service stations. The more common ones are referred to as AC rapid chargers, which can deliver an impressive 43kW, and DC rapid chargers, which deliver up to 50kW. Both can easily charge up your Nissan Leaf, for example, to 80% in under an hour.
Have you ever wondered though, why EV manufacturers always recommend charging your EV up to 80& and not full?
It’s actually the same logic that applies to your smartphone battery: charging up to 80% helps to increase your battery life, and besides, the remaining 20% can take an unusually long time, so you’re not really losing out on anything by nothing charging it to 100% – you’ll get the same duration of use more or less, although it can greatly vary depending on how you use your EV or smartphone, for example.
For further information on which charger to use with your EV, do let us know.
