EVNex EV Charger Reviews

About EVNex

Evnex is a New Zealand company that designs and manufactures EV chargers in the land of the long white cloud. So the good news is their chargers are specifically designed for Australian and New Zealand conditions, while the bad news is… Well, there is no bad news. Everybody loves New Zealand.

They make both single-phase and three-phase EV chargers. But the three-phase ones are for commercial use, so I’ll only give information on their single-phase residential charger. Here's its name and maximum power output in kilowatts (kW):

• Evnex E2 single-phase EV charger - up to 7.4kW

It’s a smart charger, which means it can charge an EV using only surplus power from rooftop solar.

Power Output

The Evnex E2 can supply up to 7.4kW to an EV, which is the maximum for a single-phase EV charger under normal conditions. There are always some losses when charging an EV, but even including them, 7.4kW is enough to fully charge a 50kWh battery pack from empty to full in around 8 hours. For most EVs it will provide over 40km of range per hour of charging.

Most homes only have single-phase power and so can only install a single-phase EV charger. A three-phase EV charger can provide up to 22kW, but few EVs can accept that much. For this reason, it’s not unusual for single-phase chargers to be installed on properties with three-phase power.

Smart Charging

Evnex’s E2 comes with CT clamps that, when correctly installed, enable it to tell when your home is exporting solar energy. This allows it to only charge an EV with excess solar energy that would otherwise be sent into the grid for a feed-in tariff. Because feed-in tariffs are often low, this is usually the cheapest way to charge a car.

The Evnex E2 is only capable of solar-only smart charging when rooftop solar is sending over 1.5kW of surplus power into the grid. The larger your solar system, the more often this will occur. Requiring this much surplus solar power is normal for single-phase smart EV chargers.

Depending on your electricity plan, charging with solar power can save over 30 cents per kWh compared to using grid electricity. But if your electricity plan has low rates during the day, the savings will be less and plans with low daytime rates are becoming more common. An EV will also have to be parked at home at least some of the time during the day to take advantage of smart charging.

Emissions App

Like many things these days, including some toothbrushes, the charger comes with a mobile phone app. One interesting feature is it can estimate CO2 emissions from charging. You can use this to charge when emissions are low. Alternatively, you can intentionally charge when emissions are high - if you happen to be some kind of villain from a children’s cartoon.

Charging Cable

It has a tethered 5m cable. Tethered means it’s connected to the charger and can’t be unplugged. While 5m isn’t a bad length for many households, if there’s a car parked in front of the charger, the cable won’t reach a second car parked behind it - not unless the first one is some kind of puny baby car.

Temperature Range

The Evnex E2 has an operating temperature range from -25ºC to +55ºC. This makes it suitable for the coldest New Zealand location and the hottest Australian location. (Or at least the hottest so far.) It will “derate” and provide less power at higher temperatures, but this is normal for EV chargers.

A Choice Of Colours

The charger comes in four different colours - white, tan, grey, and dark grey. But Evnex doesn’t call them that. Instead, they use the fancy marketing words Snow, Sand, Stone, and Volcanic. While these may sound cool, they don’t look nearly as good as the names suggest, so they would have been better off sticking with the more straightforward terms I used, as they wouldn't make people fell let down.

Cost

Evnex says the E2 charger starts at $1,295 before installation. With installation, they say it starts at $1,995. Installation adds a considerable amount and part of it is because it can smart charge, which requires extra installation labour to set up.

While Evnex have their own installers, It’s not necessary to use one of theirs. Rather than buying an EV charger and then paying someone to install it, I strongly recommend purchasing the charger from the installer who puts it in. That way, they will be responsible for both the installation and its operation. If it’s done separately and there’s a problem, the manufacturer or installer may deny responsibility and blame the other.

Warranty

The warranty is only for 3 years, which isn’t good for an expensive piece of equipment. But many other EV chargers only have a 2 year warranty, so it’s not so bad compared to the competition. Hopefully, the E2 EV charger will prove reliable enough for Evnex to to give it a longer warranty in the future.

Australian Office

Evnex has an Australian office in Sydney. This makes them responsible for both their warranty and their obligations under Australian consumer law.

Links

You can find the Evnex site here and if you want technical details on the E2 charger its datasheet is here.

Recommendation

The Evnex E2 has a good operating temperature range for Australia and is competitively priced for an EV charger that's able to smart charge. As its three-year warranty is longer than some of the competition, I think it’s worth considering if you’re in the market for a smart charger.