[HN Gopher] Tesla's charging stations left other manufacturers i...
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Tesla's charging stations left other manufacturers in the dust
Author : apress
Score : 143 points
Date : 2021-01-27 16:33 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hbr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (hbr.org)
| maxerickson wrote:
| Tesla currently advertises having more than 20,000 Supercharger
| stations (across 2000 locations). I think that is the global
| number.
|
| That represents a substantial lead, and as others are commenting,
| they combine it with a nice user experience. I don't see how it
| will be particularly durable though, there isn't really a
| bottleneck for deployments of other charge stations, just not a
| lot of investment in it. Fixing the experience is harder, but gas
| stations provide a hint that other parties will at least get it
| down to swiping a card.
| arcticfox wrote:
| For a detailed breakdown of superchargers, see
| https://supercharge.info/charts
|
| The Supercharger network is why I bought a Tesla, and it's one
| of the few reasons I think Tesla might truly be able to put a
| lot of distance between themselves and rivals. They are
| building it at a good clip, and were doing it well even prior
| to the enormous amount of capital they now have access to.
| coding123 wrote:
| Obligatory
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec-LrW1tSHQ
| stcredzero wrote:
| I'm now a Model 3 owner, but back when I had the Fiat 500e, I was
| actually surprised at how widespread Chargepoint chargers were in
| the Bay Area. The experience with those isn't 100% seamless. I'd
| wave an RFID card, and most of the time, it would work after a
| 5-15 second pause. I'd occasionally encounter a broken charge
| plug that wouldn't release, or an otherwise malfunctioning
| charger.
|
| Even with the piddling 87 mile range of the 500e, I'd still drive
| from SF to San Jose on a regular basis. I could pretty much
| depend on the availability of Chargepoint chargers in the South
| Bay.
|
| I even went to an event near San Rafael once, and found that the
| charger at the school was _free_!
| drivebycomment wrote:
| I second this. I've been driving various non-Tesla EVs over the
| past 7+ years and during that time, Chargepoint has become
| quite good and widely available. Phone RFID integration and
| their "waiting queue" feature have been very useful additions.
| PaulWaldman wrote:
| Is there a reason the current gas stations, that aren't
| integrated with refineries, aren't making the investment for
| charging stations?
|
| I don't know if this is true or not, but my understanding is that
| of their revenue, they make a disproportionate amount of the
| their profits from convenience stores. Keeping vehicles plugged
| in for extended periods of time would also make EV owners more
| likely to venture into the store to buy a drink or snack.
| gok wrote:
| Gas stations are not really a good place for charging.
|
| The cool thing about charging stations is that you can put them
| almost anywhere there's already some parking. They don't need
| huge underground tanks, or space for tanker trunks to make
| deliveries, or even really a lot of space for cars to maneuver
| around. On the other hand, for road trips they do need to be a
| place you'd want to spend 30 minutes or so, which means you
| want better shopping and entertainment than the average gas
| station store can offer. So some place like a mall or big box
| store is going to be a better place than a gas station.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| The infrastructure for fast charging is expensive and the ROI
| isn't obvious, EVs being charged at home/work most of the time.
| notJim wrote:
| My idea for a charging business would be an upscale coffee
| shop/fast casual restaurant. Like gas stations, you'd make most
| of your money selling food/drinks. Could it work?
| colordrops wrote:
| I thought they are associated with oil companies. E.g. Texaco
| and Chevron are definitely oil companies.
| hvjackson wrote:
| I'm not sure the "gas station on every corner" model is going
| to transition to the EV world. First of all many people will do
| the bulk of their charging at home, so paying for a charge will
| be mostly limited to long distance road trips, etc. It's not
| something you necessarily need to do at all during your regular
| commute or running errands around town.
|
| Second, even with a fast DC charger it still takes 20-60
| minutes to get a useful amount of charge. That's a lot longer
| than you need to run into a convenient store to buy a coffee or
| whatever. It makes more sense to put these chargers where
| people will naturally be parked longer: office buildings,
| restaurants, highway service plazas, etc.
| Artlav wrote:
| Hm, the US tend to have "home" defined as a stand along house
| with a garage/land plot, which makes it possible to have a
| charger at home.
|
| In most of the world city people live in flats/apartments,
| where you can't really do that.
|
| So i don't see how you can avoid "gas station on every
| corner" model.
| hvjackson wrote:
| Fair enough, I used "home" but it could just as easily be
| anywhere else the car is stored: garage, office building,
| even public streets maybe. Going to a filling station is
| just too slow to be the main way to charge. No EV owner
| wants to dedicate 30 minutes a week twiddling their thumbs
| while the car charges. I just can't see a dedicated filling
| station will be part of the regular routine for most EV
| owners the way it necessarily is for gas cars.
