Volt & Bolt sells everything an electric vehicle owner buys that is not the car.
That turned out to be a bigger list than most people expect. Charging cables and granny leads, obviously. But also the tyres, which wear differently under battery weight and quietly cost you range if you buy the wrong ones. The cabin filter, which you notice far more in a silent car. The 12V battery, which is the single most common reason a modern EV refuses to wake up on a cold morning. The boot liner, because charging leads are the dirtiest thing you own. And at the other end of the scale, the charge point on the wall, the battery in the garage and the canopy over the drive.
Why we started
Because buying any of this was miserable. Charging cables were sold on specification sheets that never mentioned whether your car could actually use three phase. Tyre listings said nothing about rolling resistance. Home batteries were sold by the kilowatt hour with no interest in whether you needed that many. The honest answer to a lot of EV questions is you probably need less than you are being sold, and nobody was saying it.
How we choose what to stock
- It has to make sense on a British driveway. Single phase supplies, tight terraces, salt on coastal walls, winters that are wet rather than snowy.
- It has to be honest about limits. If a lead will only ever pull 7.4 kW because your car has a single phase onboard charger, we say so on the page rather than selling you a 22 kW cable.
- It has to be supportable. We hold spares and we answer the phone. Charging hardware that cannot be serviced is hardware that becomes scrap.
What we will tell you not to buy
Quite a lot, honestly. Most households on an off peak tariff get their best return from 5 to 10 kWh of battery storage, not the biggest unit on the page. A granny lead is a safety net, not a nightly habit. A three phase charge point is useless without three phases at the meter, and most homes do not have them. Send us a photograph of your intake and we will tell you plainly which of those applies to you.
Stock, dispatch and support
We hold our range in our own UK warehouse rather than drop shipping it. Orders placed before 4pm on a working day leave the same day. Heavy items go on a booked pallet delivery so nothing turns up unannounced on a kerb.
For anything that gets wired in we can handle the survey, the network operator application, the installation and the certification, across most of England, Wales and southern Scotland.
Talk to us
Email info@atautoparts.co.uk. If you are choosing between two products, tell us the car, the supply and how you drive, and we will give you a straight answer rather than a sales pitch.