A New Billing Architecture To Transform EV Charging Economics - CleanTechnica

The article from CleanTechnica argues that the current public EV charging business model is flawed because charging operators act as energy retailers, buying electricity at commercial rates and managing complex pricing and risks, which leads to high costs and a fragmented user experience. This complexity undermines the economic benefits of EV ownership, especially when public charging rates exceed subsidized residential electricity prices, discouraging wider EV adoption and slowing infrastructure investment. Tesla’s Supercharger network exemplifies a seamless charging experience by handling billing and authentication automatically, but this model remains proprietary and limited to Tesla vehicles. The proposed solution is to redefine charging station operators as infrastructure providers rather than energy merchants. Instead of selling electricity, operators would simply provide access to charging hardware and grid connections, while utilities bill EV drivers directly at their residential electricity rates. This can be achieved through a single API integration that extends the existing digital handshake protocols (like CCS and CHAdeMO) between vehicle and charger to communicate with utilities for billing. This approach requires no new hardware, simplifies the