A full overnight charge on Octopus Go costs about £3-£4. The same charge from a public rapid charger is £20-£40. Over a year of average UK driving, that gap is roughly £1,500 of fuel cost. The home charger is what closes it.
If you've got off-street parking and you're driving an EV, you should have a home charger. The question is which one, and the answer is less interesting than the salespeople would like.
What you're actually buying
A home EV charger in the UK in 2026 is a 7kW unit (the maximum domestic single-phase circuits will support) with smart scheduling, an app, and OZEV-approved installation. The unit itself costs £400-£900; the installation, including new circuit, isolator, and earthing checks, adds another £300-£600 depending on cable run.
Total all-in installation lands at £700-£1,400 for the mainstream brands. Pay materially less and you're getting a non-OZEV installer or a non-Tier-1 brand; both are false economies because warranty cover and electrical safety are exactly the things you don't want to compromise on for a circuit drawing 7kW for hours at a time.
The three things that actually matter
Most of what charger marketing tries to differentiate on is irrelevant to the daily experience. The things that do matter:
Smart scheduling. Your charger needs to know that Octopus Go's off-peak window is 00:30-05:30 (or whatever the equivalent is on your tariff) and charge only inside it. Every modern charger does this; the differences are how reliably and how flexibly. Ohme is best in class for Octopus tariffs, particularly Agile where prices change every 30 minutes; Pod Point is rock-solid on fixed-window tariffs.
Power output. 7kW is the domestic standard. Adds about 25-30 miles of range per hour, so a 200-mile charge takes around 7 hours, comfortably overnight. 22kW chargers exist but require three-phase electricity which most UK homes don't have. Don't pay for 22kW capability unless your supply is already three-phase.
Tethered or untethered. Tethered means a permanently attached cable, untethered means you bring your own cable. Tethered is more convenient day-to-day. Untethered keeps the cable indoors which is marginally tidier and lets you use different cables (Type 1 vs Type 2) if needed. For most modern EVs (all Type 2), tethered is the better choice.
What doesn't really matter:
- The aesthetics (you'll stop noticing it within a week)
- Premium app design
- "AI-powered" charging features (mostly marketing for what's effectively price-tracking)
- Brand prestige beyond ensuring it's one of the established UK-supported brands
The actual brands
Pod Point Solo 3 is the most-installed UK home charger and the safe default. They've been doing this since the 2010s, the installer network is national, the app is fine, the unit is reliable. £700-£1,000 installed. If someone asks me what to fit and they don't have a specific reason to look further, this is what I tell them.
Ohme Home Pro is the smart-tariff specialist. Headquartered in the UK, designed around dynamic pricing tariffs (Agile, Cosy), and integrates the cleanest with Octopus's API. The app shows you projected cost for tomorrow's charging based on current price forecasts, which is the kind of feature you didn't know you wanted until you've used it. £700-£1,000 installed. Ideal for the Octopus Agile or Cosy customer.
Wallbox Pulsar Plus is the solar-integration option. If you have rooftop solar, Pulsar Plus can divert excess generation to the EV in real time, charging at whatever rate the solar is currently producing rather than dumping it to the grid for export pence. For a household with both solar and an EV, this is the right charger; for a household with just an EV, the extra £200-£300 over Pod Point is wasted. £900-£1,300 installed.
Andersen A2 is the design statement. Wooden cover, cable hidden inside the unit, made in the UK. The functional case for spending an extra £400-£600 over Pod Point is essentially aesthetic, which is a perfectly reasonable choice if it makes you happier looking at your driveway. £1,300-£1,800 installed.
The grants picture
The Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme that gave homeowners £350 off installation closed in 2022. For owner-occupiers in 2026, you mostly pay full price.
What's still available:
- EV Chargepoint Grant for renters and flat-owners: up to £350 off, narrow eligibility but worth checking on gov.uk.
- Workplace Charging Scheme for businesses: £350/socket, mostly relevant to employers rather than employees.
