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.
