The short answer: on a dedicated 7kW home charger, most electric cars will charge from nearly empty to full overnight. On a standard 3-pin socket, it takes considerably longer. Here’s the fuller picture.
What affects charging time?
Two things determine how long a charge takes: the size of your car’s battery and the speed of the charging point.
Battery size is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A smaller city car like a Vauxhall Corsa-e has a 50kWh battery. A larger car like a Tesla Model 3 or Kia EV6 has 60–77kWh or more. The bigger the battery, the longer it takes to fill.
Charging speed depends on the charger and what your car can accept. Most home chargers deliver 7kW — the standard single-phase limit for a domestic installation in the UK. Some cars can accept 11kW or 22kW, but unless you have a three-phase supply (which most UK homes don’t), a standard home charger won’t deliver more than 7kW regardless.
Charging from a 3-pin socket
Every EV comes with a cable that plugs into a standard 13-amp household socket. This delivers around 2.3kW — roughly 8 miles of range per hour of charging.
For a 60kWh battery starting from empty, that’s around 26 hours to full. In practice most people don’t start completely empty, but you can see the problem. A 3-pin socket is fine as a backup or for topping up after a short trip, but it’s not a workable daily charging solution for most drivers.
Charging from a dedicated 7kW home charger
A dedicated home charge point gives you around 25–30 miles of range per hour. For a 60kWh battery, that’s roughly 8–9 hours to full — plug in when you get home in the evening, and you’ve got a full battery by morning.
For most UK drivers covering average distances (around 20–30 miles a day), a 7kW charger means you’re only ever adding a couple of hours of charge each evening. Once it becomes routine, you’ll barely think about it.
Approximate charge times by car
To give you a concrete idea of what to expect on a 7kW home charger:
| Car | Battery size | Approx. charge time (7kW) |
|---|---|---|
| Vauxhall Corsa-e | 50kWh | ~7 hours |
| Volkswagen ID.3 | 58kWh | ~9 hours |
| Tesla Model 3 (SR) | 60kWh | ~9 hours |
| Kia EV6 | 77kWh | ~11 hours |
| BMW iX xDrive50 | 111kWh | ~16 hours |
These are approximate and assume the car accepts the full 7kW. In practice, charging slows as the battery approaches 100%, so real-world times can vary slightly.
What about rapid charging?
Rapid chargers (50kW+) and ultra-rapid chargers (100–350kW) are found at motorway services and public charge points. They can add 100 miles in 20–30 minutes and are ideal for longer journeys. For home use though, 7kW is the right answer — the infrastructure cost of anything faster is difficult to justify for overnight charging, and most cars don’t benefit from it at home anyway.
Is a dedicated home charger worth installing?
If you own or are planning to buy an EV, yes. The convenience is significant — no more searching for public chargers or paying premium rates away from home. Public charging typically costs 50–80p per kWh. Charging at home on a standard tariff is around 25–30p, and on an off-peak tariff like Octopus Go it can drop as low as 7–10p overnight. For a driver covering average mileage, the saving easily runs to several hundred pounds a year.
The charger itself costs £500–£800, and installation typically runs £300–£800 depending on how much cable work is involved. On that saving, most people recoup the cost within two years.
We install Zappi, Wallbox Pulsar Max, and Sigenergy home chargers across Bristol and South Gloucestershire. If you’d like to know which charger suits your car and setup, get in touch for a quote.
