Andersen A3 vs EVEC VEC03: £626 for a hidden cable and a prettier wall

£626 separates function from furniture

The Andersen A3 costs £995. The EVEC VEC03 costs £369. Both deliver 7.4kW to a Type 2 socket. Both are OZEV-approved. The gap — £626 — is not about electricity. It is about whether a charger mounted on the front of your house should look like it belongs there or simply do its job and stay quiet about it.

• Andersen A3 — 247 finishes, hidden cable, anodised aluminium, seven-year warranty. A charger designed to be seen.
• EVEC VEC03 — the cheapest smart charger on the UK market, with a built-in RCD that trims the install bill. A charger designed to be forgotten about.

What £626 does and doesn't buy

It does buy the only hidden cable system on the market — the Andersen's 5.5-metre tethered cable retracts inside the unit, leaving nothing dangling. It buys anodised aluminium where the EVEC has plastic. It buys 247 colour and finish combinations, including wood inlays and bespoke colour-matching to your front door. And it buys a seven-year warranty against the EVEC's three.

It does not buy more power. It does not buy a longer cable — the Andersen's is 5.5 metres, the EVEC's is 5 metres, and neither is generous. It does not buy better software. The Andersen app handles scheduling and supports Intelligent Octopus Go, but it is competent rather than clever. The EVEC supports OCPP 1.6J, which means it works with third-party platforms like Monta — useful if you want to let a neighbour pay for a charge, less useful for daily home use. Neither charger can track half-hourly pricing on Octopus Agile. If tariff intelligence matters to you, the Ohme Home Pro at £535 is the charger to consider — and it still costs £460 less than the Andersen.

The EVEC's hidden advantage is in the install

The VEC03 has a built-in Type A RCD with 6 mA DC leakage detection and PEN fault protection. Most other chargers require this hardware to be fitted in the consumer unit during installation, typically adding around £100 to the labour bill. The EVEC arrives with it inside the box. Combined with its £369 unit price, total cost to the wall — charger plus a standard install of £350–£550 — can land below £750. That is less than many chargers cost before the electrician turns up.

For grant-eligible buyers — renters and flat owners — the arithmetic is even more favourable. The £500 OZEV grant covers the £369 unit outright and contributes to the installation costs too. If you are looking at the cheapest route onto a compliant home charger, this is it.

Where the EVEC asks you to compromise

The app. Customer reports consistently flag Wi-Fi reliability issues and intermittent scheduled charging. The VEC03 connects via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet — no 4G fallback — so if your router signal is weak at the driveway, the charger's smart features become unreliable. On a simple two-rate tariff like Octopus Go or British Gas Electric Drivers, you can set a schedule once and leave it. On anything more demanding, the software may not keep up.

The Andersen's app is more polished, though not exceptional. Its advantage is build confidence: seven years of warranty, aluminium construction, a product that will almost certainly outlast the EVEC on the wall. Whether that longevity is worth £626 depends on how long you plan to stay in the house — and how much you care about what visitors see when they pull into the drive.

The verdict

Buy the Andersen A3 if:

• The charger is visible from the street and you want it to match the house
• You value the hidden cable — no other charger offers this
• A seven-year warranty and aluminium build matter more than upfront cost

Buy the EVEC VEC03 if:

• You want the lowest total cost to the wall, full stop
• The charger sits in a garage or on a side wall nobody sees
• You are grant-eligible and want the £500 OZEV grant to cover the unit and part of the install

For most buyers, the EVEC VEC03 does the job. It charges at the same rate, costs £626 less, and saves further on installation. Its software is the weak point, but on a fixed off-peak tariff the schedule only needs to work once. The Andersen A3 is for the person who looks at a plastic box on a brick wall and feels something has gone wrong. That is a legitimate position — just an expensive one. If you want something between the two, the Easee One at £405 is a tidier, more reliable product than the EVEC without approaching Andersen territory.