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Hi, I'm Gary and this is EV Musings, a podcast about renewables, electric vehicles and
things that are interesting to electric vehicle owners.

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On the show today we'll be revisiting a topic very close to my heart, plug and charge.

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In particular we're talking with one of the people who helped put the plug and charge
standard together.

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Our main topic of discussion today is Plug and Charge.

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Now, those of you who follow my social media posts on places like LinkedIn will know that
I'm a big fan of Plug and Charge and that's the ability to pull up at a charger, insert

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the connector into the charge port and just walk away.

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No payment methods, swiping a payment card, clicking on apps or tapping of RFID tokens.

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No selection of cables, no pre-authorizations, nothing.

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The charger recognizes your car, knows how you're going to pay,

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and just starts charging.

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As Shakespeare said in Hamlet, 'T'is a consummation devoutly to be wished.'

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Although he was talking about something much more important than plug and charge.

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So why isn't this a standard everywhere at the moment?

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I mean, version of plug and charge has been used by Tesla pretty much since day one of
their rollout.

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In fact, it's one of the USPs of the Tesla brand.

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But with very few exceptions, nobody else in the UK has enabled plug and charge.

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A recent report from the US highlighted that users over there suffer from three main
issues when it comes to public charging.

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The inability to read the screen, payment processing issues and general charge of
failures.

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Now, if you think about it, the first two problems in that list, the inability to read the
screen and payment processing issues, go away with plug and charge, leaving charges

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failing as the main issue.

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That occurs, it seems, around 4% of sessions, which incidentally,

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is the same that this Tesla Supercharger network apparently suffers from.

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So it would make sense for plug and charge to be a thing, right?

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Wrong.

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Here in the UK, Ionity have implemented it on their network and well, that's pretty much
it in the UK at the moment.

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I know there are a couple of others that are well along the way to doing this, but I'm not
authorized to discuss who they are as a result of NDAs I signed in order to produce this

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episode.

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though consolidation activity in the recent weeks might have an impact, that's all I'm
saying.

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What we do have in the UK is a thing called Autocharge.

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To the uninitiated, Autocharge can look and feel very much like plug and charge.

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You plug your car into a charger and it starts charging.

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No authorizations, no presenting of payment methods, et cetera.

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The key difference, or the key differences, are twofold.

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First, Autocharge is much less secure

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as an option.

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it uses technology that can be relatively easily spoofed, meaning that somebody can plug
their car in using your car's details and you end up paying for it.

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And secondly, it's limited to one CPO at a time.

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Now that might not sound like a problem, but imagine this.

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Fastned do AutoCharge, Osprey charging do AutoCharge, Gridserve do AutoCharge.

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But they're incompatible.

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If you set up AutoCharge on a Fastned device, you can only use it on a Fastned device.

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Same for Osprey and the same for Gridserve.

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It's effectively like using their specific apps without the ability to transfer to other
ChargePoint operators.

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Now with Plug and Charge, once it's set up, you can use it on whichever ChargePoint
operator has enabled Plug and Charge on their devices.

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Set it up once, use it everywhere.

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There are a few wrinkles around that and we'll get to that during our conversation with
today's guest.

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Hi, thanks for having me on the podcast.

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My name is Marc Multin.

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I am currently working at Believ, which is a London based charge point operator.

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My role here is the director of technology strategy and innovation, which means that I
look after all the innovative topics from AI, vehicle to grid, cybersecurity, data

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platform, these kind of things.

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Excellent.

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Now I'll come and talk about Believ and what they're doing with Plug and Charge in a
little while, but just as kind of an opening question, Tesla seems to have got Plug and

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Charge sorted.

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They've had it since day one.

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What's taking everybody else so long?

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Well, it's way easier for Tesla because they have a closed ecosystem, right?

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They have the hardware under control, both the vehicle and the charger.

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They have the software under control.

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So to create this very streamlined user experience, it's much more straightforward,
especially when you are a company that is very good in doing software.

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With Plug and Charge, which is an open standard,

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The challenge here is that you have to make sure that this technology works across a wide
variety of manufacturers, both on the vehicle side and on the charging station

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manufacturer side, plus the cloud-based stakeholders from the chargement operators to the,
what you call the public key infrastructure provider, mobility service providers.

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So you can see there's a lot of actors involved that need to work in concert to make this
work like clockwork.

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Good.

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And there are a couple of companies sort of at a high level that are trying to put all
that together.

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Hubject is one of them.

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And, you know, when I have conversations with people, say that Hubject have kind of got
the solution sorted, but in reality, they're not the only player in the plug and charge

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game.

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I mean, we had a ChargePoint operator on the show last year and he said, there's a number
of options out there and both from a customer experience and from an implementation

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perspective.

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Some need updates to the actual sites themselves.

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Some need updates to the back office or the app.

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So again, they all need a full review.

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And I noticed that Hubject recently announced that they've partnered with some of the
other companies like Gireve and is it Irdeto?

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think the other one to create a unified offering rather than individual competitive
offerings.

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Are you able to talk a little bit about why that's a good idea?

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Why reducing customer choice

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in this case is a good thing.

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So Hubject has been the earliest provider of what I mentioned, a public key
infrastructure, which is basically an ecosystem, let's put it that way, that helps all the

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stakeholders, charge point operators, mobility service providers, car manufacturers, and
so on, to create issue.

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manage, revoke those digital certificates that need to be in place to make this seamless
plug and charge journey work.

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I think they started a journey back in 2017.

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Back then the market wasn't really ready, but they started basically the whole cloud-based
services around that.

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And I think it was 2021 when the first plug and charge enabled vehicle really came to
market with the Porsche Taycan, so it took some time.

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And no one really was interested in providing that service until then on a
production-ready scale.

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So Hubject was naturally just the first mover.

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And over time, there have been kind of like hesitation as to, do we really want to trust
Hubject as the only entity?

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There need to be more.

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There's maybe some kind of potential monopolistic kind of outcomes.

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Not that Hubject would really...

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be unfair in any prices, but the market wasn't just really comfortable with just having
one provider, to put it that way.

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That's why other providers emerged over the years.

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One of them is Irdeto that you already mentioned.

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They are a big company, cybersecurity-wise, in other fields than e-mobility, robotics,
health, and whatnot, transport.

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And Gireve, which is another player on the EV roaming side, based out of France.

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they are also now providing the means to make plug and charge work.

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So now we have basically three players, Gireve, Irdeto and Hubject, whereby I would say,
not knowing the numbers exactly, but I would say,

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more than 90, 95 or even more percent of the cars on the roads have the digital
certificates for Hubject in their cars, which is necessary to do plug and charge.

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Hubject developed its own kind of like protocol to interact with their public
infrastructure system.

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I think they call it the Open Plug and Charge Protocol, or PNC.

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And...

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Irdeto and Gireve were working with Hubject to make their system work with Hubject's system.

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kind of like work on that protocol.

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There's even a CharIn initiative to evolve this protocol into one that is governed by
CharIn.

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So the idea is to have more choice for companies.

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Those who for whatever reason don't want to work with Hubject can go to Irdeto or Gireve.

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Honestly, it's good to have this optionality in the market.

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It also helps Hubject to kind of like get out of this, they are the monopolist in the
market kind of corner.

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And, you know, in the end, the company with the best proposition wins, know, or wins the
majority of the market.

