SAE project to develop cyber-secure EV charging

Electric-vehicle charging is critical to the mainstreaming of EVs. A 2019 study by the International Council on Clean Transportation estimates that to create, by 2025, a charging network for the 100 U.S. metro areas with the highest populations will require 82,000 more EV charging stations at workplaces, 103,000 public stations with Level 2 (240-V) chargers and 10,000 direct current fast charging stations.

That network must be cyber-secure, scalable and trusted by industry and the public. For this reason, SAE International and industry partners recently launched a collaborative project to strengthen EV charging system security. The SAE EV Charging Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) project will design and test, over the next 18-24 months, an inclusive, global EV charging PKI platform aimed at ensuring the interface points between EV drivers and EV charging infrastructure is secure and trusted. PKI is a best practice used across industries to ensure a high level of trust between entities in an ecosystem by providing message authentication among trusted devices.