Rolec EVO 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 charger and a science project walk onto your wall

The Rolec EVO costs £356. The Wallbox Quasar 2 costs £6,100. The gap between them — £5,744 — is not a typo, and it is not comparing like with like. One is a smart AC home charger that puts electrons into your car. The other is a bidirectional DC unit that promises to pull them back out again, powering your house or exporting to the grid. They do fundamentally different things, and the question is whether the more expensive thing is something you can actually use today.

• Rolec EVO — £356, 7.4kW AC, untethered, five-year warranty, built-in RCD and PME fault detection, solar surplus modes. A charger.
• Wallbox Quasar 2 — £6,100, 12.8kW bidirectional DC, tethered CCS2, three-year warranty, UK pre-registration only. A charger, a home battery substitute, and a grid export device — in theory.

What £5,744 actually buys

The Quasar 2's entire proposition is bidirectional power flow. Charge your car overnight on cheap-rate electricity — say, Octopus Go at 8.5p/kWh — then discharge it back into the house during the evening peak. Or, on a V2G tariff, export surplus to the grid and get paid. The maths can look attractive on paper: a 77 kWh car battery dwarfs any domestic Powerwall, and at 12.8 kW the Quasar 2 can move meaningful energy in both directions.

The caveats are substantial. First, the Quasar 2 is not on sale in the UK — it is on a pre-registration waiting list. Second, it requires a CCS2-compatible bidirectional car. That list, right now, is short: the Kia EV9 is the headline name, with more manufacturers expected but not confirmed. If you drive a Tesla, a Hyundai, or most other UK EVs, the hardware cannot do V2H or V2G regardless of what charger you bolt to the wall. Third, installation is not a standard job. You need a DNO G99 application — 30 to 60 working days — a specialist installer, and a total install bill of £1,500–£3,000 or more. The all-in cost lands somewhere above £7,600.

The Rolec EVO, meanwhile, installs in a morning. Its built-in Type A RCD, surge protection, and PME fault detection mean the electrician can skip a separate PEN device and dedicated consumer-unit components — saving £150–£250 on most installs. Total cost: somewhere around £750–£950 fitted. It charges at 7.4kW on single-phase, has Eco and Eco+ solar diversion modes with the CT clamp included, and carries a five-year warranty from a manufacturer that has been building commercial EV chargers in Lincolnshire for over a decade.

The Rolec EVO on its own merits

At £356, the EVO competes with the EVEC VEC03 at £349 and the Vorsprung Alpha Max at £265 for the budget-smart end of the market — but it carries more protection in the box than either, and a longer warranty than most chargers at twice its price. The app is still maturing; Rolec is newer to the consumer space than to commercial installations, and OTA updates are ongoing. There is no 4G fallback, so if your Wi-Fi does not reach the driveway, you will need an Ethernet run or a mesh node. And it is untethered only — you supply your own Type 2 cable, which adds £50–£100 but lets you choose the length.

For grant-eligible buyers (renters and flat owners), the £500 OZEV grant covers the £356 unit outright and contributes to the installation cost too. That makes the EVO one of the cheapest smart chargers to get onto a wall, full stop.

If you want a tethered cable or tariff-API integration with Octopus Intelligent Go, the VCHRGD Seven Pro at £430 or the Ohme Home Pro at £539 are the next steps up — both covered in the Ohme Home Pro vs Rolec EVO comparison.

When the Quasar 2 makes sense — and when it does not

The Quasar 2 is not a bad product. It is a product for a market that barely exists in the UK yet. If you own a Kia EV9, have a V2G export tariff lined up, and are comfortable being an early adopter on pre-registration hardware with a three-year warranty, it is the reference bidirectional unit. Nobody else is offering 12.8 kW DC in both directions in a wall-mounted residential form factor.

But if your goal is home energy independence and you do not have a bidirectional-compatible car, a GivEnergy EV Charger at £444 paired with a GivEnergy home battery will get you further for less money — and the charger works today, with any EV. The Zaptec Go 2 publishes V2G-related communication support but is not a live export system; the Indra Smart PRO is a one-way AC charger.

Which to buy

Buy the Rolec EVO if you:

• Want a smart home charger that charges your car, monitors energy, and diverts solar surplus — for £356
• Value built-in electrical protection that saves £150–£250 on installation
• Prefer a five-year warranty from a UK manufacturer over a three-year warranty from a pre-registration product

Buy the Wallbox Quasar 2 if you:

• Own or are buying a CCS2 bidirectional car — today, that means a Kia EV9
• Have a V2G export tariff and a plan to recoup £7,600+ through grid trading
• Accept pre-registration status, DNO lead times, and a shorter warranty as the cost of being first

For the overwhelming majority of UK EV owners, the Rolec EVO is the charger to put on the wall. It does the job, it does it cheaply, and it does it now. The Quasar 2 is a bet on a future that is coming — but has not arrived.