Soon charging your electric car will be similar to hooking a computer to a home network.

The HomePlug Powerline Alliance announced today that German auto manufacturers Audi, BMW, Daimler, Porsche, and Volkswagen have agreed to support HomePlug's Green PHY standard for electric-vehicle charging technology.

HomePlug is a technology that turns electrical wiring into data cable, hence eliminating the need for a separate set of wires for networking. Currently the most popular application of the power-line technology is in HomePlug AV-based devices used for home power-line networking, such as the WD Livewire, or the Linksys PLK300.

According to the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, the power-line standard that the five German car manufacturers--"after intense case studies and tests"--are supporting is "HomePlug's IEEE 1901 Profile Green PHY (GP)," which was finalized in June 2010 and enables faster networking speeds as well as support for Smart Grid. The HomePlug Powerline Alliance describes it as a "a low-power, highly reliable and cost-optimized power-line networking specification" that helps connect different "applications such as as appliances, smart meters, climate control, and plug-in electric hybrid vehicles" via the existing electric wiring.

This means that in the future electric-car owners will be able to easily manage and monitor their cars' power consumption and charging on the same IP network as other devices in the home.