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So

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But did they not hear that they're working together to provide a unified offering or have
I misread that somewhere?

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It is more of an interoperability play.

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So without going into too much detail, but let's say a mobility service provider that opts
to work with your life or a data can provide a digital contract for vehicles that are

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working or for the car manufacturers that are working with hub, for example, this kind of
interoperability is what this is mainly about.

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So they're not locked into one system.

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Yeah, now that makes sense.

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That makes sense.

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So help me understand why some OEMs have implemented plug and charge in some countries and
not the others.

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For example, I understand that in Germany, ARAL/BP pulse have implemented plug and
charge, but nowhere else.

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Applegreen is implemented in the US, but not in the UK, although I understand they're
close to doing so.

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What are the drivers behind why a company would put it in in one location or one country,
but not the other?

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It's a good question.

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I guess it also depends on market maturity.

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Obviously, plug and charge is more evolved in Europe, I would say, than anywhere else.

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UK is further behind.

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The US market is generally behind the European market by a few years, but catching up to
plug and charge, obviously, as well.

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I'm not exactly sure.

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Maybe it's due to some economics.

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Also the amount of players available in a specific market that offer plug and charge.

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For example, if you do offer plug and charge as a charge point operator in a certain
market, you want to make sure that there are enough mobility service providers that also

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offer plug and charge.

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Otherwise, there is little benefit for the EV driver that it's charging at your charges.

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Are you comfortable talking about the believe position on ISO 15118 and the timeline for
implementation?

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Position yes, timeline, I can't be too detailed.

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So we definitely support plug and charge.

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It's not yet active at our charging infrastructure, but we definitely do want to provide
this for our network and any driver customers.

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Our network is primarily focused on AC charging.

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And the idea is that we want to provide everyone access to charging infrastructure that is
reliable and affordable.

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That means mostly in front of the people's houses who don't have an off-street charging
possibility.

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I would say roughly maybe around 90% of our charging infrastructure is AC focused, but we
also do destination and depot charging, not depot, hub charging as well.

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So fast charges, ultra rapid charges.

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Naturally, you find plug-in charge usually with DC charging infrastructure because there's
a specific hardware component and it needs to be

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in DC chargers to be able to digitally communicate with the vehicle, whether it's ISO
15118 or not.

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But that component, it's called a power line communication modem, is a prerequisite for
ISO15118.

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It's not super costly, and the prices went down quite a bit over the years.

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But for AC charging infrastructure, AC chargers are just very simple boxes with bit of
electronics and a smart meter.

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So usually they don't warrant the necessity for this digital communication.

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That's why you rarely find it in AC infrastructure.

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Also car manufacturers have supported plug and charge for DC only in the early years, but
are now offering it more and more for AC as far as I understand.

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That being said, that's basically one of the reasons why it's not yet rolled out too much
in our network because of focus of AC.

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But we do want to implement it.

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have...

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Currently other priorities, Once that is all basically transitioned properly and the
roadmap priorities are clarified, the plug and chart will bring us to market, whether this

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will be this year or early next year, I can't say for sure at the moment.

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And is the intention to put that on all types of hardware that are supported by Believ or
is it going to be just hardware from certain manufacturers?

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We will start probably with hardware from certain manufacturers that bring the necessary
hardware equipment, which means on the one hand side, the power line component, the home

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plug GreenFi modem, and on the other hand side, also the necessary chipset that provide
the required cryptographic operations that are necessary for plug-in charge to work.

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So the question is, A, do we want to retrofit all the chargers?

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B, are they even retrofitable?

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Depends also on the charger manufacturer.

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My guess is that we will start gradually with a certain manufacturer or two, it out, see
how it goes, and then decide on the demand, based on the demand, what we do with the

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existing charging infrastructure.

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When I look at the state of plug and charge specifically in the UK, talk to me a little
bit about the barriers to implementation when it comes to plug and charge.

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Is it the vehicle OEMs?

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Is it the charge point operators?

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Is it the hardware?

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What's basically slowing it down?

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You know, I'm asking myself the same question over and over in recent years, because it's
not rocket science at all, right?

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The software is there.

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are software stacks, be it open source, such as from Pionix with Everest for software on
the charging station side, or EcoG based in Munich that have their own charging stack,

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EcoOS, I think.

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There's Vector, by the way, all of them based in Germany.

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And the two other players, think on the market that provides battle tested software
stacks, at least on the charging infrastructure side and some also on the vehicle side.

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So the software stack doesn't need to be re-implemented.

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We don't need to reinvent the wheel, right?

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You just need to integrate the software stack into hardware.

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So from that perspective, I think it's mainly demand driven.

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It's less a complexity issue from my perspective.

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But then again, it also depends on, you know, what's the current, how much capabilities do
these companies have in-house and what's the priority on their roadmap.

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It's mainly a priority aspect oftentimes.

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Again, we need to charge our manufacturers, we need to car manufacturers, we need to point
operators that have the right charge point management system that supports plug and charge

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with that, meaning the right protocols.

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As in ISO15118, which is supported by OCP 2.0.1 natively.

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There is a hack for 1.6, but it's not necessarily recommended.

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then, yeah, the e-mobility service providers also need to be implementing that.

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There are some players also in the UK market that do all of that.

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And I think there's already plug and charge in rolled out.

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For example, Octopus Electroverse supports plug and charge.

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I think plug surfing also supports plug and charge.

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I'm not 100% sure.

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And then I know Ionity is offering plug and charge internet work in the UK as well.

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I do believe Mer does it as well and MFG.

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But there is a website actually from Hubject where you can look up the current state of...

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live and approved MSPs, Chargepoint operators and so on.

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Yeah.

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And I'm going to put that in as a link on the show notes so that people can follow that.

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actually very, very interesting because as you say, it talks about the companies that can
do it.

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talks about the payment services that could do the eMSPs and, you know, it breaks it down
into all the different components.

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One of the things that it does have on there, if I remember correctly, is which vehicles
currently

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have plug and charge on it, plus support, the plug and charge protocol.

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Now there's, there's a very large number of vehicles out there.

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00:15:42,582 --> 00:15:47,853
lot more than I think people really realize, but there are a couple of anomalies out
there.

204
00:15:47,853 --> 00:15:54,295
For example, other than some of the Polestar range, there are no Chinese companies on the
list.

205
00:15:54,295 --> 00:15:58,276
And even Polestars just doing this on the Polestar 3 and not the 2.

206
00:15:58,276 --> 00:16:03,337
And it's only this week or last week announced that it's making it available on the Polestar
four.

207
00:16:03,337 --> 00:16:04,117
So.

208
00:16:04,179 --> 00:16:05,250
What is the issue here?

209
00:16:05,250 --> 00:16:06,381
How is it being dealt with?

210
00:16:06,381 --> 00:16:16,735
Why is it that China, one of the biggest manufacturers of electric vehicles on the planet,
is hesitant to go and allow plug and charge protocols on their vehicles?

211
00:16:16,735 --> 00:16:17,947
You know, Gary, it's a good question.

212
00:16:17,947 --> 00:16:19,065
I don't really know.

213
00:16:19,065 --> 00:16:23,293
I know that in China, they have different protocols, right?

214
00:16:23,293 --> 00:16:29,713
They have, for example, not ISO15118 necessarily, but they do support GBT or now...

