Scottish power , what charger ?
Discussion
We are buying our first EV in two weeks time and need a charger but Im confused with all the different options and specs ?
We are currently with Scottish power and want a tethered charger , they are giving us a choice of
Black wall box pulsar max
Wall box pulsar max
Indra smart lux 6m
Indra smart max 10m
We dont need longer than 6m cable but some posts on here are saying Indra are not the best .
So do I choose some company like pod point ? Or an independent
If we go Scottish power we get there back up and some free electric points .
A few people on here seenm to go with ovo , but pod point or scottish power dont supply them .
The can will be a 23 plate Hyundai if this makes any difference .
I know there is a forum post on what charger but it is 100 pages long now and im all a bit confused .
Any help guidance or advice would be really appreciated .
We are currently with Scottish power and want a tethered charger , they are giving us a choice of
Black wall box pulsar max
Wall box pulsar max
Indra smart lux 6m
Indra smart max 10m
We dont need longer than 6m cable but some posts on here are saying Indra are not the best .
So do I choose some company like pod point ? Or an independent
If we go Scottish power we get there back up and some free electric points .
A few people on here seenm to go with ovo , but pod point or scottish power dont supply them .
The can will be a 23 plate Hyundai if this makes any difference .
I know there is a forum post on what charger but it is 100 pages long now and im all a bit confused .
Any help guidance or advice would be really appreciated .
We have a wall box charger supplied by Scottish Power. Bizarrely we couldn’t get them to move us onto an EV tariff. They told us it was available online only but online was giving us an error with a phone line to contact them who would tell it was online only and they were powerless to do anything. So we changed to Eon.
The charger is fine and we use the Wallbox app to schedule the charging during the cheap nightly tariff.
They probably use multiple installers around the country but the installation was great and went the extra mile to hide the cables.
The charger is fine and we use the Wallbox app to schedule the charging during the cheap nightly tariff.
They probably use multiple installers around the country but the installation was great and went the extra mile to hide the cables.
Petrolhead67 said:
If we use a 3 pin plug , does that then mean we can not use the app to say pre warm the car ?
IME (Citroen, Polestar) the app is tied to the car and will activate pre-warming (or cooling) regardless of if you're plugged into a 7kW charger, 2kW charger or sat parked unplugged.However I think pre-warming generally uses up to 7kW of power. So on a 7kW charger, if you've charged to 100% overnight, you can pre-warm for a morning departure and leave with a warm cabin and 100% battery. However on a 2kW charger, pre-warming will consume some battery energy, so you might be at 98% when you leave.
I'd suggest this is a marginal concern unless you are doing a lot of trips at the limit of the car's range.
My general suggestion would be to begin with a three-pin charger and see how you go, unless you know you'll need to do back to back long trips.
There’s not a lot feature wise to think about on charge points,
The key points :
- if you’re using a cheap tariff where the charger needs to communicate to the energy company. Some can do this, but I’m with octopus and they communicate with the car directly, your situation may be different
- do you want any of the features of the charger? These can include charge window timers which are generally a lot easier to use than ones in the car’s, a record of recording history etc.
After that it is pretty much just cost, looks and cable length. Podpoint have issues in the past, Anderson were seen as the Rolls Royce by some, I’ve used a Tesla one on our BMW.
For your use case it’s a doddle to charge at home, but if you’re going to install one make sure it’s 32a/7kw for future proofing, and adding 130 miles a week will take about one 5 hours charging session, or a couple of 2.5 hours. All your preconditioning etc you want to take from the battery, I say this because you’re likely to do it at peak electricity prices, so charge the battery over night. We now do only about 1000 miles a month, charge to 80% twice a week, have the charger t8mer to only allow charging at the off peak rate and it’s robust and faultless. You could do very similar unless your electricity plan has some unusual requirements.
