Universal plug and charge for most EVs is moving ahead for 2025
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Honestly how did they manage to overcomplicate this so much? Just do what gas stations do and put a card reader and call it a day. And if your car gets some sort of discounted charging or credit then make an NFC card for it either physical or in your phones pay wallet. Apps suck
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Am I missing something? Pay at the charging post is available on the 2 biggest charging networks: EA and Tesla. Tesla’s V4 charging posts are capable of supporting CC readers. Granted it’s not universal yet, but they’ve at least built in the capability. I haven’t seen an EA post that doesn’t allow you to pay with the card. My biggest gripe is that if you pay for a monthly subscription to get a discounted rate, you have to use their apps to get the members’ price. I really hope they’re able to add an option to link specific vehicles to your charging accounts to enable plug and charge at the discounted price.
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There is at least one automaker that has enabled this option for Plug and Charge on Electrify America. I am not sure which one. I think Mercedes?
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Tap and Pay/Chip should be skimmer proof. Gas Stations are still vulnerable because many of the pumps haven't been upgraded and still rely on swiping the mag stripe but I haven't seen any chargers that actually support mag stripe. Only Tap and Pay/Chip.
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It looks like someone took a screenshot of the Tesla app and pasted it into the picture.
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That sounds more like V2L than V2G?
Or am I out of date on yet another set of in-flux concepts?
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EA lists who their Plug and Charge partners are, Ford appears to be the only company that is fully covered, all the others have select models/years.
https://www.electrifyamerica.com/plug-and-charge/
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Credit card terminals weren't a thing when gas stations were invented. Neither were credit cards. Instead, there were people who came out and pumped your gas for you while they cleaned your windows.
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My understanding of how V2x is broken out;
V2Load: Power provided to specific appliances
V2Home: Power provided to home circuits
V2Grid: Power provided to the electrical grid.
My understanding is that V2L is AC only, V2H/G could be either AC or DC, depending on the OEM solution. I know the Ford/GM/Stellantis solutions are DC, I believe Tesla Powershare is AC?
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Select models and years with Ford as well. Maybe should be listed as new cars only.
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And what about cash? It's still legal tender as far as I'm aware...
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How do you pay cash at unattended EV chargers in the middle of a Target parking lot for instance? And AFAIK card only policies are totally legal as long as they are policy and not ad hoc (ie a clerk cannot reject your cash but take anothers, but a store can be cashless across the board)
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Gas pumps have not relied on mag-swipe for years. They require you to stick the card in to read the chip, and many pumps now have tap-and-pay on them as well. They have mag-swipe readers in them to be able to support fleet gas cards (as those all all still universally magswipe only) or as a fall-back process in case the chip on the card is unreadable.
If you pay attention, you see that they ask for you to insert the card and leave it in for a few seconds (because it's using the chip to authenticate the transaction). In fact, some readers clamp the card so that you can't remove it. If the reader relied on the card swipe, you would need to insert and remove the card quickly to move the magstrip past the read head, and leaving it in the machine without movement is meaningless. Before chip readers were prevalent, inserting and immediately yanking out the card (or sliding the card non-stop through a reader) was how most credit card terminals worked.
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But then how will the rental car company be able to either claim that the charging station owes them commission or that you need to pay a convenience fee.. or both?!
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As with every such consumer-hostile decision involving technology, it's the rising suck-tide of enshittification, fucking everything up and making it complicated and stupid because shareholders have become so addicted to massive growth that selling vast amounts of shitty user data is the only way to keep your stock price stable.
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Tap and pay is a lot harder to skim than other types. I used to get skimmed at gas stations fairly regularly, but since my local ones switched to tap-to-pay as an option it's improved a lot.
One issue is it's still not fully standardized; e.g. there's one place I go where you can tap Visa and Mastercard, but Discover uses the chip reader only and American Express has to be swiped.