215
00:16:29,713 --> 00:16:30,394
What is it called?

216
00:16:30,394 --> 00:16:38,491
Xiaoj, or Xiaoji, I think is a new standard when it comes to EV to charger communication.

217
00:16:38,491 --> 00:16:42,854
So they don't necessarily follow that ISO15118 standard in China.

218
00:16:42,854 --> 00:16:47,718
Obviously, when they want to export cars to the European market, they need to also offer
those technologies.

219
00:16:47,718 --> 00:16:50,032
Maybe that's the reason why they haven't done it yet so far.

220
00:16:50,032 --> 00:16:55,115
Because it's more about bringing the cars into the market and wowing them with the

221
00:16:55,115 --> 00:17:00,463
in-car experience and maybe less so with the plug and charge but I'm sure it will come.

222
00:17:00,683 --> 00:17:01,104
Yeah.

223
00:17:01,104 --> 00:17:06,998
It's like the old joke, you know, the beauty of standards is there are so many of them all
around the place, you know.

224
00:17:06,998 --> 00:17:08,461
And then there are too many standards.

225
00:17:08,461 --> 00:17:10,427
Let's unify them with yet another standard.

226
00:17:10,427 --> 00:17:12,581
That's another joke.

227
00:17:12,921 --> 00:17:15,603
So how do we handle people like me, for example?

228
00:17:15,603 --> 00:17:17,725
Now I've got an EV that's a couple of years old.

229
00:17:17,725 --> 00:17:25,249
The latest version of my car may potentially be plug and charge compatible, but the
version that I'm on isn't.

230
00:17:25,249 --> 00:17:27,610
Is there a potential retrofit route?

231
00:17:27,610 --> 00:17:29,200
Is it hardware based?

232
00:17:29,200 --> 00:17:30,181
Is it software based?

233
00:17:30,181 --> 00:17:31,851
What do we know about that?

234
00:17:32,707 --> 00:17:33,828
So part of it is hardware.

235
00:17:33,828 --> 00:17:42,974
But if your car is able to do DC charging, assume it is, then the necessary communication
modem, the power line communication modem is already installed.

236
00:17:42,974 --> 00:17:51,318
The question is, is the necessary crypto chip installed to support the cryptographic
operations that are required for plug and charge?

237
00:17:51,318 --> 00:17:57,330
Then often it's also a question of, yes, your car does support plug and charge, but only
with a certain firmware version.

238
00:17:57,766 --> 00:18:05,207
And so it's worth asking your dealership which firmware version you should have and then
get that latest version updated.

239
00:18:05,207 --> 00:18:16,739
And then somewhere in in-car infotainment system or HMI interface, there is then likely an
entry for Plug and Charge where you then can install a new contract certificate.

240
00:18:16,739 --> 00:18:19,033
This is basically the digital token.

241
00:18:19,033 --> 00:18:24,448
that identifies your e-mobility energy contract with your chosen energy provider.

242
00:18:24,448 --> 00:18:25,609
And then you can install it.

243
00:18:25,609 --> 00:18:29,894
Some car manufacturers are better than others in making this easy to navigate.

244
00:18:29,894 --> 00:18:38,160
One good example that I also provided in my article on my newsletter, currentaffairs.io is
BMW.

245
00:18:38,241 --> 00:18:39,583
They do a very good job in that.

246
00:18:39,583 --> 00:18:44,066
But more and more car manufacturers are improving their experience.

247
00:18:44,066 --> 00:18:46,770
let me sort of jump on that and play -

248
00:18:46,770 --> 00:18:50,333
Are you familiar with the phrase, playing Devil's Advocate?

249
00:18:51,534 --> 00:18:56,659
Companies like Hubject and the others that you've talked about, they've been active in
this space for several years.

250
00:18:56,659 --> 00:19:08,609
They've made great strides in many aspects of onboarding the various players and the
technical bits that cover the different parts of the plug and charge ecosystem.

251
00:19:08,658 --> 00:19:18,632
But at end of the day, especially in the UK, we still have a very, very limited number of
charge point operators and vehicles that can use plug and charge.

252
00:19:19,054 --> 00:19:21,256
Is it actually a non-starter?

253
00:19:21,558 --> 00:19:23,276
Should we really be pursuing this?

254
00:19:23,276 --> 00:19:27,903
It is the most secure and the most user convenient way to do EV charging.

255
00:19:27,903 --> 00:19:29,565
I'm 100% sure of that.

256
00:19:29,565 --> 00:19:36,496
Of course you can use RFID cards, you can use apps, which obviously people hate unless the
apps is...

257
00:19:36,496 --> 00:19:44,804
The app is an amazing experience and has great added value, but no one likes to download
5 to 10 apps or carry around the same amount of RVD cards.

258
00:19:44,804 --> 00:19:51,231
So if you've all been there and heard those stories, then of course, there are some
charges that do have credit card terminals.

259
00:19:51,231 --> 00:19:58,888
So you can use a debit and credit card, which you can also ideally use your smartphone and
just tap it with NFC payment.

260
00:19:59,028 --> 00:20:00,339
It's very easy.

261
00:20:00,797 --> 00:20:10,134
It's not necessarily the cheapest way to charge because the point of plug and charge is
that you are connecting the charge point operator with the mobility service provider in a

262
00:20:10,134 --> 00:20:18,869
kind of like a roaming agreement and you allow the EV driver to charge based on a contract
that they have decided to opt into.

263
00:20:18,869 --> 00:20:25,466
So let's say for use in the UK, an Octopus Electroverse is a very common example.

264
00:20:25,466 --> 00:20:28,766
and as a mobility service provider that offers plug and charge.

265
00:20:28,826 --> 00:20:30,706
They offer fairly good prices.

266
00:20:30,706 --> 00:20:43,466
So you want to make sure that when you charge, you are leveraging that tariff that you
feel comfortable with instead of charging with debit or credit card, which is often the

267
00:20:43,466 --> 00:20:48,426
highest cost of, I don't know, 50, 60, 70 or more pence per kilowatt hour.

268
00:20:48,426 --> 00:20:50,006
And that's quite expensive.

269
00:20:50,346 --> 00:20:52,246
So there's the cost.

270
00:20:52,732 --> 00:21:02,598
aspect, then there's the reliability aspect, whereby plug and charge is more reliable than
payment terminal payments or RFID authorizations.

271
00:21:02,598 --> 00:21:04,259
And it's just as easy as plugging in.

272
00:21:04,259 --> 00:21:05,561
mean, that's how it should be.

273
00:21:05,561 --> 00:21:08,083
We talked about the Tesla experience at the very beginning.

274
00:21:08,083 --> 00:21:13,626
That's what we are trying to replicate, but across all charger manufacturers and across
all car manufacturers.

275
00:21:13,626 --> 00:21:15,427
It's just harder.

276
00:21:15,503 --> 00:21:23,166
again, if you don't have it under control, because it's different software, different
hardware, different entities that work on different timelines and have different

277
00:21:23,166 --> 00:21:25,180
priorities, that doesn't make it easier.

278
00:21:25,180 --> 00:21:32,312
And you've sort of coincidentally sort of moved on to the next part of the topic I want to
talk about, which is the actual pricing model.

279
00:21:32,312 --> 00:21:41,556
Because as you've already said, if you use plug and charge through the Octopus
Electroverse, you get a certain pricing on the charge that you use.

