What Is a CPO? What Is an eMSP? EV Charging Roles Explained

In every public EV charging session, two business roles are involved: the company that operates the station, and the company that owns the customer relationship. These are the CPO and the eMSP.

Understand this split and the rest of the EV charging business model clicks into place. Miss it and everything looks confusing.

CPO — Charge Point Operator

A CPO is the company that:

• Owns or leases the physical charging hardware (the chargers themselves)
• Installs and maintains the stations
• Sets the prices (the tariffs)
• Reports station status (available, occupied, faulty)
• Is responsible for the electrical, mechanical, and software-side reliability

The CPO sees the world from the station’s perspective. Their key questions are: How many stations do we operate? What’s the uptime? How many kWh did we dispense this month? Which stations are most heavily utilized?

Examples of CPOs:

North America:

• Tesla Supercharger network (also functions as a CPO for non-Tesla drivers via Magic Dock and the open Supercharger program)
• Electrify America (the largest non-Tesla DC fast network in the US, originally funded by the VW dieselgate settlement)
• EVgo (major US DC fast network, both highway and urban)
• ChargePoint (the dominant Level 2 network in the US — at workplaces, multifamily, and retail; they’re a CPO and an eMSP)
• Blink Charging (USA — Level 2 and DC fast across public and workplace)
• FLO (headquartered in Canada, large Canadian footprint and growing US presence)
• Francis Energy (rapidly expanding US network — major NEVI program winner across the midwest and south)

Europe:

• Allego (Netherlands-based, networks across the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, UK)
• IONITY (high-power pan-European DC fast network, joint venture of major automakers)
• Fastned (Netherlands, Germany, UK — large dedicated highway sites)
• EnBW mobility+ (one of the largest German CPOs)
• be.energised and hundreds of regional operators

In both regions there are dozens of mid-sized CPOs serving local markets, plus the long tail of single-site operators (hotel chargers, parking-garage operators, condo associations).

A CPO’s revenue comes from selling charging sessions. They charge eMSPs (who in turn charge drivers) for each kWh delivered, sometimes plus session fees or idle fees.

eMSP — e-Mobility Service Provider

An eMSP is the company that:

• Owns the relationship with the EV driver
• Provides the app, the RFID card, the in-car nav integration
• Handles the customer’s payment method
• Markets to drivers (“our subscription gets you access to 1M+ chargers”)
• Bills the customer for charging sessions

The eMSP sees the world from the customer’s perspective. Their key questions are: How many drivers do we serve? What’s their satisfaction? How many sessions/month? Are they activating the subscription?

Examples of eMSPs:

North America:

• PlugShare (community-driven finder and payment app; now owned by EVgo)
• ChargePoint (their app aggregates ChargePoint’s own stations plus roaming partners)
• EVgo app (vertically integrated with EVgo’s CPO network, also supports some roaming)
• Electrify America Pass / Pass+ (EA’s customer app and subscription)
• Tesla app (Tesla drivers on Superchargers; expanding to non-Tesla EVs via the open Supercharger program)
• Chargeway (US-focused multi-network discovery and payment)
• A Better Routeplanner (ABRP) (route planning with integrated charging access via partner eMSPs)

Europe:

• Shell Recharge (started as NewMotion in the Netherlands; now Shell-owned, large pan-European footprint)
• Plugsurfing (German eMSP, also Shell-owned — Shell consolidated multiple eMSP brands)
• EnBW mobility+ (German utility’s mobility brand — also a CPO)
• Octopus Electroverse (UK-focused, by Octopus Energy)
• Maingau Autostrom, Charge HQ, and many regional players

eMSPs typically don’t own physical charging hardware. Their value is in the customer experience: the app’s usability, the breadth of network coverage, the simplicity of payment.

eMSP revenue comes from a markup on charging sessions, subscription fees, sometimes hardware sales (home chargers), and partnership economics.

Why the split exists

In theory, a CPO could just operate their own app and bill drivers directly — no eMSP needed. Some do (Tesla is the canonical example: they’re the CPO and the eMSP for Tesla owners on Superchargers).

But for most of the market, the split makes sense because:

Specialization. Building a customer-facing app, doing customer support, managing payment processing — these are different competencies from installing electrical hardware and maintaining uptime. Splitting the roles lets each party do what they’re good at.

Network effects for eMSPs. A driver wants one account that works everywhere. An eMSP that contracts with 50 CPOs offers more value than one tied to a single network. Drivers choose eMSPs based on coverage.

Capital efficiency for CPOs. Building a station is capital-intensive ($30-150K per DC fast station). Building an app and acquiring customers is expensive in a different way. Few companies want to do both at scale.

