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Subscription and charge cards have long presented challenges for customer experience. Roaming partly solves this problem, however customers may not always be able to access every network. In this context, the emergence of various user authorization methods, provides flexibility for ad-hoc charging; subscriptions, on the other hand, provide preferential experience for more regular charging sessions.
Charging standards remain a challenge with regional disparities and regulatory complexities. Industry leaders are monitoring the situation, and mitigating lack of standardization with flexible hardware and software solutions that work with different charging standards.
Mandatory card readers are aimed at providing open access to EV charging infrastructure. However, this could negatively impact the consumer with higher charging tariffs. In the future, technologies such as Plug & Charge could simplify the user experience, but currently only limited vehicles and charging hardware support the protocol.
The regulatory landscape is in a constant state of flux, with government mandates and interpretations evolving rapidly. There are also still negative perceptions of EVs and EV charging to be overcome. This dynamic environment can pose challenges for EV charging stakeholders to scale operations.
From a contactless perspective (in terms of payment solutions for EV charging), it is less an investment decision and more about fairness to the user perspective […] What do you do if you bring this in as a blanket requirement across the hundreds of thousands of fast charging points that will be on residential streets? [...] It would just result in an increase tariff with little benefit to the user.”
[When it comes to digital EV charging solutions] It’s important to have a user-friendly interface for not just drivers, but also for the companies who manage those users, because oftentimes it's not easy for companies to have a real-time view on what's happening in their network.