280
00:21:41,556 --> 00:21:47,420
And I know because I'm an Electroverse home charger, I also get an 8% discount and that's
fantastic.

281
00:21:47,420 --> 00:21:49,761
But if I go to Ionity,

282
00:21:50,217 --> 00:22:00,591
Ionity do some specific subscriptions which allow me to radically undercut the price that
I will be paying if I was paying via the Electroverse.

283
00:22:00,591 --> 00:22:11,635
So if I'm using Plug and Charge via the Electroverse EMSP and I go to Ionity, how can I
get the subscription price?

284
00:22:11,635 --> 00:22:15,496
Can things like that be incorporated into the Plug and Charge ecosystem?

285
00:22:15,496 --> 00:22:16,737
How would that actually work?

286
00:22:16,737 --> 00:22:17,067
Good question.

287
00:22:17,067 --> 00:22:20,242
So Ionity is first informed as a charge point operator.

288
00:22:20,242 --> 00:22:22,826
They haven't tried to see if they are.

289
00:22:22,826 --> 00:22:25,749
Are they acting as a mobility service provider as well?

290
00:22:26,211 --> 00:22:26,981
Do you know that?

291
00:22:26,981 --> 00:22:32,527
I don't know, but as I say, they do have their own subscription service, which allows
discounted.

292
00:22:32,527 --> 00:22:42,587
So presumably as a, as a plug and charge user, I would like to have the option of taking
advantage of that subscription whilst plug and charging.

293
00:22:42,797 --> 00:22:48,453
So the question is, do they offer a digital contract certificate?

294
00:22:48,453 --> 00:22:52,816
Because that's what you need to install into your vehicle to unlock plug and charge.

295
00:22:53,577 --> 00:23:02,338
If so, then you can activate that through your vehicle, either the app that comes with
your vehicle or that app that is provided by.

296
00:23:02,338 --> 00:23:06,974
the charge point operator, or sorry, through the in-car HMI interface.

297
00:23:06,974 --> 00:23:07,895
And that's the only way.

298
00:23:07,895 --> 00:23:14,538
Otherwise you need to make sure that you authenticate when you plug in using RFID card or
an app.

299
00:23:14,639 --> 00:23:23,354
That is then up to Ionity or a charge point operator in general to make sure that you can
authenticate, you have the choice when you plug in and your card does support plug and

300
00:23:23,354 --> 00:23:27,040
charge, that it gives you the option to say, yes, I want to use the

301
00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:35,669
pre-configured plug and charge contract that's installed and activated in my vehicle or
alternatively I want to use a specific RFID card which runs on a different contract or the

302
00:23:35,669 --> 00:23:35,981
app.

303
00:23:35,981 --> 00:23:45,388
So that is definitely the only way to do it and is also currently being discussed in the
industry what's the best practice because

304
00:23:45,577 --> 00:23:49,940
There have been cases in the past where, worst case, the customer gets double charged, you
know, they plug in.

305
00:23:49,940 --> 00:23:58,102
The plug and charge contract is basically activated and they also authenticate using the
RFID card from a different mobility service provider and all of a sudden they get charged

306
00:23:58,102 --> 00:23:58,483
twice.

307
00:23:58,483 --> 00:23:59,663
That's the worst case.

308
00:23:59,663 --> 00:24:01,579
Shouldn't be the usual experience.

309
00:24:01,579 --> 00:24:09,972
That's if the chargepoint operator doesn't implement things correctly and the charging
station manufacturer doesn't do the software handling the right way.

310
00:24:09,972 --> 00:24:22,492
But the user experience is really important when it comes to plug and charge, which you
need to make sure that if your charger has a screen, that you prompt the user.

311
00:24:22,672 --> 00:24:28,897
For example, you plug in, the charging station realizes the car can do a high level
digital communication.

312
00:24:28,897 --> 00:24:30,215
can do plug and charge.

313
00:24:30,215 --> 00:24:34,157
It should maybe prompt the user, okay, your car supports plug and charge.

314
00:24:34,157 --> 00:24:35,239
Do you want to use it?

315
00:24:35,239 --> 00:24:37,861
Maybe give the user half a minute to decide.

316
00:24:37,861 --> 00:24:41,422
If the user didn't say anything, you go forward with plug and charge.

317
00:24:41,422 --> 00:24:46,865
If the user says no, actually want to use a different contract, please authenticate with
your RFID card.

318
00:24:46,865 --> 00:24:51,298
That could be one option to make it very clear and give the user the choice that they want
to have.

319
00:24:51,298 --> 00:24:52,879
And how would that work?

320
00:24:53,198 --> 00:24:55,351
Let me see if I can give a situation.

321
00:24:55,351 --> 00:25:00,066
So there are two main chargers in the town near where I live.

322
00:25:00,066 --> 00:25:03,808
So let's assume that I have plug and charge enabled on my vehicle.

323
00:25:04,309 --> 00:25:10,035
Unfortunately, I can't because it's Polestar 2, which doesn't have that enabled, but let's
assume I'm in something - a BMW - that could.

324
00:25:10,035 --> 00:25:15,639
If I go to Osprey, I would like it to be able to use the Electroverse.

325
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:28,452
as the eMSP so that when I plug in it recognizes that I'm Octopus Electroverse and it will
start charging at the rate that's negotiated between Octopus and Osprey.

326
00:25:28,452 --> 00:25:39,793
But if I then go down half a mile down the road to the Ionity, assuming I've got a
subscription which gives me the lower rates and assuming that that's put into the system

327
00:25:39,793 --> 00:25:40,754
somehow,

328
00:25:40,754 --> 00:25:48,898
when I plug in, will it recognize that this is Ionity and I've got a cheaper rate to use for
that?

329
00:25:48,898 --> 00:26:01,045
Or will I physically have to go and change something within the vehicle to say when I plug
in at Ionity, I want it to use this plug and charge tariff rather than the Electroverse

330
00:26:01,045 --> 00:26:02,544
plug and charge tariff.

331
00:26:02,544 --> 00:26:03,776
Does that make sense?

332
00:26:04,016 --> 00:26:05,438
Yeah, it makes sense.

333
00:26:05,438 --> 00:26:10,265
first of all, either your car, there's three situations, either your car does support plug
and charge or it does not.

334
00:26:10,265 --> 00:26:17,228
If it supports plug and charge, the question is, does it support multiple contracts to be
installed at the same time?

335
00:26:17,228 --> 00:26:20,411
Does it allow you to choose between different mobility service providers?

336
00:26:20,411 --> 00:26:22,572
And if so, how do you configure that?

337
00:26:22,572 --> 00:26:29,295
Is it through the app that a car manufacturer provides you with or is it through the
in-car

338
00:26:29,348 --> 00:26:31,110
HMI, human machine interface.

339
00:26:31,110 --> 00:26:33,853
So usually you just have one default contract.

340
00:26:33,853 --> 00:26:47,806
I'm not sure how they allow you to change that in ways of before you plug in, you go into
plug and charge setting and you say, now choose this certificate or this MSP instead of

341
00:26:47,806 --> 00:26:48,407
that one.

342
00:26:48,407 --> 00:26:51,197
That should be always be the case if several

343
00:26:51,197 --> 00:26:53,179
mobility service providers are supported.

