“Hosting the CharIN Testival at ACM marked an important step forward for e-mobility. By providing a dedicated space for interoperability testing and collaboration, we are helping to accelerate development across the industry. With our EV Basecamp, we have built a permanent hub that fosters connections and supports ongoing innovation.”Reuben Sarkar, President and CEO of the American Center for Mobility
What we tested?
The 2025 Testival showcased significant progress in interoperability, particularly with the North American Charging Standard (NACS), also known as SAE J3400. The event featured:
- 7 passenger cars, 6 heavy-duty vehicles – the largest concentration of heavy-duty vehicles at a North American event to date. Of this number, 6 of the EVs featured a NACS inlet
- 9 test systems – the largest concentration at a single event to date in North America13 EVSEs, of which 12 included a NACS connector
- 300 attendees over the course of three days
- 11 CCS to NACS adapters- for the first time, all adapters used during the event were evaluated for electrical safety by UL Solutions
On Wednesday, May 14, the American Center for Mobility welcomed the broader e-mobility community for a dedicated public day. The full-day program offered the nearly 100 Public Day attendees direct insights into the real-world interoperability testing that supports seamless EV charging. Visitors experienced live demonstrations, expert-led sessions, and technical tours of both the Testival and ACM’s advanced facilities. Demonstrations and tours included:
The CharIN Testival North America 2025 reinforced how real-world collaboration and technical testing are empowering the next level of green mobility and energy in North America.
Special Activities and Public Day
On Wednesday, May 14, the American Center for Mobility welcomed the broader e-mobility community for a dedicated public day. The full-day program offered the nearly 100 Public Day attendees direct insights into the real-world interoperability testing that supports seamless EV charging. Visitors experienced live demonstrations, expert-led sessions, and technical tours of both the Testival and ACM’s advanced facilities. Demonstrations and tours included:
- Plug & Charge powered by Hubject: As Strategic Plug & Charge Testing Partner, Hubject offered participants the possibility to perform Plug & Charge under real-world conditions.
- Multi-PKI Testing by Irdeto: Multi-V2G PKI Testing, enabled the evaluation of multiple V2G Public Key Infrastructures (PKIs) at a dedicated test site. Separate EVSEs or test systems, each configured with different V2G PKIs, were set up for this purpose.
- End-to-End Plug & Charge Session with Roaming: The first-ever Plug & Charge session enabled through a roaming hub illustrated the complete process — from preparation and authentication to authorization and final reconciliation — demonstrating true interoperability across multiple ecosystems. It highlighted the potential of Plug & Charge to seamlessly extend beyond isolated networks and support scalable roaming scenarios.
- End-to-end, open-source testing of advanced capabilities by ChargeX: The open-source EVerest project returned to the Testival with a dedicated booth sponsored by ChargeX, offering participants the opportunity to test new features contributed by the community, including ISO 15118-20 with TLS 1.3 and ESDP. Advanced grid integration and energy management functionalities, such as departure time and notify limit for Level 2 charging, were also explored.
“It was inspiring to see so many organizations come together working toward a shared goal — making EV charging reliable, safe, and accessible for everyone. The collaborative testing of NACS adapters, inlets, and connectors reflected the industry’s serious commitment to robust, interoperable charging solutions and the transition to a single charging system in North America.”Erika Myers, Executive Director of CharIN North America
ChargeX Challenge: Advancing interoperability through structured testing
For the third time, CharIN hosted the ChargeX Consortium to support prescribed test plans – known as the ChargeX Challenge - to collect and disseminate data that showcases industry improvements in EV charging interoperability.
Two-thirds of the test equipment at the Testival, including EVs, EVSE, and test systems — totaling 23 pieces of equipment — voluntarily took part in the ChargeX Challenge. This structured gamified initiative encouraged companies to engage in a wide range of interoperability testing under real-world conditions.
The prescribed test plan covered key test cases, such as Start and Stop methods, HLC protocol selection, fault injection error reporting, Pause & Resume, Plug & Charge, adapter integration, and Vehicle-to-Grid functionalities.
Congratulations to the first-place winners of the ChargeX Challenge -- BMW North America (EV), EVgo (EVSE), and dSPACE (test systems) – which were recognized for their outstanding technical performance and strong commitment to interoperability.
A few other highlights of the Challenge included meeting all Pass criteria for the following advanced charge tests:
- Two test pairings for TS10: Activating Pause & Resume using charge scheduling, an advanced charging feature that requires negotiation between both EV and EVSE to develop a charge schedule.
- Two test pairings for TS12: Plug & Charge using expired EV certificates, falling back to EIM (an example of seamless retry), some of which utilized external PKI providers to accomplish this.
- Three test pairings for TS3: ISO 15118-20 basic charge start, some with TLS and some without.
- One test pairing for the most advanced test TS16: V2G Dynamic Bidirectional Power Transfer using ISO 15118-20 and did so using TLS - a major accomplishment by the Bosch & Heliox teams.
Media & Images
All photographs from the event belong to CharIN – please name the copyright reference when publishing (for non-commercial use only): © CharIN Testival NORTH AMERICA 2025 - Detroit.
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Related Downloads
Press Release (media version) (pdf)
News Info
Published on: 05/30/2025
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