| labcomputer wrote:
| Honestly, as someone who has owned and driven an EV for the
| better part of a decade, L1 home charging has been
| sufficient most of the time. That uses the same type of
| 120V plug that you'd use for a coffee maker, and it's
| enough for about 40 miles of range while you sleep.
|
| With a modern long-range EV, nightly L1 charging plus
| occasional DCFC or L2 charging would meet the driving needs
| of almost everyone.
|
| So the solution is very simple: Just install L1 EVSEs
| everwhere. Streetlights have extra capacity now that LED
| bulbs are in vogue, so putting L1 charging next to every
| on-street parking space isn't even a technical challenge.
| Artlav wrote:
| So... that's just "gas station on every corner" model
| taken to it's extreme, no?
| yurishimo wrote:
| This could actually work pretty well. It would add more
| complexity to building parking lots, and possibly
| retrofits, but running junction boxes out to every
| parking space should be possible.
|
| It can start small as well, maybe converting 10% of
| spaces and then expanding as adoption ramps up. You run
| into the grocery store for an hour, and you get a couple
| of miles. Park at work and get some more, then plug it in
| when you get home. I'm envisioning something like a
| retractable cable that you can pull out to your car, but
| maybe I'm overthinking the desire for theft of these
| cables.
| codefined wrote:
| Presumably you have "some place" where you store your car
| when you're not using it. It makes sense to put a charger
| there, as opposed to on the block corner.
| Artlav wrote:
| Which will be the job for the same people that put up
| buildings on block corners, rather than something you do
| yourself.
| jonas21 wrote:
| In the U.S., the majority of people drive to work, so even
| if you don't have a place to charge at home, you can still
| fully charge every weekday if your employer has chargers.
|
| Where I live, you see these all over the place:
|
| https://chargingforward.chargepoint.com/story/charging-
| forwa...
|
| They also usually place them close to the building to
| reduce the distance they have to wire, so that's a nice
| side benefit.
| gpm wrote:
| Unlike with ICE cars, it's trivial to turn any parking spot
| into a charging station for an EV. The model changes from
| "expensive building with attendants on every corner" to "a
| (120v/slow charging) plug at most parking spots". This is
| _already_ the norm in northern communities where you need
| to plug in ICE cars if you want them to start in the
| morning.
|
| In apartments/flats you are usually parking in a dedicated
| parking lot, that can be easily renovated to have spots
| with a plug. Street parking in front of small houses will
| likely gain parking meter like devices with extension
| cords.
| Artlav wrote:
| > In apartments/flats you are usually parking in a
| dedicated parking lot
|
| More like all over the nearby streets, but i get the
| idea.
| gpm wrote:
| Downtown flats and apartments around here generally don't
| have any streets that allow overnight parking, and do
| generally have their own dedicated parking, but that
| probably varies with location.
| closeparen wrote:
| Once people started building with cars in mind here, they
| were building single family detached houses. Most
| apartments, duplexes, 4-plexes, etc. were built in the
| era of streetcars.
|
| We do have _some_ multifamily from the postwar era, but
| it tends to be either very luxe (contemporary
| gentrification) or very crappy (from when cities were for
| poor people). The stately, comfortable, once-grand-but-
| now-middle-class stock is all pre-automobile.
| nickik wrote:
| In Europe in cities you often have parking garages for a
| whole bunch of buildings together. In such case you can
| just have chargers there.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| Fueling up an ICE car takes just a couple of minutes, so
| typically a customer would dash into the convenience store, and
| get something that requires zero preparation time (packaged
| food, bottled drinks, etc) and leave.
|
| Battery charging times are getting faster, but if you're
| stopping to charge an EV, I think you're there for at least 20
| minutes, bare minimum. Plenty of time to have someone make you
| a latte, or a burrito, heck maybe get a quick massage. It's
| probably too soon to know which sorts of services will best
| complement electric charging stations, but I think there's a
| good chance it'll end up looking somewhat different from the
| typical current gas station convenience store, even once EVs
| are more mainstream.
| zaroth wrote:
| Yes, generally you want the chargers to be somewhere where you
| can go spend 30 minutes doing something else. So you put them
| near grocery stores, or coffee shops, or a mall.
|
| Gas stations are typically not located within walking distance
| of any kind of retail. They are set off a ways because they are
| nasty, smelly business. No one hangs out at a gas station, you
| run into the convenience store for maybe 60 seconds, and hate
| it every second you're there.
|
| I would assume gas stations also have a fairly low electrical
| draw, so not likely to be located near transmission lines.
| Versus a mall or major retail outlet probably already has
| decent transmission capacity to make adding an additional few
| MWs for charging a lot easier.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Gas stations suck. They are usually dirty and smell like
| petrol.
|
| Aside from the overall grossness of gas stations, they are
| generally poorly laid out for long term parking. Gas stations
| need lots of room for cars to get in and out of stalls quickly
| and usually only have a few spaces for short term parking in
| front of the convenience store portion of the station.