344
00:26:53,179 --> 00:27:07,581
Maybe some car manufacturers even allow more advanced mechanisms such as geofencing where
you say within this location or this address by default use for example my fleet mobility

345
00:27:07,581 --> 00:27:14,955
service provider contract but in any other location use my private one which is the second
one that I have installed.

346
00:27:15,315 --> 00:27:18,659
So these kind of mechanisms should be provided.

347
00:27:18,659 --> 00:27:21,252
by the car and then you can choose yourself.

348
00:27:21,252 --> 00:27:27,219
And the way it works, how does a charging station know what plug-in charge certificate you
have or MSP provider you want to use?

349
00:27:27,219 --> 00:27:37,681
The moment you plug in the car in the charging station, they establish a digital
communication link and the charging station will then basically provide, it's on a very

350
00:27:37,681 --> 00:27:41,837
high level, the vehicle with the option to do

351
00:27:42,110 --> 00:27:47,262
plug and charge or to authenticate through what is called external identification means.

352
00:27:47,262 --> 00:27:50,716
This can be anything from RFD card, app, credit card, whatever.

353
00:27:50,716 --> 00:27:54,819
And then the car can see, okay, so the charging station supports plug and charge.

354
00:27:54,819 --> 00:28:00,200
My user, my driver has a plug and charge contract installed and activated.

355
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:01,772
So they want to use it by default.

356
00:28:01,772 --> 00:28:03,786
Then I'm going to send that

357
00:28:03,786 --> 00:28:07,971
digital contract certificate to the charging station over the charging cable.

358
00:28:07,971 --> 00:28:12,884
The charging station will do a few verification checks, you know, is the contract
certificate still valid?

359
00:28:12,884 --> 00:28:13,856
Has it expired?

360
00:28:13,856 --> 00:28:25,707
And then send it up to the backend to the ChargePoint operators, ChargePoint management
system, which can do some further checks such as index contract certificate, the unique

361
00:28:25,747 --> 00:28:31,611
there is an identifier called the e-mobility account identifier, eMAID.

362
00:28:31,932 --> 00:28:41,299
That encodes the mobility service provider and the country in which the mobility service
provider is active and your specific e-mobility contract.

363
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:49,069
So knowing that identifier using the roaming protocol, this can be OCPI or Hubjects or
ICP.

364
00:28:49,069 --> 00:28:52,762
you know, this industry isn't very creative when it comes to naming protocols.

365
00:28:52,762 --> 00:28:53,813
They all have an O in.

366
00:28:53,813 --> 00:29:05,666
C and a P in. Then the charge point operator can connect to the mobility service provider,
ask them is this a valid contract or is there a valid contract associated with that

367
00:29:05,666 --> 00:29:06,986
contract certificate.

368
00:29:06,986 --> 00:29:18,946
If the MSP says yes, I associate it with Gary Comerford and Gary is still paying, then
it's acknowledged and then the charge point operator can tell the charging station, okay,

369
00:29:18,946 --> 00:29:21,146
you're good to go, please.

370
00:29:21,478 --> 00:29:23,603
and provide energy to the vehicle.

371
00:29:23,603 --> 00:29:25,219
So that's basically how it works.

372
00:29:25,219 --> 00:29:32,139
Now, since I last spoke about plug and charge on the podcast a couple of seasons back,
there've been one or two movements in the field.

373
00:29:32,139 --> 00:29:37,059
And what I want to talk about specifically is auto charge.

374
00:29:37,059 --> 00:29:39,339
Now, Fastned have had auto charge for a while.

375
00:29:39,339 --> 00:29:42,759
In the UK, Osprey charging are trialing this.

376
00:29:42,759 --> 00:29:45,679
Gridserve have also rolled it out via their app.

377
00:29:45,799 --> 00:29:52,480
And each, in each case, because it's Autocharge, that solution is linked uniquely to a
single CPO

378
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:56,181
So Fastned auto charge can't be used on Gridserve and vice versa.

379
00:29:56,181 --> 00:30:01,203
It's also restricted to a subset of cars and a subset of hardware.

380
00:30:01,203 --> 00:30:09,955
Now I've spoken to some of the CPOs in question and I know that at least one of them
should be listening to this because he is a regular listener and they've all cited lack of

381
00:30:09,955 --> 00:30:17,067
uniformity problems with different hardware not being plug and charge compatible and cars
not having plug and charge compatibility.

382
00:30:17,067 --> 00:30:20,888
Now, from my point of view, all of these problems also apply

383
00:30:21,545 --> 00:30:28,850
to Autocharge and yet three major charge point operators seem to think this is a better
solution than plug and charge.

384
00:30:28,850 --> 00:30:30,912
What are your thoughts on that situation?

385
00:30:30,912 --> 00:30:31,563
Please.

386
00:30:31,563 --> 00:30:36,529
I think public charging is not the best use case for Autocharge.

387
00:30:36,529 --> 00:30:45,733
The reason being is on the one hand side, charge works is the car has a unique identifier,
so called MAC address.

388
00:30:46,099 --> 00:30:51,483
And that MAC address is used to then register with the chargement operator, usually
through an app.

389
00:30:51,483 --> 00:30:52,214
You plug in.

390
00:30:52,214 --> 00:30:54,975
The app says, OK, you want to register for auto charge.

391
00:30:54,975 --> 00:30:55,565
You say so.

392
00:30:55,565 --> 00:31:00,927
And then the charging station records that specific MAC address and sends it back to the
CPO.

393
00:31:00,927 --> 00:31:02,839
And this way, it links it to your car.

394
00:31:02,839 --> 00:31:04,760
Now, there are some manufacturers.

395
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,812
One famous one is Volkswagen, and there are others as well.

396
00:31:07,812 --> 00:31:13,248
that do not use the same MAC address for each vehicle, I think for kind of like privacy
reasons.

397
00:31:13,248 --> 00:31:18,793
with every new session, every new time you plug in your vehicle, there's gonna be a
different MAC address.

398
00:31:18,793 --> 00:31:24,001
So you cannot use AutoCharge for Volkswagen vehicles unless they will change that in the
future.

399
00:31:24,001 --> 00:31:27,066
There are other vehicle makes that have the same issue.

400
00:31:27,066 --> 00:31:29,637
On the other hand, it is not as...

401
00:31:29,637 --> 00:31:32,079
cyber secure as plug-and-charge is.

402
00:31:32,079 --> 00:31:40,127
Obviously there are now digital certificates involved, there is no digitally encrypted
communication using TLS, transport layer security.

403
00:31:40,127 --> 00:31:50,444
So in theory, someone could have a listening device attached to the charging station, to
the charging cables, maybe in some way you wouldn't see and recognize, and read UMAC

404
00:31:50,444 --> 00:31:51,384
address.

405
00:31:52,174 --> 00:32:01,972
and then basically replay that information or use that MAC address for their own vehicle
and basically then end up charging on your bill.

406
00:32:01,972 --> 00:32:06,054
So it opens the risk to fraud, financial fraud.

407
00:32:06,335 --> 00:32:11,658
Now, it hasn't been regarded as a high risk because it's a bit more effort to do so.

408
00:32:11,658 --> 00:32:13,823
It's called MAC address spoofing.

409
00:32:13,823 --> 00:32:16,315
and no one has really exploited it at scale.

410
00:32:16,315 --> 00:32:18,278
Doesn't mean it couldn't happen in the future.

