Abstract: Authentication and privacy are two critical concerns to secure communication and protect sensitive information in vehicular ad-hoc networks(VANETs).It is necessary to guarantee the information security and protect appropriately the vehicle-related information privacy between vehicles or between vehicles and roadside units(RSUs).This paper considers privacy protection and the authentication theory with the related core technology by making use of new cryptographic methods, surveys the main previous privacypreservation authentication protocols; addresses some new issues and new research direction.It is expected to develop a series of new authentication methods for protection of privacy which are adapted to the features of VANETs, improve greatly the theoretical foundation of VANET and provide with technical reservations for VANET security services.