Wallbox Hits 1,000,000 EV Charger Milestone

Spain’s Wallbox Group says it has surpassed past one million EV chargers sold globally as at the end of the second quarter this year.

Founded in 2015 in Barcelona, Wallbox offers charging and energy management solutions for residential, semi-public, and public use in more than 115 countries, including Australia. In October last year, the company acquired Germany’s ABL; an EV charging pioneer in that country. The 1 million+ figure is the number of cumulative Wallbox and ABL units installed worldwide combined.

“Surpassing the milestone of 1 million EV chargers sold is a testament to the strength of the Wallbox Group and our commitment to accelerating the global transition to electric mobility by delivering best-in-class hardware to our customers,” said Enric Asuncion, CEO and co-founder of Wallbox.

Wallbox Turns Heads In Australia

The Wallbox brand received a lot of attention here in Australia after a pioneering bi-directional EV charger installation in South Australia in 2022; providing Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) and Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) capability. The installation used a Wallbox Quasar, which at a cost of around $10,000 plus installation at the time was certainly a pricey bit of kit.

The Quasar is no longer available, superseded by the Quasar 2. The Quasar 2 has customizable settings for solar charging and offers blackout mode, allowing EV owners to use their vehicle as an emergency energy source during a power outage. The Quasar 2, claimed to be the world’s first CCS bidirectional charger, is yet to hit our shores as far as I know – but it should be thousands of dollars cheaper than the original Quasar if/when it is sold here.

There’s also some standards and regulatory related loose ends that need to be tied up generally with regard to bi-directional chargers in Australia. While a relevant standard, AS4777.1, was rewritten and released a couple of months ago, a rewrite of AS4777.2 is expected to be published by the end of the year, and that should finally allow bidirectional devices to be installed across the country.

Other Wallbox Home EV Chargers

Wallbox also has unidirectional (one-way) home EV chargers that have been available here; including the Pulsar Plus and Pulsar Max. The Pulsar Max is probably better suited to many Australian installation scenarios as the Plus has an operating temperature range of -25° to 40° Celsius, whereas the Max’s range is from -25° to 50°C (but even so, it should be installed out of direct sunlight).

However, when attempting to visit Plus and Max product pages on Wallbox’s website yesterday, it redirected me to the Pulsar product family home page. While still showing the pair, the blurbs aren’t linked to further details (datasheets still available here). Maybe there’s been some sort of website snafu or perhaps the company isn’t offering them any more – and there were no other Pulsar products designed specifically for home use listed (the Pro is for shared spaces). But I notice a few Australian vendors still selling the devices and claiming to have them in stock.

Specifications and estimated pricing of couple of Wallbox models can be compared with other manufacturer’s products on SolarQuotes’ EV charger comparison table. That page will also tell you everything you need to know about choosing and installing a home EV charger in Australia.

Currently, we have 18 Australian customer ratings/reviews of Wallbox chargers on SolarQuotes with an overall average star rating of 4.7 at the time of writing. As for SQ founder Finn’s opinion of Wallbox gear, he says:

“Wallbox is one of the original EV charger manufacturers and has a good reputation for quality, support and all the features you need. I’d be happy with a Wallbox EV charger on my wall.”

Original Source: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/wallbox-charger-milestone-mb3036/