It’s now two years since we said goodbye to fossil fuels, and went fully electric with our Renault Zoe.

And despite some periods of Covid travel restrictions, we have been very happy with it, driving the length and breadth of the country, discovering the rapidly increasing numbers of charging stations in lovely spots off the motorway. Nice, like driving used to be.

But in all this time, at home, we have still been using an extension lead plugged into a domestic 2.3kW three pin plug to charge. The slowest possible way to charge, in theory, taking a full 24 hours to fully recharge our Zoe’s 40kW battery from empty, if it ever got that low.

So much excitement in February, when installers arrived to fit us with a proper Zappi home charger from MyEnergi, before the Government grant on offer for installing such things ends in April. Now our proper 7kW charger will do any recharging job overnight. Perfect for those who have to use their car every day for work.

Plus the display has one of those smart funky graphics for nerds like us, showing how much power your house and car are drawing from the grid. We also picked the Zappi because it is compatible with solar panels, allowing you to trickle charge the car for free on sunny days, all future proofed ready for if we ever finally get round to getting our solar panels down in the orchard too!