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Vendor Autel MaxiCharger AC Wallbox Home 40A Review

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Autel supplied the charger to review. With that said, there are some very good points to this charger and two minor issues.

This review is for the Autel Maxicharger AC Wallbox Home EV Charger 40A. The reason for the 40 amp rating on this unit is because it has a NEMA 14-50 pigtail already attached to the unit so it's literally a "plug and go" assuming you have the proper connector and at least a 50 amp circuit.

Basic stats
Connector Type: SAE J1772
Cable Length: 25'
Adjustable current up to 40 Amps I 9.6kW
Input Cord: NEMA 14-50
Color: Dark Gray
Dimensions: 7.36”W x 13.23”H x 3.35”D
Enclosure rated NEMA 4
Cloud friendly, IOS Friendly and Android friendly
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, CAN and RS485 Connectivity
RFID Card friendly
Can be "shared" between family members or use a payment method/RFID card to share to neighbors, customers, etc.
This unit has a seperate wall mount for the J plug so the charger can be somewhere out of the way and the actual J plug be somewhere more convenient.

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Very well built. One of the best built "home" chargers I have seen. This stems from it being a really nicely built commercial unit that works for the home as well. The openings for the power cords are well sealed and use robust connections. The passthrough for ethernet (more on that later) is just as robust, if you choose to use it. The smooth flat face doesn't have any buttons or openings to wear out or leak. The display uses a pleasant green lighting for the indicators that show the unit is on, the network is connected, if it's charging your car, and if you are connected via bluetooth.

There is a slide mount on the back like many EV home charging units and the mounting plate plus anchoring hardware is supplied. I would highly recommend taking a lesson from our friends in the telecommunications world and use a backer board made from 3/8 to 1/2 plywood. The plywood would span a couple of studs in the wall ( or whatever the wall is ) and be screwed down to those studs. Then you can mount the charger anywhere on the backer board you want/need without concern of pulling it out of drywall or trying to anchor it into stucco or cinder block.


This brings up the next point which is this unit is designed and intended to be an indoors or outdoors unit. With a NEMA 4 rated enclosure, it's not locked to a covered shelter outdoors. I mean full on outside; in the rain, snow, or sun outdoors. The operating parameters for the Maxicharger Home is from -40 degrees F to 131 degrees F. Which means this unit will work in your man cave, or in the barn, or stuck to the side of a house. It would even work in a commercial environment.

This leads into one of the very few faults (there are two):
The charging cord is 25 feet long which is really nice, but the cable is not very flexible. And when it's cold, it is much worse than normal. When I reviewed this unit, it was 45 degrees and I could not get the cord to unwind and relax hardly at all. By contrast, my Tesla mobile charger cord is very flexible despite the cold tems and my Juicebox is mostly flexible in the same weather.

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Issue number two is that the stiff cable increases the odds of dropping the J plug. While the plug feels great with a nice build quality and is rubberized, the locking latch on the top is plastic and might fracture if dropped. So caution is in order when working with this plug. It has a metal pin for a shaft which is something but it's still a plastic lock.

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The unit was brain dead simple to set up using my iPhone and their app. You plug it in. You then download the app and scan a QR code. You set up a few basic parameters like wifi settings and such and you are ready to go. I was charging my Model 3 literally in 5 mins from the time I started. Though the wifi connection was erratic at first, this was corrected with two updates that I manually pushed vs waiting for it to auto update (which is the default). Since the updates, the wifi has been rock steady. A point of contention about this charger is the wifi which is 2.4Ghz only. No 5Ghz support. And a point in their favor is the wifi works with my Eeros system which has proved to be problematic with older wifi systems or poorly designed chip sets.

The app is very easy to use in its simplest configuration but offers a fairly good selection of more sophisticated features such as RFID cards, family sharing, commercial sharing, billing, excellent tracking of power used, exporting of data, and a simple way to set up times to charge. The default view is a map showing what charger you are at and small window with any activity at the moment. You can easily track your usage by the month with a nice breakdown of energy, cost, duration, CO2 saved, how many times you charged and estimated distance covered. It also has a running charge history so you can review voltage, amps, and power delivered. And for geeks like me, you can export this data out as a CSV file for use in your spreadsheet of choice.

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To wrap up, this is a very good charger for the price point and offers a lot of high end features that are not expected at 550.00 USD (currently under 450 USD on Amazon). It is weatherproof, it is easy to set up and use, and takes up only a small amount of wall space. The downside is the poor cable flexibility and the weak locking bar. To be honest, I think the only way to break the lock is to drop it and have it hit right on the lock so it may not be such a big deal, but it is worth noting the use of plastic.

I also tested the charger with an 20 foot J extension cable. The charger was able to deliver full power (7.5Kw) to my M3 or my i3 even with the extension in the charging circuit.

I think in many ways this is a better charger than my Juicebox. If they fixed the cable issue of not being very flexible it would be perfect for me.

Product Name: Autel Home Smart Electric Vehicle (EV) Charger Up to 40Amp
URL: Amazon.com
Reg. Price: $559
Final Price: $447.20
Start Date and Time of Deal: 12/19/2022 12:00 AM PST
Expiration Date and Time of Coupon Code: 12/25/202211:59 PM PST
 
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