I often hear EV drivers compare the cost of public charging to the cost of home charging. "Why can I charge at 7p/kWh at home when it costs 50p-90p/kWh for public charging?".
There is a very high capital expense installing public charging. An example of which is Osprey who spent £250,000 for cable route and ground works alone for their new site at Croydon.
Its not far comparing the cost of DC rapid charging to 7kW home charging because we don't have DC rapid chargers at home.
Home charging is partly so cheap because there are so many embedded costs that have already been paid through the home.
Cost of home charger
A home charger can cost in the range of £899 to £1149 depending on the one you install. I spoke about this in the recent post 'Charging an EV' where it discussed the time to pay off the cost of installing you're own home charger. In that case I spoke about the mileage it would take to pay off the charger compared to the cost per mile of a petrol car.
If we said we would charge 7p/kWh to pay off the cost of installing a home charger the cheapest home charger via Octopus Energy (Ohme ePod - £899) would take 12,842kWh before the install cost was paid off. Thats the equivalent of 51,368 miles at 4 miles per kWh!
Cost of Installing an electricity supply
With home charging we don't consider the cost of an electricity supply because a house usually comes already connected to mains electricity. The closest we can get for an existing home is an upgrade of the single phase supply to three phase supply. TopCharger.co.uk reckon a standard install cost would be circa £4,000.
Cost of off street parking
Its clear as we transition to EV's that having a driveway or off street parking where you can install your own EV charger will be a benefit over not having one.
The monetary value of a driveway is difficult to put a price on. Many say it could be worth 5-10% of the homes value. Zoopla reckon the average UK homes worth is £268,400 in May 2025. At 5% thats £13,420.
Standing charge
Every home pays a Standing Charge for their electricity connection. For EV charging we don't take this into account because we already pay this in our home's electricity supply. I
capacityy costs
Personally I don't feel that home charging is comparable to public charging. I rarely need to public charge so I don't worry too much about the cost public charging.