411
00:32:18,278 --> 00:32:20,719
So that's one reason why I would say it's not the best idea.

412
00:32:20,719 --> 00:32:33,781
I do understand that if a charge point operator wants to provide this kind of like plug
and charge like feeling to their EV drivers, that they find it interesting to use auto

413
00:32:33,781 --> 00:32:34,689
charge on the network.

414
00:32:34,689 --> 00:32:38,725
But at least also make sure you call it auto charge and not plug and charge.

415
00:32:38,725 --> 00:32:39,596
misguide the user.

416
00:32:39,596 --> 00:32:43,299
um I do think that AutoCharge has a place.

417
00:32:43,299 --> 00:32:49,646
It's not public charging, my opinion, but it's in fleet charging, where you do have, you
do know your vehicles.

418
00:32:49,646 --> 00:32:52,088
They probably do have a unique MAC address.

419
00:32:52,088 --> 00:32:58,333
You don't need to implement this whole cybersecurity aspect in a private depot that you
access control.

420
00:32:58,333 --> 00:33:00,956
So I do get that that AutoCharge makes more sense there.

421
00:33:00,956 --> 00:33:02,877
I do see AutoCharge as a

422
00:33:02,968 --> 00:33:05,400
intermediary, transitionary technology.

423
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:14,527
I'm very sure every charge translation network will adopt Plug-in Charge for several
reasons, be it because the users will ask for it, be it because of regulation and

424
00:33:14,527 --> 00:33:15,609
compliance reasons.

425
00:33:15,609 --> 00:33:23,934
There's also the European Cybersecurity Resilience Act that will have a play at it, and
the UK will probably follow similar guidelines in the future.

426
00:33:23,934 --> 00:33:27,222
So there's a natural pull to adopt this technology.

427
00:33:27,222 --> 00:33:28,179
that makes a lot of sense.

428
00:33:28,179 --> 00:33:36,386
the key driver for me, I mean, there's a security issue, I think where the charge point
operators are coming from is...

429
00:33:36,386 --> 00:33:39,276
It's easy to set up AutoCharge.

430
00:33:39,297 --> 00:33:43,317
If you've got our app, we can make that happen, providing you've got a compatible car.

431
00:33:43,317 --> 00:33:49,019
Whereas from a plug and charge point of view, as you've already said, there are a number
of different things that need to be in place.

432
00:33:49,019 --> 00:33:59,862
So if a charge point operator is looking at this, they're obviously going to say,
AutoCharge, it potentially locks customers into our network because we set AutoCharge up

433
00:33:59,862 --> 00:34:01,822
for our network, not for everybody.

434
00:34:01,822 --> 00:34:05,463
Whereas plug and charge is for every compatible network.

435
00:34:05,463 --> 00:34:07,176
So I can understand why they're doing that.

436
00:34:07,176 --> 00:34:10,764
But yeah, I take the fleet charging example.

437
00:34:10,764 --> 00:34:13,319
think that's an excellent example there.

438
00:34:13,319 --> 00:34:22,576
And the other thing is when you register your vehicle for Autocharge with one or several
charging operators, and then you end up selling that vehicle to someone else, secondhand

439
00:34:22,576 --> 00:34:29,893
market, and then that other person, if you forget to deregister vehicle, can start
charging when you will, you know.

440
00:34:29,893 --> 00:34:30,769
Yeah.

441
00:34:30,855 --> 00:34:31,437
Excellent.

442
00:34:31,437 --> 00:34:34,825
And I want to pick up on a couple of things that came up from the panel.

443
00:34:35,500 --> 00:34:39,372
discussion that you were on, which I'll link to in the show notes.

444
00:34:39,372 --> 00:34:46,409
Now, pretty early on in the discussion, there's a mention about the time taken for Plug
and Charge to authenticate and start charging.

445
00:34:46,409 --> 00:34:48,872
Now, as we've already said, Tesla have had this for a while.

446
00:34:48,872 --> 00:34:56,979
It's literally, you you plug in and within eight seconds on the Tesla, you are charging
and it's a lot longer for, or it was a lot longer for Plug and Charge.

447
00:34:56,979 --> 00:35:03,075
Is this still the case or is that protocol, that handshake being reduced to a more
reasonable time now?

448
00:35:03,075 --> 00:35:06,331
There's no real reason why it should take longer for plug and charge.

449
00:35:06,331 --> 00:35:11,642
I mean, yes, longer than maybe tapping an RID card because there are some cybersecurity
some...

450
00:35:11,642 --> 00:35:13,504
Cryptographic operations at play.

451
00:35:13,504 --> 00:35:15,705
The question is how fast is the charging station?

452
00:35:15,705 --> 00:35:18,156
What kind of processor and memory does it have?

453
00:35:18,156 --> 00:35:21,479
How fast can it do these operations offline on the charging station?

454
00:35:21,479 --> 00:35:24,782
What's the backend connection also to the chargement operator?

455
00:35:24,782 --> 00:35:32,635
When you do plug and charge, you definitely need to make sure that you have a very good
connectivity and maybe also fallback.

456
00:35:32,635 --> 00:35:40,219
if this cellular connection tends to be a bit scrappy, make sure you have maybe an
Ethernet connection as a default or backup.

457
00:35:40,219 --> 00:35:49,558
or Wi-Fi or something like that because that can definitely impact the speed of
authentication because you need to transmit digital certificates or information about

458
00:35:49,558 --> 00:35:52,031
digital certificates that are just bigger in size.

459
00:35:52,031 --> 00:35:56,832
The data that needs to be transmitted is several kilobytes and that just takes more time.

460
00:35:56,832 --> 00:35:58,952
over the cellular connection.

461
00:35:59,032 --> 00:36:09,452
Then there's the authentication that's happening between the chargement operator's backend
and the mobility service provider and hubjects and intermediary platform.

462
00:36:10,112 --> 00:36:23,152
Usually those cloud operations are very fast, but I can talk to hubjects or any other MSPs
implementation of how fast they really react, but that should not be the bottleneck

463
00:36:23,152 --> 00:36:23,963
really.

464
00:36:23,963 --> 00:36:32,246
There is a, I think it's a 300 plus page document that details the full ISO15118
specification.

465
00:36:32,246 --> 00:36:41,030
And I think one of the comments that was made on the discussion that you led there was
that many OEMs don't implement the full specification.

466
00:36:41,290 --> 00:36:43,162
Do we think those two things are related?

467
00:36:43,162 --> 00:36:46,308
Is it the fact that it's 300 plus pages causing an issue?

468
00:36:46,308 --> 00:36:56,576
So 360 something pages, the ISO 15118-2 standard, which is the one that is now being
mandated by the AFIER regulation and since beginning of this year.

469
00:36:56,576 --> 00:37:01,479
There are, I think, around 800 or so technical requirements.

470
00:37:01,479 --> 00:37:04,831
So it's important that you implement those technical requirements correctly.

471
00:37:04,831 --> 00:37:06,662
It's important that you test those.

472
00:37:06,662 --> 00:37:09,783
and they are conforming to the test systems.

473
00:37:09,976 --> 00:37:18,470
that go through the hassle of implementing all those thousands of test cases and you
better make sure that as a car manufacturer and charging station manufacturer you better

474
00:37:18,470 --> 00:37:21,202
have your hardware tested before you release it to the market.