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When I was a kid you pumped your gas and then went in and paid cash. But as society has declined, drive-off thefts became more rampant, and they switched to prepay and finally pay-at-the-pump.
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With Chargepoint, you are correct that you need to use their app. But once you sign up for an account and link your regular credit card, you can just tap it at a Chargepoint terminal and it'll look up your account for you.
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Chargepoint is doing it wrong.
I should never need a cc # in an app that of course will be hacked and all that siphoned right out of Chargepoint eventually.
But of course; the line must go up; so selling data is the way.
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Whether you put it in an app or run it through a reader, Chargepoint will have that CC number one way or another. I don't really see the difference.
However, I think the motivation is that Chargepoint doesn't just bill you after the fact for the amount you used, they require you to pre-fund your account in $20 (I think, might be $10) increments. When it gets low they charge you for another increment. That means you always have a balance and they can make money off the float. It also saves them money on credit card merchant fees since they're making fewer big charges instead of a lot of smaller ones.
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I haven't owned an EV yet, so I had no idea this was a thing... I guess I just assumed that you authorized with a credit card, powered up, and then were charged like using gas.
I'm not sure WHY I thought this since everything requires an app now. I have to have 5 apps for my kids schools alone, I should've known this would be the case to own an EV.
I'm glad that this stuff is getting ironed out prior to me buying one!
I'm not sure WHY I thought this since everything requires an app now. I have to have 5 apps for my kids schools alone, I should've known this would be the case to own an EV.
I'm glad that this stuff is getting ironed out prior to me buying one!
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I’ve got a Mercedes and it works with Plug and Charge at EA…sometimes. About 40% of the time it doesn’t work and I have to use a credit card. There’s some voodoo to it, with most people on boards thinking it only works when you navigate to the charger letting Mercedes pre-authorize the connection.
Were it not for the free charging promotion, I wouldn’t even bother, especially considering Mercedes actually charge a subscription fee for the privilege.
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Yeah, it's not great, especially since last time I tried to use a Chargepoint level 2 charger it disconnected my car because it was "using too much power."
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Plug and charge is great. I love plug and charge!
But. But! Just as an app should never have been required to pay for charging, plug and charge shouldn't be the only way to pay for charging. Chargers should have card readers just like gas pumps. Why they don't I am unsure.
If pressed to guess, I'd guess that it's a cost saving measure, while also attempting to generate network lock-in. And possibly get additional revenue streams by selling data harvested through the app.
But. But! Just as an app should never have been required to pay for charging, plug and charge shouldn't be the only way to pay for charging. Chargers should have card readers just like gas pumps. Why they don't I am unsure.
If pressed to guess, I'd guess that it's a cost saving measure, while also attempting to generate network lock-in. And possibly get additional revenue streams by selling data harvested through the app.
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I think ChargePoint and Blink do more L2 charging than DC fast charging and often install and run the chargers for other people. EG an apartment or business. I've done a couple Blink charging sessions for ~$0.50 a piece using a charger near a restaurant we like (I've got a 19.12 balance according to the app after those two charging sessions). It isn't practical for us as a consumer or them as a business to run that as an individual CC charge. Same with the Chargepoint at the local library. For the more L2 focus charging networks if they are charging reasonable rates they pretty much have to do a balance and top off type scenario. It's not ideal but it's better than paying $2 for the same charging session because of minimums or CC fees. For DC fast charging directly charging a CC is fine because you are delivering a lot more power at a faster rate so you are inherently getting around this issue because your charging session is large enough anyway.
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My concern here is that adding convenience will mean obfuscating the price. There won't be the equivalent of big bright signs listing the price per gallon like current gas stations have so it will be much easier to pay an inflated price for a charge and only find out about it when you see the bill. At least having an app will tell you the $ per kw.
I have a plug-in hybrid so technically I have a choice between charging and filling up and it's difficult to see if the price an EV charger charges is less than the price per gallon (I know if you can afford it you should always use electricity even if it is more expensive for the environment, but price does play a factor).
