Enphase IQ EV Charger 2 review

Enphase might not be a brand you’ve heard of before, unless you already have its solar panels. More than 4.9 million of the company’s systems have been deployed in over 160 countries, which means you might be after it’s charger to become a fully integrated ecosystem in your home. You could control the flow from your panels and smart tariff supply to your home battery and car, all from the same app.

It will show you the solar production and consumption and allow you to divert power for EV charging, or run appliances at the most cost-effective times. However, there is currently no option to use the Enphase with intelligent tariffs from energy suppliers such as Octopus.

Even without connecting to a full solar ecosystem, the Enphase IQ EV Charger 2 is an attractive proposition. It is only available as a tethered unit and the Type 2 cable is unusually long as standard – 7.5m, while most rivals only have 6m or 5m as standard. This gives you more options for siting the charger further away from your parking space and means you might have fewer issues parking the car – useful if you struggle to reverse your car onto a main road for example and the charge port is on the front wing. There is no Type 1 cable available though, so early Leaf owners need to look elsewhere.

We also like the 5-year warranty and option to use RFID cards to unlock the chargers – useful if your space is in a public place. But unless you are buying the Enphase as part of a bigger package it looks very expensive, at over £1,000 plus fitting.