475
00:37:21,202 --> 00:37:32,613
And then there's compatibility and there's conformance with the standard and then there's
the edge cases that come into play.

476
00:37:32,841 --> 00:37:34,152
Because no standard is perfect.

477
00:37:34,152 --> 00:37:37,806
There's always some room for interpretation and room for ambiguity.

478
00:37:37,806 --> 00:37:48,190
That's why we have since many, many years, I think now since six to seven years, the
interoperability testing events, these testables that CharIn is organizing since I think

479
00:37:48,190 --> 00:37:48,216
2019.

480
00:37:48,216 --> 00:37:52,986
They But the idea here is that you bring together the charter manufacturers and

481
00:37:53,377 --> 00:37:57,651
car manufacturers to some kind of round-robin testing over two days.

482
00:37:57,651 --> 00:38:05,068
You have like two hour test sessions to make sure that when you plug in a car into various
charging stations that it works and you identify the edge cases.

483
00:38:05,068 --> 00:38:14,557
You identify, wait a minute, yeah, this requirement says this, but it can be interpreted
in a certain way like the charging station manufacturer did and we haven't considered that

484
00:38:14,557 --> 00:38:18,902
edge case and that's implemented to be more resilient, so to say.

485
00:38:19,510 --> 00:38:30,913
Also, Habject has a test lab in Berlin and there is no official plug and charge
certification available yet by an official test lab like DECRA or others.

486
00:38:30,913 --> 00:38:34,275
Unfortunately, they're working on it and hopefully this year we have something.

487
00:38:34,275 --> 00:38:42,881
But until then, I would highly recommend to go to one of those established test labs such
as Habject to do some kind of accreditation because they have seen it all.

488
00:38:42,881 --> 00:38:44,982
They know what kind of issues arise.

489
00:38:45,050 --> 00:38:48,050
Make sure you have it tested before you release it to market.

490
00:38:48,050 --> 00:38:50,630
That should cover a lot of issues.

491
00:38:50,890 --> 00:39:01,361
And yes, to your question, you know, when I started working in the standards, that was
2010 or 16 years ago, I was like, wow, amazing standardization.

492
00:39:01,361 --> 00:39:06,621
So the brightest minds come together to define the best possible technology.

493
00:39:06,621 --> 00:39:08,441
It's not necessarily like that.

494
00:39:08,441 --> 00:39:12,685
There's a lot of politics involved between the different companies that try to

495
00:39:13,083 --> 00:39:20,958
sort of like ingest their own technology, own ideas, you end up doing compromises which kind of
like waters down the quality of a standard.

496
00:39:20,958 --> 00:39:23,811
But it's with any standard, usually on this planet.

497
00:39:24,847 --> 00:39:36,332
How do we solve the situation, which I believe also happens with Autocharge, where a
charge point operator might have some charges capable of performing this and others that

498
00:39:36,332 --> 00:39:36,782
can't?

499
00:39:36,782 --> 00:39:45,516
I mean, how is a customer supposed to know, for example, if they're at a charge point
operator with Circontrol units that aren't plug-and-charge available?

500
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:53,790
but they may be also at the same charge point operate with Kempower chargers that are
plug and charge compatible.

501
00:39:54,332 --> 00:39:59,017
Is that purely an education issue or is there something deeper than that?

502
00:39:59,361 --> 00:40:04,495
Well, the EV driver shouldn't need to know which charger make and model supports plug and
charge.

503
00:40:04,495 --> 00:40:04,955
They can't.

504
00:40:04,955 --> 00:40:07,566
It's just too much hassle and overhead.

505
00:40:07,807 --> 00:40:09,838
That's where the roaming protocol comes into play.

506
00:40:09,838 --> 00:40:13,950
The charge point operators, they know which chargers support plug and charge.

507
00:40:14,210 --> 00:40:24,979
So they can communicate that through a roaming protocol such as the open charge point
interface to the mobility service providers who then provide the apps to the EV drivers.

508
00:40:24,979 --> 00:40:26,444
And also, of course, some

509
00:40:26,444 --> 00:40:29,015
Charging operators have their own apps for their charging network.

510
00:40:29,015 --> 00:40:39,931
So it's important that within those charging maps, be it in your, in whatever app you use
or maybe online portal you use, this information is portrayed and communicated.

511
00:40:39,931 --> 00:40:42,512
That's how you will know as an EV driver.

512
00:40:42,672 --> 00:40:50,956
And yes, there's also a plug and charge logo that has been designed by CharIn several
years ago, like five years ago or so.

513
00:40:51,236 --> 00:40:53,108
But I'm not sure if that is.

514
00:40:53,108 --> 00:40:55,591
applied to every charger out there, I wouldn't count on it.

515
00:40:55,591 --> 00:40:58,250
So using the roaming protocol is the better bet.

516
00:40:58,592 --> 00:41:00,193
Yeah, that makes sense.

517
00:41:00,193 --> 00:41:04,655
Now there was an interesting discussion on the panel about certificate authorization.

518
00:41:04,655 --> 00:41:12,721
Now Plug and Charge runs on certificates, as you know via the PKI, the public key
infrastructure, to ensure authentication and security, which is why it's a stronger

519
00:41:12,721 --> 00:41:14,582
standard than AutoCharge.

520
00:41:14,582 --> 00:41:18,264
But some of these certificates can expire.

521
00:41:18,384 --> 00:41:26,542
Will we ever get a situation where a certificate is expired, a customer doesn't realize
that, they plug in and nothing happens?

522
00:41:26,542 --> 00:41:30,555
And because there's a failure, you don't know who the customer is via plug and charge.

523
00:41:30,555 --> 00:41:34,931
So you can't sort of inform them, this is the problem.

524
00:41:35,071 --> 00:41:36,753
What happens, will that happen?

525
00:41:36,753 --> 00:41:38,968
And what happens in that situation?

526
00:41:38,968 --> 00:41:40,479
Well, it shouldn't happen.

527
00:41:40,479 --> 00:41:54,342
Because usually I would expect a mobility service provider issues those digital contract
certificates to have an automatic, an automatism implemented whereby they know when a

528
00:41:54,342 --> 00:41:55,644
certificate will expire.

529
00:41:55,644 --> 00:42:04,640
They should issue a new certificate in time, ideally with overlapping validity periods and
make sure that once that new certificate is

530
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:15,586
Created that they push the certificate to the car manufacturers cloud and through the car
manufacturers cloud It is then silently installed in your vehicle So there are mainly

531
00:42:15,586 --> 00:42:24,160
there are two ways to install those digital certificates for for plug-and-charge
Specifically those contract certificates one is through the charging infrastructure And

532
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:30,905
which is something that has been baked into the protocol from the very beginning and the
other way is through the cloud

533
00:42:31,249 --> 00:42:32,829
cloud cloud operation.

534
00:42:33,049 --> 00:42:40,429
It turns out that the industry is moving towards cloud operation because it's just more
reliable, more resilient.

535
00:42:40,569 --> 00:42:50,089
And you also don't have this effect of waiting for a long time at the charging station
when you need to install a new certificate because then you have to download all of that

536
00:42:50,089 --> 00:42:53,583
and it takes time and confuses me with the user.

537
00:42:53,583 --> 00:42:57,783
So yeah, if it's badly implemented, yes, it can happen.

