Plug and charge

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Electrify America announced today that all of its chargers are now Plug and Charge capable: https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/123

The release only mentions the 2021 version of the Porsche Taycan, Ford Mach E and Lucid Air as being compatible.

But does anyone know if the Kona Electric is compatible? Or if existing vehicles can be made compatible in the future?
 
TRSmith said:
Electrify America announced today that all of its chargers are now Plug and Charge capable: https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/123

The release only mentions the 2021 version of the Porsche Taycan, Ford Mach E and Lucid Air as being compatible.

But does anyone know if the Kona Electric is compatible? Or if existing vehicles can be made compatible in the future?
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No, the standard was just in the beginning of development when the Kona EV first hit the market. I doubt the required hardware and software to facilitate bidirectional communication can be retrofitted cost effectively. Possibly the new upcoming Hyundai EV models will give some consideration to this new charging standard.
 
I'm skeptical that it's not possible - the CCS standard is so convoluted and "networky" that I find it hard to believe there isn't a vehicle-unique MAC address buried in there somewhere.
Whether the CCS software stack that the charger manufacturers doubtless buy in from somewhere makes it accessible is another matter.

I would be highly surprised if there wasn't a mechanism to update the onboard software that deals with this, though if there isn't already a unique MAC, assigning this could be a problem. I'm sure there would be some way to derive something from teh VIN, but that may involve quite a few of the car's boxes being updated
 
mikeselectricstuff said:
I'm skeptical that it's not possible - the CCS standard is so convoluted and "networky" that I find it hard to believe there isn't a vehicle-unique MAC address buried in there somewhere.
Whether the CCS software stack that the charger manufacturers doubtless buy in from somewhere makes it accessible is another matter.

I would be highly surprised if there wasn't a mechanism to update the onboard software that deals with this, though if there isn't already a unique MAC, assigning this could be a problem. I'm sure there would be some way to derive something from teh VIN, but that may involve quite a few of the car's boxes being updated
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I suppose anything is possible if you want to pay for it. The "plug and charge" feature is integral into ISO 15118 vehicle to grid standard which in the very least would imply having an EV with an onboard charger with that capability $$$. Certainly Tesla has just plug and charge capability without V2G but I am not sure if the rest of the EV world has that choice when it comes to new standard adoptions. Kona's current architecture around power line carrier communication protocol might be an issue as most of these fancier EVs have moved to can bus communication in dealing with encrypted key data exchanges. I don't know for sure but I do see some potential barriers outside of just software.
 
apu said:
Kona's current power line carrier communication protocol might be an issue as most of these fancier EVs have moved to can bus communication in dealing with encrypted key data exchanges. I don't know for sure but I do see some potential barriers outside of just software.
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Power line carrier is part of the CCS standard, which unfortunately has won the standards war. Like VHS, but much worse
 
ISO 15118-2 and -3 each cost ~US$200 so nuts to that. I tried to glean some info from this paper by ChargePoint [PDF] and it seems it uses a certificate system, with each vehicle needing an OEM supplied cryptographic certificate. Basically SSL.

I only skimmed it, but the report does not paint the "Plug&Charge" implementation in a particularly good light...
 
Looks like that's at least as ridiculously overcomplicated as the CCS standard itself...
Considering the amounts of money involved ( relatively little), something a simple as using the MAC address for identification would probably be perfectly viable, and work with existing cars.
OK it is potentially susceptible to cloning, but in practice it would be pretty hard due to teh complexity of the protocols, and if it did happen it would be pretty easy to detect and trace to a rogue vehicle as most charging locations would likely have CCTV.

And yes, I can confirm that the Kona does have a MAC address in the CCS charge controller
Img_0235.webp
 
mikeselectricstuff said:
Looks like that's at least as ridiculously overcomplicated as the CCS standard itself...
Considering the amounts of money involved ( relatively little), something a simple as using the MAC address for identification would probably be perfectly viable, and work with existing cars.
OK it is potentially susceptible to cloning, but in practice it would be pretty hard due to teh complexity of the protocols, and if it did happen it would be pretty easy to detect and trace to a rogue vehicle as most charging locations would likely have CCTV.

And yes, I can confirm that the Kona does have a MAC address in the CCS charge controller View attachment 9959
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Where exactly is this charge controller module located on the car?
Just curious.
 
MAC addresses are not unique. Each manufacturer produces it's own set of unique MAC addresses to it's company but not to the world. MACs can easily be cloned as in fact many routers have that option built into the router's configuration to clone a MAC address.
This plug and charge will help make us more like the Tesla as I read the article. Your vehicle is identified by the charger and then when you plug in it just charges. This is not much different than what Tesla owners do. I would love not to have to pick up my phone, identify the charger and select charge... then wait... all in the downpour of rain just to get a charge. I see this as a step in the right direction.
As far as being compatible to feeding energy back into the grid, how did anyone get this as the intent of the article?
 
mikeselectricstuff said:
Above the steering column, on the firewall. Needs the "sit upside down in drivers seat" position to access. (This is for my RHD, the LHD version may be differrent - the unit has a different part number for LHD)
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Thanks, I will check out my unit and location as well (when my back allows me);)
 
GeorgeS said:
MAC addresses are not unique. Each manufacturer produces it's own set of unique MAC addresses to it's company but not to the world.
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With Ethernet, manufacturers are assigned MAC prefixes, and they add their serialisation to that to get a globally unique address - it's may years since I was involved with this and maybe they've since run out of numbers. I don't know for sure but would imagine that this is similar MAC addresses for other protocols.
MACs can easily be cloned as in fact many routers have that option built into the router's configuration to clone a MAC address.
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The MAC address of the GreenPhy stack in the car's CCS controller would be somewhat harder to clone than an ethernet router, and as long as it's only used as authentication between the charger and the car ( and not, for example to the upstream systems where networks could be compromised) it would be a viable way to identify vehicles to implement plug & charge at least as an interim solution.
I don't know enough about the GreenPhy protocol to know if it would be viable to do a man-in-the-middle type attack, but how many people would want to start messing with their car's wiring to get a few bucks' worth of free charging?

Which is better - a "Secure enough" solution that can be implemented today with just software on existing chargers, and be compatible with any existing CCS car, or a bells-and-whistles solution that might happen in a few years when the CCS people pull their fingers out, and then only on newer cars ?
 
FWIW my understanding is that Tesla Superchargers are "dumb" and the entire authentication, billing, etc., process happens in the car. So all the charger needs to do is respond to the car's commands about when to charge, power output, etc., and the car handles everything else.

So it's much simpler to implement a plug-and-charge system, at least from the charger's perspective.

For an open charging network using an open standard, it's not even comparable.
 
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