At Pionix, we're proud to share how our partnership with Pluon is bringing Software-Defined Charging to European EV infrastructure. Pluon, the European Design Award-winning manufacturer of sustainable, modular charging hardware, has joined forces with Pionix to co-develop a new generation of chargers that pair hardware built to last with software held to the same standard.

Built to last: Pluon's vision

Pluon's philosophy is straightforward: build chargers that last, that can be repaired, and that earn the long-term trust of the operators and drivers who depend on them. Circular-economy thinking runs through every product decision, from aluminium housings made of recycled material sourced within 50 kilometres of their headquarters to a patented modular system designed to be upgraded and serviced on site across a service life of ten years and beyond.

What Pluon needed was a software foundation that could live up to the same promise: a platform that keeps improving over time and never becomes the reason a charger goes obsolete.

The solution: a software-defined charger

At the core of the collaboration is a custom off-the-shelf charge controller built with Pionix ChargeBridge and Pionix Reference Designs. ChargeBridge consolidates all charging intelligence onto a single, pre-certified board, cutting component count, simplifying assembly, and improving reliability compared with the multi-board architecture it replaces. The board runs the open-source EVerest firmware, giving Pluon full ownership of their software and access to a continuously evolving, community-maintained platform.

Alongside the hardware, Pluon gains two Pionix cloud platforms:

• Charger Developer Cloud (CDC): a professional development and testing environment so Pluon's engineers can build, validate, and deploy firmware updates independently, on their own schedule.
• Charger Management Cloud (CMC): a fleet management and remote-diagnostics platform that gives Pluon and their customers real-time visibility into every deployed unit, enabling proactive service and maximum uptime.

As the anchor customer for Pionix Cloud Solutions for Charger OEMs, Pluon's real-world requirements directly shape how both platforms evolve.

Rudy Bonten, CEO of Pluon:

"Partnering with Pionix to build a software-defined charger means we can make the same promise about the software that we make about our hardware: it will last, it will improve, and it will never be the reason a charger becomes obsolete. That is the kind of product we want to put our name on."

Proven results from the first pilot

The partnership has already produced measurable results. Starting from ChargeBridge Devkits running EVerest, Pluon's engineering team built and validated a charger more reliable than their previous off-the-shelf controller within days. They installed the new units in their own parking lot, and the signal was immediate: staff consistently chose the new chargers over the existing ones, well before any formal customer rollout.

Pionix then turned the validated concept into a custom off-the-shelf controller board based on our Reference Designs. Because the reference design is already proven, building a tailored customer solution and getting it to market is fast: within four weeks, Pluon was in front of their customers with a working demo, a pace that would have taken several months through conventional hardware channels.

Sander Nulens, Lead Software Developer at Pluon:

"Based on Pionix ChargeBridge Devkits combined with EVerest, we could build a more reliable charger than the off-the-shelf controller we used before. We installed these in our parking lot within days and saw employees only using these chargers. Pionix helped us demo the new solution with a custom board to our customers within just four weeks."

A shared vision for European EV infrastructure

Both companies share a conviction that EV charging needs to move away from disposable, commodity hardware toward premium, sustainable, long-lived infrastructure. Pluon brings the hardware side of that vision, and Pionix brings the digital equivalent. EVerest, modular and open source, makes sure Pluon's chargers will never become obsolete because of outdated software or unsupported protocols: built in Europe, built to last, and built with the future in mind.

Partnership roadmap

The first commercial product, a software-defined retrofit of Pluon's AC charger line for semi-public and fleet use cases, is targeted to reach market within six months of the start of the collaboration. A second project, a DC fast-charge controller built on the same ChargeBridge and EVerest architecture, is already in preparation, bringing a unified firmware platform and a single management cloud across Pluon's full AC and DC range.