• Ground rules
• For site hosts
• For operators
• Questions by vendor
• When a vendor leaves
• Walk-away signs

Ground rules for everyone

Uptime guarantees are theater

Whether a charger works for a driver depends on the car, the cellular network, the payment processor, the back office, the utility, the weather, the last person who ran over the cable, and the vendor. No vendor controls that list. The ones who guarantee an uptime number define it until it means nothing: network outages excluded, "customer-caused" faults excluded, scheduled maintenance excluded, and a stall that is online but fails every session counted as up.

If the pitch leads with uptime, walk away. Ask about service and support instead, and make them walk you through their internal timelines, what triggers a dispatch, and who does the work.

Hold vendors to what they actually control

• Response time. How fast a qualified person starts working the problem, remotely or on site.
• Time to repair. How fast the stall is charging cars again, with the clock starting when the fault is reported, not when they get around to diagnosing it.
• Spare parts on hand. Which parts are stocked, where, and how many. A two-day repair becomes a two-month repair when the power module ships from overseas.

A tight service SLA built on those three numbers is worth more than any uptime guarantee, because it is something a vendor can actually be held to.

Price it all in

The quote should include everything the charger needs to take a payment and charge a car: payment terminal, cable length, connectivity, commissioning, and the first term of software. If the POS is an add-on, the longer cable is an upgrade, and the modem is a line item, the real price is higher than the headline and the vendor knows it. All-inclusive pricing, or keep shopping.

Payment terms should be tight and fair

• A modest deposit to reserve production, not most of the order up front.
• The balance at net 30 after delivery.
• Shipped DDP, delivered duty paid. The vendor carries freight, customs clearance, and import duties to your site. On hardware built overseas, the gap between DDP and anything less is tariff exposure you did not price.

Prefer in-house service

A vendor whose own technicians service its own equipment has every incentive to fix it fast and learn from the failure. A vendor that subcontracts service has a margin to protect and a subcontractor with ten other customers. Ask who shows up. Get a name, not a network.

Speed is your leverage

Vendors bend for a buyer who can sign this quarter. They do not bend for tire-kickers, and they remember who wasted their time. Don't negotiate hard during ideation. Get indicative pricing, do your homework, and start procurement when you are actually ready to move. That is when a vendor will give up terms, because a real order is on the table. This goes for hardware and software alike.

If you are a site host buying turnkey

Turnkey means one contract and one phone number, which is the appeal. It also means five companies hiding behind one logo: whoever builds the hardware, runs the software, processes payments, installs the site, and fixes it. You are only as protected as the weakest of the five.

• Make them name every subcontractor, by layer. If the answer is vague, so is the accountability.
• Find out who answers when a driver calls, and what you are expected to do while you wait.
• Get the service SLA in writing, with the three numbers above and a remedy when they're missed.
• Ask what happens to your chargers if the provider exits, sells, or you want to leave. Can the hardware move to another network, and who pays for that?
• Know who owns the chargers, the data, and the driver relationship. Those can be three different answers.
• Read the renewal terms. A cheap first year with an expensive year four is a lease with extra steps.

If you are an operator buying the pieces

Buying hardware, software, payments, installation, and service separately gets you better pricing and more control. It also makes you the integrator, which means the gaps between vendors are now your problem.

• Get the hardware and software vendors on the same call before you buy either, and have them describe the full session together, from plug-in to payment capture.
• Confirm the OCPP version and the specific features each side actually supports. "OCPP compliant" without details means nothing.
• Decide who owns each failure mode before it happens. A charger that won't start could be hardware, software, payments, or connectivity, and each vendor will suggest it's one of the others.
• Test the ugly paths on purpose before launch: pull the antenna, use a declined card, stop mid-session, unplug during precharge.

Questions to ask, by vendor

Examples of vendors in each category are listed to show what the category covers. Inclusion is not an endorsement.

Hardware

Examples: ABB E-mobility, Alpitronic, Autel, BTC Power, Kempower.

Who services your equipment, and are they your employees?

Listen forNamed in-house technicians in your region, or a specific, accountable partner with its own SLA to the vendor.

What is your response time and time to repair, in writing?

Listen forHours and days with remedies attached. Not "best efforts."

Which spare parts do you stock in North America, and where?

Listen forA specific list: power modules, cables, connectors, payment readers, controllers, contactors. Stocked domestically.

