Next week, Power2Drive opens in Munich alongside Intersolar Europe. The expo floor will be packed with charger hardware from every corner of the supply chain — DC fast chargers, AC wallboxes, bidirectional units, cables, connectors, and software platforms. We dug into our Chargipedia database of 329 hardware manufacturers and 177 current EV models to map what's actually happening beneath the booth banners.
DC charging: the 800V wave is building
The single most important variable in DC charging speed isn't the charger — it's the car. And the split between 400V and 800V battery architectures is reshaping the entire hardware conversation.
Of the 177 current EV models in our database, 136 run on 400V architecture. Just 26 use 800V. But those 26 models charge at an average peak of 256 kW — 67% faster than the 400V fleet's average of 153 kW. One Lucid model runs at 900V. The charging speed gap isn't subtle.
The 800V roster now spans the full market. At the top end, Porsche Taycan (270 kW), Audi Q6 and A6 e-tron on the PPE platform (270 kW), and BMW's iX3 Neue Klasse (400 kW — just opened for orders this week). But the real story is that 800V has moved well beyond premium. Hyundai and Kia got there first with the E-GMP platform — the Ioniq 5 and 6, Kia EV6 and EV9 all charge at 240 kW and above. Chinese contenders Zeekr 001/007 (360 kW) and XPeng G9 (300 kW) are pushing even harder. This is no longer a flagship-only technology.
And the migration is accelerating. Volvo just upgraded the EX90 from 400V to 800V for the 2026 model year. BYD moved the Atto 3 EVO to 800V with 220 kW charging. Mercedes is launching the CLA EQ on 800V at up to 320 kW — though with a catch: it needs a factory-installed converter to work with 400V chargers, and peaks at just 100 kW when it does. The 400V-to-800V shift is no longer a premium play. It's becoming the default for new platforms.
For charger OEMs, this means the 150-250 kW bracket is already becoming mid-range. Across 15 European countries, we count 18 000 ultra-HPC connectors rated at 400 kW or above — and that number is climbing fast. At Power2Drive this week, Chinese manufacturer XCharge unveiled its next-generation C7 at 480 kW, with EnBW — Germany's largest public fast-charging network — already deploying it. ChargePoint has launched a 600 kW standalone unit. Tesla is rolling out 500 kW V4 Superchargers. And BYD — yes, the car company — is deploying what's being called the fastest commercial EV charger in the world across Europe.
Meanwhile, the Megawatt Charging System (MCS) is pushing past 1 MW for heavy-duty vehicles. DAF, MAN, and Scania already have electric trucks rated for 325-375 kW DC charging on 400V architecture, but MCS will enable 10-15 minute top-ups for long-haul electric trucking. The standard is finalised; commercial rollout is the next hurdle.
For passenger cars, no EV currently sold accepts over 500 kW — yet ChargePoint is shipping 600 kW units and Alpitronic's HYC1000 distributes up to 1 MW across multiple dispensers. The strategy is deliberate: future-proof the hardware, and let the cars catch up. For CPOs, it means buying capacity you won't fully use for years. The truck side is a different story entirely. ABB and Kempower are shipping 1.2 MW MCS hardware designed for electric long-haul — Mercedes-Benz Trucks just completed a 2 400 km field test across five countries with MCS-compatible eActros 600s. Here, the infrastructure and vehicles are ramping in lockstep.
The slow-DC debate
An interesting counter-trend is emerging at the low end of DC. Across Europe, nearly 20 000 connectors sit in the 25-49 kW DC range — not fast enough for road trips, but significantly quicker than an 11 kW AC wallbox. For destination charging at hotels, shopping centres, and workplaces, slow DC hits a sweet spot: faster than AC, cheaper than HPC hardware, and no need for grid upgrades that 150+ kW chargers demand.
| Power bracket | Connectors (15 EU countries) | Use case |
|---|---|---|
| AC (<25 kW) | 752 340 | Home, workplace, overnight |
| Slow DC (25-49 kW) | 19 897 | Destination, urban hubs |
| DC Fast (50-149 kW) | 93 424 | Highway, urban fast |
| HPC (150-399 kW) | 115 143 | Corridor, high-traffic hubs |
| Ultra HPC (400+ kW) | 17 927 | Premium highway, fleet depots |
AC wallboxes: 85 Chinese suppliers and counting
Here's a number that should make every European wallbox manufacturer pause: our Chargipedia tracks 85 Chinese hardware companies with products on the European market. Germany, the historic heartland of charging equipment, has 74. China isn't just competing — it's the single largest country of origin for EVSE hardware brands.
The names tell the story. Alongside established Chinese players like Autel, EN+, BESEN, and Sungrow (which crossed from solar inverters into EV charging), there are dozens of Shenzhen, Ningbo, and Zhejiang-based manufacturers most Europeans have never heard of: UUGreenPower, Gresgying Digital, SETEC Power, Teison Energy, LINKCHARGING, and more. Many sell exclusively through Alibaba and Amazon. Some white-label for European brands.
The price pressure is real. Chinese-manufactured 7.4 kW single-phase wallboxes retail for under EUR 200 — roughly half the price of a comparable Easee or Wallbox unit. At 22 kW three-phase, the gap is even wider. The question isn't whether Chinese wallboxes will capture market share — they already have. The question is whether European certification standards (CE, TUV, MID metering) can keep pace with the flood.
