Environment ministry to demonstrate plug-and-charge EV technology on Oct. 1

The environment ministry said Wednesday it will hold a demonstration of automatic electric-vehicle charging and payment technology on Oct. 1 at the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute's Ansan branch, testing whether the system works across cars and chargers made by different manufacturers.

The event, jointly organized with the Korea Environment Corporation and the institute, is a technical verification of plug-and-charge, or PnC, an international-standard technology in which a charging cable connected to a vehicle is authenticated through a certificate stored in the car, with charging and payment handled in a single step.

Six electric vehicles — Hyundai Motor's GV90, Kia's EV9, KGM's Musso EV, Mercedes-Benz's CLA, Tesla's Model Y and BMW's iX3 — will be connected in turn to three types of public fast chargers made by Chaevi, EVSIS and SK Signet, checking whether the full sequence, from authentication through charging to the arrival of a payment confirmation text message, works regardless of the vehicle manufacturer.

Plug-and-charge currently offered by some companies works only with designated vehicles and charging stations, while the system being tested uses a public authentication framework that multiple companies can share. Under the new system, a driver who signs up once, registers a payment method and installs a certificate in the vehicle can begin authentication and charging simply by plugging in the cable, with payment automatically charged to the registered method when charging ends. Previously, drivers had to authenticate with a membership card, app or QR code and select a payment method on the charger screen.

The demonstration runs from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the institute's Ansan branch in Sangnok-gu, Gyeonggi Province, with about 70 attendees including officials from automakers and charging operators.

"This demonstration is a venue for confirming whether plug-and-charge works properly on actual vehicles and chargers," said Chung Sun-hwa, the ministry's green transition policy director. "We will carefully inspect and address problems that emerge during the pilot operation."

Based on the results, the ministry plans to run a pilot at 30 public fast chargers during October. The locations of the pilot stations, the vehicle models that can use them and how to apply will be posted on the ministry's integrated zero-emission vehicle website after the demonstration. The ministry said it will broaden the scope of the service in stages as issues identified in the pilot are addressed.