We are looking at purchasing our first electric car. It will be primarily used for comuniting to and from work so less the 50km/30miles a day. The dealers tell us this would recharge in a few hours on a 240v 10amp gpo at home. I have no reason to not believe them but is this the best thing for the life of the battery? Or should the plan be to run the battery down and charge for longer at home or visit a fast charger once a week?
Also for not it will be used for longer trips 2 or 3 times a year. Up to 1200 km round trip.
The only thing with “level 1” charging off a socket is, PEN faults. Some areas in 230V-land supply houses only “Live” and “combined Neutral & Earth (PEN”). Houses have no local ground rod/spike to force local dirt to the same voltage as PEN. (notice how I said that?)
So if the PEN wire from the utility breaks, the normal loads will pull your end of PEN up to line voltage (230V) which means both your neutrals and your grounds/earths are floating at 230V above the dirt your house sits on. The result is you have a “hot skin” on your EV.
So, in those areas, EV charging equipment has extra internal kit to detect PEN faults (neutral voltage gets too close to live) and sever live and neutral and earth to the EV. You need to consult with local codes about what protective equipment is needed for the EV socket, or make sure your equipment does that.
The USA banned that in 1965 for all but ranges (hobs) and dryers - PEN to the dryer allowed. But mysteriously, people kept dying from hot skin on ranges and dryers. So they outlawed it in 1996. USA houses do not trust utility neutral and have their own local earth spikes, however, utility neutral is bonded to local earth.