EV charging breakthough

Australian DC fast-charger manufacturer Tritium has developed the world-first capability to recharge an electric vehicle while automatically draining the driver’s bank account at the same time.

Yep, no card swiping, no RFID tags, no walking into a service station and queuing up to pay like owners of traditional internal combustion engined vehicles have to do.

Instead, plug your car into a Tritium DC fast-charger and it will communicate with your EV to add electricity and pay for it with your stored bankcard details.

Tritium says this is all achieved “securely, automatically and simultaneously”. It calls the feature ‘Plug and Charge’.

“This firmly and irreversibly tips the convenience scales to the recharging experience over the refuelling experience,” declared Tritium chief technical officer and co-founder James Kennedy.

“It’s going to be as simple as how we charge our phones, but with the added benefit of charging our bank accounts at the same time.”

But there are some hurdles still be overcome. While Tritium’s 350kW DC fast-charger features the required technology now and the more common 50kW DC fast-charger will have it by the fourth quarter, not all chargers can us it, there are no charge point operators yet signed up and there are no EVs on the market that can do the deal.

The last point is clearly a big issue. But Brisbane-based Tritium says manufacturers are aware of the tech and keen to incorporate it in their next-generation EVs.

To enable the system to work, both car and charger store a cryptographic key and communicate via the ISO 15118 standard. The contact is certified via an independent third party using a secure internet connection.

Tritium says the cryptographic key “cannot be hacked”.

If Plug and Charge achieves critical mass, it will enable EV drivers to recharge at different networks without having to join each of them.

In Australia, Tritium supplies chargers to the NRMA, the Queensland electric superhighway, Chargefox and Evie networks. It supplies many more internationally.

According to Plugshare website data, of 156 DC chargers available for use in Australia today, 132 of them are Tritium models.

“Right now, EV drivers approaching an EV charger will likely have to sign up for that network’s system to access it and pay for the charging session, adding unnecessary time to the experience and siloing charger networks; even accounting for the ability to pay by credit card at some chargers this is wildly inconvenient,” Kennedy said.

“With Plug and Charge, you’ll be able to plug the charger into the vehicle and it just charges, from your battery to your account.

“Every charge point operator will soon look to do this; we see it from a payments perspective as no different to using a particular bank card at a competitor’s ATM,” he said.

“It’s taking the friction and hassle away from the experience and operators will benefit from this seamless experience.”