Insights
What we've learned solving EV payments.
Hard-won lessons from the field — running the whole money flow, the fiscalization, and what happens when a charge goes sideways.
AFIR
Charging without accounts: the case for ad-hoc card payments
AFIR makes ad-hoc payment mandatory at public chargers, and tapping a card is the right default: lowest friction, every driver already carries one, and the better card-present economics.
Access
QR codes, Plug & Charge, or a card terminal?
QR moves the friction downstream, Plug & Charge needs a contract first, and only the card terminal serves every driver — an honest look at the three ways to start an ad-hoc charge.
Architecture
Don't bolt a POS onto a charger
Welding a card terminal onto one charger model breaks the open protocols and solves exactly one vendor — here's why a payments layer bridged over OCPI is the right architecture.
Fiscalization
The fiscal signature has to make a round trip
Fiscalization isn't a step you bolt on at the end — it's a round trip from terminal to fiscal authority and back, and the connection protocol everyone builds on doesn't carry the return leg.
Neutrality
What 'no lock-in' actually means for a CPO
Everyone claims open ecosystem and no lock-in. Here's the one test that settles it: can you rip the payments vendor out without breaking settlement, receipts, or your stack?
Standards
What OCPI doesn't tell you about getting paid
Everyone implements the OCPI terminal module because the spec says to. Here are the things it quietly leaves you to build.
Payments
The pre-authorization is the whole game
Three pre-auth strategies, three different products: the fixed wall, incremental re-auth, and the driver-declared target diverge on declines, trust, and frozen credit — and the default most integrations reach for is the worst on all three.
Reconciliation
When the charger and the acquirer disagree
One charge yields three numbers from three systems that rarely agree on the first pass — and reconciliation is the engine that keeps them honest per session, not a month-end hunt.
Engineering
An EV charger is the hardest point of sale you will ever run
An unattended roadside charger is the most hostile point of sale in retail — and that hostility is a payments-engineering problem wearing a charging costume.
Strategy
DC and AC do not want the same payment
A DC charger can cost an order of magnitude more than an AC one, and their sessions look nothing alike — so a single payment design fits neither.
Build vs buy
You do not have to become a payments company
Run your own EV payments and you inherit PCI scope, an acquirer integration per market, per-country fiscalization, and disputes forever — for zero differentiation drivers ever chose you for.
Standards
Roaming or ad-hoc? You need both
Roaming serves drivers who already signed a contract. Ad-hoc serves the strangers it structurally cannot reach. A CPO needs both lanes open, not a choice between them.
Fiscalization
One charge, many tax regimes
Fiscalization isn't a feature you switch on — it's a contract with one tax authority, in one market, that you re-sign every time a regime moves or a border is crossed.
UX
The driver does not need your app
A one-time driver won't install your app to charge once — and every screen before the electron is where you quietly lose that session.
Risk
Disputes on an unattended charger
Unattended card-present EV charging has its own chargeback profile — and the EMV cryptogram, the linked session record, and a real fiscal receipt decide who wins.
Migration
Turn on payments without ripping anything out
The cheapest migration is the one where nothing moves: add ad-hoc card payments over OCPI on top of the chargers, CSMS, and bank you already run.
Strategy
The merchant-of-record decision
Who collects the driver's money is the one architecture choice that locks in your cash flow, your unit economics, your customer, and your exit ramp — and most operators make it by accident.
Data
The CDR is your source of truth
The OCPI Charge Detail Record is the one immutable fact every downstream system bills, fiscalizes, and disputes against — and most stacks treat it as plumbing until the money stops agreeing.
Regulation
AFIR, in plain terms
What AFIR actually mandates for EV charging payments — the power threshold that splits the rules, the card-reader duty at fast chargers, the 2027 retrofit clock, and why the reader is the easy part.
Engineering
EMV at the charger: what card-present actually takes
A card field on a web page and a certified terminal at a charger look identical to a driver — and run on entirely different payment rails the moment the tap lands.
Pricing
Tariffs, taxes, and the number on the terminal
The number a driver authorizes at a charger isn't the price of energy — it's a ceiling. Keeping the displayed, captured, and printed amounts in agreement is the real work.
Resilience
When the network drops mid-charge
A roadside charger drops offline mid-session, with a hold on the card and energy still flowing. Here is what has to happen to the hold, the session, and the capture so no driver gets double-charged.
Scale
Multi-acquirer, multi-currency, by country
No single acquirer covers a continent. A payments layer routes each session to the right one by country and currency, so the operator integrates once and stays the merchant everywhere.
Settlement
Where the money actually lands
Keeping your own bank isn't a compliance footnote. It's a cash-flow decision about when money lands, how payouts tie back to sessions, and who holds the float in between.
Standards
A standard for terminal payments: OCPI DirectPayment
Ad-hoc terminal payments finally have a named home in OCPI — and naming the connection quietly settles who owns the integration for good.
Payments
The card is already in the phone
The contactless reader AFIR already puts on the charger accepts Apple Pay and Google Pay the moment it accepts a bank card — so even drivers who never carry plastic pay with no app to build.