Is the price all-inclusive?

Listen forPayment terminal, cable, connectivity, commissioning, and first-term software all included.

What are your payment and shipping terms?

Listen forModest deposit, net 30, DDP.

Will you provide service manuals and parts access to a qualified third party?

Listen forYes, at least for basic repairs, and in writing. You'll need it if they ever leave.

What does the warranty exclude?

Listen forA short list. Cables and connectors excluded as "wear items" is common and expensive.

Charge management software (CMS)

Examples: AMPECO, Driivz, Monta.

Which OCPP version and features have you certified or tested with this hardware?

Listen forNamed hardware models, a version number, and a list of supported features. Ideally, live sites running the same combination.

What is the support model?

Listen forA clear tier 2 role for you, the operator, with defined response times. Be wary of anyone who says they will "handle driver support" as a headline feature.

How do I move my chargers to another platform?

Listen forA documented process to change the OCPP backend address and credentials, and no fees or lockouts for doing it.

Who owns the session data, and can I export all of it?

Listen forYou own it, and there's a bulk export in a standard format.

What happens to my sites if you are acquired or shut down?

Listen forNotice periods, data export, and help migrating. Not a shrug.

What does pricing look like in year three?

Listen forPer-port pricing with a cap on increases.

Payments

Examples: Nayax and other unattended payment terminal providers.

Which processors is this terminal certified with?

Listen forMore than one. Changing processors should not mean changing terminals.

How large is the pre-authorization hold, and can I set it?

Listen forConfigurable. Drivers call about a $100 hold far more than a $25 one.

What does the terminal do when connectivity drops?

Listen forA defined offline policy you choose, not one you discover.

Who handles refunds and chargebacks, and how fast?

Listen forA process your tier 1 team can actually use.

Installer or EPC

How many charging sites have you built, and can I call two of the owners?

Listen forReal references at similar sites. General electrical experience is not the same thing.

Who manages the utility, and what is your assumption for their timeline?

Listen forSomeone who has worked with your specific utility and quotes the schedule in months, not weeks.

What is excluded from the price?

Listen forA short exclusions list. Trenching distance, soil conditions, and utility work are where change orders come from.

Who commissions the chargers, and who signs off that they work?

Listen forA defined handoff with the hardware vendor, ending in real test sessions on real cars.

Service and maintenance

What triggers a dispatch, and how fast after that?

Listen forSpecific triggers, like a failed-session threshold or a fault code, and a clock that starts automatically.

Do your technicians carry parts, or order them after diagnosis?

Listen forCommon parts on the truck. The second visit is where time to repair goes to die.

Is preventive maintenance included, and what does it cover?

Listen forScheduled visits with a checklist: cables, connectors, filters, cooling, firmware.

How do you report?

Listen forPer-ticket records with times and root cause, not a monthly uptime percentage.

When a vendor leaves the market

It isn't hypothetical. In October 2024, Enel X Way closed its North American business on a few days' notice and said its software would be discontinued, warning that commercial stations would lose functionality without software continuity. Owners of networked commercial chargers were left scrambling, and it was independent OCPP software providers that ended up migrating sites so they could keep running.

Earlier that year, DC charger maker Tritium entered voluntary administration and its business was sold to Exicom. The new owner committed to supporting existing warranties, while acknowledging it wasn't necessarily obliged to. That's the lesson: a warranty is a promise from a company, and it's only as good as the company.

Negotiate these before you need them

• Access to spare parts, directly or through a named distributor, if the vendor exits or stops supporting the model.
• Service manuals for basic repairs: cables, connectors, payment readers, filters, and module swaps.
• Documented steps to change the OCPP backend address and credentials, so you can point your chargers at a new platform without the old one's help.
• Your data, exportable, on demand.

Then test the OCPP changeover on one charger before you need it. A migration plan you have never run is a theory.

Walk-away signs

• The pitch leads with uptime.
• They can't tell you who shows up to fix the charger, or it's "our partner network."
• The payment terminal, the longer cable, or connectivity is an add-on.
• Most of the order is due up front, or they won't ship DDP.
• "OCPP compliant," with no version, no feature list, and no named hardware it has run on.
• No answer on moving to another software platform, or a fee for doing it.
• The software vendor promises to take care of your drivers.
• References are all pilots or all from one friendly customer.
• Warranty exclusions longer than the warranty.