Patent ID: 8421592

Claim:
A system for recharging an electric vehicle, comprising: a recharging station having a fixed transceiver operable with a local interface and a wide-area wireless interface, wherein the wide-area wireless interface corresponds to a cellular network provider, and wherein the recharging station has a controllable output for selectably metering electrical power from a powerline of a utility provider to the electric vehicle for recharging; a user transceiver operable with the local interface and the wide-area wireless interface, wherein the user transceiver is activated by a user when desiring to recharge the electric vehicle to send an authentication request to the recharging station via the local interface, wherein the authentication request identifies the user transceiver; a front-end server within a core network of the cellular network provider adapted to communicate with the recharging station and the user transceiver via the wide-area wireless interface, wherein the recharging station forwards the authentication request with an identification of the recharging station to the front-end server, and wherein the front-end server creates a PIN code in response to the authentication request if the identification of the user transceiver is verified; and a back-end server associated with the utility provider having a network interface with the front-end server for receiving the PIN code, wherein the back-end server verifies the identification of the recharging station and sends a confirmation to the front-end server; wherein the front-end server sends the PIN code to both the user transceiver and the recharging station via the wide-area wireless interface; wherein the user transceiver forwards the PIN code to the recharging station via the local interface; and wherein when the recharging station compares the PIN code received from the user transceiver with the PIN code received from the front-end server, and if they match then it initiates charging of the electric vehicle.