In mid-June GM hosted their 2026 Empower event, where they made several major announcements. But there are two in particular that will be big benefits to the day-to-day electric vehicle driver, especially when it comes to charging GM brand EVs.
One is Energy Pass, a consolidation of all the public charging apps into one easy-to-manage platform. And two: Plug and Charge, where, as the name implies, you can just plug in your GM vehicle into an EV charging station and start charging immediately. You don’t have to pull out a phone or credit card or download a new app—just plug and play, very simple as it should be.
Both of which I think are very important to making EVs more seamless and accessible to the average person. Thankfully GM gave us an on-site first look at how these will work, and we’re going to give you a quick rundown.
First things first, let’s go over the biggest piece of this, which is Energy Pass. If you’re integrated into the EV space, then you probably already know by now how fragmented the experience is. There are hundreds of thousands of public charging ports for EVs like GM vehicles across the entire US. That said it’s not uncommon for each network to have their own app, their own user interface, their own account creation process. God forbid you go on a road trip—you could end up with five separate apps on your phone, typing in your card info multiple times, over and over again… It’s a huge pain point, and managing all this makes the experience of owning an EV a lot more difficult than it should be especially in 2026.
Thankfully, with Energy Pass, GM is taking a huge step in streamlining that experience into something it really should have been in the first place. Energy Pass combines most of those charging apps into one unified charging platform, all inside the same MyChevrolet, MyCadillac, or MyGMC you’re already using—so no, you don’t need to yet again download another app.
Through the GM app you get one login for all your terminals, one stored payment method across all the supported networks, and it’s basically a one-stop shop, making it super seamless to charge at whatever location is most convenient. At launch, the supported networks are Tesla’s Supercharger, IONNA, and Electrify America. ChargePoint has joined too, and EVgo is coming soon—which is nearly 70% of all US DC fast chargers. Which again brings a lot of ease of use to the experience. And what’s great about this whole process is it only requires one-time enrollment, It’s free to join, free to use, and you only pay when you are actually charging your vehicle business as usual.
Once you’re enrolled, Energy Pass also includes a nice handful of quality-of-life features. Arguably the best part you can view on a live map all participating charging networks, and tapping into one shows you everything you need to know —like the ratings, hours, address, distance, pricing, which ones are Plug and Charge capable, what connector types are available, like CCS or NACS as an example, and a notation on if you need an adapter or not—again, all built right into the app. You can also check your charging status live. You can see charging history with receipts, a total price breakdown, payment method used, alongside the specific locations you’ve been visiting. And for that extra bit on top, you can get exclusive discounts at select networks—with IONNA locations specifically, Energy Pass users can get a 10% discount, and we’re sure more will be added in the future
GM EV charging made easy, with Energy Pass
Inside Energy Pass, there’s a feature for compatible stations called Plug and Charge, and the concept is as simple as it sounds. You literally pull up to your charging network of choice, plug in, and your GM EV will start charging automatically, with the payment being handled in the background. In practice, it’s way more seamless than a traditional gas station experience since you still have to pull up, break out a payment method, and start filling up. There’s still a fair amount of friction there. But with Plug and Charge, you dont really have to do anything. You never have to pull out your phone, you don’t have to bring a payment method with you, you don’t have to process a payment yourself. The vehicle securely identifies itself to the charger, verifies your account, and starts the session and billing on its own.
This feature you can also keep track of via Energy Pass inside the GM app. When you look up specific charging stations, it will notate whether it is Plug and Charge compatible, and you can activate or deactivate the feature beforehand depending on the individual network, if you so choose. At this point, it’s already live at IONNA Rechargeries and ChargePoint, while also coming soon to ChargePoint this summer—and for GM’s NACS-native vehicles, they will get Plug and Charge support at Tesla Superchargers later on via an over-the-air update.
And those are two of the biggest announcements at GM Empower that we mainly wanted to focus on: Energy Pass and Plug and Charge, two features that should massively simplify the experience for daily EV Drivers. From what I’ve heard, this will be an evolving platform as well, so today is really just the beginning. In the future we will be seeing more chargers added to the network, Energy Pass is certain to add more features, and possibly more types of discounts down the line, so the experience will only get better from here.
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