Home Charging Station Installation Guide

1. Why spend an extra 3,000 yuan?

It is said that pure electric car owners are prone to range anxiety. Public fast charging piles have high charging efficiency, but their charging cost is also high, and it takes time for car owners. In contrast, home charging piles are a good choice that can take into account both money cost and time cost. If the installation conditions are met, I believe no car owner will refuse to install a home charging pile. Today we interviewed three editors who own home charging piles to see how they installed the charging piles, and also asked them to share their experience.

Friends who have learned about pure electric vehicles should know that nowadays, when you buy a pure electric vehicle, you will basically get a home charging station for free. This is almost standard. So if you have the conditions to install a charging station, you can save a considerable amount of electricity bills in the later use of the car, and the economic attributes of pure electric vehicles will be better utilized. If you also want to buy a pure electric vehicle, don't be afraid of trouble. Follow our steps to find out whether you have the conditions to install a home charging station.

If you cannot install a charging pile, don't be discouraged or envious, after all, we still have the on-board charging gun. Although the charging power of the on-board charging gun is much smaller than that of the charging pile, and each charging takes longer, it can also achieve the great goal of "saving money". However, a friendly reminder: although the on-board charging gun is good, don't let it have flying wires.

● Teacher Yang Peng spent an extra 3,000 yuan

Mr. Yang Peng is from the technical channel of Autohome. He has owned a pure electric car for a long time. Before purchasing the pure electric car, he had already asked the property management of the residential area about the relevant standards and regulations. Fortunately, the property management did not raise any objections, which laid the necessary foundation for the smooth installation of the home charging pile.

The residential area where Mr. Yang Peng lives is equipped with underground garages and ground parking spaces. For car owners who do not have fixed parking spaces, the residential area does not allow users to install home charging piles. Mr. Yang has an underground parking space, so he has the basic conditions. In addition, the installation of charging piles has certain requirements for circuit capacity. The distribution box closest to Mr. Yang's parking space can meet the capacitance requirements of the charging pile, so there is no need to expand the capacity. Otherwise, it needs to be expanded before it can be used.

Before installing charging piles in some residential areas, relevant agencies need to conduct on-site inspections. If the corresponding conditions are met, users can proceed to the next step of application and filing. In fact, Mr. Yang also asked the property staff to conduct an inspection before installing the charging piles, but no other agencies (such as the power company) were required to come to the site a second time, so the process was relatively smooth. Friends who install home charging piles do not need to be anxious. They must carry out compliant and necessary preliminary preparations according to the specific requirements of the residential area. For details, you can consult the property staff.

After the user submits an application to the dealer to install a home charging pile, the supplier of the charging pile will make an appointment with the user for a field survey, which is mainly a process of surveying the terrain, such as which distribution box to connect the power to, how much wire is needed, etc. The charging pile is provided by the dealer to the user free of charge, including the basic installation fee and wire fee, but due to the location of the parking space, the user may need to pay some additional wire fees. For example, Mr. Yang Peng's parking space is far from the distribution box (free within 30 meters, different suppliers have different regulations), so he spent more than 3,000 yuan to buy wires from the charging pile supplier.

Some people may ask, can we save money by buying the cables ourselves? In theory, yes, but perhaps considering the safety of the cables, some charging station suppliers do not allow users to buy the cables themselves. It may cost more to buy cables from suppliers, but at least the quality is guaranteed, and you don’t have to worry too much about safety issues, and it also saves you the trouble of buying them yourself, so it’s better not to save this cost, what do you think?

In terms of the choice of charging piles, suppliers generally provide two types of charging piles: wall-mounted or column-type. You can consult the supplier for specific details. For ground parking spaces, column-type charging piles are the most common, and Mr. Yang Peng's underground parking space happens to be next to the wall, so it is natural to choose a wall-mounted charging pile.

The formal construction process is carried out by professionals from the charging pile supplier. Generally, underground parking spaces use the method of pipe routing, while ground parking spaces generally use underground routing. During the installation process, users do not need to worry about it and can leave it to the staff. As for the time, Mr. Yang Peng's charging pile was installed in less than a day.

Generally speaking, after the charging pile is installed, it needs to be inspected and accepted by the power company or property management. After all, this involves the wiring of the distribution box, and relevant personnel need to control the safety of the construction for the second time. Mr. Yang's charging pile was inspected and accepted by the property management. The regulations of each residential area may be different. For specific circumstances, you need to consult the property management about the relevant matters of the inspection and acceptance.

Vehicles have after-sales and warranty periods, and so do charging piles. Since the charging pile is installed, the after-sales matters are the responsibility of the charging pile supplier. Generally, personal charging piles are used with care and there will be no violent operation, so basically no maintenance is required. Teacher Yang's charging pile has been used for more than 3 years, and the number of plug-ins and unplugs is about 100 times a year. At present, there is no problem with the charging pile.

As for the user experience, Mr. Yang said that the current mileage of his car is more than 37,000 kilometers. During this period, most of the charging was done by home charging piles. The electricity bill was only about 4,000 yuan, which is about 10 cents per kilometer, which is quite affordable. In addition, in terms of convenience, even if the driving habits are not power-saving, Mr. Yang said that charging once every two or three days can meet the needs, and it can be fully charged in one night. In addition, considering that the home charging pile is an AC slow charge, which is also a kind of protection for the battery, so whether from the perspective of economy, convenience or safety, the user experience of the home charging pile is very good.

2. The economical nature of home charging piles is attractive

● Mr. Xu Bo spent an extra 1,000 yuan

Teacher Xu lives in a hutong, so the installation of the charging pile needs to be consulted with the street office. It is understood that it can be installed normally without occupying public resources on the street. When the street office learned that the charging pile was to be installed inside the door, it did not intervene. Before the formal installation, the construction party surveyed the upstream circuit to ensure that the circuit can meet the current requirements of the charging pile.

It is worth noting that users can actually make an appointment to install the charging pile before picking up the car. For example, Mr. Xu made an appointment with the construction party for on-site inspection before picking up the car, and the subsequent construction process was arranged by the supplier. The overall time span from inspection to completion of construction was about ten days, but the total time for inspection and construction was less than 3 hours, which was quite efficient. The advantage of making an appointment for installation in advance is that the charging pile has been installed before the new car arrives, and users can experience the convenience of home charging piles as soon as possible.

In terms of fees, both Mr. Xu and Mr. Yang purchased Emgrand EVs, and the charging piles were provided by Fudian Technology, so the relevant fee regulations are the same. The length of the line from the meter output to the input of Mr. Xu's charging pile is less than 30 meters, which is free; however, the standard length of the wiring harness between the charging pile and the charging gun is 5 meters, but Mr. Xu chose a 10-meter charging cable, which costs 100 yuan/meter, so he ended up spending an extra 1,000 yuan.

Finally, when talking about the feeling of installing a home charging pile, Mr. Xu Bo was so happy that his eyebrows flew up: "It is very convenient and saves a lot of money. You can charge whenever you want, without any worries. The household electricity is less than 0.5 yuan/kWh, and the vehicle power consumption is high in winter, about 20kWh/100km. The cost of using the car is only 0.1 cent per kilometer, which is really a big saving compared to refueling. In general, the most common feeling in daily use is: as long as you fully charge the car at home before going out, you don’t have to worry about money wherever you want to go in the city. It’s really great!"

● Teacher Zhang Xuelian only spent an extra 160 yuan