EO Mini Pro 3 vs Wallbox Quasar 2: £550 charger or £6,100 experiment?

A wallbox and a power station walk into a comparison

This is less a head-to-head and more a category collision. The EO Mini Pro 3 is a 7.2 kW AC home charger — small, sensible, £550. The Wallbox Quasar 2 is a 12.8 kW bidirectional DC unit that can push energy from your car's battery back into your house or the grid — £6,100, and not yet on open sale in the UK.

The price gap is £5,550. That is not a premium; it is a different product class. Still, readers land on this page, so the job is to explain what each one does, who each one is for, and whether the Quasar 2's promise justifies its cost today.

• EO Mini Pro 3 — a compact AC charger for people who need something small on the wall and functional in the app. Charges the car. That is the whole job.
• Wallbox Quasar 2 — a bidirectional DC unit for early adopters who want their EV to double as a home battery. Charges the car *and* discharges it back into the house or grid.

Why the Quasar 2 costs eleven times more

The EO Mini Pro 3 converts AC mains power to — well, it passes AC to the car's onboard charger at 7.2 kW. The electronics are modest. The unit weighs 2.5 kg and measures 215 × 140 × 100 mm. It is, by some margin, the smallest mainstream charger you can buy.

The Quasar 2 contains a DC inverter capable of pushing 12.8 kW in both directions through a CCS2 connector. It weighs roughly 20 kg. Installation requires a specialist — not your typical OZEV-approved electrician — and a DNO G99 application that takes 30–60 working days. Installed cost is likely £7,600 or more. The £500 OZEV grant does not apply.

For the EO, installation runs £400–£600 and any OZEV-registered installer can do it. Eligible renters and flat owners can claim the £500 grant, which nearly wipes out the £550 unit price and contributes toward the install.

Can you actually buy the Quasar 2 today?

No. As of April 2026, the UK page offers pre-registration — a waiting list, not a checkout. The £6,100 figure is converted from the €7,188 European list price; a confirmed UK RRP has not been published. Wallbox has not named UK installers or confirmed UK warranty terms beyond the standard three years.

The EO Mini Pro 3 is orderable now through EO's installer network. It arrives, it goes on the wall, it charges the car.

This matters more than it sounds. The Quasar 2's value proposition depends on tariff arbitrage — buying cheap overnight electricity, storing it in the car, and either using it during peak hours or exporting it. Every month the unit sits on a waiting list is a month of savings that do not happen.

The V2G maths — does it add up?

Assume you have a compatible car (the Kia EV9 is the headline; most UK EVs cannot do bidirectional DC today). Assume you are on Octopus Agile, where overnight rates can drop to 5p/kWh and peak rates regularly exceed 30p/kWh. A 25p/kWh spread, cycled at 10 kW for a few hours daily, might save £1.50–£2.00 a day — call it £600 a year in a generous scenario.

At that rate, the Quasar 2's installed cost of £7,600+ takes over twelve years to repay. A dedicated home battery — say a GivEnergy ecosystem with a separate storage unit — would likely cost less and work regardless of which car is parked outside.

The Quasar 2 becomes interesting if V2G export tariffs improve, if more cars support CCS2 bidirectional, and if the unit price drops. All three are plausible within two to three years. None is certain today.

The EO Mini Pro 3 on its own merits

Stripped of this odd-couple comparison, the EO is a mid-range charger with one genuine distinction: size. At 215 × 140 × 100 mm it fits where others do not — narrow garages, recessed bays, beside a door frame. It includes a CT clamp for basic solar diversion, supports Octopus Go and EDF GoElectric presets, and has an Ethernet port as a wired fallback.

At £550 it is not cheap for a 7.2 kW unit with a 5-metre cable and a three-year warranty. The Easee One costs £405, the VCHRGD Seven Pro costs £432, and both offer 7.4 kW. If space is not the constraint, readers who want more charger per pound should look at the EO Mini Pro 3 vs Easee One comparison or consider the Hypervolt Home 3 Pro at £690 for its 10-metre cable and IP66 rating.

Which to buy

Buy the EO Mini Pro 3 if:

• You need the smallest possible unit — 215 × 140 × 100 mm fits where nothing else will
• You are a British Gas customer and want the Hive Power+ 25% charging cashback
• You want a working charger on your wall this month, not next year

Buy the Wallbox Quasar 2 if:

• You own (or have ordered) a CCS2-bidirectional car like the Kia EV9
• You are prepared to spend £7,600+ installed on hardware that is still pre-registration in the UK
• You have a V2G tariff or time-of-use rate that makes the arbitrage arithmetic work within five years

For the vast majority of UK EV owners reading this page today, the answer is not the Quasar 2. It is not even necessarily the EO — it is whichever AC charger fits your wall, your tariff, and your budget. The Quasar 2 is a product to watch. The EO Mini Pro 3 is a product to buy.