System and methods to perform public key infrastructure (PKI) operations in vehicle networks using one-way communications infrastructure

A set of certificate management methods designed to significantly reduce or eliminate reliance on infrastructure network connectivity after vehicles are sold uses techniques to support certificate management operations in order to reduce the frequency which vehicles need to communicate with the Certificate Authorities (CAs) and the amount of data that needs to be exchanged between vehicles and the CA. These methods include, for example, approaches to use one-way communications and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications to replace expired certificates, approaches to use one-way communications and V2V communications to replace revoked certificates, and use of a small subset of vehicles as proxies to help retrieve and distribute Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) and replacement certificates. The combination of these techniques leads to solutions that can eliminate the need for roadside infrastructure networks completely.