You’ve got the car. Now you need to work out how to put electricity into it at home without tripping the house or spending more than the car cost you.
The good news is there are only really five options, and picking between them comes down to two questions: how many kilometres do you actually drive in a day, and how many hours is the car parked at home?
Here’s each one, honestly, including where it falls down.
Driving a Tesla? We’ve got a separate guide to Tesla home charging. And if you want to know what it’ll cost to run, try our EV charging cost calculator.
1. Standard 10 amp power point
The simplest option: plug the portable charger that came with the car into a normal household socket. Every home has them.
What you get: around 2.3 kW, which works out to roughly 10 km of range per hour. Overnight that’s about 100 km.
Who it suits: if you’re doing school runs and the shops — 30 or 40 km a day — this is genuinely all you need. No new hardware, no install cost if there’s already an outlet where you park.
Where it falls down: a big-battery EV can take well over 24 hours to fill from empty. And if you forget to plug in one night and then need to drive somewhere the next day, you’re going hunting for a public charger.
The safety bit: drawing maximum current from a general-purpose circuit for eight hours straight is asking a lot of it. We’d always recommend a dedicated circuit back to the switchboard rather than sharing with the fridge and the microwave. If you’re running a new circuit anyway, go to 15A — it’s near enough the same job for meaningfully more speed.
2. Dedicated 15 amp power point
Same idea, bigger pipe. A 15A outlet looks like a standard one with a fatter earth pin, and delivers around 3.6 kW.
What you get: roughly 15–20 km of range per hour. An overnight charge comfortably clears 150 km.
Who it suits: most single-car households doing normal Melbourne commuting distances. It’s the best value upgrade on this list.
Where it falls down: still slow for a daytime top-up. And not every car ships with a 15A-capable portable charger, so you may need to buy one.
The install is straightforward for a licensed electrician — a dedicated circuit with the right cable and breaker. If your board is full or ancient, you may need a switchboard upgrade first, and we’ll tell you that before we start rather than after.
3. 32 amp socket on a dedicated circuit
This is where it stops being slow. A 32A industrial-style outlet on single phase delivers around 7 kW.
What you get: 40–50 km of range per hour. Even a large battery fills overnight with room to spare.
Who it suits: long commuters, big-battery cars, or anyone who’s been caught out once too often.
The underrated advantage: it’s portable. Take your 32A lead and portable charger on a road trip and you can plug in at showgrounds and caravan parks all over the country. Very few people realise this.
Where it falls down: it’s a proper job — heavy-gauge cable from the board, a suitable breaker, safety switch, possibly board work. The outlets are industrial-looking rather than tidy. And 7 kW is the ceiling on single phase; past this you need three phases.
4. Hardwired wall charger, single phase
A purpose-built unit mounted on the garage wall with the cable attached. Park, plug, walk away.
What you get: the same ~7 kW as the 32A socket, but with the convenience and the smarts. Scheduling to off-peak tariffs, app control, load management so it backs off when the oven’s going, and solar integration so the car drinks your excess generation during the day.
Who it suits: anyone charging daily who’d rather not handle a portable lead every night. This is our favourite setup and it’s what we install most often.
Where it falls down: cost, and it’s bolted to the house — you keep the portable charger for travel. Unit prices vary enormously depending on features, and there’s a wide gap between a basic model and one with proper load balancing. We’ll help you pick rather than upselling you into something you won’t use.
Virtually every new EV in Australia uses Type 2 / CCS2, so compatibility is rarely an issue these days.
5. Three-phase power with a hardwired charger
The fastest home charging available. Three phases into a wall charger gets you up to 22 kW — around 100 km of range per hour, though most cars cap at 11 kW on AC, which is still about 75 km/h.
Who it suits: two-EV households, very high-kilometre drivers, and anyone building or renovating who wants the infrastructure in the walls now rather than later.
Where it falls down: most Melbourne homes are single phase. Getting three-phase power installed means coordinating with your distributor, likely a new meter and connection, and real electrical work on the property. If you already have it — plenty of homes with ducted air conditioning do — you’re most of the way there.
Also worth knowing: if your car caps at 11 kW AC, the extra capacity sits unused. Check the spec before you spend.
How to actually choose
Work out your daily kilometres and your parking hours. Under 50 km a day with the car home overnight? A 15A power point will do you. Over 100 km, or two cars, or a battery over 70 kWh? Go to a wall charger. Building or renovating? Get three-phase infrastructure in while the walls are open, even if you don’t commission it yet.
And whichever you pick, use a licensed electrician. This is high-current work running for hours unattended in your garage — it needs to be right.
Get it done properly
We’re a Tesla Certified Installer and we’ve been doing EV charger installations across Melbourne’s eastern suburbs since well before it was common. We’ll look at your switchboard, your parking, your driving and your budget, and tell you which of these five actually makes sense for you — including when the answer is the cheap one.
Over 200 five-star reviews, and a lifetime workmanship warranty on everything we install.
Get in touch and we’ll talk it through.
Useful: Home Charging Calculator
