In recent years, the electric revolution has shown us that charging should be possible everywhere – at work, on the road, and at home. Yet the way we’ve built home charging today doesn’t originate from the household itself. It comes from the world of public charging, designed around protocols and platforms built to connect thousands of anonymous users. What began as a powerful open system has, in the private sphere, evolved into a complex chain of dependencies, hidden costs, and technical noise.
A system designed for public infrastructure
Most charging stations – even those at home – communicate via the Open Charge Point Protocol, or OCPP. This protocol was created to connect public charge points with a management platform, known as the Charge Point Operator. The operator oversees firmware, uptime, tariffs, and maintenance. Above that sits the e-mobility service provider (EMSP), responsible for transactions, charging cards, and roaming.
In this architecture, a charge point isn’t owned by an individual but is a node in a larger network. Each charging session travels through multiple servers, validated, invoiced, aggregated, and ultimately passed on to the party that issues the final bill. This works perfectly for public chargers along highways or in shopping centers, where thousands of drivers plug in daily. In that context, complexity is not only logical but necessary.
When public logic moves into the home
As EV adoption grew rapidly, the easiest solution was to replicate the same architecture at home. The same protocols, data flows, and financial structures – only now behind the front door. A driver plugs in, the charge point communicates with the operator’s platform, which talks to the service provider, who then manages reimbursement or invoicing to the employer. It sounds seamless, but it’s essentially a public system trying to mimic private behavior.
For the user, this often feels invisible: the charger works, the session appears in the app. But behind the scenes, multiple parties with different priorities are involved. A software change, an acquisition, or a misconfigured link can disrupt the entire chain. What’s a manageable exception in the public domain becomes, at home, a frustrating disruption of something that should just work: delayed reimbursements, incorrect tariffs, or support tickets passed from one party to another – all symptoms of a system with too many moving parts.
Complexity that doesn’t belong in the living room
Home charging is, at its core, simple. There’s one user, one address, and one electricity rate. The need for roaming, platform fees, or session validation disappears once the context shifts from public to private. Yet these layers often remain. The result is that the line between public and private logic blurs: the user pays or is reimbursed as if charging in public, while actually using their own electricity. This imbalance erodes trust, making something as basic as charging dependent on external systems and processes the homeowner can’t control.
The biggest loss isn’t financial, but structural: the loss of ownership. The charge point stops being part of the household and becomes part of an external ecosystem. Usage, data, and cost control shift outward, while the energy consumption stays at home. It’s a paradox for a technology meant to bring independence.
A new generation of home charging
The next phase of electric charging requires rethinking that logic. Instead of adapting public infrastructure to private use, a reverse movement is emerging: solutions built around the household that extend outward to business or fleet contexts. The focus shifts from access and roaming to control, transparency, and a direct connection between the user, the charge point, and the reimbursement.
In this model, charging data remains owned by the user, reimbursements are based on the actual kWh price of the home, and the layers that cause noise are removed. Every step becomes explainable: the charge point charges, records, and settles directly – without detours through third-party platforms that add cost or delay. The technology to enable this already exists; it simply requires a design philosophy that starts from the logic of home, not from the network.
The impact for fleet and leasing companies
For fleet managers and leasing organizations, this shift is more profound than it seems. Where hardware and installation once dominated, attention is now turning to data transparency and manageable control over a distributed driver network. A simpler model reduces administrative overhead, prevents double billing, and allows reimbursements to reflect real home energy use. The result: a fairer cost structure and a more reliable driver experience. Fewer tickets, fewer issues, fewer questions – and most importantly, greater trust in a system that makes charging effortless.
Employers benefit too. A direct connection between charge point and reimbursement eliminates steps, checks, and reconciliations. The employee’s electricity rate becomes the reference point, not a generic platform tariff. This makes EV driving not only more sustainable but also more transparent and efficient from an administrative perspective. The entire chain moves toward simplicity, without losing the control organizations require.
From public dependence to private autonomy
What began as an attempt to reuse public standards is now evolving into a rediscovery of what home charging should truly be: direct, transparent, and fair. The future of charging doesn’t lie in more platform layers but in fewer. In shorter connections, user-owned data, and processes aligned with the rhythm of the household rather than the logic of the network.
This isn’t an argument against open standards – quite the opposite. Openness remains key to freedom of choice. But open doesn’t mean dependent. We can design technology that is interoperable without unnecessary intermediaries, offering the same reliability at home as in the public domain – only simpler, faster, and fairer.
The future of home charging beyond the lease
For drivers who use their home charger privately but get reimbursed for business use, a transparent model is essential. A system where the charge point communicates directly with the reimbursement mechanism, based on real home energy consumption, without extra platform fees or roaming structures. This finally creates balance between professional convenience and private ownership. The technology now makes it possible to connect home, vehicle, and employer clearly and fairly – without unnecessary intermediaries, dependencies, or hidden costs. That’s how electric driving becomes not just cleaner, but smarter.
