ISO 15118 is not a feature that gets switched on in firmware. For the manufacturer of a charging station it is four hardware consequences: a powerline modem sitting on the Control Pilot line, a place to store and validate certificates, processing and memory headroom for the message encoding, and a conformance test plan that applies to a named product and firmware version. Everything else in the standard — the driver experience, the billing relationship, the contract certificate lifecycle — lands on somebody else's side of the interface.
This page is written from the equipment side. It does not answer "which car supports Plug and Charge"; it answers "what does specifying ISO 15118 change in the product I am building".
"ISO 15118" on its own is not a specification. It is a family, two generations of it are live at once, and both generations have moving parts right now. A purchase specification that names the family without the part number and the edition is not specifying anything enforceable.
DIN SPEC 70121 sits alongside this family rather than inside it. It is the German DC charging communication specification that predates the finished ISO work, it uses the same powerline physical layer, and it carries neither the security model nor the certificate-based identification. It is still what a great many deployed DC chargers actually speak, which is why a DC controller specification usually has to name both.
These are the four decisions that cannot be deferred to the firmware team, because each of them changes the board, the wiring or the bill of materials.
High-level communication runs over powerline on the same Control Pilot conductor that already carries the basic duty-cycle signalling. That means a powerline modem, the analogue coupling to put it on the line without disturbing the PWM signalling, and board space and wiring for both. A station that has never carried one does not gain ISO 15118 by a software release.
Certificate-based identification means the station has to hold, present and validate certificates, and to be provisioned with them at some point in its life. That is storage, a trust anchor, and a production or field process for getting keys onto the unit. The second generation raises this burden rather than lowering it, so the sizing decision has to be made against the generation you intend to reach, not the one you are shipping.
The protocol's message encoding and its security processing both consume processor time and memory on a controller that is simultaneously running the charging state machine and its safety duties. Headroom is the parameter that decides whether the next protocol generation is reachable on the same board. It is also the parameter least likely to appear in a sales datasheet, which is why it has to be asked for explicitly.
Conformance is tested against a named product and a named firmware version, under the conformance test parts listed above. A supplier statement that a platform "supports ISO 15118" is not a conformance record, and a conformance record for one firmware version is not a record for the next one. Fix the edition in the contract and fix the retest trigger with it.
On the AC side, the FY1 dual-outlet controller board carries OCPP 1.6J natively, and the optional AC PLC communication module is what upgrades that platform to OCPP 2.0.1 and ISO 15118 plug & charge. Because the module sits on the Control Pilot line, it has to be specified at design stage: adding it to a finished product is a wiring and enclosure change, not a firmware update.
On the DC side, the M4 dual-connector controller integrates the vehicle communication path alongside charge control, metering, insulation monitoring and connector-lock control on one board. The protocol revisions supported in a given build are stated in the datasheet for that build, because they depend on the firmware version and the communication option fitted. We would rather send a datasheet that matches a configuration than publish a revision number that turns out not to apply to it.
What we do not claim. eectec holds no Open Charge Alliance certificate, for OCPP 1.6 or for OCPP 2.0.1. Our charging platform runs OCPP 1.6 in large-scale commercial operation, with OCPP 2.0.1 support in final development — first delivery scheduled for December 2026. We do not offer eectec-held conformance records as a substitute for a brand owner's own: conformance testing applies to a named product and firmware version, and where a tender requires those records they are obtained for the finished station under the name of the party placing it on the market.
Production background, for scale rather than for the individual order: 15 years in the business, more than 1,000,000 control boards shipped to date, more than 1,500 customers, and a field defect rate of 880 PPM.
It is a hardware decision first. High-level communication under ISO 15118 runs over powerline on the Control Pilot line, so the station needs a powerline modem on that line, the analogue front end to couple it, and board space and wiring for both. On an AC station that has never carried one, adding ISO 15118 later is a board change and usually an enclosure change. The firmware work is real but it is the second problem, not the first.
Assume not, and check before you plan for it. The second generation changes the security model and increases what the station has to store and process for certificates, so a controller sized for the first generation may have no headroom left for the second. Whether a specific station can make the jump depends on the memory, the processor and the secure-element provision that were designed in, which is a question for the board datasheet rather than for the protocol name.
ISO 15118-2:2014 was last reviewed and confirmed in 2024, so it remains the current published edition of Part 2. A revision is in progress as ISO/DIS 15118-2 at draft international standard stage. For a manufacturer this means the first-generation target is stable today but has a moving replacement behind it, which is an argument for specifying the exact edition in a purchase contract rather than writing ISO 15118 without a part number.
Amendment 1 to ISO 15118-20:2022 was published in July 2026 and covers an AC DER service, an MCS service and an improved security concept. Two of those three are hardware-relevant: a distributed-energy-resource service on the AC side and megawatt charging both change what the equipment has to be able to do, and the security rework is the kind of change that lands on certificate handling. Any specification written against ISO 15118-20 from now on should state whether Amendment 1 is in scope.
Plug and Charge as defined in the standard is the ISO 15118 certificate-based identification mechanism: the vehicle presents a contract certificate over the high-level communication link and the station validates it. Other mechanisms that authenticate a vehicle by its identifier alone are not the same thing and do not carry the same security properties. If a tender says Plug and Charge, ask which one it means before you price the hardware, because the certificate-based version is the one that needs the modem, the certificate store and the provisioning path.
Through the conformance test parts of the same standard family. ISO 15118-4:2018 is the network and application protocol conformance test for the first generation, with a revision in progress as ISO/DIS 15118-4. For the second generation, ISO 15118-21:2025 is the common conformance test plan and ISO/PAS 15118-23:2026 is the conformance test plan for DC charging. Conformance testing is performed against a named product and firmware version, not against a brand or a product family.
On the AC side, the FY1 dual-outlet controller board carries OCPP 1.6J natively, and the optional AC PLC communication module is what upgrades that platform to OCPP 2.0.1 and ISO 15118 plug and charge. On the DC side, the M4 dual-connector controller integrates the vehicle communication path alongside charge control, metering, insulation monitoring and connector-lock control; the protocol revisions supported in a given build are stated in the datasheet for that build, because they depend on the firmware version and the communication option fitted.
eectec holds no Open Charge Alliance certificate, for OCPP 1.6 or for OCPP 2.0.1, and does not claim ISO 15118 conformance test records in place of a brand owner's own. Our charging platform runs OCPP 1.6 in large-scale commercial operation, with OCPP 2.0.1 support in final development and first delivery scheduled for December 2026. Where a tender requires conformance records, they are obtained for the finished station under the name of the party placing it on the market.
The standards themselves are published documents available from ISO. Nothing on this page reproduces their text; the technical requirements are in the standards and a specification should be written against them rather than against any vendor's summary, including this one.
Tell us the part number and edition you have to meet, the market, and whether AC or DC. We will tell you which of our boards reaches it, what the communication option adds, and what we cannot claim.