Best Home EV Charger Guide: Top 3 Charging Stations to Own in India

 

What’s the best home EV charger? This is an important question to consider when purchasing/choosing one, especially if you use your EV every day. 

To understand this, consider the trickle charger shipped with your EV. It’s designed for usage in emergencies. The transformer used in this charger generates substantial electrical losses each time you use it. This means if you don’t get a home EV charger, you’re throwing money down the drain every day! Likewise, a home EV charger that underperforms won’t be a good investment when compared to competing units. Overall, a home EV charger is a cost-efficient, and cost-effective, tool that you should seriously consider purchasing. We can help you with your decision!

In this article, we’ll find out what the best home EV charger is on the market in India today. We’ll also show you what you need to consider before purchasing one. First, let’s take a look at what influences a purchasing decision of a residential EV charging station.

Best Home EV Charger: Purchasing Criteria

Residential EV charging stations, like any mass-produced product, have to meet market demand. This could be through offering a certain function, performance, aesthetic, or perceived quality for a given price point. When considering a home EV charger, try to think about how the manufacturer has aligned the product to a user’s need and their competitors. This is crucial when choosing the best home EV charger for you. 

In addition to the product itself, in terms of a one-off purchase, we also need to consider its service life and how it may perform compared to its competitors. This factor doesn’t just include the speed at which it transfers electricity. It also includes how good the charging network is for the user.

In this article, we’ll assume that all home EV charging stations will require a certified electrician to install on a residential power supply. This means that we’ll only be talking about type 1, or slow charging non-commercial, charging stations here. This is because you need specialist commercial power supplies for type 2 charging stations. Additionally, these stations are also ~16 times the cost of type 1 charging stations.

Now that we’ve considered what our assessment criteria are, let's consider how you should screen EV chargers.

Best Home EV Charger: Screening Process Considerations

In this section, we’ll define our screening criteria for choosing the best home EV charger. Here, we want to base a decision on quantitative values, not qualitative ambiguity. We need these to revolve around each product’s key features and operational performance. Let’s begin.

Cost

All products have to meet a price point of a target market demographic. In India, EV adoption is occurring more readily in the 2- and 3-wheeled marketplace. As such, we can assume that the lower entry price of EVs may reflect the most desired home EV charger. For this article, we’ll compare only a range of cost-effective charging devices. Finding the best home EV charger in this product tier may also point to some hidden gems that many EV users may use. 

Charging Efficiency

A critical criterion for the best home EV chargers will be their charging efficiency. A charging station must transfer energy as efficiently as possible. That said, losses are inevitable during energy transfer. For instance, you can expect ~11% electrical losses getting electrical energy from the power source to your home. To make the charger as desirable as possible, it must be as efficient as possible. This also works in your favor as a buyer. Given that the marketplace is very competitive, you can assume all units are as efficient as possible.

Power

The power, or rate, at which charging occurs can be a pivotal purchasing decision. The best home EV chargers will charge faster. That said, ~80% of charging occurs overnight with a home EV charger. Power, however, is useful when users wish to increase their range in demanding situations. When considering power, you need to consider the unit’s use case. If you're only charging overnight, then you may not care about power. Rather, you’d be more interested in the unit’s efficiency. 

Charging Time

The time it takes to charge a battery, assuming all things are equal, is dependent on the power rating of the home charging station. To find the best home EV charger, you’re better off looking at the charging unit’s power. In fact, this is easier to compare than assessing the time it takes to charge a battery. This is because the battery tested may be different, and so may be the unit’s internal resistance. 

Charging Network Size

A major factor that many EV owners don’t think about when buying a charging station is whether it’s part of a charging network. This is important because some networks allow charging network users to share charging units through a mobile app booking system. This is very useful, as you can turn your charging station into a source of a passive income! The larger the charging network, the easier it will be to charge your EV when you're away from home, and the more passive income you could make. 

In India, BOLT is the largest EV infrastructure solution provider, occupying 50% of the market all across the country and surrounding regions! BOLT’s charging network has 10,000 charging stations and is growing fast. BOLT also has a charging network app, called BOLT OS, that allows you to generate passive income. The app handles all bookings and payments, so you simply have to decide on the profit margin you want to apply. After BOLT, the other major ‘competitors’ have limited services and only occupy ~10% of the market each.  

