Plug and Charge promises to make public charging as simple as filling up with petrol. No apps, no RFID cards, no fumbling with your phone in the rain. You just plug in the cable, and your car handles the payment automatically. It sounds brilliant, and when it works, it genuinely is. But right now in the UK, it’s still patchy enough that you shouldn’t base your car buying decision on it alone.
What Actually Is Plug and Charge?
Plug and Charge (officially called ISO 15118) is a system where your EV and the charger communicate digitally through the charging cable. Think of it like your car having a digital wallet built in. When you plug in, the charger recognises your vehicle, checks you have an account with that network, and starts charging immediately. The payment happens in the background, and you get a receipt by email later.
It’s different from contactless payment, where you’re tapping a card on the charger. With Plug and Charge, you don’t interact with the charger at all beyond physically plugging in the cable. The car does everything.
Which Cars Support It?
This is where things get frustrating. Plenty of EVs have the hardware capability for Plug and Charge, but manufacturers have been slow to actually enable it. At the time of writing, these are the models that properly support it in the UK:
Fully supported: Ford Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning, Porsche Taycan, Audi e-tron GT, most newer Volkswagen ID models (ID.3, ID.4, ID.5, ID.7, ID. Buzz), Cupra Born, Skoda Enyaq, Genesis GV60 and Ioniq 5/6 (on some charging networks), and BMW iX and i4.
Promised but delayed: Tesla claimed they’d enable it in Europe, but it’s still not live for UK drivers. Mercedes EQ models have the hardware but limited network support.
The catch is that even if your car technically supports Plug and Charge, you still need to set it up through each charging network’s app or website. It’s not automatic out of the box, which rather defeats the purpose of avoiding apps in the first place.
Which UK Networks Have It?
This is the bigger problem. You can have the fanciest Plug and Charge capable car, but if the chargers don’t support it, you’re back to using apps.
IONITY has the best implementation. It works reliably on their high-power chargers, and setup is straightforward through their app. Once configured, it genuinely does just work.
BP Pulse supports it on newer 150kW and 300kW chargers, though not their older 50kW units. I’ve found it works about 80% of the time, which sounds good until you’re standing there on the 20% occasion wondering if you should just open the app instead.
Tesla Superchargers opened to non-Tesla EVs don’t support Plug and Charge yet, even for cars that have the technology. You still need the Tesla app.
Gridserve is rolling it out but coverage is inconsistent. Some of their Electric Forecourt sites support it, others don’t.
Notably absent: Pod Point, Osprey, InstaVolt, and most destination chargers. These networks still require apps or contactless payment.
Does It Actually Work in Real Life?
I’ve tested Plug and Charge on a Volkswagen ID.4 and a Ford Mustang Mach-E over the past six months. When it works, it’s genuinely lovely. You pull up, plug in, and walk away to get coffee. The car beeps when charging starts, and you get an email receipt later. It feels properly futuristic.
But the failure rate is higher than it should be. I’d estimate it works first time about 75% of occasions. When it fails, the charger just sits there doing nothing, and you end up opening the app anyway. Sometimes unplugging and plugging back in fixes it. Sometimes it doesn’t.
The other issue is that it’s slower to initiate than contactless payment. There’s typically a 10 to 20 second handshake period where the car and charger are talking to each other. With contactless, you tap and it starts almost immediately. This matters less on a 30-minute rapid charge, but it’s annoying on a quick 10-minute top-up.
Should You Care About It?
If you’re buying an EV right now, Plug and Charge support is a nice-to-have, not essential. The reality is you’ll still need Zapmap or Octopus Electroverse on your phone for finding chargers and checking if they’re working, and these apps can start charging sessions anyway. Adding one extra tap isn’t a huge burden.
Where Plug and Charge genuinely shines is for company car drivers or fleet managers who want simplified billing. The car is directly associated with a payment method, so there’s no faff with expense claims for charging cards.
For private buyers, I’d say this: check if your shortlisted car supports it, set it up if it does, but don’t choose one EV over another purely because of Plug and Charge. The charging app ecosystem in the UK is actually pretty good now. Octopus Electroverse, in particular, gives you access to multiple networks through one app, which arguably solves the same problem more reliably.
The technology will get better. In three years, it’ll probably be standard and reliable. Right now, it’s one of those features that’s brilliant when it works and mildly annoying when it doesn’t. Keep your charging apps installed as backup, and treat Plug and Charge as a convenience bonus rather than a core requirement.