Andersen A3 vs GivEnergy EV Charger

The £456 question — and why it's the wrong one

Comparing the Andersen A3 at £900 with the GivEnergy EV Charger at £444 on a feature-by-feature basis misses the point. These are not two chargers competing for the same buyer. One is a piece of exterior architecture with a cable hidden inside it. The other is a specialist energy-routing device that talks to home batteries. The £456 gap between them is large, but the real gap is in what problem each one solves.

• Andersen A3 — a design object first, a charger second. 247 colour-and-finish combinations, hidden cable, 7-year warranty, £900.
• GivEnergy EV Charger — a battery-storage companion. Draws stored energy from a home battery into the car, £444. Without a battery, it's ordinary.

When the Andersen A3 earns its price

The A3's argument is visibility. Anodised aluminium front, wood-effect or bespoke colour-matched finishes, and a cable that retracts entirely into the unit when not in use. No other charger on the UK market does this. If the charger sits on a front-facing wall — beside the front door, on a period property, anywhere guests and neighbours will see it — the A3 turns what is normally a white plastic box into something deliberate.

The 7-year warranty is the longest available, which matters when you're spending £900. Smart features are competent: the Andersen app handles scheduling, and it works directly with Intelligent Octopus Go and OVO Charge Anytime. But the software is not the reason to buy it. The Ohme Home Pro at £539 and the Hypervolt Home 3 Pro at £625 both out-perform it on smart tariff optimisation. You buy the A3 for the same reason you buy a brass door handle instead of a chrome one — because you'll see it every day.

One constraint: the hidden cable is 5.5 metres with no longer option. Your parking spot needs to be close to the mount point. If the driveway layout demands reach, the Tesla Wall Connector offers 7.3 metres for £475. For buyers torn between the A3 and something less expensive but still well-built, the Andersen Quartz at £672 carries much of the same design language at a lower price — though it is not OZEV-approved.

When the GivEnergy earns its place

The GivEnergy's entire proposition rests on one feature: battery-to-EV charging. If you have a GivEnergy home battery — or a compatible third-party unit — the charger can pull stored energy into the car. Buy cheap overnight electricity on Octopus Go at 8.5p/kWh, store it in the battery, then charge the car whenever suits you the next day. Most chargers can only divert live solar; the GivEnergy draws from the battery bank itself. That distinction is not trivial for households running a battery alongside panels.

The GivEnergy monitoring portal ties the charger into whole-home energy management — solar generation, battery state, EV consumption, all in one place. It is IP65-rated, tougher than the Andersen's IP54, and at £444 it is one of the cheapest tethered units on the market. For OZEV-eligible buyers (renters and flat owners), the £500 grant covers the unit outright and chips into the install.

Without a home battery, though, the case collapses. The app is basic. Tariff integration is schedule-only — no live API link to suppliers. For a battery-free household wanting a smart, affordable charger, the VCHRGD Seven Pro at £430 offers more features per pound, and the Ohme Home Pro at £539 is a different class of software entirely. Solar owners without battery storage will find the myenergi Zappi GLO a more capable solar diverter — the Zappi GLO vs GivEnergy comparison covers that ground in detail.

The verdict

Buy the Andersen A3 if:

• The charger will be visible from the street or front of the house and appearance matters to you
• You want the longest warranty on the market — 7 years
• You value build quality (aluminium, hidden cable) over software sophistication

Buy the GivEnergy EV Charger if:

• You have a home battery and want to charge the car from stored energy
• You use the GivEnergy ecosystem and want one portal for everything
• Budget is a priority — £444 is hard to argue with if the battery integration applies to you

For most buyers, neither of these is the default recommendation. The A3 is a design purchase; the GivEnergy is an ecosystem purchase. If neither description fits — if you just want a good, smart charger on the wall — the answer is probably the Ohme Home Pro or the Hypervolt Home 3 Pro, and you can spend the savings on something else entirely.