Home Charger Review : Webasto Go

• The Webasto Go is a portable Level 1 and 2 charger.

• It provides up to 32A of current for quick home charging.

This story constitutes a chapter in our comprehensive series, where we critically analyze some of the more popular home charger models currently available for purchase on the Canadian market.

Home charging is big business that is only going to get much bigger. Like any home appliance, home chargers are tools designed to make your life easier. However, unlike most appliances, the majority of us remain unfamiliar with what they can do based on our needs. The Webasto Go portable charger provides EV owners with maximum flexibility.

The flexibility comes from the fact that the Go includes swappable grid plugs. The “regular” plug is the 120V (NEMA 5-15R) that we all know and use every day. Like the portable charger delivered with the electric vehicle, it will plug into any wall socket and slowly but surely recharge the vehicle. The genius behind the Go is that quickly goes from a Level 1 charger to a Level 2.

A quick yank on the plug cable enables the user to swap over to the 240V (NEMA 14-50R) plug and in a split-second, your portable charger is now Level 2 capable. Simply going from Level 1 to Level 2 is, no fooling, life altering. Suddenly, 32A are rushing through the cable, charging at up to 7.7 kW or a whopping 5.5 times faster, cutting refill times massively.

The true advantage, as you can tell, of the Webasto Go is its ability to adapt to wherever you’re going. The 120V plug will enable a charge no matter where the road leads you, at the cottage or even a campground. At home, charging convenience is maximized with the 240V plug.

While the unit is clearly designed for convenience, it’s not perfect. A minor flaw is that it does without a display as found on my cheapish Nanjing Shenqi Electronic Technology unit I bought last year. It does offer a 3-LED status bar, but that’s all. The other blemish is price.

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My charger was inexpensive and has proven to be reliable, at least so far. As well, it is capable of handling up to 40A and charging at up to 9.6 kW, besting the Go, plus it features a small display. As such, at $549 USD (“Pricing in Canadian Dollars is subject to daily banking conversion rates.” – from Webasto) it is extremely expensive. Based on USD-CDN conversion rates at the time of writing, the price for a Webasto Go exceeded $730 CDN. For the money, a number of wall-mounted chargers can be shipped to your door taxes included. Installation is extra, of course. However, and to be fair, a quick look at many other portable Level 2 reveals that Webasto’s pricing isn’t that far off.

Having said all that, the Webasto Go flawlessly and effortlessly recharged every EVs I plugged into, from a Genesis GV70 Electrified and Mercedes-Benz EQB 350, to an Ioiniq 6 and a Nissan Ariya. Via the various EVs’ onboard charging programs, I was able to schedule off-peak charging and not once did the combination Go-EV falter.

If anything, despite the price, purchasing a Webasto charger is a near-guarantee that it will work flawlessly time and time again, and for years to come. Like cars and appliances, reliability is an important factor to consider when shopping.