myenergi Zappi GLO vs Wallbox Quasar 2: £750 charger or £6,100 bet on the grid

A solar charger versus a science experiment

These two products do not compete. Putting them side by side is less a comparison and more a map of where home EV charging is now versus where it might be heading. The myenergi Zappi GLO costs £750, charges your car from your solar panels, and you can order one this afternoon. The Wallbox Quasar 2 costs £6,100 — before a specialist install that could push the total past £7,600 — and as of April 2026 it is a waiting list, not a product you can buy.

The £5,350 gap between them is not a premium. It is the price of bidirectional DC: the ability to push power *back* out of your car and into your house or the grid. Whether that capability is worth the money depends on questions nobody can answer with certainty yet — which cars will support it, which tariffs will pay for exported power, and how long the regulatory approvals will take.

What the Zappi GLO does well — and where it stops

The Zappi GLO is a mature, well-understood product. Eco+ mode diverts only surplus solar generation to the car, so on a good day the charge is essentially free. The myenergi ecosystem — eddi for hot water diversion, libbi for home battery storage — gives it a wider role in a solar household. At 5.4 kg and IP65, it mounts outdoors without drama. The 6.5-metre tethered cable covers most driveways.

Where it stops is tariff intelligence. The Zappi supports smart-tariff scheduling, but it is manual — you set the windows yourself. It does not chase half-hourly pricing the way an Ohme Home Pro does on Octopus Agile. If your priority is tariff optimisation rather than solar diversion, the Ohme is the sharper tool; our Ohme vs Zappi GLO comparison covers that decision in detail. But for a solar household on a fixed off-peak tariff like Octopus Go, the Zappi GLO paired with a simple schedule is hard to fault.

The Quasar 2's promise — and why it remains a promise

The Quasar 2's pitch is compelling on paper. Your EV battery — 60, 80, 100 kWh — becomes a home battery you already own. Discharge it at peak rates, recharge it overnight at 7p/kWh on Octopus Intelligent Go, and the arbitrage pays for itself. At up to 12.8 kW bidirectional DC via CCS2, the throughput is serious.

The obstacles are equally serious. The compatible car list is short: the Kia EV9 is the headline, with more manufacturers expected but not confirmed. Installation requires DNO G99 approval — a 30-to-60 working-day process — and fewer installers are qualified for bidirectional DC than for a standard AC wallbox. The £500 OZEV grant does not apply. The 3-year warranty matches the Zappi GLO's, which feels thin for a unit that costs eight times as much and sits at the frontier of grid-interactive hardware. And the product itself is pre-registration only. You cannot buy one today.

For those who *can* wait, and who *do* have a compatible car and a V2G export tariff, the economics could eventually work. But "could eventually" is doing a lot of heavy lifting at £6,100 before install.

Alternatives if you want V2G readiness without the bill

If the idea of vehicle-to-grid interests you but the Quasar 2's price and availability do not, there is a middle path. The Zaptec Go 2 at £500 and the NexBlue Point 2 at £530 are both V2G-ready AC chargers — they are built to support bidirectional functionality as the standard matures, without demanding you pay for it today. Neither can discharge your car *now*, but they hold the position for a fraction of the cost.

Alternatively, a Zappi GLO plus a dedicated home battery like myenergi's own libbi gives you solar storage and backup without depending on your car being plugged in at the right moment. It is a less elegant solution than a single bidirectional charger, but it works today, with today's cars, from today's installers.

The verdict

Buy the myenergi Zappi GLO if:

• You have solar panels and want to charge from them — Eco+ mode is the reason this charger exists
• You want a proven product from a UK manufacturer, installable this month, with a mature app and ecosystem
• Your budget for the charger unit is under £1,000

Buy the Wallbox Quasar 2 if:

• You own or are about to take delivery of a CCS2-compatible bidirectional car — today, that means the Kia EV9
• You have a V2G export tariff and have modelled the payback with real numbers, not optimism
• You understand you are an early adopter, with the install complexity and warranty risk that implies

For the overwhelming majority of UK EV owners — even those with solar, even those who are curious about V2G — the Zappi GLO is the charger to put on the wall. It does one thing exceptionally well, at a price that makes sense today. The Quasar 2 may prove to be the future. But futures, by definition, have not arrived yet.