VW E-Up - home charger installation or not?

[JQ]

In theory, my wife should be taking delivery of an E-Up in March 2022. It's our first EV and we had planned to charge it from a 3 pin plug initially - slow but it won't be doing many miles so unlikely to cause us an issue. And if it did become an issue install a proper charger at a later date. However with the removal of the grant assistance for charger installation I'm just wondering if we should just bite the bullet now, and get a charger installed before the grants expire in March.

Does anyone have any advice? Thank you.

[Zenith86]

It’s obviously a lot more convenient using a dedicated charger but it will still be slow on an E-Up. My wife got one a few weeks ago and we didn’t realise until it arrived that it doesn’t charge at 7kWh on a home charger. The maximum it will charge at is around 3.8kWh so about 50% faster than a 3 pin plug. I’d imagine you’d be buying another electric car in the future so I’d bite the bullet and get a home charger but you probably don’t really need one for an E-Up.

[Frimley111R]

Zenith86 said:

I’d imagine you’d be buying another electric car in the future so I’d bite the bullet and get a home charger but you probably don’t really need one for an E-Up.

This. Chargers will not be cheaper to install after the end of March and so, with future EV usage/cars likely, I'd do it now. At the moment you get £350 towards the install cost.

[WonkeyDonkey]

I'd get one just for future proofing if anything. If you're planning to stay in your house for at least the next 10 years then the chances are that there will be another electric car on your drive within that time.

[JQ]

All sensible responses, and ultimately what I was thinking.

Any recommendations for what charge point to get? Having delved into the Home charger Thread on here the level of detail is overwhelming.

[JD]

JQ said:

In theory, my wife should be taking delivery of an E-Up in March 2022. It's our first EV and we had planned to charge it from a 3 pin plug initially - slow but it won't be doing many miles so unlikely to cause us an issue. And if it did become an issue install a proper charger at a later date. However with the removal of the grant assistance for charger installation I'm just wondering if we should just bite the bullet now, and get a charger installed before the grants expire in March.

Does anyone have any advice? Thank you.

In a similar situation to you (although with a PHEV with even less charge demand)

I decided to not bother, in the expectation that in a year or two the chargers are going to cost a lot less rather than being propped up by the grant.

[Undirection]

JD said:

I decided to not bother, in the expectation that in a year or two the chargers are going to cost a lot less rather than being propped up by the grant.

I think you might want to check your maths there. Removing a subsidy of £350 is not going to make things less expensive. I don't remember car prices going down as the grants on them were removed.

[5s Alive]

JQ said:

All sensible responses, and ultimately what I was thinking.

Any recommendations for what charge point to get? Having delved into the Home charger Thread on here the level of detail is overwhelming.

Lots of info on YouTube.
Tethered or untethered very much depends on location, how you expect it to blend into it's surroundings and whether you require more than the usual 5m charge cable. Untethered provides some future flexibility.

I'd recommend a charge point that doesn't require separate PEN or DC leakage protection or an earth rod and has these protections built in.
Zappi (IIRC), Hypervolt and SyncEv does all of these and more. Built in SIM card internet connection may also be desirable if WiFi or Ethernet prove problematic. I have the SyncEv and this can be set via the app to provide anywhere from 6 - 32a charge current as required.

[andy43]

I’d be aiming for a dumb charger with no Wi-Fi, apps, communications or any other chance of it being remotely controlled or timed.

[Watchthis]

Zenith86 said:

It’s obviously a lot more convenient using a dedicated charger but it will still be slow on an E-Up. My wife got one a few weeks ago and we didn’t realise until it arrived that it doesn’t charge at 7kWh on a home charger. The maximum it will charge at is around 3.8kWh so about 50% faster than a 3 pin plug. I’d imagine you’d be buying another electric car in the future so I’d bite the bullet and get a home charger but you probably don’t really need one for an E-Up.

Are you certain that it will only charge at 16A? There's a very real chance your charger is set low or else a setting in your car is telling it to charge at a reduced rate. My i3 can be set to charge at a reduced rate and my podpoint charge rate can be changed by dip switches inside the housing. I'd be really surprised if your car can only take 16A

[blank]

I have a PHEV on order which I may not even charge at home, but have ordered the charger anyway to get the grant.

I've gone for an EO Mini via Scottish Power as it's the smallest/neatest one I could find, and my wife didn't want anything installing on the front of the house!

