There are three main reasons why you should have a specific charger for your electric car at home: because it is safer, faster and cheaper. We explain the causes.
If you have an electric car, have taken the step of acquiring it or are considering doing so, you must be clear that the best way to charge it is through a charging point at your home. And this premise is valid for its installation in a single-family home or in a community garage, since it is possible in both spaces.
But, why assume this outlay if there are currently different recharging points in cities, service stations, public car parks, financial centers and shopping malls?
An electric car connected to a conventional plug will need many hours and will be prone to breakdowns and damage to the installation of the home
The reality is that the recharge network is not yet ready to provide a reliable and quality service. There are not enough chargers installed to cover the entire territory and many of them -including those present in urban environments- malfunction or are out of order. In addition, those that provide free service are usually very slow and those that pay are very expensive.
With this in mind, we are going to delve into the benefits of having your own charger.
Advantages of having a car charger at home
As we have advanced at the beginning of this article, the advantages of installing a charger in our home are several and can be summarized in three main pillars: safety, speed and economy.
Why is a home charger safer?
An electric car has the advantage that it can be plugged into any socket to charge. The problem is that this can end up creating more problems than benefits.
A car battery directly connected to a conventional domestic plug (Schuko type) will be charged at very little power, so it will take many hours to reach a level of charge that allows us to make a minimally useful journey. In addition, the electrical installation of the house is very likely not designed for the needs of an electric car, so it will be overwhelmed.
All this will cause the cables to end up overheating, putting the installation of the home at risk and could even cause a blackout. And, of course, it could affect the integrity of the vehicle’s systems. For these reasons, the so-called Mode 1 charging is prohibitedsince it is not safe.
At this point, you can argue that this is precisely why current electric car cables incorporate the so-called mode 2which includes a safety device to stop charging if necessary, as well as a charge regulation system of up to 16 A (amps) to protect the home installation.
And it is true, but Mode 2 still does not allow communication between the charging point and the car, so the latter may suffer problems caused by overloads or process interruptions.
To avoid all this, the ideal is to use the mode 3, the one offered by chargers intended for installation and use in homes, community or company car parks. This type of charger allows communication between the charging point and the battery, making the following possible:
- prevent damage due to network overload
- Avoid interruption of the load
- balance the load depending on the needs of the car and home
- speed up charging up to 8 times relative to Modes 1 and 2
- Provides information via apps mobile
This charging method, generally carried out through a type 2 connector (Mennekes), has a presence pin and another for communication with the vehicle. In addition, it includes single-phase (3.7 to 7.4 kW) and three-phase (11 to 22 kW) charging.
Why is a home charger faster?
We have already anticipated it: charging the vehicle with a conventional cable or a Mode 2 cable limits the charging speed enormously and we would need many more hours of those required by an electric car to reach a level of charge, no longer maximum, but at least high.
Mode 3 smart chargers for private homes, like the ones you can find at Charging Boxallow much higher charging powers, which makes the charging process notably shorten without affecting the good condition of the battery.
Why is a home charger cheaper?
Of course, installing a charger at home has a cost, which can range between 600 and 1200 euros depending on the equipment and the installation company.
But the smartest way to look at it is as a investment that in the medium and long term It will allow you to obtain benefits, in the same way that it may be interesting to invest in a photovoltaic solar installation or in a more efficient heating system for the home.
Using an electric car charger at home, we can adapt the electricity rate to our needs and take advantage of off-peak hours to load our car for the next day.
In addition, we avoid having to use public charging points, which are usually considerably expensive and can even cause the supposed savings of a electric car against a car with a combustion engine is not such.
Finally, this type of particular chargers is prepared for schedule charging hours that best suit us through an application on the mobile phone, as well as other advantageous features that make the charging process extremely simple.
Do you want to know what you have to do to install an electric car charger in your home or in a community garage? Do not miss this article in which we talk about it.