Electric vehicle charging is about to get a whole lot easier around the world from next year, with the US Government’s Joint Office of Energy and Transportation announcing “plug-and-charge” in North America, a common security framework that will use a universal charger.
Fractured Infrastructure
The current nature of the public electric vehicle charging network has been fractured, widely cited as one of the most significant barriers to EV adoption, with various payment methods and sign-up processes required to initiate and pay for a charging session.
Many efforts have been made to make the charging process easier, with contactless transactions, but the entire procedure of plugging in and commencing an EV charging session can still prove to be a problem.
Current Situation
At present, automobile manufacturers and charging companies make use of their own authentication systems, for which the user has to sign up and log in to communicate with the vehicle digitally before the actual charging begins.
Not only does this make the entire vehicle charging session a lengthy process, but also typically requires a form of monetary payment as a deposit, before the final disbursement when the charge is finished.
This can also be done through RFID cards if they are accepted or by making use of a contactless bank card. In the worst-case scenario, it requires signing up to an official app, adding bank details, and hoping everything communicates. More often than not, it doesn’t go to plan
Some automakers employ their plug-and-charge framework tech, often part of their charging ecosystems. But this in-house framework leaves several scenarios in which the charging will work with limited vehicles and network combinations but not others, due to its internal framework.
Objective
Why buy an electric vehicle where every time the user plugs it in, they have to sign up for various EV charging apps, go through their payment processes, authorize the accounts again and again, and hope that it turns out to be a successful charging experience?
What if the user could instead make use of a universal charger, plug it in and everything just worked automatically?
That’s the goal of a partnership between the Society Of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Industry Technologies Consortia (ITC) and its Electric Vehicle Public Key Infrastructure (EVPKI) Consortium, along with the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, which just announced a new security EVPKI framework that will enable secure automatic authentication as soon as driver plugs in, officially known as “Plug & Charge.”
Certificate Trust List
The SAE, alongside a number of automakers, charging companies, and the Biden administration, has established “Certificate Trust List Requirements” for the automobile manufacturers, as well as charging equipment manufacturers.
This “Certificate Trust List” is built on the existing international standard (ISO 15118), which officially led to the development of the “Plug & Charge” prototype, which some manufacturers, such as Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Audi, and various models from Volkswagen Group, along with several other charging providers have already started adapting.
How Universal Plug and Charge will work?
In this case, the various payment methods will be stored in the vehicle’s infotainment system and this data shall be then sent to the respective charging outlet whenever the user plugs the universal charger in.
In theory, all the user has to do is plug in the charger and walk away, with all of the tedious signup process and lengthy payment stuff handled by the software.
This framework is aimed at delivering a truly seamless and hassle-free charging experience in which every electric vehicle will be able to plug into any public charger without any additional steps required from the vehicle owner.
This was the intention of the Plug & Charge, which enables automatic charging and payment as soon as the car is plugged in. The charger communicates securely with the vehicle and bills the owner without the need for app sign-up or additional billing information in vehicles adapted with the Plug and Charge tech.
Origin
The technology is presently available in various models but hasn’t been embraced universally. The Plug and Charge experience was invented by Tesla.
Tesla users have been able to use Plug and Charge tech for years, as the company took the effort and established its own charging network, known as “Supercharger”, in the early days of EV adoption. This means the company has overall control over all aspects of its charging infrastructure.
Benefits
This framework creates a common security solution that will enable vehicles, chargers, and charging networks to communicate with each other seamlessly, achieving true interoperability, scalability, and flexibility across the entire EV charging ecosystem.
The framework once implemented, will benefit the users with:
- Faster as well as automatic charging at any public station. This means reduced time to charge overall, and a more reliable charging experience.
- Enhanced security protocols for the entire EV charging infrastructure.
- Opportunity to use the Plug & Charge as the foundation for vehicle-grid integration (VGI) technology, which shall enable bidirectional energy flows, advanced grid services along resilient energy ecosystems.
This new framework developed by SAE ITC and its partners aims to complement and enhance the ISO standard with a universal protocol that is both secure and simplified.
The goal is to allow quick authentication when an electric vehicle is plugged in to charge. It will also enable an industry-wide seamless, secure electric vehicle charging experience across all public stations starting next year.
Official Testing
There is no information on when the official release of this new framework protocol will take place, but its testing will officially start early next year.
“This is a fundamental step in architecture toward enabling bidirectional charging and true vehicle-to-grid integration, the holy grail for energy and transportation,” Gabe Klein, executive director of the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, said. “Universal Plug & Charge levels up the electric fueling experience making it even easier than filling up with gas,” he added.
“It’s a security solution for EV charging,” added Tim Weisenberger, program director for SAE ITC Electric Vehicle Key Public Infrastructure (EVPKI).
Final Thoughts
This security framework marks a major advancement in the electric mobility ecosystem.
This new initiative aims to develop a security framework that allows all EVs, chargers, and charging networks to seamlessly communicate.
It also aims to shift reliance away from individual automakers or specific hardware or software variations and make plug-and-charge the norm.
The future of electric vehicle charging is about to get simpler, where one can plug in their ev at any public charging station and automatically start charging, with no tedious payment processing requirements.
This effort takes EV charging infrastructure a further step ahead from the old fragmented days of requiring various accounts, multiple cards, and access to all public charging stations.
