[Monkeyhanger]

I'm 3-4 weeks from taking delivery of an ID3 and sitting dockside at Emden.

I've been given quotes for an Ohme ranging from £575 to £626 after grant. The highest one of the 3 is with Ohme's own approved installer and includes Matt-E instead of earth rod (which should explain the difference). They also sort all aspects of the grant and take full responsibility for the warranty
obligations.

The other 2 leave you to sort the grant and once they're installed, defer all warranty obligations to the manufacturer.

Needless to say I'm going with the £626 quote that can get me installed in just over 2 weeks, the others quoting 4-6 weeks.

Seems that EV charger prices fully installed has gone up by about £100 over the past year.

 

[Edd Beesley]

Supply and demand in practice.

 

[freddym]

I'm 3-4 weeks from taking delivery of an ID3 and sitting dockside at Emden.

I've been given quotes for an Ohme ranging from £575 to £626 after grant. The highest one of the 3 is with Ohme's own approved installer and includes Matt-E instead of earth rod (which should explain the difference). They also sort all aspects of the grant and take full responsibility for the warranty
obligations.

The other 2 leave you to sort the grant and once they're installed, defer all warranty obligations to the manufacturer.

Needless to say I'm going with the £626 quote that can get me installed in just over 2 weeks, the others quoting 4-6 weeks.

Seems that EV charger prices fully installed has gone up by about £100 over the past year.

The two that ask you to sort the grant are outright dodgy .

That is not how the grant works.

 

[curl666]

Costs will always vary between installations. Increased cable run, additional labour etc

Manufacturers also seem to be moving away from "dumb" chargers and most new charge points have been updated to suit the latest electrical regulations. Or have the ability to talk to your smart meter etc.

As far as Im aware the OLEV grant for domestic work has to be claimed by the installer. I'm currently in the process of registering to be an approved installer and eligible to claim the grant funding. Although it seems a lot of hassle and if anything inflates the price of the overall install.

 

[Monkeyhanger]

Costs will always vary between installations. Increased cable run, additional labour etc

Manufacturers also seem to be moving away from "dumb" chargers and most new charge points have been updated to suit the latest electrical regulations. Or have the ability to talk to your smart meter etc.

As far as Im aware the OLEV grant for domestic work has to be claimed by the installer. I'm currently in the process of registering to be an approved installer and eligible to claim the grant funding. Although it seems a lot of hassle and if anything inflates the price of the overall install.

Clearly I'm no expert *done a little electrical work DIY, replacing like for like and extending a ring are my limits), but my electric meter box is on the outside wall of my garage (now converted to a dining room), with my new charger ideally going right next to it and a mini consumer unit going into my meter box. It sounds like it's as easy and convenient as an EV charging point gets. No long runs of armoured cabling etc. I'm presuming also that using a matt-E box rather than an earthing rod will cut down on the installation time too. It's about £100 more than I thought it would be - definitely not paying London prices up here in Newcastle, so location shouldn't be bumping things up.

 

[Slartibartfast]

My feeling is that the prices in the UK are being distorted by the usual thing that happens when grants are available from the government to the contractor in that the prices just get inflated so they make more profit. Call me cynical but I have watched this happening over the border with some truly insane grant schemes that you honestly would not believe unless you had seen them for yourself. I know of a farmer a few km from here (on the UK side) that installed a massive boiler in a barn and was being paid to run it to just throw heat away because there was some government grant that paid him to install the thing and paid him more the more wood pellets he burned. You could not make some of the stuff up that goes on with government grants like this and I would be surprised if the same sort of thing is not going on with charger grants.

Here I just missed on on getting a free charger installed by ESB as they were giving them away until a couple of years ago. I am not sure if it helps at all but my charger install cost me €985 back in December of last year and I was then able to claim back €600 from the government through the SEIA grant so in reality the charger installation cost me €385. It took the man about 4 hours to do with most of that time being getting the cable out through the walls. Here the grant is paid to the owner not the contractor and only needs proof that you have an electric car. I have a strong feeling this makes the prices a bit keener as the installers quote the full price so you get to compare what they are really

 

[cdlb]

My feeling is that the prices in the UK are being distorted by the usual thing that happens when grants are available from the government to the contractor in that the prices just get inflated so they make more profit

You can ask for itemised quotes so you can judge for yourself whether this is happening. I'm always slightly suspicious of tradesmen that won't do this, because it implies that they have something to hide. It's interesting to see how much some people mark up parts so they can claim a cheaper hourly/day rate.

 

[phproxy]

Pod-point is slightly cheaper at £559 & doesn't require earth rod..but isn't as 'smart', e.g can't do ToU tariffs (yet?). But at least you know what you're getting, e.g. you won't be asked to claim the OLEV grant yourself..

 

[Monkeyhanger]

You can ask for itemised quotes so you can judge for yourself whether this is happening. I'm always slightly suspicious of tradesmen that won't do this, because it implies that they have something to hide. It's interesting to see how much some people mark up parts so they can claim a cheaper hourly/day rate.

The highest quote is fully itemised, the others aren't. I just don't know what a reasonable price is for a fully fitted decent charger after grant. I assumed from others posting here and elsewhere that it was £475 for a pod point to £525 for an Ohme.

 

[Monkeyhanger]

Pod-point is slightly cheaper at £559 & doesn't require earth rod..but isn't as 'smart', e.g can't do ToU tariffs (yet?). But at least you know what you're getting, e.g. you won't be asked to claim the OLEV grant yourself..

