Preferred home charger for BZ4X

[Old Man on a bike]

Are there any recommendations for the home charging unit or installers for the BZ4x .   

[ernieb]

Sorry I can not help you with this but found this the other day which I thought was interesting.

https://pod-point.com/guides/vehicles/toyota/2022/bz4x

[Old Man on a bike]

Thanks. Had read this. Looking for info on the actual unit. If there is a recommended option. Toyota should recommend units in each country or make a statement that all units are equal. In their videos charging units are branded Toyota. 

[FROSTYBALLS]

Get touch with your Toyota importer.

[kingrikk]

I believe they’re giving a free charger with every EV at the moment. This is provided through Hive. 

[Old Man on a bike]

Anyone else confirm this. Didn’t hear this from my dealer. I’m in Ireland. 

[FROSTYBALLS]

 

4 hours ago, kingrikk said:

I believe they’re giving a free charger with every EV at the moment. This is provided through Hive. 

You'd be best to check with Toyota Ireland.

[Roy124]

Is there a 'best' location for a charger? 

Obviously the site will be the first consideration followed by the fixed cable access to the CP.  However in a garage you may have a choice, left or right, back or front.  

AFAIK there is no standard position on a car for cable entry. 

[DíarmuidIRL]

19 hours ago, Old Man on a bike said:

Anyone else confirm this. Didn’t hear this from my dealer. I’m in Ireland. 

I'm also in Ireland.  My dealer didn't have any info on what might be included with the bZ4X.  My Corolla came with 3 years servicing so was hoping for similar and charger as well but no info on that from my end.  Please share any info you get for Ireland, extras etc with each trim.  My dealer told me the Motion didn't come with a heated steering wheel but the Toyota Ireland website says it does, there is always some confusion with Irish models as we tend not to get what is standard in the UK or Europe but something a little more inferior - that's my experience across several different brands anyway.  Grateful for anything you can share in the coming months that is Ireland specific.

[swoop5511]

The UK free charger is through British Gas. It took quite a bit of back and forth between my Toyota Dealer and British Gas to get some relevant info. In the end I opted to source it myself as British Gas charger currently was not solar ready. The Charger is also untethered and BG customer service could not confirm whether they can supply a cable to go with etc. I did not want to bother with the faff and also worry about whether the cable could get nicked.

I also followed advise and had an electrical survey done and it was good that I did.

Even though our house is not old (built 2005), the consumer unit needs changing / updating to accommodate a car charger and again will now also future proof in case we ever do want to add solar at any point. We had a couple of minor recommendations that are being addressed same time. 

Cost for the survey for us was £300. New consumer unit & installation (includes surge protection on inbound line, updating register in building control etc) £690

I highly recommend when your last electrical survey was carried out and if longer than 10 years have one done.

Charger is separate and on top of that. 

[Roy124]

Our house build started in 2012 though was the last to be completed in 2017.  IIRC, when I checked the requirements a few months back we were deficient on at least one point. 

[Old Man on a bike]

22 hours ago, DíarmuidIRL said:

I'm also in Ireland.  My dealer didn't have any info on what might be included with the bZ4X.  My Corolla came with 3 years servicing so was hoping for similar and charger as well but no info on that from my end.  Please share any info you get for Ireland, extras etc with each trim.  My dealer told me the Motion didn't come with a heated steering wheel but the Toyota Ireland website says it does, there is always some confusion with Irish models as we tend not to get what is standard in the UK or Europe but something a little more inferior - that's my experience across several different brands anyway.  Grateful for anything you can share in the coming months that is Ireland specific.

I am asking dealer about tethered or untethered now..  Think you are correct about the irish finish... Not sure who is taking the additional profit.  Smaller market of course but NI don't seem to suffer. Will let you know when I get full spec on finish. thanks

 

[philip42h]

On 7/10/2022 at 8:34 PM, DíarmuidIRL said:

My dealer told me the Motion didn't come with a heated steering wheel but the Toyota Ireland website says it does ...

For a UK spec bZ4X either the Pure nor Motion grades have the heated steering wheel; the Vision and Premiere Edition do. Which doesn't tell you anything about the Toyota Ireland specifications but at least you don't appear to be hard done by. 😉

[Mike2222]

On 7/11/2022 at 7:21 PM, Old Man on a bike said:

I am asking dealer about tethered or untethered

I would strongly recommend going for tethered, if you have the option. Getting cables out & packing away every day would get exceedingly tiresome, especially in inclement weather (from experience, rain isn't exactly unusual on the Emerald Isle!), whereas the convenience of simply pulling the handle off the wall, plugging in and walking away is fantastic.

Just a personal opinion of course, from my own experiences. I know of others who value aesthetics over practicality, especially when it comes to the frontage of their houses, and one can't avoid the fact that a lot of wallboxes are not pretty - most lumps of white or black plastic, so can look fairly out of place if positioned on the front of eg an 18th century agricultural cottage 😂! 