I have a plug-in hybrid so technically I have a choice between charging and filling up and it's difficult to see if the price an EV charger charges is less than the price per gallon (I know if you can afford it you should always use electricity even if it is more expensive for the environment, but price does play a factor).
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The catchall term is V2X.
V2L can be as simple as an adapter that you plug into the charge port and lets you plug in a mini fridge while you're camping or whatever. Kia/Hyundai actually sell exactly that.
V2G implies something more. Sure, you could feed back to the entire grid and participate in a virtual power plant. Or you could just detect when your grid goes down, disconnect critical loads from the grid, and automatically switch over to pulling juice from your car. Your own little micro-grid, if you will. I want that. I'm not interested in stringing extension cords from my car in the garage to the fridge in the kitchen, my server rack in the basement, and the HVAC. I want automatic failover. If the power goes out in the middle of the night, I don't want to wake up in a puddle of sweat to find that the AC is out.
E: V2H is sometimes used for the subset of V2G that just powers your home. However, I don't want to see just a half-assed solution. Do full V2G in the standard and in all the cars, then let users decide what they want to do. Want to get paid to be a part of a virtual power station during peak hours? Fine. Want to peak shave because you have a ToU plan? Cool. Just want to be able to pull from your car during emergencies? You got it.
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Ideally you should just be charging at home. That's dirt cheap. You hope to only DCFC because you're on a long trip and need to top up while away from home. And while you're on the road, your car should be able to tell you the price before you even get to the charger.
I'll stress again this is for DCFCing. You should never be DCFCing your PHEV. There's like one Mitsubishi* that can even do it, and it makes zero sense to. Every sensible PHEV is AC charging only.
*The i3 with a range extender, if you want to call that a PHEV. Though it's more an EV with an optional gas powered generator hidden under the floor.
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I was assuming that since it's all cloud based, you'd see the price of the nearest stations on your car dashboard -- you look for a charging station, a map to it shows up on your dash along with the current rate. You book a stall, pull in, plug in and charge.
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"Once you have the app, make an account, and give them your credit card you don't need to get the app, make an account, and give them your credit card next time because you already have it" is kinda a stupid argument. I will avoid Chargepoint chargers if possible until they either support standard plug and charge so I do nothing and it just works or they support normal CCs so I can just tap my watch like I do anywhere else.
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I'm with you, but worrying that they'll lose your payment information if you have to use an app and instead thinking they won't lose your payment information if they take it at a terminal is misguided. They're gonna take it and lose it either way. Use a credit card so someone is stealing the bank's money, not yours.
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That's the point of the public key infrastructure setup. There's no unsigned data.
EVGo has a way for you to authenticate using the car's MAC id but that can be spoofed.
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I don't see how a standard that should be supported by all networks would lock you into a network. In a perfect world, plug and charge should just work at any network.
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This is what I wonder!
Its also so much more flexible...if I want to pay for my friend's driving me around I can just swipe my card when they stop at a gas station. Or if I borrow my parents' car I can pay for the fuel I use. If I travel for business, its supposed to go on a business card. If I care about rewards, I can swap around which card I use when/where.
If it has to go thru the car, now you have to try and redo the payment settings (and remember to undo the changes later) every time you want to change it up.
Its confusing why such an obvious thing was not done...when its been proven to be so reliable that often gas stations are still open for gas self-service when the kiosks are closed, then other places like carwashes, rest areas, etc. are entirely self-service unmanned and work flawlessly. But no, we have to make EV chargers really complicated thru entirely different systems for the hell of it.
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Really depends how.
If they get the PAN and all of that sure but they shouldn't be keeping that stuff as it's supposed to be obfuscated pretty much immediately after payment.
I was just comparing to 'card skimmers' as folks upthread pointed out. An app isn't saving anyone from that. It's all skimmed eventually.
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