Compare 10 chargers honestly.

Tethered chargers have the cable permanently attached — you just grab the plug and connect it to your car. Untethered chargers have a Type 2 socket on the wall, and you supply your own cable that you bring out only when needed. Tethered is simpler day-to-day. Untethered looks neater on the wall.

An electricity tariff that gives you a cheap rate (typically 7–8p/kWh) for a few hours overnight when grid demand is lowest. Octopus Intelligent and Octopus Go are the most popular. Some chargers integrate directly with these tariffs to charge automatically during the cheap window.

Lets the charger detect when your solar panels are generating surplus electricity and divert that into your car instead of the grid. MyEnergi Zappi's "Eco+" mode is the industry standard for this — other chargers offer similar features under different names. If you don't have solar panels, this feature is irrelevant.

OZEV (Office for Zero Emission Vehicles) maintains the UK government's list of certified EV charger installers. Only OZEV-listed installers can register customers for the £500 grant. We are OZEV approved — verifiable on the gov.uk website. If an installer claims OZEV approval but isn't listed, walk away.

Different to OZEV approval. Pod Point separately approves a small number of installers per region to fit their kit with the full 5-year warranty. We're one of the very few Pod Point approved installers in Greater Manchester. This is only relevant if you specifically want a Pod Point Solo 3S.

The shape of the plug. Type 2 is the European standard — every EV sold in the UK from around 2018 onwards uses Type 2. Type 1 is the older shape used by pre-2017 Leaf, Outlander PHEV, and a few others. Modern chargers use Type 2 sockets; Type 1 cars need a Type 2-to-Type 1 adapter cable (around £150, lives in the boot).