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

2025-03-24

AI Summary

To address the underutilization of electric vehicle (EV) charging idle periods—ranging from 15 minutes to several hours—this paper proposes a generic Value-Added Service (VAS) architecture for EV charging stations based on edge computing. Methodologically, it introduces the first end-to-end hardware-software stack enabling secure, programmable in-vehicle applications; extends the ISO 15118 standard to define a VAS deployment paradigm; designs a low-latency bidirectional communication model; and integrates lightweight containerized deployment, TLS/SECP256R1 encryption, and standardized RESTful vehicle–charger APIs. Contributions include: (1) the world’s first charger-level generic VAS service framework; (2) empirical validation of stable operation for three representative services—over-the-air software updates, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), and secure payment; and (3) measured improvements of 47% reduced bandwidth consumption, 63% lower end-to-end latency, and 1.2 Gbps throughput, demonstrating both technical feasibility and commercial viability.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Internet of Things, Sensor Networks & Smart Cities
• Machine Learning: Hardware-aware ML
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Security and Privacy: Privacy-enhancing technologies
• Responsible Web: Data and user privacy-enhancing technologies for the Web

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.

Problem

• Reduces EV charging idle time with value-added services
• Proposes secure on-charger universal applications architecture
• Demonstrates bandwidth, latency, and throughput improvements

Innovation

• EV charger compute architecture for universal applications
• End-to-end hardware/software stack with standard API
• Supports vehicular updates, SIEM, and secure payments