Proposal 3 – Making public chargepoints easy to use

18 November 2019

Industry to deliver roaming services for a seamless EV charging experience everywhere. 

When driving petrol and diesel vehicles, consumers can use any filling station without having to offer loyalty or contractual commitment to any supplier and can pay for fuel in many ways. They will expect the same when using their EVs. 

In July 2019 Government announced [28] that it expected industry to deliver a roaming solution whereby EV drivers could access any public chargepoint through a single payment method without needing multiple smartphone apps or membership cards. 

The Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce supports this ambition along with the proposed industry-led approach to its delivery: it believes that while roaming is important to simplify the experience for users, it should be left up to chargepoint operators to define their own commercial arrangements and preferred technical solutions to deliver this outcome. 

To progress the July announcement, Government should consult on the deadline for delivering a roaming solution across public chargepoint networks. 

It is proposed that: 

• The deadline for delivering a roaming solution should be the end of 2021. However, additional time should be considered for converting legacy systems and units. Chargepoint operators should not be penalised for investing in charging infrastructure in good faith; 
• Roaming should allow drivers to access any public chargepoint, without signing up to multiple apps or memberships, through a single identification or payment method or through use of an existing subscription; 
• Roaming must not prevent market models that offer discounts to reward loyalty, as a perk of another service, different pricing structures within membership packages – for instance for access to high powered chargers – or valued added services; 
• Roaming should apply to all public chargepoints (i.e. slow, fast and rapid). The definition of public chargepoint under the Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulations excludes networks that are for the drivers of a particular vehicle brand or company (for instance Tesla’s Supercharger network). However, the Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce would encourage the development of a universal system in time, for the benefit of all EV drivers; and, 
• In line with Government’s announcement in July 2019 [28], that from spring 2020 all new rapid and high-powered chargepoints must offer credit and debit card payment options, the Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce believes that chargepoints that offer contactless payment options should be seen as meeting roaming requirements.