Tesla Wall Connector vs CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3: £608 and a phase apart

£608 and a different species of charger

These two are not really competitors. The Tesla Wall Connector at £478 is a home charger — tethered, app-controlled, designed to live quietly on a garage wall. The CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 at £1,086 is a piece of commercial-grade infrastructure that happens to fit on a house. The £608 gap is wide, and what it buys is specific: three-phase native power, OCPP protocols, MID-approved metering, and a built-in Type B RCD. Whether any of that matters depends entirely on your electrical supply and your intentions.

• Tesla Wall Connector — £478, tethered, 7.3-metre cable, Tesla app scheduling, four-year warranty. The default for a Tesla owner on a single-phase home.
• CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 — £1,086, untethered socket with 4-metre tail, OCPP 1.6-J and 2.0.1, ISO 15118, five-year warranty. Built for three-phase supply and open-protocol management.

The single-phase question settles most decisions

Roughly 95% of UK homes have single-phase supply. On single-phase, both chargers deliver about 7.4 kW. The CTEK's three-phase 22 kW capability — its headline feature — sits dormant. You are paying £1,086 for a charger that charges at the same speed as one costing £478, plus install costs of £900–£1,300 for the CTEK versus £400–£600 for the Tesla. The total outlay gap, once the electrician leaves, can approach £1,300.

The CTEK is OZEV-approved, so eligible renters and flat owners can claim the £500 grant, bringing its unit price to £586. The Tesla Wall Connector is not OZEV-approved. Even after the grant, the CTEK still costs £108 more than the Tesla before installation — and its install typically runs several hundred pounds higher. For a single-phase home, the arithmetic does not bend in the CTEK's favour.

Where the CTEK earns its price tag

Three-phase supply changes the equation. At 22 kW, the CTEK fills a 75 kWh battery from 20% to 80% in roughly two and a half hours — about a third of the time the Tesla needs on single-phase. If you run a business from home, charge a van overnight on a tight schedule, or share a supply between multiple vehicles, that speed matters.

The built-in Type B MRCD saves £100–£200 on the consumer unit, because your installer does not need to add an external one. The MID-approved energy meter is Eichrecht-compliant — useful if you need auditable billing, say for a workplace or shared parking bay. OCPP 2.0.1 and ISO 15118 plug-and-charge readiness mean the unit can talk to back-end platforms that do not yet exist in the domestic market. It is, in effect, future-proofed infrastructure.

The trade-off: no first-party smart-tariff integration. You cannot pair the CTEK directly with Octopus Intelligent Go or OVO Charge Anytime. Scheduling happens through third-party OCPP apps like Monta. That is fine if you are comfortable with it — less fine if you want to plug in and let the charger chase 7p/kWh slots without thinking. For tariff-aware charging on single-phase, the Ohme Home Pro at £535 does that job natively and for far less money.

Durability and protection

The CTEK is IP54 and IK10 — rain-resistant and genuinely impact-proof at 24 kg of enclosure. The Tesla is IP44 and 5.3 kg. On a sheltered garage wall, the difference is academic. On an exposed driveway pillar shared with delivery vans, the CTEK's build quality is a tangible advantage. Its five-year warranty edges the Tesla's four, though neither is short.

One practical note: the CTEK is untethered. You bring your own Type 2 cable, which adds £50–£150 and means coiling it after each session. The Tesla's 7.3-metre tethered cable — the longest in our charger index — just hangs there, ready. Convenience has a value that specs sheets do not capture.

The verdict

Buy the Tesla Wall Connector if:

• You have single-phase supply — which is almost certainly the case
• You own a Tesla and want native app control without fuss
• You want the lowest total cost of charger plus installation

Buy the CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 if:

• You have or are installing three-phase supply and want 22 kW charging
• You need MID-approved metering or OCPP back-end management
• You are a renter or flat owner eligible for the £500 OZEV grant and plan to use the charger in a semi-commercial setting

For a standard UK home with a Tesla on the drive, the Wall Connector remains the obvious choice — £478, long cable, native app, done. The CTEK is not overpriced for what it contains; it is simply built for a situation most domestic buyers do not have. If you *do* have three-phase supply and want an open-protocol unit, compare it against the Zaptec Go 2 at £500 — a considerably cheaper three-phase option with its own strengths, covered in our best Tesla home charger guide.