"No RFID, no app, just plug in" is the pitch behind Plug & Charge, and it's a real capability — but it's also one of the most overstated terms in EV charging marketing right now. Here's what ISO 15118 actually requires, what depends on the vehicle rather than the charger, and what's realistically deployable in India today versus what's still aspirational.

What Plug & Charge actually is

Plug & Charge is a session flow where a vehicle authenticates itself to a charger automatically, via cryptographic certificate exchange over the charging cable, the moment it's plugged in. No RFID tap, no QR scan, no app interaction. The vehicle and the charger complete a certificate-based handshake, the CMS verifies identity and payment authorization in the background, and charging starts.

ISO 15118 is the standard that defines this communication between vehicle and charger. It's not itself a payment or billing system — it's the identity and communication layer that other systems (like the CMS's billing engine) build on top of.

What has to be true for it to work

This is where most marketing claims quietly fall apart. Plug & Charge requires all of the following to be in place simultaneously:

  • The vehicle must support ISO 15118 and have a valid, provisioned certificate — this is a vehicle-side capability, not something a charging network can add after the fact.
  • The charger must support ISO 15118 communication over the cable (not all DC hardware does, even recent models — check this explicitly rather than assuming "OCPP 2.0.1-capable" implies it).
  • The CMS must handle certificate validation, contract authorization, and the billing handoff in real time.
  • A certificate authority / PKI infrastructure must exist to issue and validate the certificates in the first place — this is the part most explainers skip entirely.

If any one of these is missing, Plug & Charge doesn't degrade gracefully into "almost automatic" — it simply doesn't work, and the session falls back to RFID, app, or UPI QR.

Where India actually stands

Most EVs sold in India today are not ISO 15118-provisioned from the factory — vehicle-side support is the real bottleneck, not charger or CMS readiness. A handful of newer, higher-end EVs shipping in India carry the hardware capability, but a functioning Plug & Charge certificate ecosystem (the PKI layer connecting automakers, charging networks, and certificate authorities) is still early globally, India included.

Practically, this means: a CPO deploying ISO 15118-capable hardware today is investing in forward compatibility, not shipping a feature most drivers will use this year. That's a legitimate reason to do it — but it's a different claim than "Plug & Charge is live," and worth being precise about when you're evaluating vendor claims.

What CPOs should actually plan for

  • Buy ISO 15118-capable hardware where the cost delta is small. It's a forward-compatibility bet, not a feature you'll monetize immediately — treat it as such in procurement, not as a differentiator to market today.
  • Don't let a vendor's "ISO 15118 supported" claim substitute for asking what's actually live. Supported by the charger and supported by the CMS and functioning end-to-end with a real vehicle are three different claims.
  • Keep RFID/QR/UPI as the primary flow for the foreseeable near term. Plug & Charge is additive, not a replacement for the authentication methods that actually work with the vehicle fleet on Indian roads today.
  • Ask what happens on fallback. A well-built system falls back to app/UPI/RFID invisibly when Plug & Charge conditions aren't met. A poorly built one produces a confusing failed-session experience for the driver.

The honest summary

ISO 15118 and Plug & Charge are real, standards-based, and worth building toward — but "worth building toward" and "live today for most drivers" are different claims, and India's vehicle-side adoption curve is the actual pacing factor, not charger or CMS readiness. Treat vendor claims about it with the same scrutiny you'd apply to any roadmap item.

Massive's CMS supports ISO 15118 communication on capable hardware, with automatic fallback to UPI, app, and RFID authentication where Plug & Charge conditions aren't met. See the full protocol stack →

Evaluating Hardware or CMS for ISO 15118?

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