Watch the solar inverter companies. Sungrow, Growatt, Huawei, and Enphase are all moving into integrated home energy systems that combine solar, batteries, and EV charging. Growatt just announced a 100 kW commercial charger. Enphase is showcasing at Intersolar Munich next week. The wallbox is becoming just one node in a home energy management system — and that changes the competitive dynamics entirely.
AFIR mandates ISO 15118-2 for all new public AC chargers from January 2026, and ISO 15118-20 for all new public and private chargers from January 2027. That's a compliance hurdle many smaller Chinese suppliers may not clear — and a potential quality firewall for the European market.
Bidirectional charging: from pilot to product
For years, bidirectional charging (V2G, V2H, V2L) has been the EV industry's perpetual "next year" technology. CHAdeMO supported it from day one in 2010, but CCS didn't follow. That's finally changing — and the last week alone brought four significant milestones.
- ChargeLine BiDi wallbox (18 June): The Mobility House, EcoG, and Chinese manufacturer EV-Tech unveiled a mass-produced 11 kW DC bidirectional wallbox running at 800V. It supports ISO 15118-20 and OCPP 2.1 — the open standards that make any compliant EV work with any compliant charger. Series production, not a prototype.
- Hyundai Ioniq 9 V2G discharge (18 June): Hyundai completed Australia's first standards-compliant V2G discharge using the Ioniq 9 and a StarCharge Halo 7.4 kW bidirectional DC charger, following ISO 15118-20.
- GM V2G software update (9 June): General Motors announced a firmware update enabling full V2G capability on existing vehicle-to-home systems — no hardware change needed. Ten US utilities in talks, starting in Texas and California.
- VW/Elli V2G product package (17 June): Volkswagen and its energy brand Elli announced a V2G service launching in Germany in Q4 2026. Customers with ID. family EVs, a bidirectional wallbox, and a dynamic tariff could save EUR 700-900 per year by feeding stored electricity back to the grid.
BMW's Neue Klasse ships with bidirectional hardware. On 15 June — days before Power2Drive — BMW and SOLARWATT announced a joint V2H offering that integrates Neue Klasse vehicles with a bidirectional wallbox and SOLARWATT's home energy management system. The pitch: use your 800V BMW as a home battery, maximise solar self-consumption, and cut your energy bill. When a volume OEM bakes V2G into its base platform and launches with a named hardware partner, bidirectional is no longer a science project.
The standards puzzle
Bidirectional charging over CCS hinges on ISO 15118-20 — the updated version of the Plug & Charge standard that adds bidirectional power transfer. The original CCS connector wasn't designed for this, but the protocol now supports it. OCPP 2.1 handles the backend communication. Together, they create an open ecosystem where a Hyundai can feed power back through a StarCharge charger to an energy management backend from a third provider.
CHAdeMO remains the only plug standard with years of real-world V2G experience — the Nissan Leaf has supported it since 2012. But CHAdeMO's market share in Europe has cratered. CCS is where the volume is, and ISO 15118-20 is its ticket to bidirectionality.
Which cars actually do this?
V2L (vehicle-to-load — powering appliances from the car) is widespread. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 and 6, Kia EV6 and EV9, and several Chinese models offer it via an adapter. That's useful for camping; it's not grid-scale energy storage.
V2H (vehicle-to-home) is further along. GM's Ultium-based EVs now support it in the US. The Ford F-150 Lightning has been doing it for two years. In Europe, a housing cooperative in Hudiksvall, Sweden, is already using bidirectional charging to power eight homes — reducing electricity costs by shifting EV batteries to off-peak charging and peak-time discharge.
V2G (vehicle-to-grid — selling power back to utilities) remains the holy grail. The business case is clear: aggregate thousands of EVs into a virtual power plant, absorb renewable energy when it's cheap, sell it back at peak prices. The Mobility House is betting its entire company on this — it just sold its fleet business to Edenred to focus exclusively on V2G and energy trading.
Bidirectional charger hardware has historically been expensive — some commercial V2G systems exceed EUR 100 000 per connector. The ChargeLine BiDi wallbox at 11 kW DC represents the first serious attempt to bring V2G hardware to residential price points. If it's priced anywhere near a standard DC wallbox, that changes the game.
What to watch on the expo floor
Power2Drive 2026 arrives at a moment when three tectonic shifts are colliding: the 800V architecture push is making 150 kW chargers feel mid-range, Chinese hardware suppliers have quietly become the largest national bloc in the EVSE market, and bidirectional charging just shipped its first mass-produced open-standards product.
The companies that matter at this expo aren't just the ones with the biggest booths. KEBA is launching a new DC generation with AI-powered anti-theft. Schneider Electric is showcasing a new smart charging range. HARDHITTER — one of our 85 Chinese hardware companies, based in Qingdao — is presenting what it calls globally leading charging solutions. The questions they all need to answer: Can your charger handle 800V vehicles efficiently? Can your wallbox compete on price with Shenzhen? And can your hardware do bidirectional?
Our Chargipedia profiles most of the exhibitors. If you want to look up any manufacturer, CPO, or EV model mentioned here, head to chargalytics.com/chargipedia.