EVOLVE: a Value-Added Services Platform for Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

TL;DR

EVolve reframes EV chargers as edge computing nodes capable of hosting secure Value-Added Services (VAS) by leveraging vehicular edge computing (VEC) and a layered architecture. The platform integrates a three-layer stack (edge server, microservices, and VAS layer) with an event bus, standard vehicle/cloud APIs, and ISO 15118-aligned security. Through evaluating vehicular software updates, SIEM, and secure payments, EVolve demonstrates reduced latency and higher throughput, with next-generation PLC (100 Mbps and 1 Gbps) outperforming 4G/5G markedly, and PLC excelling in high-frequency, data-intensive tasks. The work supports scalable, secure VAS deployment at EV charging stations and hints at new business models for operators by offloading heavy compute and data tasks to the charger edge.

Abstract

A notable challenge in Electric Vehicle (EV) charging is the time required to fully charge the battery, which can range from 15 minutes to 2-3 hours. This idle period, however, presents an opportunity to offer time-consuming or data-intensive services such as vehicular software updates. ISO 15118 referred to the concept of Value-Added Services (VAS) in the charging scenario, but it remained underexplored in the literature. Our paper addresses this gap by proposing \acronym, the first EV charger compute architecture that supports secure on-charger universal applications with upstream and downstream communication. The architecture covers the end-to-end hardware/software stack, including standard API for vehicles and IT infrastructure. We demonstrate the feasibility and advantages of \acronym by employing and evaluating three suggested value-added services: vehicular software updates, security information and event management (SIEM), and secure payments. The results demonstrate significant reductions in bandwidth utilization and latency, as well as high throughput, which supports this novel concept and suggests a promising business model for Electric Vehicle charging station operation.

Figures (9)

• Figure 1: Architecture of EVolve.
• Figure 2: Stability for Client.
• Figure 3: Vehicular Software Update Service Flow.
• Figure 4: SIEM Service Flow.
• Figure 5: Secure Payment Service Flow.