SAE and NREL partner to strengthen EV-charging cybersecurity

Members of the electric vehicle industry gathered at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in early April to evaluate enhanced cybersecurity for the connections between EVs and charging infrastructure. As more EVs enter the market and connect to the electrical grid, potentially exposing cyber vulnerabilities, vehicle security is drawing increased interest. The collaborative event supports a two-year project led by SAE International to strengthen EV cybersecurity through wide industry engagement on pre-competitive research and technology prototyping in the EV charging space.

The event, held at NREL's Golden, Colorado Energy Systems Integration Facility, was organized to evaluate the application of public key infrastructure (PKI) - a method for encrypting information exchange and certifying the trusted authenticity of devices - to help protect the connection between vehicles and charging stations. Although PKI had been adopted for many industries, this kind of authentication between different companies' electric vehicles and charging stations is not commonplace nor has it matured in the EV charging ecosystem.