Owner Review: Apartment Electric Car Charging using Alchemy Charge

Owning an electric car and living in a unit can be tricky as many apartment blocks don't have a metered power point in every parking bay for EV owners to use.

Image by - Neerav Bhatt

I interviewed Neil, an electric vehicle (EV) owner who previously relied 100% on public fast chargers but now uses a managed service product called Smartpoint by Alchemy Charge (pictured below) which is saving him 50-100 hours a year in time and also a lot of money.

Image by - Neerav Bhatt

SmartPoint's are basically a smart powerpoint whose use is controlled and metered through the Alchemy Charge Android or iPhone app.

Upfront a SmartPoint costs $399 for WiFi version or $499 for Telstra 4GX version, plus electrician install fee.

Users of the SmartPoint pay at the electricity rate/kWh set by the SmartPoint owner, plus 10 cents per kWh commission for Alchemy Charge to keep the service running.

Depending on your local electricity supply voltage, you can expect to add about 2.2kWh to your EV battery per hour (less losses) while connected to a SmartPoint.

According to tests using my own MG4 77 EV connected to a SmartPoint at Alchemy Charge HQ, the net amount (as measured by Carscanner and OBDLink CX) added to my EV battery was about 1.87kWh per hour after losses of about 16% are taken into account.

Over 12 hours overnight as an example that could add 18.7kWh to an EV battery. It wouldn't fill the 77kWh battery in my car of course but for the vast majority of Australians who drive less than 50km a day it would be quite sufficient to top up the battery again.

Image by - Neerav Bhatt

Neerav: "Please tell zecar readers about yourself Neil and what your experience has been like as an EV owner so far."

Neil: "I’m a strata apartment owner and have been on a mission working with the Owners Corporation (OC) to have EV charging rolled out in our building for the last 4 years. I’ve been an EV owner over for around 18 months.

Neerav: "How did you charge your EV from Day 1?"

Neil: "The first 17 of those months and roughly 36,000km were done charging purely at public charging infrastructure which was roughly double the price per kWh to that I pay now with my Alchemy Charge point".

"Charging at Superchargers while novel to begin with eventually becomes a chore, so the fact that I can now get in my car every morning with a full charge is a game changer."

Neerav: "What was stopping your apartment block OC (also known as a strata committee) from allowing you to have an EV charger in your parking bay?"

Neil: "The biggest blocker to having the OC roll out charging in our building was cost".

"Everything from the power into the building to the proposed high-capacity bus bars in the carpark that the chargers would connect into have to be upgraded or installed new, it was going to cost $300K+ and on top residents would then have to spend another $2500 to put a charger in their car space."

Neerav: "Why did you think your OC would be more likely to approve Alchemy Charge?"

Neil: "The Alchemy Charge solution cuts all of that [building power infrastructure upgrade] cost out because in terms of power draw it’s a regular power point, so the existing infrastructure requires no modification. "

"The simplicity of this solution and the fact that I as the owner/resident was able to cover all of the costs of the install meant it was much simpler to get approval to go ahead."

Image by - Neerav Bhatt

Neerav: "What is the cost difference between using public DC superchargers and Alchemy Charge in your situation?"

Neil: "I've now halved my costs but more importantly I’ve got an hour or 2 of my time back each week because I don’t have to go and charge the car. Merich at Alchemy Charge was a huge help throughout the whole install and getting me set up and running".

"If you live in strata and you drive or want to drive an EV then this is a perfect solution. I have no doubt there will be more Alchemy Charge points in my building in the near future as other residents and EV drivers are already coveting my setup".

Neerav: "Thanks for sharing your story Neil. Is it OK if I follow up with you in a few months time to see if Alchemy Charge is still reliable and how much your monthly EV charging is costing you Vs public charging?"

Neil: "Absolutely".