EV Charger recommendations

Hi,

I'm looking to have an EV charger fitted for a Tesla Model 3 Long Range RWD.
Does anyone have any recommendations for a suitable EV charger?

I have:
Giv-HY5.0 Gen1
Giv-Bat5.2 + Giv-Bat2.6
PV x 16 x 405Wp (6.48kWp)

These are the figures for 2024:
5,649kWh solar generated
887kWh solar to home
1,236kWh solar to battery
3,526kWh solar to grid

Is it better to go with the Giv-EV charger to integrate with the existing GE kit or a Tesla wall charger or another alternative?
Ideally, on a sunny day I'd like to charge the home battery first, then top up the car and then export any excess.
On non-sunny days, charge the car overnight (without draining the home battery).
Would this be possible with a Tesla or other non-GE charger?
Is the alternative to simply continue exporting to grid at 15p/kWh during the day and charge overnight at 8.5p/kWh?

My thanks in advance.

JonLees depends what your priorities are

if you want save the most money then charge your EV and batteries overnight at 8.5p and let all your solar export the next day at 15p.

If you want to be greener then charge your car off the generated solar. You don’t have a particularly large array so depends on your mileage as to how much of the year you’d be able to do that.

I don’t have an EV so can’t comment on which EV charger. Some people have experienced difficulties with the GivEV charger but that might be teething troubles. If you don’t do much mileage then a granny charger might be all you need

Recently got a Hypervolt 3 pro (replacement for a broken Hypervolt 2 which wasn’t great). It works well with Octopus Intelligent Go - a lot better than it did previously as I had to use the car, also a Tesla 3lr which was a bit iffy talking to IOG. Get lots more cheap juice. CT clamp fitted so Givenergy stuff can’t see the charger. Supposedly can charge from solar but I haven’t tried as we just use it as Geoffreycoan suggested and charge the Tesla at 7p and export at 15p, not at the moment as the ashp is eating it all!

I have yet to get a permanent EV charger and use an Ohme commando socket on as a dumb charger.

I will be getting an EV for myself in March to complement my wife's EV.

When I do the Hypervolt is the one at the top of the list because of the integration with Octopus and build quality.

Ohme is second choice as it's got good integration with Octopus IOG and Agile but build quality is not so good and needs a strong mobile phone signal to work well.

Hypervolt can run off a decent WiFi signal or hard wired to your network. So should be more stable if you have the ability to get it on your network.

Personally I wouldn't touch the GE one unless it gets proven integration with Octopus.

M_J I am really hoping that the build quality has improved since the Hypervolt2 as that was not good. Started off white and was a dark cream colour within 18 months and then failed within 3 years. They replaced it and upgraded it so I was pleasantly surprised as some previous dealings had not been so productive.
If starting again from scratch I would definitely hard wire it as a lot of the early issues for me and a lot of others were caused by WiFi problems even with a good signal.

Ohme haven't got a great service reputation, but who has nowadays.

The fact that you got a replacement shows that you had good warranty experience.

The lack of Agile integration might swing folk to Ohme which does if you have a decent mobile signal.

M_J problem was the replacement was the only good warranty experience!
As for general warranty issues so far both Givenergy and my installer have mostly been good, as has Tesla - despite Elons behaviour….

geoffreycoan If you want to be greener then charge your car off the generated solar.

One could argue that that is less green... If I export my daytime solar, it gets used by my neighbours. So the whole street is a bit greener as a result. Then when I charge overnight, I'm running from nighttime grid which is usually greener than daytime grid.

But if I use solar for charging car, neighbours are using daytime grid. So in effect, exporting my solar means I am timeshifting grid usage from daytime (by my neighbours) to nighttime (by me).

geoffreycoan If you don’t do much mileage then a granny charger might be all you need

Some people use a granny charger to their advantage - because Tesla is itself compatible with IOG, and takes a long time to charge using granny charger, then in effect any time they plug in, the car starts charging and they get all their electricity cheap. So eg just plug in car when you turn the washing machine on, and hey-presto, discounted electricity for the washing machine.

DD this seems to be our experience at the moment but it is much increased now we are using IOG with the Hypervolt than it was with the Tesla. Octopus and Tesla never seemed to get on.

I have similar sized array, Gen 3 inverter and 8.2 battery with GivEnergy EV charger. I’m on Octopus IOG. As I only got my EV (VW ID4) in Oct I’ve been charging it overnight at 7p rate. All has been working well. The only issue I’ve had was high grid voltage which upset the EV charger and made it go offline periodically. A GivEnergy voltage optimiser seems to have fixed that.

JonLees FWIW I have a Zappi chargepoint, and it's working well for me. I had a particular need for an untethered unit (socket rather than attached cable), and Zappi seemed to be the only one that was IOG compatible.

As above, I have it cabled so that the GE CT clamp doesn't see it - that way, it can't discharge batteries into it. Then I have to have some software running to get the GE battery to pause or charge during any bonus charging slots.

DD the Zappi is also one to consider if you can get past the toilet seat look. It has great integration with Octopus. Built in the UK.

Not on my list as expensive and I can't get past the design esthetic.

I've had an Ohme (Go) and an Indra Smart Pro for 4+ years now - never had any issues with either.

geoffreycoan Thanks for your thoughts. I'm tempted to keep things simple for now as the more I look into the subject the more complicated it becomes!

JonLees Ideally, on a sunny day I'd like to charge the home battery first, then top up the car and then export any excess.
On non-sunny days, charge the car overnight (without draining the home battery).
Would this be possible with a Tesla or other non-GE charger?

Zappi can do that.
Set it to Eco+ mode, where it charges only when export excess has reached set value, minimum is 1.3kW at which point Zappi can start charging from solar. That will happen when your GE battery is full and export is about to start.

Then, set Zappi schedule to charge overnight. It will pull from the grid not the battery, if GE battery is on charging schedule (charging or idling, but in schedule). if GE battery is not in charging schedule, it will try to satisfy the EV demand.

bRhFDKtjRMK9 Thank you. I'll take a look at the Zappi.

I have the givenergy one. Apart from a few issues when it was first released I've been very happy with it. You can

• charge the battery first or the EV.
• grid charge the car without flattening the house battery

It's also nice having everything under one app. IOG would be nice but I believe that's waiting on octopus but it's been like that for a long time now.

You can still have IOG as long as Octopus support your EV model.

SteveClubley or go to Eon drive which is comparable and doesn’t have the IOG charger/EV tie-ins

geoffreycoan 7h off-peak really gives you great flexibility to charge larger battery vehicles.