Pod Point Solo 3S vs Wallbox Quasar 2: £999 installed or £6,100 for bidirectional DC

A home charger and a science experiment — £5,101 apart

The Pod Point Solo 3S costs £999 installed. The Wallbox Quasar 2 costs £6,100 for the unit alone, before an install that will likely add another £1,500–£3,000. The Quasar 2 is £5,101 more than the Pod Point. That is not a premium — it is a different category of product.

• Pod Point Solo 3S — a 7.4kW AC wallbox, installed by Pod Point's own network, five-year warranty, done.
• Wallbox Quasar 2 — a 12.8kW bidirectional DC charger that can push energy back from your car to your house or the grid. Pre-registration only in the UK, compatible with a short list of vehicles, and requiring DNO G99 approval that takes 30–60 working days.

Comparing them on a feature grid is a category error. The useful question is whether you should be looking at the Quasar 2 at all — and for most people reading this, the answer is not yet.

What the Pod Point Solo 3S actually buys you

Convenience, principally. £999 gets you the unit, the install, and five years of warranty. You ring Pod Point, they send a contractor, the box goes on the wall. No sourcing an electrician, no comparing quotes, no coordinating delivery with a separate install date. That simplicity has a cost — you cannot choose your installer, and Pod Point's bundled price is higher than buying a unit like the Easee One at £405 or the VCHRGD Seven Pro at £432 and arranging your own install for £400–£600. The arithmetic is not subtle: a self-arranged install with a cheaper charger can save you £200–£400.

The Solo 3S is also a plain charger. It schedules, it has an app, it does adaptive load management. It does not talk to your energy supplier's API the way an Ohme Home Pro does, so on a variable tariff like Octopus Agile you will leave money on the table. On a fixed off-peak window — Octopus Go, say — the Pod Point's manual schedule is fine.

Eligible renters and flat owners can claim the £500 OZEV grant, which brings the installed price to £499. At that figure, the Pod Point's convenience argument strengthens considerably. If you want to weigh it against the field more carefully, the Ohme Home Pro vs Pod Point Solo 3S comparison covers the tariff-automation angle in detail.

Who the Quasar 2 is for — and who it is not for

The Quasar 2 does something no standard AC wallbox can: it sends DC power *from* your car's battery *to* your house or the grid. In principle, this turns a 77 kWh car battery into a home battery that dwarfs anything from Tesla Powerwall or GivEnergy. On a time-of-use tariff, you could charge at 7p/kWh overnight on Octopus Intelligent Go and discharge into the house at peak rates. The economics are real — on paper.

The caveats, as of April 2026, are substantial. The Quasar 2 is not on open sale in the UK; you can pre-register and wait. The list of compatible vehicles is short — the Kia EV9 is the headline car, with more manufacturers expected but not confirmed. Your DNO must approve a G99 application before the unit can export, a process that takes one to two months and may result in a G100 cap limiting what you can actually push back. The install itself requires a specialist — not every OZEV-approved electrician can wire a bidirectional DC unit — and the OZEV grant does not apply. Installed, you are looking at roughly £7,600 or more.

For someone with a compatible car, a V2G tariff, and the patience for regulatory paperwork, the Quasar 2 is the reference product in its class. For everyone else, it is a product to watch, not a product to buy. If you want V2G readiness without the bidirectional DC price, the Indra Smart PRO at £599 and the Zaptec Go 2 at £500 hold that position at a fraction of the cost — they are AC chargers with V2G-ready firmware, waiting for the ecosystem to catch up.

The verdict

Buy the Pod Point Solo 3S if:

• You want a single phone call and a fixed installed price of £999
• You do not need tariff-API integration or bidirectional capability
• You are an eligible renter or flat owner and want the OZEV grant to bring the installed price to £499

Buy the Wallbox Quasar 2 if:

• You own (or are about to own) a CCS2 car confirmed compatible with bidirectional DC
• You have a V2G tariff and the appetite for a G99 application
• You understand you are paying £6,100-plus to be an early adopter, not to save money this year

For the overwhelming majority of UK Tesla owners, the Pod Point Solo 3S is the relevant product here — and even then, it faces stiff competition from cheaper units paired with a self-arranged install. The Quasar 2 is a glimpse of where home energy is heading. It is not yet where most driveways need to be.