On March 31, 2026, Codibly and smartEn went live to examine a paradox at the heart of European e-mobility: the regulation for smart and bidirectional charging is largely written, yet the systems that would make it useful still cannot talk to each other in any standardized way. The panel explored why charging infrastructure that is compliant on paper so often falls short of being genuinely flexible.

Aron Lazarchick, Partner at Codibly, and Liam Callaghan of Codibly’s e-mobility practice were joined by Jeanne Hervé of smartEn to connect the EU policy picture with the on-the-ground integration reality.

Webinar highlights

1. Three directives, one framework
AFIR, the EPBD, and the Renewable Energy Directive together mandate smart and increasingly bidirectional charging across the EU — a comprehensive regulatory scaffold for flexibility.

2. Mandated endpoints, missing middle
The rules specify the charger, the vehicle, and the grid interface, but not the coordination layer between them — which is exactly where flexibility is won or lost.

3. Fragmentation mirrors institutional silos
Competing protocols — OCPP, OpenADR, ISO 15118, OEM APIs — echo the siloed structure of the European Commission’s directorates, none historically required to coordinate on e-mobility.

4. A two-tier CPO market
Large multi-corridor operators are already exploring demand response, while many mid-tier and regional CPOs deploy AFIR-capable hardware only to find that compliance does not equal usefulness.

5. Fleets are ahead of public charging
Depot and fleet operators were forced into smart charging and dynamic load balancing years ago by grid constraints — leaving them further along on flexibility than much of the public network.

6. Smart charging needs its TCP/IP moment
Rather than yet another protocol, the sector needs a translation layer between the standards that already exist — and the regulatory courage to test, measure, and iterate.

Watch the full webinar below:

Looking ahead

With EPBD transposition deadlines bringing smart and bidirectional charging into national law, the gap between regulation and integration becomes the defining commercial question. The operators and vendors who invest in the coordination layer now will be the ones able to turn compliance into revenue.

We distilled the discussion into a written summary — Three Takeaways from the Codibly x smartEn Smart Charging Panel.