I bought a BYD Atto 3 eight months ago and the single best decision I made wasn’t choosing the car — it was setting up home charging properly from day one. Most of what you read about EV charging online is either American-focused or written by people who’ve never actually owned an EV. So here’s the Australian version, from someone who plugs in every night.

The basics: Level 1 vs Level 2

Every EV comes with a portable charger that plugs into a regular 10-amp power point. This is Level 1 charging, and it’s painfully slow — about 8-10 km of range per hour. If you drive 40km a day, that’s roughly four hours of charging. Manageable, but not ideal.

Level 2 charging uses a dedicated 240V circuit with a wall-mounted charger (called an EVSE — Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment). These typically run at 7kW single-phase or 22kW three-phase, giving you 35-40 km of range per hour on single-phase or up to 120 km/hour on three-phase.

For most Australian households on single-phase power, a 7kW charger is the sweet spot. You’ll fully charge a typical EV overnight without breaking a sweat.

What a home charger installation actually costs

Here’s the realistic breakdown:

• Charger unit: $800-2,500 depending on brand and features
• Installation (electrician): $500-1,500 depending on distance from switchboard
• Switchboard upgrade (if needed): $500-2,000
• Total typical range: $1,500-5,000

The big variable is your switchboard. Older homes often need an upgrade to handle the additional load. If your switchboard is original 1980s equipment, budget for the upgrade.

Popular charger brands in Australia include Zappi, Wallbox, ABB, and Tesla’s Wall Connector. I went with a Zappi because of its solar diversion feature, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Solar integration: this is where it gets good

If you’ve got solar panels, charging your EV from sunshine is about as close to free motoring as you can get. My electricity cost per kilometre driven is around 2-3 cents when charging from solar, compared to about 5 cents on off-peak grid power and 10-12 cents at peak rates.

There are two approaches:

Timer-based charging: Set your charger to run during peak solar hours (roughly 9am-3pm). Simple, free with any charger, but inflexible. If it’s cloudy, you’re drawing from the grid.

Solar diversion charging: Smart chargers like the Zappi can monitor your solar production in real-time and only charge your EV with surplus power. When a cloud passes over and your production drops, the charger automatically reduces or pauses. When the sun comes back, it ramps up again.

I use solar diversion on sunny days and off-peak grid charging overnight as a backup. Between the two, I haven’t paid meaningful money to run my car since March.

Off-peak tariffs: the overnight option

Most energy retailers offer time-of-use tariffs with cheap overnight rates — typically 15-22 cents/kWh between 10pm and 7am, compared to 35-50 cents during peak.

Even without solar, charging overnight on off-peak power makes EVs dramatically cheaper to run than petrol cars. At 20 cents/kWh and typical EV efficiency of 16 kWh/100km, you’re looking at $3.20 per 100km. Compare that to a petrol car doing 8L/100km at $2/litre — that’s $16 per 100km. It’s not even close.

Some retailers now offer dedicated EV tariffs with even cheaper rates. Check what’s available in your area.

Three-phase: worth it?

If you’ve got three-phase power (common in newer homes and some older properties), you can install a 22kW charger for significantly faster charging. But here’s the thing — for overnight home charging, you probably don’t need it.

A 7kW charger will add about 280km of range in an eight-hour overnight charge. Unless you’re driving more than 280km daily (and if you are, we should talk about your commute), single-phase is fine.

Three-phase becomes valuable if you need to top up quickly during the day, or if you’ve got a larger battery EV like a Tesla Model S that you want charged fast.

My setup and what I’d do differently

I’ve got the Zappi 7kW on single-phase, connected to my 13.2kW solar system. I also have a Powerwall 2 for house battery storage. On a typical sunny day, my solar produces about 55-60kWh. The house uses 12-15kWh, the Powerwall stores 13.5kWh, and the rest goes to the car.

If I were doing it again, I’d run the cable for three-phase during installation even if I only installed a single-phase charger initially. Retrofitting three-phase cable later is expensive because it means opening up walls or running external conduit. Future-proofing the cable run costs almost nothing during initial installation. For businesses looking at fleet EV charging with smart solar integration, companies like Team400’s AI agency in Brisbane are doing interesting work on intelligent charging optimisation.

Getting started

Get an electrician to assess your switchboard before you buy a charger. Knowing whether you need an upgrade changes your budget significantly. Then get quotes for the charger and installation together — most EV charger specialists handle the full job.

And for the love of all that is good, don’t just use the portable charger permanently. It works in a pinch, but a dedicated wall charger is safer, faster, and better for your car’s battery longevity.