Plug&Charge

Overview

Plug&Charge (ISO 15118) allows EV drivers to authenticate charging sessions by just plugging in the cable — no RFID card, app interaction, or QR code needed.
Plug&Charge is contract-based charging and works with digital certificates. These certificates are generated on behalf of end-users by e-Mobility Providers and installed in vehicles.
The secure distribution, validation and revocation of these certificates is maintained via trusted key infrastructures (PKIs).

Full solution vs. roaming-only solution

The Plugsurfing platform fully supports Plug&Charge (ISO-15118-2) in the role of a Mobility Operator (MO):

We can manage contract certificates on behalf of end-users, signed by Hubject's Plug&Charge infrastructure.
We enable full Plug&Charge roaming via OICP and OCPI 2.x, including token exchange, location search and live charging authorization.

Drive API currently provides the roaming part of Plug&Charge: the partner creates and manages contract certificates on their side, and uses Drive API to register the vehicle's PCID so
that Plugsurfing can authorize charging sessions at Plug&Charge-capable stations across the roaming network.

If your use case requires full contract certificate lifecycle management (provisioning, renewal, revocation) via Drive API, Contact us for details.

Prerequisites

🔧
Before using Plug&Charge, ensure the following:

Plug&Charge is enabled for your organization — contact us to activate it

Your platform manages contract certificates (provisioning, renewal, revocation). Reach out to us if you are interested in the full solution via Drive API.

You have the vehicle's PCID (Provisioning Certificate Identifier), and optionally an EMAID (EMA-ID / contract identifier)

Creating a Plug&Charge key

POST /v1/users/USERID/charging-keys/plug-and-charge

Request body

Field	Type	Required	Description
`pcid`	string	Yes	Provisioning Certificate Identifier of the vehicle. Must be 17–18 alphanumeric characters.
`contractId`	string	No	Optional EMA-ID (following emi3 specification) to use as the contract identifier. Must follow the agreed prefix for your organization. If omitted, a globally unique EMAID will be generated.

Whether the contractId is provided mainly depends on the intended flow:

a) The partner already generated a Plug&Charge contract certificate with a specific EMAID.
b) Plugsurfing should generate an EMAID which is then used to generate the contract certificate. Plugsurfing generates EMAIDs in the form with separators and trailing check-digit e.g. DE-8PS-C0AD21B13-Q.

The partner is asked to keep the state of the contract certificate and the Plug&Charge key in sync. Whenever the contract certificate is revoked or expires, the Plug&Charge key should be deleted or disabled accordingly.
If a contract certificate is renewed, it is recommended to re-use the same EMAID.

Example request

{
  "pcid": "WDBRF61J21F123456",
  "contractId": "DE-8PS-C0AD21B13-Q"
}

Example response

{
  "contractId": "DE-8PS-C0AD21B13-Q",
  "pcid": "WDBRF61J21F123456",
  "keyId": "DE-8PS-C0AD21B13-Q"
}

See the API Reference for full details.

EMAID behavior

By default, a new globally unique EMAID is generated for each Plug&Charge key. The EMAID of existing virtual or RFID keys is not reused.

If EMAID reuse is required for your use case, contact us.

Error handling

Code	Cause
400	PCID or contractId syntactically invalid, contractId prefix not allowed, or Plug&Charge feature not enabled
404	User (intended owner of the charging key) not found by the specified id.
409	Conflict: A (Plug&Charge) charging key with this contractId/EMAID already exists. And multiple keys with the same EMAID are not allowed per configuration.
500	Internal error

Roaming / Token exchange

Plug&Charge keys are roamed via OICP and OCPI 2.x (following OCPI 3.0 recommendations for tokens and locations).

When a Plug&Charge vehicle connects at a compatible charging station:

The CPO sends an authorization request containing the vehicle's contract identifier (EMAID).
Plugsurfing matches the EMAID to the registered Plug&Charge key and approves the session.

Token exchange format

Field	Value
`UID`	EMAID
`authID` / `contractID`	EMAID
`token_type`	`OTHER`
`whitelist`	`NEVER`

Finding Plug&Charge-compatible chargers

Use the geosearch API to filter for Plug&Charge-capable locations by including PLUG_AND_CHARGE_CAPABLE in the capabilities filter.

See Geosearch — Capabilities for details.

Managing Plug&Charge keys

Existing charging key endpoints work for Plug&Charge keys:

Disable or enable: PATCH /v1/users/USERID/charging-keys/{contractId} with {"enabled": false} or {"enabled": true}
List keys: Plug&Charge keys appear in GET /v1/users/USERID/charging-keys with type: "plug_and_charge"