Pros and cons of EV chargers?

[sharpener]

What chargers have ppl got, and would you buy the same one again?

As you can see I have a Victron EESS but I am not sure I want to pay for a 22kW 3-phase capability I won't use.

Are there other brands which can automatically use only the surplus solar that would otherwise be exported, and have reliable wifi connections?

[CrofterMannie]

Zappi can be configured to use surplus solar.
I'm happy enough with mine.

[Stinsy]

What chargers have ppl got, and would you buy the same one again?

As you can see I have a Victron EESS but I am not sure I want to pay for a 22kW 3-phase capability I won't use.

Are there other brands which can automatically use only the surplus solar that would otherwise be exported, and have reliable wifi connections?

Vanishingly few cars can charge at 22kW on AC. Most modern BEVs are limited to 7kW on single-phase and 11kW on 3-phase. However 7kW is plenty for most people, this represents 25mph so 200 miles of range in 8hrs which is plenty for most people.

There are a few charging points that can use excess solar but the Zappi is considered to be the best in this regard, though the looks of the Zappi offend some people.

[AGT]

I have a no frills 7kW Cubev charger, all manual control with a handy selector switch on the side to reduce the power consumption should i wish to use my limited excess PV.

I’m not really into home automation, so it’s the choice that suits me and with plug and play it’s easy for everyone.
I have a din rail meter next to it to record power consumption, did that at the start but not interested in that either now.

[Joeboy]

Octopus Intelligent is restricted in the car brands available and also chargers. If you were going in that direction its an OHME charger, worth consideration?

[smegal]

We have a hypervolt. It looks good and once they got the firmware correct, it works as you'd expect. But I'd probably go for a Zappi if I was buying another.

Personally, I feel that buying British is important, and the two above fit that criteria.

[Oldgreybeard]

I have a no frills 7kW Cubev charger, all manual control with a handy selector switch on the side to reduce the power consumption should i wish to use my limited excess PV.

I’m not really into home automation, so it’s the choice that suits me and with plug and play it’s easy for everyone.
I have a din rail meter next to it to record power consumption, did that at the start but not interested in that either now.

I have the same model, would highly recommend it. Very simple, small and the switch on the side is a real boon, does all we need in terms of turning the charge rate down when trying to use PV. No need for any automation at all, and anyway I object to giving the government control of when I can charge our car. I found it extremely easy to make a small modification to the Qubev to allow automatic timed charging overnight, too. The connection to the internal controller that allows current variation also allows the unit to be put into standby mode with a low voltage pair of contacts. Made it dead simple to just have a time switch to that, as long as the time switch contacts are isolated from the mains.

[John_S]

I use a Wallbox Pulsar Plus which was on the Octopus list of chargers, which in time, would be eligible for Intelligent Octopus, as was VW cars. As far as I am aware, neither VW IDs nor Wallboxs are yet eligible, not that it bothers me too much as I rarely have to charge outside the 4 hour Octopus Go window.

I don't bother trying to use surplus solar from my 2.1kWp system but I can tune the Wallbox down to 1kW if I wanted to.

[Oldgreybeard]

On the subject of using excess solar for charging, we didn't bother, either. I tried it for a time, but felt it was useless, because of the 1.4kW minimum charge rate that the car will take (it refuses to charge below that and shuts down). However, some time after I fitted the batteries I tried it again and found it now works brilliantly. The batteries act to smooth the peaks and dips a great deal, so charging the car at a couple of kW or so from excess PV works very well indeed. I'd no idea how big an effect the smoothing provided by the home battery would make, it's certainly increased our PV self use a lot this past year.

[sharpener]

Zappi can be configured to use surplus solar.
I'm happy enough with mine.

Thanks all. Looks like this might be the way to go.

I would also need a Harvi as the charger will go on a detached garage 20m away from my router. Does the Harvi need to talk to the Zappi (25m away outdoors) or to the router (10m away indoors), or both?

I am speculating a bit here but if I set my inverter up to also export from the DC MPPT side then will the Harvi measure the total surplus generation correctly? Can't find much information on the web at this level of detail.

TIA