538
00:42:58,105 --> 00:43:00,453
I would assume most do that job right and I would hope so.

539
00:43:00,453 --> 00:43:08,964
Is there anything that we haven't talked about today that you think the listeners and
viewers would need to know about Plug and Charge or ISO15118?

540
00:43:08,964 --> 00:43:12,425
Well, 15118 is constantly evolving.

541
00:43:12,425 --> 00:43:24,278
And so we talked about the ISO15118-2 document, which is basically defining all the
application level relevant functionalities for plug and charge, for example, but also

542
00:43:24,278 --> 00:43:25,009
smart charging.

543
00:43:25,009 --> 00:43:31,551
And smart charging and plug and charge were the two main drivers why ISO15118 was brought
to life in the first place.

544
00:43:31,551 --> 00:43:34,461
Basically, smart charging with ISO15118

545
00:43:34,461 --> 00:43:43,945
The chargpoint operator knows how much energy the vehicle needs and when the vehicle needs
to be fully charged if the EV driver has provided a departure time, which is optional, but

546
00:43:43,945 --> 00:43:45,045
they can.

547
00:43:45,045 --> 00:43:49,858
So this makes smart charging a lot better and easier for the chargement operator.

548
00:43:49,858 --> 00:43:57,072
They know how much energy they need to account for when they have several vehicles
charging at the same time at a specific site that has limited grid capacity.

549
00:43:57,072 --> 00:43:58,186
Now, the...

550
00:43:58,186 --> 00:44:02,046
Next version is ISO15118-20.

551
00:44:02,866 --> 00:44:06,566
There are a lot of numbers I skipped here and don't want to go through all the other
documents.

552
00:44:06,566 --> 00:44:15,866
It's not that relevant, but -20 is basically the newest version that enables true
bi-directional functionality.

553
00:44:16,006 --> 00:44:24,326
not just charging the vehicle, but if you can finally also support the grid with energy
and frequency regulation.

554
00:44:24,906 --> 00:44:36,346
And also there are other functionalities such as megawatt charging for trucks and ships
and airplanes, for example, that is unlocked with -20.

555
00:44:36,346 --> 00:44:42,546
Also wireless charging and a bunch of other functionalities, better security.

556
00:44:42,546 --> 00:44:54,500
But I think bidirectional charging and megawatt charging are probably the main drivers for
adopting ISO15118-20, which by the way is mandated also in the European AFI regulation.

557
00:44:54,500 --> 00:44:57,765
um I think I'm out of questions.

558
00:44:57,765 --> 00:45:01,229
So unless there's anything else, thank you very much for your time.

559
00:45:01,229 --> 00:45:02,759
I think it's been a fascinating conversation.

560
00:45:02,338 --> 00:45:09,738
So the main thing that I took away from that discussion is that the standard is very much
in progress.

561
00:45:09,738 --> 00:45:13,569
They're a lot further ahead in Europe than we are.

562
00:45:13,569 --> 00:45:22,649
There are a couple of technical things that need to be ultimately sorted out, but the fact
that they've got a 300 and odd page manual to put the standard together means that they

563
00:45:22,649 --> 00:45:24,820
thought about this in a great deal of detail.

564
00:45:24,820 --> 00:45:29,762
Now, there are reasons, particularly why certain ChargePoint operators

565
00:45:29,762 --> 00:45:37,939
haven't implemented Plug and Charge yet, they've prioritized it a little bit further down
the importance list than perhaps somebody like Ionity has.

566
00:45:37,939 --> 00:45:42,104
Whether that's a problem or an issue, I'm not in a position to say.

567
00:45:42,104 --> 00:45:48,724
All I can say is, I really wish that more companies, more ChargePoint operators would go
for the Plug and Charge option.

568
00:45:48,724 --> 00:45:49,615
What do you think?

569
00:45:49,615 --> 00:45:52,175
Would you like to see things stay as they are?

570
00:45:52,175 --> 00:45:54,851
Go to Autocharge or go to plug and charge?

571
00:45:54,851 --> 00:45:56,225
I think I know what my answer will be.

572
00:46:17,407 --> 00:46:19,960
I hope you enjoyed listening to today's show.

573
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:25,495
It was put together this week with the help of Drew Hudart from Hubject.

574
00:46:25,495 --> 00:46:27,087
And my guest, Mark Multin.

575
00:46:27,087 --> 00:46:28,102
Thanks for their input.

576
00:46:28,099 --> 00:46:35,783
If you have any thoughts, comments, criticisms or other general messages to pass on to me,
I can be reached at info at evmusings.com.

577
00:46:35,803 --> 00:46:40,526
On the socials I'm on bluesky at evmusings.bsky.social.

578
00:46:40,646 --> 00:46:48,331
I'm also on Instagram at evmusings where I post those little short videos in the odd
podcast extract regularly.

579
00:46:48,331 --> 00:46:49,741
Why not follow me there?

580
00:46:51,735 --> 00:47:00,017
Many thanks to everyone who supports me through Patreon on a monthly basis and through
coffee.com on an ad hoc basis.

581
00:47:00,337 --> 00:47:03,838
Now, if you enjoyed this episode, why not buy me a coffee?

582
00:47:03,838 --> 00:47:07,620
Go to coffee.com slash EV Musings and you can do just that.

583
00:47:07,620 --> 00:47:11,341
KO dash FI dot com slash EV Musings.

584
00:47:11,341 --> 00:47:12,881
Takes Apple Pay too.

585
00:47:13,721 --> 00:47:16,082
Regular listeners will know about my two e-books.

586
00:47:16,082 --> 00:47:20,513
So you've gone electric and so you've gone renewable.

587
00:47:20,793 --> 00:47:27,126
Now they're 99p each or equivalent and you can get them on the Kendall store on Amazon.

588
00:47:27,227 --> 00:47:34,991
Now check out the links in the show notes for more information as well as a link to my
regular EV Musings newsletter and associated articles.

589
00:47:35,094 --> 00:47:46,821
Now I've spoken to a few of you and I know that you're probably driving, walking, jogging,
ironing or sat on the sofa watching this on your phone but if you can remember and you

590
00:47:46,821 --> 00:47:53,423
enjoyed the episode drop a review in iTunes please, like, subscribe, leave a comment on
YouTube because it really helps.

591
00:47:53,497 --> 00:47:57,861
If you've reached this part of the podcast and are still listening, thank you.

592
00:47:57,861 --> 00:48:05,368
Why not let me know you've got to this point by messaging me at musingtv.bsky.social
with the words "Just plug. And charge.

593
00:48:05,368 --> 00:48:07,429
#ifyouknowyouknow" nothing else.

594
00:48:07,599 --> 00:48:09,150
Thanks as always to my co-founder, Simon.

595
00:48:09,150 --> 00:48:18,279
You know I wanted his opinion on plug and charge and why it is that he can't take his electric
unicycle up to something like an ionity unit and recharge it there without all the faff of

596
00:48:18,279 --> 00:48:19,770
authorizations and things like that.

597
00:48:19,770 --> 00:48:20,373
And he told me.

598
00:48:20,367 --> 00:48:25,771
You know, I'm asking myself the same question over and over in recent years, because it's
not rocket science at all, right?

599
00:48:25,919 --> 00:48:26,813
Thanks for listening.

600
00:48:26,813 --> 00:48:27,826
Bye bye now.