Easee One vs Wallbox Quasar 2

> V2G boundary: A “V2G-ready” label or ISO 15118 support does not by itself provide bidirectional power conversion, export approval or a live energy service. Confirm the compatible car, genuinely bidirectional hardware, certified complete system, installer, service and network approval before assigning value to the claim. Read the UK V2G explainer.

A £489 charger and a £6,100 experiment

This is less a comparison and more a map of where the home-charging market sits in spring 2026. The Easee One costs £489, bolts to a wall in under two hours, and charges your car overnight. The Wallbox Quasar 2 costs £6,100 — before installation — and promises to turn your electric car into a home battery and a grid asset. One is a product you can buy on Monday. The other is a product you can register interest in on Monday.

• Easee One — £489 AC wallbox. 7.4 kW, untethered, OZEV-approved, built-in RCD. The pitch is low install cost and a clean wall.
• Wallbox Quasar 2 — £6,100 bidirectional DC unit. Up to 12.8 kW both ways via CCS2. V2H backup, V2G export. UK pre-registration only; not OZEV-approved.

The £5,611 gap — and what it actually buys

The Quasar 2 is £5,611 more than the Easee One. That figure alone tells you these products occupy different planets. But the installed gap is wider still: the Easee One's built-in Type B RCD and open-PEN detection typically shave £100–£200 off the electrician's bill, putting a realistic all-in at roughly £700–£900. The Quasar 2 needs a specialist installer, a DNO G99 application with a 30–60 working-day lead time, and an install bill of £1,500–£3,000 or more. Realistic all-in: north of £7,600.

That buys bidirectional DC charging — the ability to pull energy out of your car's battery and either run the house on it or export it to the grid. On paper, this is the future. In practice, you need a car that supports CCS2 V2H. The confirmed name today is the Kia EV9. If you drive anything else, the Quasar 2 is a £6,100 paperweight with a waiting-list attached.

Can V2G pay back the Quasar 2?

The arithmetic is demanding. On a tariff like Octopus Agile, where half-hourly rates swing between around 5p and 35p or more, arbitrage — charging cheap, exporting dear — can generate meaningful returns. But "meaningful" here means perhaps £400–£700 a year in optimistic scenarios, depending on your car's battery size, your driving patterns, and how aggressively you're willing to cycle cells. At that rate, the Quasar 2's premium over a standard wallbox takes the better part of a decade to reclaim. And that assumes the hardware lasts — the warranty is 3 years.

The Easee One, paired with a time-of-use tariff like Octopus Go at 8.5p/kWh or EDF GoElectric at 6.99p/kWh, does the simpler version of the same trick: charge when electricity is cheap. No export revenue, but no five-figure outlay either.

For buyers who want storage and cheap charging, a standard AC charger plus a dedicated home battery — the kind of setup the GivEnergy EV Charger slots into neatly at £444 — may deliver more flexibility for less money, without tying the battery to a car that needs to be parked in the drive.

Who the Quasar 2 is actually for

There is a buyer here, and they know who they are. They own (or have ordered) a Kia EV9 or another confirmed V2H-compatible car. They have solar panels and want to self-consume during the evening rather than export at a pittance. They have the appetite for a G99 application and a specialist install. And they understand that the technology is early — the compatible car list will grow, but the warranty clock starts now.

If that is not you, the decision is already made. And if you want to keep one foot in the V2G door without spending £6,100, the Zaptec Go 2 at £638 and the NexBlue Point 2 at £534 are both V2G-ready AC units — positioned to support vehicle-to-grid when your car and your DNO catch up, without the bidirectional hardware cost today.

The verdict

Buy the Easee One if:

• You want a working charger on your wall this month, not a place on a waiting list
• Your priority is low total install cost — the integrated protection saves £100–£200 on the electrician's bill
• You drive any EV with a Type 2 port and charge overnight on a cheap tariff

Buy the Wallbox Quasar 2 if:

• You own a compatible bidirectional car — today, that means the Kia EV9
• You have solar panels and want V2H self-consumption or V2G export revenue
• You accept the pre-registration wait, the specialist install, and the £7,600+ all-in cost

For the overwhelming majority of UK EV owners, the Easee One — or frankly any competent AC wallbox in the £400–£650 range — is the right answer. The Quasar 2 is an interesting piece of infrastructure for a small, specific audience. If you're weighing the Easee One against something closer to its own weight class, the Easee One vs Tesla Wall Connector comparison is a more productive use of your time.