Universal Plug and Charge Platform Announced

Plug and charge has been one of those pieces of EV charging technology that simplifies the process of filling up a battery. With it, all a driver has to do is plug the chagrin station into their vehicle and payment is taken car of on the backend without the need to launch an app or swipe a credit card. 

We've seen the technology in action in Tesla vehicles charging at Tesla Supercharging stations and on Ford EVs when they connect to certain charging networks. Now SAE's Electric Vehicle Public Key Infrastructure (EVPKI) Consortium and the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation have announced an EVPKI common framework. 

The new framework should standardize plug and charge. Currently, vehicles that support the feature are using proprietary authorization to talk to the charging network and charging station. That might work well for the previously walled garden approach that Tesla uses, but when dealing with vehicles from mutlieple automakers talking to multiple charging stations from multiple companies, things can get confusing very quickly. 

A single platform that's adopted by the industry would allow plug-and-charge support for all vehicles to work on all chargers. It would also reduce the development of proprietary systems that need to be created by automakers and charging station companies. 

To help speed up development SAE EVPKI created a Certified Trust List (CTL) to enable secure, automated connections between vehicles and charging stations. SAE and the Joint Office have also improved the cybersecurity of the plug and charge with this platform reducing the chances of cyberattacks on the charging infrastructure. 

The CTL has been established to help get companies on board with the new platform. SAE states that 2025 will be a year of the industry moving towards universal plug and charge.