Argonne National Lab leads initiative to address EV charging issues
Scientists, software developers, vehicle manufactures, national laboratories, and industry partners are joining together to address a priority for electric vehicle (EV) drivers — making sure the charging technology works.
The National Charging Experience Consortium, or the ChargeX Consortium, is being led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory. It is a task force, funded by the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, that has three working groups.
The three working groups will focus on defining the charging experience, testing its reliability and usability, and developing solutions to help improve that experience on a large scale.
These working groups have already released publications on error codes and payment recommendations to help streamline the charging experience for drivers. Now, the testing methodology task force within the scaling reliability working group is creating frameworks for testing interoperability.
When an EV driver plugs in, all the technologies involved — the app, the charging station, the payment system server and the vehicle itself — should all communicate with one another, regardless of what company manufactured them. The task force is looking to come to a consensus about what “interoperability” should mean and how technologies should be tested to meet the standards.
It outlined 16 distinct testing categories, each with its own subset of detailed test scenarios. These scenarios consider what a user might experience in the real world, including a wide variety of both “happy-path” and “edge-case” testing.
The task force included test cases surrounding equipment issues, such as faulty cables, loss of internet signal or loss of power. They also explored charge discovery cases — such as what happens if a user starts with a partially inserted connector or a broken latch.
ChargeX’s testing parameters will help set the standard at interoperability testing events, like CharIN’s North American “Testival” and Conference will take place in June in Cleveland, Ohio.
