Why price transparency is important for electric vehicles

In most cases, EV drivers are informed of the charging cost when they receive a bill at the end of the month. This system does not pose much of a problem for professional drivers, but will become increasingly complex as the number of individual EV drivers increases. Vehicles to inform drivers of electric vehicles in advance about the collection of fees.

Pricing transparency is very important to us and others in the EV market as it helps potential EV drivers gain the confidence to switch to EV.

Why is it important for business? 

While professional drivers make up the majority of the EV market today, the number of individual EV drivers will continue to grow in the next few years, requiring affordable and affordable EV charging.

The more confident EV drivers feel about accessing and paying for EV charging, the more likely they are to want and charge their EVs at multiple locations. For companies wishing to offer EV charging on site, this increased certainty provides an opportunity to generate additional revenue from EV charging while driving the adoption of electric mobility.

In a broad sense, this type of charging provided by the company can be called quasi-public or commercial charging. This is because such charging stations provide public charging through charging stations on company private property.

Charging station pricing information 

Achieving global price transparency requires real-time exchange of information on the cost of charging stations. This was made possible by the development of the Open Charging Point Interface (OCPI) by the EV charging industry.

This interface allows real-time data (such as charging and power consumption data) to be transferred between various aspects of EV charging (described below) and ultimately to the EV driver. By implementing such standard industry protocols, our industry can ensure that the prices that EV drivers pay to use quasi-public stations are transmitted in real time.

Now that we know our industry can deliver price transparency, why hasn't this been achieved worldwide yet?

The complexity of price transparency lies in the fact that many parties with different abbreviations (CPO, MSP, CSO) participate in the calculation of the final price of the billing session. Below is a brief overview to help you understand all the terms.

CSO stands for Charging Station Owner. : the owner of both the charging station and the installation. Often, but not always, it is a business that has chosen to provide electric vehicle charging on private property.Depending on the location and type of ownership (quasi-public, public or private), either the owner of the charging station buys the energy or the charging port operator CSO is also responsible for setting the initial tariff.

CPO stands for Port of Collection Operator. CPO: This is an organization that, like us, is responsible for the management, maintenance and operation (both technical and administrative) of charging stations.

MSP stands for Mobile Service Provider. : This is the organization that EV drivers subscribe to for all services related to the operation of their EVs. The company also acts as a PYP and provides EV drivers with access to charging stations. This will be explained later.

CDR stands for Charge Detail Record. This is the payment transaction information (including the rate set by the CSO) sent by the CPO to the MSP after each payment session.

As mentioned above, the final price is determined by various stakeholders and may vary from charging station to charging station; As a CPO, we have ensured the implementation of state-of-the-art OCPI communication protocols so that all MSPs can offer real-time pricing for semi-public EVBox charging stations. implemented.

After the charging session, the EVBox (CPO) sends the transaction data (CDR) to the MSP, which charges the EV driver the final cost of charging. The additional fee charged by PYP to determine the final price per charging session depends on the PYP subscription model. Electric vehicle drivers should be aware of the MSP model they subscribe to.

How can price transparency be achieved in the future? 

As a CPO, ensure that each CSO can list their station as a public charging station.We encourage our partners to ensure that roaming service providers apply and comply with industry standards such as OCPI so that more roaming services share this information.

All these initiatives, protocols and connections are designed to benefit electric vehicles today and in the future around the world. The sooner the standards are understood and applied, the easier it will be for electric vehicles to flourish, leading to situations where issues like price transparency are beneficial to companies and drivers.