There is a general concern that the increasing penetration of electric vehicles (EVs) will result in higher aging failure probability of equipment and reduced network reliability. The electricity costs may also increase, due to the exacerbation of peak load led by uncontrolled EV charging. This paper proposes a linear optimization model for the assessment of the benefits of EV smart charging on both network reliability improvement and electricity cost reduction. The objective of the proposed model is the cost minimization, including the loss of load, repair costs due to aging failures, and EV charging expenses. The proposed model incorporates a piecewise linear model representation for the failure probability distributions and utilizes a machine learning approach to represent the EV charging load. Considering two different test systems (a 5-bus network and the IEEE 33-bus network), this paper compares aging failure probabilities, service unavailability, expected energy not supplied, and total costs in various scenarios with and without the implementation of EV smart charging.