Last week, Mer, Hubject and Driivz announced their plan to establish Plug & Charge on the German market. The three companies unveiled their partnership in 2021 to accelerate the introduction of Plug&Charge in Europe. Mer Germany said that the focus would initially be on Alpitronic Hyperchargers, which passed Hubject’s audit a year ago.

What is Plug&Charge?

Plug & Charge is a technology aiming to make the vehicle and the charging station communicate directly, without having to use a card payment or an app. The user only plugs the car and receives a bill on a billing account after the charging session.

It relies on the ISO 15118 standard, published in 2014, providing global standards. Once the EV is plugged in, the charger receives encrypted data from the vehicle. To be able to communicate, both the charger and the EV have a public key certified by a digital certificate, delivered by a Certificate Authority.

Hubject’s Plug&Charge ecosystem growing

Hubject is a German charging infrastructure supplier. The company has set up a Plug & Charge Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) embedded by several OEMs, charge point operators and other E-mobility solutions providers. Just last week, Dutch charging infrastructure software specialist Greenflux announced it successfully integrated Hubject’s platform. The Plug&Charge platform is independent of the company’s intercharge roaming platform, which is sold as a separate product.

With more and more cars equipped to support Plug & Charge, the technology momentum is likely to grow rapidly in the next few years.

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