Home vs public charging stations: Which conveniences the most In Malaysia?

There’s undoubtedly an explosive movement in the infrastructure of EV charging stations for Malaysia, with an increase of 12.5 percent from the first quarter of this year in electric vehicle (EV) charging units installed as of June 25, 2024. However, does that translate into a smoother transition when opting for chargers outside the home? What conveniences arise from such implementation, and is it compelling compared to home EV chargers? These are some of the points that will be answered in this article.

Home Charging: Conveniences

-House charging costs less and doesn’t need any form of payment to initiate a charge, including the need for an application

– Don’t need to wait for a user to finish up charging to use the charging bay

– Home charging allows the user to utilize the best charging output configured from the installation

–Lower cost of charging as compared to outside, won’t burn a hole in your wallet as charging can be done while you rest comfortably

– Dealing with multiple apps might be a hassle as certain Charge points require specific applications related to the operator; you don’t need that to operate an EV Home charger

Public charging: Conveniences

– Able to house DCFC that is considerably faster than home charging as single phase and 3 phase at home realistically allows only up to AC

– While in the middle of a trip, it is much easier to stop and charge by a public charging point instead of driving back home to top off

-Planning for trips is much easier as reservations can be made through apps from CPOs

What are the added conveniences of EV charging at home?

Surprisingly, there has been an increasing number of EV adopters. In the upcoming years, your guests will arrive in EVs, and most will be delighted that your home is equipped with an EV charger. Most EV chargers installed come with a type 2 cable that supports charging for most EVs. The added plus of having a charging point at home continues beyond there.

·         The government is willfully supporting the cause by issuing a subsidy towards the purchasing of EV chargers in the form of a tax relief of up to RM2500.

·         Your property will have an added value to it, seeing how common  EVs are on the road now.

·         Cost of charging over time:  there will be a significant disparity between charging at home versus utilizing public charging the cost-effectiveness of charging at home cannot be beaten.

The conveniences of a personalized charging environment: EV Home Charging

Public chargers force you to adapt wherever the charge point is located and designed, requiring you to properly plan what you’d do once arriving and make use of the little time to learn how to operate. The same cannot be said for home charging as the advantage comes in personalization tailored to your preferences, such as power output and  installation location, at your garage, driveway, or other preferred spots. A personalized EV Home Charger could be installed with a longer cable, mitigating the need to park in a certain way to charge your EV. 

Accessibility and conveniences of charging for Landed and High-Rise EV owners

The common consensus is that it will always remain the most convenient accessibility-wise for home EV charging which, rings true for landed properties. However, not all owners of an EV are lucky or financially available to own a landed property.

Condos or apartments, if not recently developed within the years, will likely not have the amenity of EV charging. However, the government is strongly suggesting the push as 2% of EV charge points is mandatory from the total parking space within existing and new high-rise buildings, meaning a single charger should be present within the property. There are stages that high-rise homeowners need to go through to consolidate an EV charging station.

 ·   Required mutual agreement between management corporation (MC), joint management body (JMB), and community members of the property to install an EV charging station that follows close to the approval process set by GPP EVCB guidelines.

·         Finding the correct installer to abide by the existing electrical infrastructure of the high-rise building and adequately adjust to the indifferences to make the installation.

Are you able to live off just public EV charging?

The answer is yes, but eventually, you’ll ask yourself whether a Home EV Charger is worth the cost. Looking at the mapping of CPOs around densely populated urban areas such as KL and Selangor, it is relatively easy to find chargers. But if you’re living in rather rural areas where the infrastructure has yet to catch up, it’ll be quite a challenge to find one. Applications that specifically help users resolve this issue, but the problem remains where CPOs aren’t ready yet, seeing potential revenue returns for populating charging stations within rural areas. There’s also the potential for issues to arise, such as:

–Charging stations are marked as functional but not operable once they arrive at the charging bay.

–BYO chargers, although not as common, still exist and  in a scenario where you’ve forgotten your charging cable could mean your car being stranded with no battery.

–Chargers aren’t as densely populated as in urban areas, so drives could end up eating more range than estimated to get to the nearest charge point.

Conveniences on the road at the cost of security: Public EV Charging

Knowing that your home is where you’d recognize it as a safe space and has all the lighting covered to illuminate the area, some public chargers can be a bit sketchy as not all of them are within surrounding areas that are well-lit and surrounded by people.

A user from the Malaysian EV Owners group chimed in with a post on Facebook, in which he found the charging point he arrived at was totally dark and inoperable; this, however, was fortunately not due to lack of infrastructure care but due to it being under service maintenance by the operator.

 Sudden Outage of Public EV Charging Infrastructure

It’s unlikely that your home EV charger will face obstruction of usage unless it’s from a total blackout; even so, expect the electricity to come back in a few hours’ time at most. Recently this year, public chargers from ChargEV faced an outage that disrupted users during the second day of Hari Raya festivities. The cause of the interruption was unknown, but the downtime was around 6 hours starting from 3 am. The probability of this happening again would mostly be during peak festive celebrations when traffic is high and demand for charging is higher.

Practicality on certain routes – Public EV Charging

Certain routes have multiple DCFC by operators, such as those that commute northwest along TNBX’s Electron charge points and have it easy when it comes to charging while travelling. Being able to mark the existing charge points along the routes for optimal planning of charging. Nevertheless, East Coast travel for EVs is not as easy due to how sparse the charging point distribution is. The alternatives aren’t a lot to choose from as most of the charging points are erected en masse within Selangor and the West Coast after a quick look into Plugshare’s charge point finders.

Conclusion

 It’s unfathomable that some aspects of convenience are not within our control, but the ones that are should be accounted for to perpetuate a seamless charging experience. After consideration of the articulated points written for both sides of charging, it is undoubtedly much more convenient to own and charge at home due to controllable circumstances that are usually within the owner’s grasp. The caveats of public charging shouldn’t stop you from utilizing the infrastructure, as it still serves as the backbone that permeates the increase of charge points across Malaysia.

About Energielite.

We specialize in EV charger installations across Malaysia catering to all types of property – be it landed homes or high rise residential. Our commitment is providing quality installation that spells safety to customers.

Let us save you the hassle. We prioritize safety over quantity and never compromise on the quality of equipments use, certified by SIRIM and Suruhanjaya Tenaga.

Never worry again for your Tesla, BYD, BMW, Kia EV, Mini Copper, Proton e.Mas and Audi chargers as we’ve done them all and won’t have a problem doing them again.