Survey: Wallbox Recommendation

[naltatis]

"Which EV charger should I buy?" That's a question we get a lot. We don't have an easy answer to this. That's why we want to get structured input for evcc users. What product would you recommend to your friends? We may compile an EV charger buying guide based on these responses in our documentation later.

If you have a charger you can recommend, please let us know why: The Survey 👈

Here is the list of all responses so far.

[musbach]

@naltatis Vielen Dank für das Survey. Das ist eine gute Idee!
Wie kann ich meinen Eintrag nachträglich noch editieren? Gibt es dafür eine Möglichkeit?

[naltatis]

Editieren des eigenen Eintrags geht leider nicht. Trag einfach neu ein und ich lösch den anderen.

[schweiger2]

Vielleicht kann man eine gleichartige Survey auch für Batteriesysteme (getrennt nach AC- und DC-Kopplung) starten ?

Ich könnte mir vorstellen, dass mancher noch auf der Suche nach einem Batteriesystem ist, doch das Nachlesen in den Discussions unterscheidet kaum zwischen technischen Einschränkungen oder Unzulänglichkeiten des Produktes und den Fragestellungen der Anwender, denen einfach nur bei Konfigurationen geholfen wird.

Die Discussions zeigen den "Was ist schlecht"-Blickwinkel, eine Survey ergänzt auch den "Was ist gut"-View.

Wer sich auf evcc festgelegt hat, sucht sicher nach besonders einfach und stabil zu integrierenden Systemen.

[henrikssn]

From the responses, seems like go-e chargers are the ones to go for (pun intended)

[CiNcH83]

For me, the following are the must have features:

• Ethernet
• ISO 15118 Plug & Charge
• open local APIs (no cloud obligation)

go-e Charger Pro has those features, but is a bit expensive. Elli Connect 2 would be a cheaper alternative. However I don't like its use of EEBUS too much.

[kjs-DE]

Have set up several instances of evcc meanwhile and your criteria are important. In some cases a WLAN connection could also be a must have.
We startet with a go-e home which acted up a few months after the warranty period and as the repair (shipping, eventual repair cost, public charging for at least 1 month) would have cost to much I bought an EM2GO ONCB which was on sale (405€ incl. shipping). Had a few strange things (bugs) but the evcc developers programmed around them.
Beside these 3 or 4 technical requirements (plus native support by evcc) I only see the price as an important criteria.

[mikeharris2017]

Pick a wallbox that has only a power plug and no cable connected. It should also have a built in energy meter.

My wallbox is on the right back of the car and has a 5m cable. The Plug is in the left front of the car. I have to drive back into the vegetation to plug the cable in. Changing the cable to a 8m version would require to send the whole wallbox to the manufacturer, to change it.
Just in case you wonder: I can't park the car the other way round.

Also only one network or wifi connection should be required. I need 2 CAT7 cables to the wallbox: one for network, the other to connect the energy meter to measure the charged energy.

[kjs-DE]

Pick a wallbox that has only a power plug and no cable connected. It should also have a built in energy meter.

Wouldn't want a wallbox with fixed cable attached, socket only is important.
The plugs only have a finite number of insertions before they wear out. We have a type 2 cable permanently connected to the wallbox and if the car side plug would wear out we simply get a new cable.
Currently we only need a 2m cable to charge both of our cars in the garage. In case we get a new one which has the port at a different location all we need is a new cable.

[TheMagnetar]

Just to add. The Kathrein AC40 is Plug & Charge ready (ISO15118)

[vankampenp]

It would help me to know what I need to make life easy

• I don't need fancy solar management because evcc does it
• I think I don't need mA regulation because evcc is connected to a P1 meter (is that true?)
• Is it best to use OCPP 1.6J and which have that
• Is the firmware good (not Wallbox Pulsar, because it is flawed)

[kjs-DE]

To make your life easiest a Wallbox which can read out all required data from the car (like an HPC) would be best but unfortunately they are on the pricey side and often not that easy to set up. However, that gets you around the forced purchase of BMW or Tesla as the rest doesn't seem to be able or willing to provide a documented and stable API as required by the EU data act.
If it requires a token for evcc you have to spend the $2/m or $100/lifetime but I strongly recommend to do that to support evcc.
Otherwise to me the price is an important criteria. In many cases (like EM2GO and go-e) evcc found a workaround to make them work despite their bugs.
mA control in my opinion is overrated. In my "evcc rollout" I have both types and in real life I don't see a significant difference in terms of much higher mains consumption or feed in. The control interval of i.e. 30sec has about the same impact.All it provides is a better feeling.....

[vankampenp]

As I need to replace 2 Wallbox Pulsar plus, I have sponsored evcc. Also I don't want chargers where evcc has to find a workaround, I would like chargers that work withouth issues, so I don't have to replace them again.

[kjs-DE]

After an Update for the wallbox there is always the chance that something doesn't work anymore. Can happen with all of them. Fortunately the evcc maintainers are pretty quick in fixing it again. My experience out of 18 installations so far is that as more "intelligent" the boxes are as more issues I had. Luckily some of the issues I had were also more inconveniences or error messages without real impact and nothing which impacted the functionality.
Unless you only drive BMW and Tesla I would be more worried about the frequent issues with changing reverse engineered APIs of the cars and the unwillingness to provide usable APIs according to the EU data act.

[vankampenp]

That is why I think I should have an OCPP installation. I get the car information (SoC, estimated range) directly from the car, so I don't need that from an API.
The dilemma is should I go for a cheap box with limited features, or a more expensive one with flawless OCPP firmware, if such a thing exists.

[kjs-DE]

OCPP doesn't mean that the box gets car information. Only very few and expensive boxes have the car interface included. Originally the interface was only intended for use by HPCs thus the vast majority of wallboxes don't read out the car information.
90% of the boxes I have set up have OCPP but none of them gets more info than "connected" and "ready to charge". There evcc can only rely on an API provided (or reverse engineered) by the car manufacturer.