Mer, Hubject, and Driivz roll out Plug & Charge on a large scale

The cooperation partners Mer Germany, Hubject, and Driivz have announced the large-scale introduction of Plug&Charge technology and will showcase their vision of a seamless charging process at the Intercharge Network Conference (ICNC23) from August 29 to 30, 2023, in Berlin. Following the example of Tesla, where this has long been standard within the closed ecosystem of Superchargers, the charging and billing process is set to become largely automated. Mer Germany, a subsidiary of Norwegian state-owned energy conglomerate Statkraft, acts as the initiator of the collaboration. eRoaming specialist Hubject serves as the certification authority, and Driivz brings in the leading software platform for charging electric vehicles and smart energy management, which is certified according to ISO 15118. This allows Mer and other Driivz customers to offer Plug&Charge functions to their end customers. The rollout of Plug&Charge at all Hyperchargers from alpitronic in Germany is planned for the last quarter of this year.

"This collaboration originated from our mission to make sustainable electromobility easy and accessible for everyone by offering solutions that enable our customers to have a seamless charging experience," says Anton Achatz, Director of Business Development & Product Management at Mer Germany. This vision is now becoming a reality.

Over the past five years, experience has been gathered in dealing with ISO 15118 and Plug&Charge. We actively support the charging industry on the path to mass adoption with a solution, says Christian Hahn, CEO of Hubject. The product presentation vividly demonstrates how adopting international standards can ensure interoperability among all participants in the charging industry. Providing electric vehicle drivers with a simple, seamless, and constantly available charging experience can significantly accelerate the acceptance of electromobility, believes Doron Frenkel, founder and CEO of Driivz.

"We believe that everything this year will run under the motto 'Plug&Charge'. More and more cars and charging stations will support Plug&Charge technology, and we expect strong global growth in this area," says Frenkel.

As with Tesla, the charging process starts as soon as the driver connects their electric car to the charging station. The vehicle identifies itself to the charging station and enables immediate authorization. The communication takes into account the stored data of the customer account with the charging service provider. This ensures that the electricity used for the charging process is automatically billed. For Plug&Charge technology to work, all stakeholders involved in the charging process must support the international standard ISO 15118. This ensures that secure and scalable communication is enabled during charging.

Complex Interaction of Various Stakeholders

The stakeholders include electric vehicle and charger manufacturers, charging station operators (Charge Point Operators, CPOs), and providers of electric mobility services (Electric Mobility Service Providers, EMSPs) that offer public charging services. Other stakeholders include back-end software providers. Their products manage EV charging networks, energy consumption, and business functions such as driver accounts, billing, and roaming reconciliation. Plug&Charge enables a seamless roaming experience for EV drivers and offers a true "charge anywhere" experience, according to the providers. Through secure authentication, EV owners can charge their vehicles across networks of all e-mobility providers, anywhere, across regions and borders. This function is activated once the EV owner links the vehicle's unique identification (PCID) (including necessary contract data) in their charging app.