EV Charging Price Transparency Under AFIR

Public EV charging often appears compliant and functional on the surface. Chargers are available, payments go through, and sessions complete without error. What is harder to see is whether drivers are given clear and accurate pricing information before charging starts. 

Price transparency sits at the intersection of regulation, customer trust, and commercial performance. It is shaped by how tariffs are defined, how prices are displayed, and how payment flows are implemented at the charger. Small inconsistencies in this chain can turn a compliant tariff into a confusing or non-compliant charging experience. 

In our previous article on EV charging tariffs and operational control, we examined how tariff design affects operations and margins across a charging network. This article focuses on how tariff logic is exposed to drivers at the charger through ad-hoc payment flows and the pricing information required under AFIR. 

What AFIR requires for ad-hoc EV charging payments 

AFIR introduces clear requirements for ad-hoc EV charging payments. Drivers must be able to charge without prior registration and pay using commonly available methods, including card payments. Alongside access, AFIR places strong emphasis on price transparency. 

For ad-hoc access, this means drivers must see clear pricing information before charging starts. Prices need to be understandable and comparable. Energy prices, time-based components, and any fixed fees must be presented in a way that allows the driver to understand what they will pay. 

AFIR does not require simple tariffs, but it does require clarity. Complex pricing structures are allowed only when their components can be communicated clearly at the point of payment. When this breaks down, compliance risk increases quickly. 

Why ad-hoc EV charging price transparency affects trust and conversion 

Ad-hoc EV charging payments put the driver in a very different position from registered or roaming users. There is no prior relationship, no app interface to explore pricing in advance, and no contract that sets expectations. Everything the driver knows about the cost of charging comes from what is shown at the charger and during the payment flow. 

This makes the moment before the session starts unusually sensitive. The driver is already making several decisions at once: whether the charger is compatible, whether it will deliver the expected power, how long the stop will take, and whether the price feels reasonable. If pricing information is hard to interpret, incomplete, or inconsistent across screens, uncertainty increases immediately. 

That uncertainty affects behaviour in predictable ways. Some drivers decide not to start the session at all because they cannot confidently estimate the final cost. Others proceed despite the uncertainty, but with low confidence. When the receipt or card charge later differs from what they expected, even slightly, the experience feels misleading rather than merely expensive. The issue is not always the absolute price, but the gap between expectation and outcome. 

This has direct commercial consequences. Confusing pricing reduces conversion at the charger, especially for occasional users who are more price-sensitive and less forgiving. It also increases operational load after the session. Customer support receives more questions about charges. Refund requests become more frequent. Time is spent explaining pricing logic that should have been clear upfront. 

Over time, these effects compound. Drivers who associate a brand with unclear pricing are less likely to return or recommend the network, even if the chargers themselves work reliably. What begins as a transparency issue at the payment screen turns into a trust issue that affects utilization and brand perception. 

Under AFIR, price transparency is a regulatory requirement. In practice, it is also a commercial one. Clear, consistent pricing at the point of ad-hoc payment reduces hesitation, lowers support overhead, and improves the likelihood that a driver completes the session and leaves with a neutral or positive impression. 

Card payments for EV charging and pricing inconsistencies 

Card payments for EV charging expose pricing problems that remain hidden in other payment flows. When a driver pays by card, there is no app layer, no account context, and no opportunity to reconcile pricing logic after the fact. The card payment screen becomes the single source of truth for what the driver expects to pay. 

In many charging setups, tariffs are defined correctly in backend systems, but card payment flows sit on a separate path. Pricing information is pulled, transformed, or simplified for display at the charger or payment terminal. This is where inconsistencies are introduced. Energy prices may be shown clearly, while time-based fees or session charges are added later. VAT may be applied correctly in billing and settlement, but only partially or unclearly reflected on the payment screen. 

These inconsistencies usually arise from fragmented system ownership, where tariff logic, tax handling, and payment presentation are implemented or maintained separately. Each system behaves correctly in isolation, but the end-to-end result is a mismatch between what is advertised before charging and what is charged afterward. 

