What EV software does behind the scenes

New electric vehicle models and more charging stations are the visible tip of the eMobility iceberg. But there’s much more happening underneath, and software is one part you might not notice at first glance, even though it shapes almost every charging experience.

Let’s look beneath the surface of the EV expansion.

Contactless “tap-and-go” payments

EV software development behind ad-hoc charging

Paying for charging as easily as paying for fuel or shopping? It’s possible, but only if the charging station software does a few non-obvious things well.

Behind a single tap, the system has to:

• Synchronise three independent systems in real time: the payment terminal, the charger firmware, and the backend charging platform.
• Turn charging into a stateless interaction: without a pre-existing user account or additional app.

If you’ve travelled across Western Europe, you may have already encountered this model in practice, for example at Fastned stations. Drivers can start a charging session using a debit card, credit card, or Apple Pay, without registering or creating an account.

That’s harder than it sounds. Charging sessions are long-running and physical, while payments are short and digital. It’s the software that has to keep the two in sync. The reservation plays a key role here: it secures the payment upfront and is later settled for the exact amount charged. If something goes wrong in between, the system still needs to close the session without overcharging the driver.

Hard or not, this is no longer a “nice to have”. Under the AFIR (Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation), the EU now requires publicly accessible chargers to support ad-hoc payments, including contactless credit cards. Simple for the lawmakers, demanding for the software behind it (and yes, that’s the kind of challenge we like at Happy Team!).

Real-time charger status

Why EV software development makes availability trustworthy

Making charger “availability” trustworthy is another thing drivers expect by default. And another thing that turns out to be surprisingly hard to get right on the software side.

We’ve seen this up close while building EV app for one of our clients. What looks like a simple status badge hides a lot of complexity underneath.

First, charger states aren’t universal. Labels like Available, Preparing, Occupied or Faulted may exist across vendors, but they don’t always mean the same thing. Software has to normalise those differences so that “available” actually means you can start charging now.

Then there’s scale. When thousands of chargers report their status every few seconds, updates arrive in bursts rather than neat, predictable streams. The system has to absorb those spikes without lag or outdated information leaking into the app.

And finally, the data has to be shared securely. Status information needs to be exposed to apps and third parties, but without opening up internal systems or creating security risks. What’s public must stay useful, and what’s private must stay protected.

Sharing power

EV software development and dynamic load management

Many charging-station operators worry about what happens when everyone plugs in at once. Without a “brain” to manage the flow, a row of ultra-fast chargers can pull as much power as a small neighbourhood, potentially overloading the local grid connection.

This is where Dynamic Load Management (DLM) software quietly steps in. Instead of letting chargers compete for power, the software acts as a digital conductor. It distributes the available electricity across all active cars in real time. For example, ten cars plug in, everyone keeps charging, but the software slightly throttles the speed of a car that’s already at 80% to give more power to one that just arrived nearly empty.

Behind the scenes, the software balances three things:

• Grid capacity: how much power the local network can safely deliver
• Vehicle demand: how much energy the car’s battery can actually accept at that moment
• User priority: recognising who needs a quick “splash and dash” versus who is staying for a three-hour lunch

Some networks are taking this a step further. Operators like IONITY are increasingly integrating software with on-site buffer batteries and solar canopies. When demand spikes, the system pulls energy from these local batteries rather than the grid – a process known as peak shaving. The drivers can’t say the difference because the station just works, even when the grid is under pressure. Behind the scenes, software quietly solved the power problem.

Software that fixes itself

Predictive maintenance in EV software development

Quite a few charging failures are software-related, for example, a frozen screen, a lost connection to the billing server, or a handshake error between the car and the plug. In the past, this usually meant the charger was out of commission until a technician could physically visit the site.

Today, the most advanced networks use AI-driven predictive maintenance that continuously analyses operational signals such as internal temperature trends, voltage stability, communication timeouts, and error frequency patterns. When the system detects early signs of abnormal behaviour, it can automatically trigger a remote restart or reset the affected software component before the issue escalates.

In many cases, this happens between charging sessions, so the next driver never notices that the charger briefly recovered itself in the background.

Invisible charging

Where EV software development removes friction

And what if the charging operations… disappeared?

We are moving in that direction with Plug & Charge (ISO 15118): no apps, no cards. You just plug the cable into the car, and that triggers a secure, encrypted digital handshake between the car and the station – enough to identify the driver, exchange billing details, and start charging.

Software does the real work here. It handles authentication, certificate validation, contract matching, and charging and billing sequencing. For a driver, charging becomes almost invisible: plug in, walk away.

And what if there is no cable at all?

That’s the idea behind wireless inductive charging. You park over a pad embedded in the ground, and the rest is handled automatically. Software aligns the vehicle with the pad, controls power transfer, monitors safety conditions, and manages start and stop logic. The driver does nothing more than park the car.

Wrapping up

As European charging infrastructure matures, the questions are changing. We no longer ask only where the nearest charger is or how fast it delivers power. These days, we expect charging to be accessible and simply work, without thinking about it at all, much like refuelling a conventional car.

That shift is possible thanks to the software. And, as the examples above show, it’s software that quietly turns a growing network of chargers into a system drivers can actually rely on.

It’s an exciting transition to witness!