The innovations in wireless communication technologies, cloud computing, connected vehicles, autonomous vehicles, the Internet of everything, etc. opened a way for the creation, development, advancement, and establishment of vehicular networks for emerging smart city applications. Among them, automated and connected vehicle technologies are among the most researched topics. The currently available concepts are only a fraction of what is being developed for the future. In connected vehicles, the Internet of Vehicles (IoVs) is a promising concept where cars or vehicles can use various communication technologies to communicate with the driver or other entities on the road. In this paper, we explore the future entities in a smart city to which a vehicle can communicate. Moreover, we investigate the importance of warning messages for reducing road transportation issues as IoVs already proved that it could reduce worldwide traffic issues, accident rates, transportation issues, etc. to a particular extent. In spite of several attractive features, ensuring security and lightweight property is one of the challenges in an IoV scenario. Therefore, we propose a Secure Authentication for Future Entities (SAFE) protocol, which uses cryptographic operations for enhancing security and preserving privacy. © 2019 IEEE.