5 Ways to Charge Your Electric Car at Home with No Driveway
Owning an electric vehicle (EV) is a great step towards reducing your carbon footprint, but figuring out the best way to charge at home can be a challenge, especially if you’re part of the 40% of UK households that don’t have access to off-street parking.
Along with the personal incentive to drive a greener vehicle, the ever-expanding adoption of Clean Air Zones has also put pressure on drivers to make the switch, however, the cost of public charging can be a deterrent for many.
According to ZapMap the average cost to charge an electric car on the public charging network in May 2024 was 56p/kWh on slow/fast chargers and 80p/kWh for rapid/ultra-rapid chargers.
Comparatively, off-peak and smart tariffs from energy providers like Octopus Intelligent can be as low as 7p/kWh. So, if a driver charges almost always at home, they could save an average of £1,130 a year. It’s a no-brainer!
So, what solutions are there for on-street electric car charging?
1. Cable Covers: A Simple Solution
Using a cable cover to protect your electric car charging cable is a straightforward solution that is typically accepted by most local authorities. This method involves running your EV charging cable across the pavement and covering it with a protective casing to prevent trips and falls. It's an affordable and easy way to handle on-street electric car charging if you can park close to your home.
The major caveat with cable covers however is that they aren’t a foolproof way to protect your cable or the pedestrians walking over them. The raised platform presents a significant trip hazard to people using bikes, prams, heels and particularly to people with visual impairments. If this is the method you want to use, make sure the cover runs end-to-end of the pavement, that it sits as even as possible and that it is a noticeable colour to ensure viability from a distance.
2. Charging at a Neighbour’s House: Utilise Sharing Apps
If electric car charging at home isn't feasible, consider using a sharing app like Co Charger. These apps connect EV owners with people willing to share their home chargers.
This method is especially useful if you have friends or neighbours with chargers. It’s a community-driven approach that can be both convenient and cost-effective.
3. Converting Your Front Garden to Paving: A Permanent Parking Solution
Transforming your front garden into a paved parking space ensures you always have a spot to park and charge your EV. However, it’s a great shame to convert ‘green’ front gardens into concreted ‘deserts’ and it's essential to consider safety issues, such as limited visibility of children playing in the driveway, which can lead to accidents. Also, converting your garden might require planning permission, so check local regulations before making changes.
While it may seem like an obvious solution, apart from the issues already listed, there’s also drainage to consider or ‘Sustainable drainage systems’ (SuDS). Inner-city residential areas are at a higher risk of flooding due to a lack of green space, which acts as a natural drain to rainfall.
By paving over your garden, you remove this drainage and risk an increase in flood damage. If you’re set on this, make sure that you pave your space with porous materials to maintain the SuDS.
4. Charging at Work: An Alternative Option
If electric car charging at home isn’t feasible, charging your EV at work is a viable alternative. Many workplaces are installing EV chargers to support their employees and while this option requires you to travel to work to charge your vehicle, it can be an effective solution.
However, each employer may have a different policy around workplace charging, especially on personal vehicles as opposed to fleet vehicles, there’s also likely to be a limit on usage and a low number of charge points so there’s no guarantee a charge point will be available, therefore it’s important to check this before choosing this option for EV charging.
5. Kerbo Charge: Simple, Safe, Secure.
Our EV cable channels offer a convenient solution for EV owners without off-street parking. It allows you to benefit from cheaper home charging tariffs by feeding the EV cable through the across-pavement channel. The self-closing lid shuts behind and the flushness of the channel eliminates any trip hazard, making it a completely safe and secure option for home charging.
Kerbo Charge is already available in 10 local authorities across the UK including Nottinghamshire, Cornwall and Milton Keynes, however, it is not yet available in every council, so make sure to check our postcode lookup tool to find out if you can get a Kerbo Charge or how you can get your council onboard
You can also apply for £350 off of a home charge point when combined with a Kerbo Charge channel, and because the channel pays for itself in nine months, you’ll be making significant savings on charging costs each year, and even more so with an off-peak tariff and or solar panels.