Cross-border roaming. A French eMSP wants German drivers to use their app when traveling. The German CPO wants those drivers as customers. OCPI lets them work together.

How CPO and eMSP work together (the OCPI angle)

Every charging session bridges a CPO and an eMSP:

1. Driver opens their eMSP’s app (Shell Recharge, say)
2. The app shows nearby chargers — including stations operated by other CPOs, not just Shell’s
3. Where does that map data come from? OCPI Locations module — each partner CPO publishes their stations to the eMSP via OCPI.
4. Driver picks a station, taps “start charging”
5. OCPI Commands module — the eMSP triggers the CPO’s station to start
6. OCPI Tokens module — the CPO validates the driver via the eMSP-issued token
7. Session begins. Real-time data flows via OCPI Sessions module
8. Session ends. OCPI CDRs module — the CPO sends a final billing record to the eMSP
9. eMSP charges the driver’s payment method (usually with a small markup)

The eMSP never touches the station. The CPO never touches the driver’s credit card. OCPI is the contract between them.

Visualized:

flowchart LR
    Driver([Driver]) -->|App + payment| eMSP[eMSP]
    eMSP -->|OCPI| CPO[CPO backend]
    CPO -->|OCPP| Station[Charging station]
    Station -.->|Physical charging| Driver
    style Driver fill:#dbeafe,stroke:#2563eb
    style Station fill:#dcfce7,stroke:#16a34a
    style eMSP fill:#fef3c7,stroke:#d97706
    style CPO fill:#fef3c7,stroke:#d97706

The driver only interacts with their eMSP (the app) and the station (the plug). Everything between is invisible — but it’s where the entire business model lives.

When one company plays both roles

Some companies are vertically integrated — they’re both the CPO and the eMSP for their own ecosystem:

• Tesla operates Superchargers (CPO) and the Tesla app (eMSP) for Tesla drivers
• ChargePoint operates stations and the ChargePoint app
• EVgo operates stations and the EVgo app

This works when:

• The customer base is captive (Tesla owners) or large enough to be self-sustaining (ChargePoint, EVgo)
• The company has the capital to build infrastructure AND the marketing reach to acquire customers

It limits roaming. A vertically integrated network either has to open its stations to other eMSPs (via OCPI) or accept that non-customers can’t use them. Tesla’s “Magic Dock” Superchargers and the broader Supercharger opening are exactly this move.

A third role: the Hub

When many CPOs and many eMSPs want to roam with each other, the bilateral connections multiply: 10 CPOs × 10 eMSPs = 100 connections.

Hubs simplify this. A hub is a third party that maintains connections to many CPOs and many eMSPs. Any CPO connected to the hub can reach any eMSP connected to the hub, and vice versa.

Examples:

• Hubject (large European hub, also operates the OICP protocol)
• Gireve (French hub, operates broadly across Europe)
• Other regional hubs

Hubs charge fees (per session, per kWh, or as subscriptions) but absorb the integration complexity. For smaller CPOs and eMSPs, joining a hub is faster than building dozens of bilateral OCPI integrations.

A fourth role: the NSP (Navigation Service Provider)

Sometimes mentioned in OCPI documentation but used less in everyday business conversation. An NSP is a company that helps drivers find chargers — Google Maps, A Better Routeplanner, in-car navigation systems. NSPs typically consume OCPI Locations data from CPOs (or via a hub) but don’t necessarily operate the financial / billing side of charging sessions.

Why this all matters

The CPO/eMSP/Hub/NSP framework determines:

• Where the customer relationship lives (eMSP)
• Where the physical asset and operating P&L live (CPO)
• Who profits per session (split via tariffs and markups)
• What roaming arrangements look like (direct, hub-based, hybrid)
• What kind of OCPI implementation you need (different roles implement different OCPI modules differently)

If you’re building a business in EV charging, the first strategic question is “which role(s) are we playing?” The answer shapes everything: capital requirements, customer acquisition, the OCPI modules you need, what hardware decisions matter.

Three things to take from this

1. CPO = station operator. eMSP = customer-relationship owner. The two main roles. Different competencies. Different revenue models.

2. OCPI is the protocol that lets them work together. Without OCPI, every CPO would need to build their own customer app; every eMSP would have to operate their own stations. OCPI lets specialization happen.

3. Vertical integration exists but isn’t the dominant model. Tesla and ChargePoint do it. Most of the industry doesn’t. The split-role model is more scalable for the broader market.

Once you can identify which role a company is playing, the rest of EV charging business news becomes navigable. “Why is Shell Recharge expanding into the Netherlands?” → because they’re an eMSP and they want network coverage. “Why is IONITY raising prices?” → because they’re a CPO and tariff is their revenue lever.