Now we have some useful criteria to compare the best home EV chargers. Let's take a look at some solutions!

The Best Home EV Chargers in India

Here, we’ll show you the top 3 EV chargers currently on the Indian market and use our criteria to see how good each solution is! Which one do you think is the best home EV charger? Let’s find out!

1. Kirana Charzer

Cost: ₹ 6500 (introductory price), ₹ 15,000 (regular charger price)

Power: 3.3 kW AC charger

Charging Time: 15 miles of range per hour

Charging Network Size: 300+ charging stations. Charzer’s app allows you to become a member of a charging network and generate passive income through your charger.

Benefits: 

• Passive income generation
• Introductory charger price

Drawbacks: 

• Regular charger price
• 300+ charging stations, which means you’re limiting the number of potential users of your charging point. This means you’ll likely get fewer bookings.

 

The Charzer solution enables users to charge their EV anywhere while generating passive income from their home EV charging station. Their solution makes it a useful way to add a form of utility to a business when people need to top up. You could also have more than one charging device. Passive income could get generated from a business car parking lot where users aren’t using their car for around 8 hours at a time. 

Unfortunately, the only issue with Charzer is that it only has 300+ charging stations. This means its network is small and it’s unlikely you’ll make a return on your investment within their claim of less than a year. If they can grow their charging network somehow, they may be a contender for the best home EV charger. For now, we’ll wait and see.

2. EO Mini

Power: 3.6 kW or 7kW charger

Cost: ₹ 87,785 (includes installation) 

Charging Time: 15 miles of range per hour

Charging Network Size: No charging network solution at present 

Benefits: 

• Very flexible; you can use it as a type 1 or type 2 charger
• Compact design with separate charging line
• Optional additional module that helps power balance your home to avoid power trips
• Priced units with installation as standard

Drawbacks: 

• Requires a commercial power supply to use it as Type 2 station
• Covers 35 countries, which means non-dedicated support for each country

Initially, the EO Mini device seems expensive. However, it does have both type 1 and type 2 charging capabilities. If you wanted to purchase a charger that allows you to change its charging type later, then this charging station could be for you. The question you have to ask is how likely is this to occur to warrant the high cost of the device. Consider this point before choosing this charger.

Another, much larger, issue is that the vendor doesn’t have a charging network or app, which eliminates any form of passive income generation. EO also only distributes its products in India. To this end, be mindful of the fact that you’ll need to contact the UK for support, which might not be great for all users.  

3. BOLT Pro EV Charging Station 

 Cost: ₹ 3,500 

Power: 3.3 kW 

Charging Time: 15 miles of range per hour

Charging Network Size: 10,000 charging stations in India and growing. Network charging solution via a mobile app available. 

Benefits: 

• Is an Indian company; great for infrastructure and support
• Operates the largest charging network across the country with the most stations
• Offers a cost-effective charging device
• Allows you to generate passive income through the BOLT OS app

Drawbacks: 

• Doesn’t provide a type 2 charging option

BOLT provides the functionality that Charzer provides, including a charging network. The difference is that BOLT’s devices are far more accessible in terms of cost for India’s users. BOLT also has over 10,000 charging stations on its network, compared to Charzer’s 300+ charging stations. 

This means that you can easily find a BOLT charging station in India. And don’t forget to install the BOLT OS app to help you generate passive income! If you’re interested in EV charging in India, BOLT is really the only feasible solution provider.

Final Thoughts

When we use our evaluation criteria, it’s easy to assess which are the best home EV chargers on the market and why. In this article, we took three similar EV charging stations. We also assessed them without needing excessive details such as voltage or water resistance. Even though this information may be useful in specific situations, you can still prioritize some criteria. This way, we can use rationale and speed up the decision process.

The three charging solutions assessed had both benefits and drawbacks. For instance, Charzer has a great product and network solution but a limited number of chargers in its network. The EO Mini has a great compact charging solution that supports both type 1 and type 2 power. Yet, it has no charging network so it’s useless when it comes to generating passive income. It also sells to India, but doesn’t have partnership or dedicated support in the country. BOLT’s offering is a low-cost charging device coupled with a large charging network which you can use to generate passive income. As the network’s size is critical to getting bookings from other users, you’d be better off with BOLT. 

Do you have more questions about home EV chargers? Check out the FAQ and Resources sections below!