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friend’s vision. “Why is it not possible to make new
things in the market?”
A few months later, in July 2015, Asunción and Casta-
ñeda had officially established Wallbox, and kicked off
their quest to create a better charger.
The early days
The founding friends needed to establish a vision for their
new company. They knew they wanted to create smarter,
more user-friendly charging products, and they codified
that desire into a set of three core company values. The first
value was user experience: Wallbox chargers should be as
easy and friendly to use as a modern smart-
phone, and not merely electrified versions of a
gas pump. The second value was innovation:
Wallbox chargers should incorporate novel
technology, and not just tread on the heels of
pre-existing products. The final value was that
design should not be a luxury: all Wallbox
products should look and feel as premium as
the EVs they’d be designed to charge.
“We strongly believe in these, and all our
products since then have this DNA inside,”
said Castañeda.
Soon Wallbox had developed a prototype
for its first charger, the Commander, which
it launched in March of 2016. By July, the
company had launched its second charger,
the Pulsar. These first two products were
both compact and easy to use, and they started to at-
tract attention. It wasn’t long before a prominent utility
company signed a contract with Wallbox to use its EV
chargers, all without any marketing on Wallbox’s part.
Wallbox had started to find success, but Asunción and
Castañeda were just getting started. Though they were
proud of their company’s product line, the two friends
wanted to make an even bigger splash in the EV market.
“The Pulsar and the Commander already had good
design, and provided good functionality. But we wanted
to push a little bit more,” said Castañeda. “At that point
we were looking for a product that could not only be suc-
Wallbox chargers
should be as easy
and friendly to
use as a modern
smartphone,
and not merely
electrified
versions of a gas
pump.