On that yardstick, about 15% more for an Ohme vs pod point doesn't seem too bad

 

[phproxy]

On that yardstick, about 15% more for an Ohme vs pod point doesn't seem too bad

Fair enough. One worry is how much will Ohme (I have the commando one ) charge per month for the 'smarts' once the trial runs out? If pod-point ever get round to integrating it, at least it uses wifi so has half a chance of it been free..

 

[Monkeyhanger]

Fair enough. One worry is how much will Ohme (I have the commando one ) charge per month for the 'smarts' once the trial runs out? If pod-point ever get round to integrating it, at least it uses wifi so has half a chance of it been free..

That did make me wonder also. Hopefully worst case will be having to buy a cheap PAYG data SIM in the future.

 

[cdlb]

The highest quote is fully itemised, the others aren't. I just don't know what a reasonable price is for a fully fitted decent charger after grant. I assumed from others posting here and elsewhere that it was £475 for a pod point to £525 for an Ohme.

This place sells an Ohme wall charger for £425 excluding VAT or £510 including:

OHME WALL CHARGER: TETHERED | 7.4kW (32 Amps)

The Ohme-EV wall charger is OZEV approved wall-mounted charger is available in both Type 1 and Type 2. Using a 3G/4G connection for an easy set-up.

www.voltaev.co.uk

Can't promise that's the actual cost of the part to a tradesperson, but it gives you something to compare your itemised quote against at least.

 

[BillTheButcher]

Echo the above comments about the installer needing to be the one to apply for the grant. I filled in an online questionnaire to enable my installer to do this; they took care of the rest.

 

[Monkeyhanger]

Fair enough. One worry is how much will Ohme (I have the commando one ) charge per month for the 'smarts' once the trial runs out? If pod-point ever get round to integrating it, at least it uses wifi so has half a chance of it been free..

Hopefully you'll just need a cheap PAYG data SIM when your 3 years are up, or they keep it going so as not to deter future would-be customers.

 

[LS99]

I'm 3-4 weeks from taking delivery of an ID3 and sitting dockside at Emden.

I've been given quotes for an Ohme ranging from £575 to £626 after grant. The highest one of the 3 is with Ohme's own approved installer and includes Matt-E instead of earth rod (which should explain the difference). They also sort all aspects of the grant and take full responsibility for the warranty
obligations.

The other 2 leave you to sort the grant and once they're installed, defer all warranty obligations to the manufacturer.

Needless to say I'm going with the £626 quote that can get me installed in just over 2 weeks, the others quoting 4-6 weeks.

Seems that EV charger prices fully installed has gone up by about £100 over the past year.

My humble opinion and what I did (for my ID.4) ...

Signed up to Octopus Energy (any tariff will do), then you can get a Ohme for £199. Make sure you get it with the Type 2 and a Commando, for your ID.3. Then get an electrician to install a commando suitable, but let them know it's for an EV so they make it 18th Edition compliant, and advise the DNO accordingly. You can also get a credit from VW and use one of the referral codes for further discounts/credits to your Octopus account.

Hope that helps.

 

[Monkeyhanger]

This place sells an Ohme wall charger for £425 excluding VAT or £510 including:

OHME WALL CHARGER: TETHERED | 7.4kW (32 Amps)

The Ohme-EV wall charger is OZEV approved wall-mounted charger is available in both Type 1 and Type 2. Using a 3G/4G connection for an easy set-up.

www.voltaev.co.uk

Can't promise that's the actual cost of the part to a tradesperson, but it gives you something to compare your itemised quote against at least.

OK, £510 vs my quoted cost of £976 (£626 to me plus grant), so there's a difference of £466. In that they've got a matt-E minimal cabling (less than a metre), new Henley blocks and new earthing block according to their quote - about £130 all in?

Still about £330 for labour and overheads for probably 3 man hours of work? Wish I'd trained as a sparky instead of getting a Chemistry degree!

 

[Monkeyhanger]

My humble opinion and what I did (for my ID.4) ...

Signed up to Octopus Energy (any tariff will do), then you can get a Ohme for £199. Make sure you get it with the Type 2 and a Commando, for your ID.3. Then get an electrician to install a commando suitable, but let them know it's for an EV so they make it 18th Edition compliant, and advise the DNO accordingly. You can also get a credit from VW and use one of the referral codes for further discounts/credits to your Octopus account.

Hope that helps.

What's the crack with those VW credits you mention? How do I get those? Just switched to Octopus in advance of my ID3's arrival.

 

[LS99]

if you look on the VW website - I think it's under EV's and then partners ... and then you email Octopus with your VW order / tracking number they should add the credit - although some people have been refused / have to persist to get the credit.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Still about £330 for labour and overheads for probably 3 man hours of work? Wish I'd trained as a sparky instead of getting a Chemistry degree!

I do not think that labour rates in the UK are much different to those here and here a really good electrician will be on around €250 a day and there are plenty of good blokes working for less than that. If someone can install two chargers a day at £330 each then I would have to say they are definitely fleecing the customer by a massive amount. I know that we used to pay subbies in the UK around £180 a day but they were covered by the company approvals insurance etc but I doubt those overheads add a massive amount for a self-employed electrician. Looking at the work involved in fitting one of these things it was not up there with the really technical or difficult stuff and not much more than just adding a socket to an installation so it is hard to see how anyone can justify charging somewhere around £660 a day labour for work like this. That is more than I was earning as a project manager running site teams of several hundred blokes so makes me think I chose the wrong job.