[5s Alive]

andy43 said:

I’d be aiming for a dumb charger with no Wi-Fi, apps, communications or any other chance of it being remotely controlled or timed.

Dumb chargers have other limitations and as has been posted elsewhere smart chargers aren't so smart that communications can't be disabled...currently. (sorry)

Plan to run mine in dumb plug-in and charge mode, controlling scheduling, charge rate and max current from the car. Future developments will be interesting though.

[5s Alive]

blank said:

I have a PHEV on order which I may not even charge at home, but have ordered the charger anyway to get the grant.

Snap, combination of OZEV and EST (Scotland only) grants adds up to £600.

I feel like I ought to thank complete strangers in the street for their contribution.

Edited by 5s Alive on Friday 7th January 20:32

[Zenith86]

Watchthis said:

Are you certain that it will only charge at 16A? There's a very real chance your charger is set low or else a setting in your car is telling it to charge at a reduced rate. My i3 can be set to charge at a reduced rate and my podpoint charge rate can be changed by dip switches inside the housing. I'd be really surprised if your car can only take 16A

Yeah I was really surprised as well and assumed it was a charger fault at first but some googling revealed that’s what the car is limited to. It’ll do 50kWh on a fast charger I think but home charging is slow.

[mids]

Zenith86 said:

Watchthis said:

Are you certain that it will only charge at 16A? There's a very real chance your charger is set low or else a setting in your car is telling it to charge at a reduced rate. My i3 can be set to charge at a reduced rate and my podpoint charge rate can be changed by dip switches inside the housing. I'd be really surprised if your car can only take 16A

Yeah I was really surprised as well and assumed it was a charger fault at first but some googling revealed that’s what the car is limited to. It’ll do 50kWh on a fast charger I think but home charging is slow.

The e-up will charge at 32A. Go to the settings in the app, find the 'Maximum charging current' and adjust the slider down to the min setting, wait a few seconds for it to acknowledge the change and then move it to MAX. That's all I had to do and it's charged at 32A ever since.

Not sure why VW are sending the cars out configured at 16A but it's an easy enough process to get them to charge at 32A.

[Frimley111R]

mids said:

Not sure why VW are sending the cars out configured at 16A but it's an easy enough process to get them to charge at 32A.

I think it is something to do with factory settings and then the dealer adjusts it for the local market. We've see a few of these issues with MINIs too.

[Zenith86]

mids said:

The e-up will charge at 32A. Go to the settings in the app, find the 'Maximum charging current' and adjust the slider down to the min setting, wait a few seconds for it to acknowledge the change and then move it to MAX. That's all I had to do and it's charged at 32A ever since.

Not sure why VW are sending the cars out configured at 16A but it's an easy enough process to get them to charge at 32A.

That’s brilliant, I’d assumed because it was already at maximum that was it but apparently not! Thanks for the tip, it’s charging at 32amp now. Definitely worth getting a home charger given it will charge at a proper speed then.

[48k]

Zenith86 said:

It’s obviously a lot more convenient using a dedicated charger .

That's a bit of a sweeping generalisation to be fair. When my EV is parked in the garage it's a lot more convenient for me to use the granny charger and plug in to a garage socket next to the car than to run the charging cable out on to the drive in to the charger and leave the garage door open (because it refuses to shut with a cable running under it).
I would still recommend getting an EVSE installed now though, while the grants are still available, and it gives you an opportunity to charge more quickly if time is of the essence.

[SWoll]

Undirection said:

JD said:

I decided to not bother, in the expectation that in a year or two the chargers are going to cost a lot less rather than being propped up by the grant.

I think you might want to check your maths there. Removing a subsidy of £350 is not going to make things less expensive. I don't remember car prices going down as the grants on them were removed.

You might want to look into that. The BMW i3 for example had a list price drop of a few thousand when the grant was changed to cars under £35k, as did a couple of other models I believe.

[mids]

Zenith86 said:

That’s brilliant, I’d assumed because it was already at maximum that was it but apparently not! Thanks for the tip, it’s charging at 32amp now. Definitely worth getting a home charger given it will charge at a proper speed then.

Glad to help. You're the second owner I told about this yesterday ( link).

I just figured it out by dicking with the app settings. I initially rang my dealer and asked them about it but they were clueless. To be fair, it's early days and we should give VW a chance to get this basic stuff sorted, they've only been selling the e-up since 2013...