Stop 01 of 09 · Arrival

Why does charging feel more complicated than refuelling?

About 6 min · 3 questions · Data ·

Tuesday
The situation

A motorway service station. A driver plugs in and taps a charging card. Two seconds later the display shows Charging.

At the fuel pump next to it, another driver fills up and pays at the till.

The questionWhat happens in those two seconds, and why does one charging session involve more companies than one tank of fuel?

Guess firstHow many companies take part in this two-second approval?RevealHide

Usually three or four: the operator of the charger, the provider of the driver's card or app, often a roaming platform in between, and the software that runs the charger. The grid operator stands behind the site as well.

The two seconds behind the tapFour parties answer one tap
01
Step 01Driver

One tap. Everything that follows is invisible to the driver, and that is the intention.

Select each step to see what it contributes.

Two ways to buy energy on the roadWho takes part in one purchase
RefuellingMost of the work happens before the driver arrives.
  1. Stationoperator or franchisee
  2. Fuelsupplied by the brand
  3. Tillcash, card or fuel card
Public chargingSeveral parties are involved in every single session.
  1. Sitesite host
  2. Chargercharge point operator
  3. Contractapp or card provider
  4. Connectiongrid operator

Fleet fuel cards already work across companies at many stations. Public charging uses this model for almost every driver.

Densest in the Netherlands and Belgium226,799 sites · 839,148 charge points
Charge points per 25 km square1 to 910 to 4950 to 249250 to 9991,000 and more

Map base © OpenStreetMap contributors, via Overture Maps Foundation.

Our motorway site is one of 226,799 public charging sites on this map, run by more than 15,000 operators. Each dot sums the charge points in a 25 km square. National registries of 8 countries, OpenChargeMap elsewhere, so coverage varies outside those countries. Switzerland, Greece, Luxembourg and Poland are not included, so the map shows part of the network: the EU alone counted 1,159,838 public recharging points in August 2026.

Three reasons the work is shared

  • The grid. Electricity arrives through the public grid. Every site needs a connection that the grid operator plans and approves, and its capacity sets what the site can deliver.
  • The location. A session takes about 20 minutes at a fast charger and several hours at an AC charger. Chargers stand where people park anyway, so the owner of that place becomes a partner.
  • The contract. Most drivers use one app or card across many networks. For that, operators and card providers exchange approvals, prices and session records in real time. Drivers without a contract can pay at every public charger; those built since April 2024 must accept electronic payment, at fast chargers by card.

None of this rules out one company holding several roles. Some do. The roles stay separate all the same, and each stop of this path follows one of them.

A familiar pattern

Mobile telephony went through a comparable phase: many networks, each with its own customers, agreed on common standards and on between them. Since June 2017, mobile customers in the EU use their home tariff abroad without roaming surcharges.

Public charging builds the same layers: one protocol between charger and backend, roaming between companies, and EU rules for payment and price information.

Check your understanding

3 questions. Answer all of them to complete this stop. Each answer explains itself.

01Question 1 of 3

What is the main reason one charging session involves more companies than one tank of fuel?

02Question 2 of 3

What happened in the two seconds after the tap?

03Question 3 of 3

Which earlier development resembles today's public charging most closely?

Further in other paths

  1. OCPI and roaming · Stop 01Why does a card work at someone else's charger?One card, many networks: what roaming is, which two roles meet in it, and why the exchange between them needs a common protocol.
  2. Payments and billing · Stop 01How is a charging price built?Per kWh, per minute, per session: the components of a charging price, the order EU law sets for showing them, and one session computed.
  1. emobility.directory: Charging map of Europe, national charging-point registries (DE, FR, NL, ES, FI, LT, NO, SE) and OpenChargeMap (other countries), September 2026; Switzerland, Greece, Luxembourg and Poland left out; map base from Overture Maps Foundation, © OpenStreetMap contributors. https://emobility.directory/. Checked 28 Sep 2026. Charging data: Bundesnetzagentur.de (CC BY 4.0); IRVE, transport.data.gouv.fr (Licence Ouverte 2.0); NDW (CC0); DGT (CC BY); Fintraffic / digitraffic.fi (CC BY 4.0); Via Lietuva (CC BY 4.0); NOBIL by Enova (CC BY 4.0); Open Charge Map contributors (CC BY 4.0), including public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0; combined and calculated by emobility.directory; map base © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via Overture Maps Foundation.
  2. European Alternative Fuels Observatory, European Commission: EAFO Data Update & News Flash September 2026: public recharging points in the EU27, August 2026. https://alternative-fuels-observatory.ec.europa.eu/general-information/news/eafo-data-update-news-flash-september-2026. Checked 10 Oct 2026.
  3. EVRoaming Foundation: Open Charge Point Interface (OCPI). https://evroaming.org/. Checked 07 Oct 2026.
  4. EUR-Lex: Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure (AFIR), Article 5. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1804/oj. Checked 07 Oct 2026. © European Union, reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
  5. EUR-Lex: Regulation (EU) 2015/2120, end of retail roaming surcharges from 15 June 2017. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2015/2120/oj. Checked 07 Oct 2026. © European Union, reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
  6. EUR-Lex: Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure (AFIR), Article 5. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1804/oj. Checked 07 Oct 2026. © European Union, reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
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