[Mike2222]

On 7/9/2022 at 7:52 PM, Old Man on a bike said:

Are there any recommendations for the home charging unit

Another personal recommendation, if you have to fund your own home chargepoint in Ireland - Ohme Home pro

As best as I can tell, this is available in Ireland, and I had installed before ordering my Rav phev (and thus before finding out about the UK free of charge hive charger). Extremely user-friendly, very easy to choose a schedule to charge to eg 80% for Battery longevity purposes on an EV for those days where you don't need full range, plus incorporates dynamic load balancing features (is able to detect overall household electricity draw in real-time, and ramp down charging if risk of main fuse being overloaded, increasing back up again when load-balancing allows), and is scheduled to add solar integration options in the future. 

At the time I ordered it it was competitively priced with other UK chargepoint options, but don't know what the Irish market is like on that front. 

[Roy124]

29 minutes ago, Mike2222 said:

Value aesthetics over practicality, especially when it comes to the frontage of their houses, and one can't avoid the fact that a lot of wallboxes are not pretty - most lumps of white or black plastic, so can look fairly out of place if positioned on the front of eg an 18th century agricultural cottage 😂! 

Paint it.  Not a charger but a rather large and obvious security cam.  I masked off the lens and IR and gave the body two coats of paint the same colour as the shed.  Now it is barely visible. 

[Mike2222]

3 hours ago, Roy124 said:

Paint it…. Now it is barely visible. 

Good idea, that could look quite smart if you match it to eg the garage & front door +/- window fascia). Tho I neglected to explain properly what I was getting at - some wall box options which are untethered only by design, market themselves on their small size and thus can be very discrete, eg ‘eo mini pro’. Their marketing bumpf usually makes a big deal about the idea that the tethered cables can look “messy” on the side of your house, however personally for me function over form wins every time (and majority if tethered designs I researched were made so the cable wraps relatively neatly around the box itself), but then again that’s probably one of the reasons I opted for a Toyota in the first place!! 
 

PS - I’m not specifically knocking the eo mini pro, it’s just a good example of a tiny wall box design. 

[DíarmuidIRL]

On 7/17/2022 at 9:03 AM, Mike2222 said:

Another personal recommendation, if you have to fund your own home chargepoint in Ireland - Ohme Home pro

As best as I can tell, this is available in Ireland, and I had installed before ordering my Rav phev (and thus before finding out about the UK free of charge hive charger). Extremely user-friendly, very easy to choose a schedule to charge to eg 80% for battery longevity purposes on an EV for those days where you don't need full range, plus incorporates dynamic load balancing features (is able to detect overall household electricity draw in real-time, and ramp down charging if risk of main fuse being overloaded, increasing back up again when load-balancing allows), and is scheduled to add solar integration options in the future. 

At the time I ordered it it was competitively priced with other UK chargepoint options, but don't know what the Irish market is like on that front. 

I've read about Ohme chargers, they do seem to be available on a limited basis in Ireland which is good.  The entrepreneur behind Ohme is a Irish man, from Cork no less - the best type of Irishman 

 

[ernieb]

The Ohme Pro looks good but I can not find out if you can secure the front panel once set or if your using the app to stop anyone else cancelling the charge schedule. I also can not see if you can send a ‘lock cable’ setting to the car even  when it’s on a schedule.

[Mike2222]

On 7/18/2022 at 8:38 PM, ernieb said:

The Ohme Pro looks good but I can not find out if you can secure the front panel once set or if your using the app to stop anyone else cancelling the charge schedule. I also can not see if you can send a ‘lock cable’ setting to the car even  when it’s on a schedule.

No, you can't. This crossed my mind also when researching, but when you think it through, it's highly unlikely/impractical in reality, as in order to "steal" a meaningful amount of electricity, someone would have to park up on your drive for a rather long time, leaving themselves rather exposed. They would also need to be familiar with the ohme home pro UI, and how to bypass the setting whether you utilise off peak charging, and cm activate the "max charge" mode. If you're going away for longer period, eg holiday, you can just flick the circuit breaker for complete peace of mind. 

As for locking the cable, the ohme "communicates" with the car when you plug it in, to determine the current state of charge, and in doing so passes a tiny amount of current, which is sufficient to activate the car's chargeport lock, which stays active until you manually unlock it. This is in stark contrast the the Hive charger, which annoyingly doesn't lock until the off-peak active charging period, so again always a nonsensical paranoia that some oik/ne'erdowell will come along in between and unplug me (never happened, and highly unlikely to do so, but the instant locking is quite reassuring)! 

[srt]

On 7/10/2022 at 8:44 AM, Roy124 said:

Is there a 'best' location for a charger? 

Obviously the site will be the first consideration followed by the fixed cable access to the CP.  However in a garage you may have a choice, left or right, back or front.  

AFAIK there is no standard position on a car for cable entry. 

For the admittedly small, but still very real, risk of any EV Li-Ion Battery spontaneously combusting,  whilst charging, I would recommend you do not charge an EV in an integral garage.