The key points :
- if you’re using a cheap tariff where the charger needs to communicate to the energy company. Some can do this, but I’m with octopus and they communicate with the car directly, your situation may be different
- do you want any of the features of the charger? These can include charge window timers which are generally a lot easier to use than ones in the car’s, a record of recording history etc.
After that it is pretty much just cost, looks and cable length. Podpoint have issues in the past, Anderson were seen as the Rolls Royce by some, I’ve used a Tesla one on our BMW.
For your use case it’s a doddle to charge at home, but if you’re going to install one make sure it’s 32a/7kw for future proofing, and adding 130 miles a week will take about one 5 hours charging session, or a couple of 2.5 hours. All your preconditioning etc you want to take from the battery, I say this because you’re likely to do it at peak electricity prices, so charge the battery over night. We now do only about 1000 miles a month, charge to 80% twice a week, have the charger t8mer to only allow charging at the off peak rate and it’s robust and faultless. You could do very similar unless your electricity plan has some unusual requirements.
Used Hyundai
Free home charger or £850 charge credit
Need a home charger? Until September 30th 2025, purchase a Hyundai Promise Approved Used electric car through Hyundai Finance and get a free Ohme home charger or £850 charge credit.
This includes installation, and you can choose between tethered and untethered.
Terms and conditions apply
2 I don't know whether the OP is buying from a dealer.
3 It shows that Ohme is Hyundai's current charger partner of choice.
Free home charger or £850 charge credit
Need a home charger? Until September 30th 2025, purchase a Hyundai Promise Approved Used electric car through Hyundai Finance and get a free Ohme home charger or £850 charge credit.
This includes installation, and you can choose between tethered and untethered.
Terms and conditions apply
- ***********************************
2 I don't know whether the OP is buying from a dealer.
3 It shows that Ohme is Hyundai's current charger partner of choice.
Edited by speedking31 on Thursday 2nd October 13:08
Petrolhead67 said:
If we use a 3 pin plug , does that then mean we can not use the app to say pre warm the car ?
I use a 3 pin plug on my Honda eNy1. It actually has to be plugged in to pre-warm, (which I can do via the app), it won't do it on the onboard battery alone. It only takes 10 mins on a cold morning to defrost. It won't be toasty inside that fast, but all the ice will be gone from the windows. 
I spoke to my electrician friend and he going to install a sync md3 teathered charger for me at cost to him , so I’m going to go that route . I know a few on here don’t rate them but it going to work out about £600 cheaper than getting one installed from Scottish power .
We are buying the car from a Hyundai dealer , but that offer wouldn’t have applied to us anyway as we buying the car outright .
Super happy with that as I would have been happy with 3pin plug but sure we would have upgraded anyway just for convenience . I’m quite excited now as well as a bit nervous as our first EV but I’m sure this is the right thing for us to do .
We are buying the car from a Hyundai dealer , but that offer wouldn’t have applied to us anyway as we buying the car outright .
Super happy with that as I would have been happy with 3pin plug but sure we would have upgraded anyway just for convenience . I’m quite excited now as well as a bit nervous as our first EV but I’m sure this is the right thing for us to do .
I spoke to my electrician friend and he going to install a sync md3 teathered charger for me at cost to him , so I’m going to go that route . I know a few on here don’t rate them but it going to work out about £600 cheaper than getting one installed from Scottish power .
We are buying the car from a Hyundai dealer , but that offer wouldn’t have applied to us anyway as we buying the car outright .
Super happy with that as I would have been happy with 3pin plug but sure we would have upgraded anyway just for convenience . I’m quite excited now as well as a bit nervous as our first EV but I’m sure this is the right thing for us to do .
We are buying the car from a Hyundai dealer , but that offer wouldn’t have applied to us anyway as we buying the car outright .
Super happy with that as I would have been happy with 3pin plug but sure we would have upgraded anyway just for convenience . I’m quite excited now as well as a bit nervous as our first EV but I’m sure this is the right thing for us to do .
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