Under AFIR, this mismatch is a compliance risk because price information must be clear and provided before the session starts. From a commercial standpoint, it is equally damaging. Drivers using card payments expect a straightforward transaction. When the final amount differs from their expectation, trust is lost quickly, even if the difference is small or technically justified. 

For CPOs, card payments therefore act as a stress test for tariff execution. If pricing logic is not applied consistently across backend systems and payment flows, card payments are usually where the problem becomes visible first. 

Common failures in ad-hoc EV charging payment implementations 

Ad-hoc payment failures tend to originate from how charging systems evolve over time rather than from missing functionality. As networks grow, pricing, tax handling, and payment presentation are often developed and maintained along separate paths. Each part continues to work on its own, but alignment between them weakens. 

A typical failure starts with a tariff change that is technically correct. A new pricing component is added, a fee is adjusted, or VAT handling is updated. That change is implemented in the tariff engine or billing logic, but the ad-hoc payment flow is not reviewed with the same attention. The price shown at the charger reflects part of the logic, while other components are applied later in the transaction. 

Another common issue is partial rollout. Some chargers or payment terminals are updated, others lag behind. Similar sites end up presenting different prices for the same tariff structure. From an operational perspective, this looks like noise. From a driver’s perspective, it feels inconsistent and unreliable. 

These problems are difficult to detect because the core charging flow remains functional. Sessions start and stop as expected. Payments are captured. Revenue is recorded. There is no immediate operational failure to trigger investigation. The gap only becomes visible when a driver questions a charge, a partner reviews pricing accuracy, or an audit examines price presentation against regulatory requirements. 

By the time the problem surfaces, ad-hoc pricing flows have usually drifted away from the tariff logic they are meant to represent. 

eMabler Ad-hoc Payments for AFIR price transparency and card payments 

eMabler Ad-hoc Payments is designed to handle one of the most sensitive moments in public charging: showing a driver a price and taking payment without any prior relationship. This is the point where AFIR requirements, tariff design, and real-world user behavior meet. 

Ad-hoc Payments provides a dedicated card payment flow for unregistered drivers. Pricing shown in this flow is derived from the active tariff, rather than being reconstructed or simplified separately for payment purposes. This means that energy prices, time-based components, session fees, and applicable taxes are presented together before charging starts, using the same logic that governs the charging session itself. 

This alignment matters because ad-hoc payment is often the first and only place where a driver evaluates pricing. There is no app to explore details later and no contract to fall back on. If the price shown at this stage is incomplete or differs from the final charge, trust is lost immediately. Ad-hoc Payments uses the same tariff calculation for the price displayed before charging and for the final charge, so there is no separate pricing logic in the payment flow. 

From an operational perspective, this also reduces fragmentation. Pricing updates made at the tariff level do not require separate adjustments in ad-hoc payment logic. As tariffs evolve, the payment flow stays in sync, which limits drift over time and lowers the likelihood of compliance issues related to price transparency under AFIR. 

Ad-hoc Payments does not interpret regulation or guarantee compliance. Its role is practical and narrow: to present prices accurately at the point of card payment for ad-hoc users. This removes one of the most common failure points in public charging and turns ad-hoc payment from a risk area into a predictable part of tariff execution. 

Conclusion 

AFIR sets explicit requirements for ad-hoc access and EV charging price transparency. Public charging must work without registration, support common payment methods such as card payments, and present pricing information clearly before a session starts. These requirements shape how drivers experience charging and how operators meet their compliance obligations. 

In real operations, price transparency most often fails at the ad-hoc payment stage. Tariffs are defined correctly, but the payment flow shows a simplified or incomplete version of that logic. Over time, pricing shown at the charger drifts away from the tariff that governs the session, creating confusion for drivers and risk for operators. 

eMabler Ad-hoc Payments is built to handle this exact point of failure. It uses the active tariff to calculate the price shown during card payment and the amount charged at the end of the session, without introducing separate pricing logic in the payment flow. This keeps ad-hoc pricing aligned with tariff design and supports AFIR requirements for transparency at the point of payment. 

AFIR sets the rules. Ad-hoc payment is where those rules are tested. If you want to implement accurate price presentation for ad-hoc charging with card payments, get in touch with us.