Wallbox Rolls Out The First Ever Residential DC Fast Charger, Adds AI & Voice Control

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Spain-based electric vehicle charging technology company Wallbox took the wraps off of the first ever residential DC fast charger this week at the eMove360 conference in Munich.

The First Ever Residential DC Fast Charger

Wallbox is bringing its compact DC fast charging technology into the home, which allows for seamless DC fast charging from a DC residential energy storage unit or directly from on-site power generation sources like residential wind turbines or a rooftop solar system. That power is funneled through Wallbox’s intelligent internals which balances the incoming DC power with supplemental power from the grid to meet the demand from the vehicle being charged.

The new units are DC fast charging units, meaning that they are equipped with either a CHAdeMO or a CCS Combo adapter, allowing home owners to get in on the fun by buying their very own proprietary charging adapter.

Wallbox has poured itself into this product and has come out with a DC fast charger that is compact enough for a residential setting, while also bringing incremental value to the table. Sales of the new residential DC fast chargers from Wallbox are slated for the middle of 2019.

Integrated Intelligence

The new charger brings with it a suite of new tech that is also being rolled out to Wallbox’s full range of chargers including speech recognition and artificial intelligence. Wallbox has built out into the tech side of things to make the process of charging and managing charging a more seamless, intuitive experience for homeowners.

Adding voice recognition and a built-in intelligence to Wallbox’s chargers allows them to take in commands like ‘I need my car to be fully charged in the morning’ and dynamically manage the various aspects of home energy management to get the job done.

The integrated AI also learns the charging habits of the owner and uses this to anticipate how it can best support the best energy balance within the home and the grid. Details about how it does this are sparse, but we have reached out to Wallbox for more details about how this part of the system works and how it integrates with other home energy management solutions.

In parallel to the new residential DC fast charger, Wallbox is rolling out a number of new features to its other products:

• Pulsar, the extremely compact charger at just 16cm square, is to become wi-fi enabled. It will retain its Bluetooth capability. The move adds significantly to the installation location versatility of Wallbox’s best selling device.
• Commander, embracing touch screen functionality, is to get tougher still. It will be available with Gorilla glass, making it even more suitable for public and semi public spaces.
• The Copper range will see a new derivative, Copper Business, that incorporates a universal Type 2 socket and RFID card access.
• Commercial and public space chargers are to get payment systems.

CleanTechnica has reached out to Wallbox for more information about the pricing, charging speeds and availability of the new chargers and will update this article if and when we hear back.