GivEnergy EV Charger 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 wallbox and a power station walk into a comparison

This is less a head-to-head and more a category collision. The GivEnergy EV Charger is a £444 AC wallbox that charges your car — and its one distinctive trick is pulling stored energy from a home battery to do it. The Wallbox Quasar 2 is a £6,100 bidirectional DC unit that can push energy back out of your car and into your house. The gap between them is £5,656 and an entirely different philosophy of what a charger should be.

• GivEnergy EV Charger — a 7kW tethered charger for people who already own a home battery and want to charge the car from it. £444.
• Wallbox Quasar 2 — a 12.8kW bidirectional DC unit that turns your EV into a home battery. £6,100, pre-registration only.

What the GivEnergy actually does for £444

Battery-to-EV charging is the argument. Most AC wallboxes can divert live solar — the myenergi Zappi GLO does it better than most — but the GivEnergy is one of very few that can draw from a home battery, whether GivEnergy's own or a compatible third-party unit. Buy cheap overnight electricity on Octopus Go at 8.5p/kWh, store it in the house battery, then feed the car the next afternoon. The charger coordinates this through GivEnergy's monitoring portal.

Strip the battery integration away and you have a competent but unremarkable 7kW charger with a 5-metre cable, Wi-Fi, RFID, and a basic app. At £444, it undercuts the Tesla Wall Connector by £31 and the Ohme Home Pro by £95 — but both of those offer smarter tariff handling. The GivEnergy does schedule-based charging only; there is no live supplier API. Without a home battery in the loop, buyers after smart-tariff savings are better served elsewhere. The Ohme Home Pro vs GivEnergy comparison covers that ground in detail.

It is OZEV-approved, so eligible renters and flat owners can claim the £500 grant — which covers the £444 unit outright and chips into the install.

What the Quasar 2 promises — and what it can't deliver yet

The Quasar 2 is the most ambitious home charger on any UK product page. Up to 12.8kW bidirectional DC through a CCS2 connector. Vehicle-to-Home backup during a power cut. Vehicle-to-Grid export to sell energy back to the grid on a V2G tariff. On paper, your car becomes a 60–80kWh battery that powers the house, earns revenue, and still has enough charge to drive to work.

On paper. In practice, three things hold the Quasar 2 back today.

First, availability. It is on pre-registration in the UK — "keep me updated", not "add to basket". You cannot buy one. The £6,100 figure converts from the European list price; a confirmed UK RRP has not been published.

Second, compatibility. Bidirectional DC charging requires support at the car end. The Kia EV9 is the headline vehicle. Most UK EVs — including every Tesla — cannot use the V2H or V2G features. If your car does not support it, the Quasar 2 is a wildly expensive one-way charger.

Third, installation. This is not a standard wallbox job. It needs a DNO G99 application for export, with a 30–60 working-day lead time. Fewer installers are qualified. Installed cost is likely £7,600 or more. The £500 OZEV grant does not apply — the Quasar 2 is not approved.

The £5,656 question

For the price of one Wallbox Quasar 2, you could buy the GivEnergy EV Charger, a GivEnergy home battery, and still have thousands left over. That combination gives you battery-to-EV charging, solar storage, time-of-use arbitrage, and backup power — all with hardware you can order and install this month.

The Quasar 2's advantage is elegance: one box, no separate battery, the car itself as the storage. If V2G tariffs mature and more cars adopt bidirectional CCS2, it could pay for itself through grid export. That is a bet on the future, not a purchase for the present.

For buyers interested in the future communication layer around V2G, the Zaptec Go 2 publishes ISO 15118 support, but a firmware update alone is not a promised route to export. The Indra Smart PRO at £395 is a one-way AC charger.

The verdict

Buy the GivEnergy EV Charger if:

• You have a home battery — GivEnergy or compatible — and want to charge the car from stored cheap-rate electricity
• You want a straightforward, OZEV-approved 7kW charger at £444
• You prefer hardware you can order, install, and use this week

Buy the Wallbox Quasar 2 if:

• You own (or are about to own) a CCS2-bidirectional car like the Kia EV9
• You want true V2H backup and V2G export from a single unit
• You accept pre-registration status, specialist installation, and a £6,100-plus outlay as the price of being early

For almost every UK household charging an EV in 2026, the GivEnergy is the useful product and the Quasar 2 is the interesting one. Useful wins. If you have a home battery, the GivEnergy earns its place on the wall today. If you don't, a charger like the Ohme Home Pro or Hypervolt Home 3 Pro will do more for less. The Quasar 2 deserves a bookmark, not a deposit — at least until you can place an order and your car can answer it.