- Local authority schemes in some councils, especially Scotland: changes year to year, search your council's energy/transport pages.
Most domestic homeowners in 2026 pay £700-£1,400 unsubsidised. The savings from cheap overnight tariffs make the payback comfortable anyway, typically 18-30 months for an average EV driver.
The tariff is half the deal
Installing a charger without putting yourself on the right electricity tariff is about half the value left on the table.
The relevant tariffs:
Octopus Go: 12.5p/kWh between 00:30 and 05:30, standard rate the rest of the time. The simplest option and the right answer for most EV owners. Charge overnight automatically; everything else stays at the day rate.
Octopus Cosy: cheaper rate in three off-peak windows (early morning, mid-afternoon, overnight). Good for households that can shift other loads (washing machines, dishwashers, hot water tanks, heat pumps) into those windows.
Octopus Agile: half-hourly variable pricing, sometimes negative on windy nights. The most rewarding for nerds and the most punishing for people who never check it. Pair only with Ohme, which can chase the cheapest half-hours automatically.
Switch to Octopus on commissioning day, not "later." The tariff is more important than the choice between Pod Point and Ohme.
Installation: what the half-day actually involves
A standard install runs 4-6 hours. The OZEV-approved installer should:
- Survey your incoming supply and confirm the existing main fuse rating (typically 80-100A; if it's 60A you may need a DNO supply upgrade first, separate cost)
- Run a dedicated circuit from your consumer unit to the charger location
- Install an isolator switch and the necessary RCD protection
- Earth-bond appropriately (PEN fault detection is now standard; ask about it if it's not mentioned)
- Commission the unit, register it with the manufacturer, set up the app
A few things worth confirming with your installer before booking:
- Cable run length and route (longer runs may need internal trunking rather than external)
- Whether your consumer unit has a free way (otherwise an upgrade is needed first)
- Whether your DNO needs notification (most do for >5kW chargers)
- Where the isolator goes (some homes have neat options, some don't)
Don't accept a quote that's done over the phone without a site visit, even a virtual one with photos of your consumer unit and parking spot. The cable run is the variable cost; an in-person eye on it is what stops the £700 quote becoming a £1,400 invoice on the day.
Where this doesn't work
Three situations to be honest about:
If you don't have off-street parking, you can't have a home charger. Cable across the pavement isn't legal in most councils and the few "lamp-post" or kerb-side charging schemes are early-stage. The economics of EV ownership without home charging are noticeably worse; verify the public chargers in your area work for you before committing.
If you live in a flat, the picture's more complex. Some buildings have shared charging infrastructure now; some don't. Block management and freeholder consent come into the picture. The EV Chargepoint Grant covers some of this for residents but it's a slower process than a house with a driveway.
If you're renting and your landlord won't agree to installation, your options narrow to public charging or workplace charging. The Renters Reform Bill in its various drafts has touched on this without resolving it; tenants currently have no statutory right to fit a charger.
What I'd do this week
If you've taken delivery of an EV, or you've ordered one for next month: get three quotes from OZEV-approved installers, all of them with site visits or photo-based survey. The Pod Point and Ohme websites both have request-a-quote flows that surface a network of approved installers near you. Don't take the first quote; the spread between cheapest and most expensive on the same job is typically 20-40%.
Switch your electricity supplier to Octopus before the install if you can. The transfer takes 2-3 weeks; doing it in parallel with the charger install means you'll be on the right tariff from day one rather than burning a few weeks at standard rate.
Book the install for a day you're working from home or off entirely. You'll need to be there for the survey of your meter cupboard and the testing afterwards, and you'll want to download the app and try a scheduled charge before the installer leaves.
The order I'd put energy investments in for an EV-owning UK household: home charger first (highest payback), then solar if your roof and tenure allow it (longer payback but compounds with the EV), then a battery only if your usage profile actually demands it. Most households should not buy all three on the same day.
Affiliate disclosure: Morningfold has affiliate partnerships with Pod Point, Ohme, Wallbox, Andersen, and Octopus. See editorial standards.