Four good reasons to choose a home charger for your electric car

Many electric car owners charge their cars directly from a regular socket in the garage, but this is not recommended. Here we have listed the four most important reasons for buying a home charging station.

1. You can take full advantage of smart charging

Electricity prices can vary widely throughout the day. So you can save a lot by ensuring that your car charges when the electricity price is low. This is called smart charging, and is available with Fortum’s own solutions, such as the Smart Charging package. With a charging box at home, you can charge your car much faster than with a regular socket, and you can also do it during the hours when the electricity price is lowest. Simple, efficient and fully automatic.

2. Charging takes less time

If the electric car is charged from a regular socket (also known as a Schuko socket), you are not allowed to use a current of more than 10 amperes. This provides a maximum output of 2.3 kW, which equates to between 10 and 15 kilometres of travel per hour of charging. With a home charging station, you can increase the amperage of the fuse, and so charge considerably faster. Just by changing the fuse from 10 to 16 amps, you can charge up to 3.6 kW – which equates to up to 20 km per hour that you charge.

See also:How to charge your car at home

3. Fireproof charging

A Schuko, i.e. a normal socket, is not designed to cope with a constant load of more than 10 amperes. Over time, such a load can wear out the wires in the electrical system, and in the worst case lead to fire and melting. The Norwegian authorities have therefore decided to prohibit charging at more than 10 amperes when using a normal socket.

The contact itself is not the only weak point; in many cases, the power cables that run from the fuse box to the socket may be undersized for charging an electric car. They may also be old and worn, and this increases the risk of an accident from heat building up in the cables hidden in the wall, for example.

If you install a proper home charging station and also upgrade the electrical system to charge an electric car, this problem disappears.

4. Always ready for use

By having a home charger installed in the garage, you avoid the hassle of taking the charging cable out of the boot and plugging it into the wall every time you park at home. All you have to do is plug the cable from the home charger into the car.