Another point made was this:
"Imagine if a major fuel chain such as Esso announced you would no longer be able to pay for your petrol or diesel using cash, credit or debit card at most of its garages."
"Instead you'll need different apps or wireless cards for most other petrol chains and there are more than 30 of them out there.
That's the thing though. In that respect, I think the Which report is completely wrong in suggesting that any major chain will force you to use any of those methods.
As far as I can tell, all the major charging chains operating their own charging sites allow you to roll up and pay by contactless credit or debit card, without any registration, app, or anything like that. Fair enough, I don't think you can pay by cash, but that must be a rapidly diminishing sector. This type of charging site, operated by BP, Shell, etc., will operate in just the same way as existing filling stations.
The problem starts when you try to use one of the many hosted chargers that are scattered about, operated by someone other than the site owner - they all seem to have their own payment systems. However, I don't think it's fair to compare this to the way that petrol and diesel is sold, it's a completely different business model. It's like comparing Tesco with Amazon - you wouldn't expect Amazon to sell you something without registering first, and I'm sure they won't accept cash.
While a petrol station needs considerable planning and capital investment, just about any business can have one of these hosted chargers plonked in their car park and take a rent from it. The reason these third party chargers have popped up is because of the ease by which they can be installed just about anywhere there is access to a reasonable supply.
I see these hosted chargers being worthwhile if one is particularly convenient for you, but I don't really see them as part of a national charging infrastructure. The big players will soon take care of that, as they do now with petrol and diesel.