|
| Adding charging centers to roadside restaurants and shopping
| centers makes a ton more sense because the longer charging time
| is highly compatible with having a place where there are
| interesting things to do or rest and eat.
| f154hfds wrote:
| A local gas station chain to me - Sheetz - has been building
| out Tesla charging stations for a while.
|
| https://csnews.com/sheetz-powers-its-electric-vehicle-chargi...
| einarfd wrote:
| The Norwegian branch of Circle K seems to be interested, and
| they have put up a charging points at some of their locations.
|
| I've never tried the charging point at Circle K though, they
| might be usable or they might not, at least they look like they
| are looked after and not physical broken.
|
| But after trying some of the other brand of chargers, I've
| largely given up on using any non Tesla fast charger. I will
| use non Tesla ones in a pinch. But if I do, my expectation is
| worse user experience, slower charging and more expensive,
| which does seem like somewhat of a bad deal.
| DFHippie wrote:
| Low margin business without the capital to invest?
| aynyc wrote:
| One thing I don't understand is why car makers are having hard
| time building charging network. They already have one, it's
| called dealerships! Give dealerships incentive to build charging
| stations for their EV cars right on their properties. Then add
| charging stations by highways, gas stations. Oil companies will
| likely join the movement to offer incentives to gas station.
| klondike_ wrote:
| Dealerships are not interested in selling and servicing
| electric cars because of the low margins. Dealerships make most
| of their money off of services and repairs, which will be less
| frequent with EVs.
| mikestew wrote:
| Nissan advertised that when they released the Leaf: "charge at
| Nissan dealers". They apparently forgot to tell the dealers,
| because one's experience can be...mixed, according to online
| reports. I can't confirm one way or another as I don't think
| I've ever tried to get a charge from a dealer.
| pat2man wrote:
| I believe they are in the process of doing just that:
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/04/about-150-cadillac-dealers-t...
| cavisne wrote:
| they already tried that. But dealers dont have food options or
| public restrooms that are open outside business hours.
| greedo wrote:
| Dealerships are really in an adversarial relationship with
| their parent automakers on this. They make little money off of
| EVs, yet have to train their staff on repairs/maintenance.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Dealerships in the US are often positioned to take advantage of
| tax laws, which means they're often placed outside of city
| limits in an inconvenient and less-traveled area that doesn't
| have to pay the extra 1-2% city sales tax on the vehicles.
|
| Good for pricing, terrible for convenience.
| OliverJones wrote:
| NEWS FLASH! Tesla pours capital into building infrastructure to
| deploy vast fleet of BEVs!
|
| Details in Harvard Business Review!
|
| This would have been news in 2014 or so. That's when Tesla's
| efforts to get this right started being obvious. I'm glad HBR
| caught up to it, even if they're years late to the party.
|
| Telsa is getting it right. For their Superchargers, they have
| excellent location-scouting crews, permitting crews, construction
| crews, alliance-building crews, and maintenance crews. Not to
| mention the actual equipment, centrally monitored. It's no simple
| thing to convince rural convenience store operators and building
| inspectors to install electrical equipment that draws more than a
| megawatt.
|
| Most people other than Tesla customers don't know this: they
| lined up a world-wide network of electricians trained to install
| those 40a x 240v connectors at peoples' homes and businesses.
|
| They must have imbibed Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing the Chasm."
| Until the Model 3 started appearing in 2017, their customers were
| classic early adopters. (I was one.) They managed to turn their
| early vehicles into Veblen goods (where demand goes up as price
| goes up). That would not have worked without the infrastructure
| they built. (I didn't buy Ludicrous Mode: it cost an extra US$15K
| and I would have used it once or twice for the lulz. But I did
| buy a big battery.)
|
| If Tesla's mission were merely to sell cars, they would have
| failed. Many years ago.
|
| Today's bafflement for me: do electric grid operators understand
| what's happening in the next thirty years? Do they know they're
| going to win almost all the business of fuel stations? Are they
| preparing for that? If so, they're awful quiet about it.
| foepys wrote:
| Why should they really care? They are selling the electricity
| and access to the grid anyways. Better to sell the shovels than
| trying to find gold. Investing in an expensive large-scale
| charger infrastructure could very easily go wrong and they
| might not get a return from because of competition.
| edaemon wrote:
| This article leaves out a lot of information.
|
| > _...none of the major incumbent automakers seems to pose much
| of a threat to market leader Tesla, which has become nearly
| synonymous with EVs._
|
| This is only true in the US. In Europe VW and Renault have cut
| into Tesla's lead, and in some countries VW just overtook Tesla
| in vehicles sold. In 2020 the Renault Zoe outsold the Tesla Model
| 3 in Europe.
|
| > _But imagine if, instead of investing tens of billions of
| dollars in producing cars with no way to drive long distances
| individually, Audi, GM, Ford, and the rest each spent just a
| billion dollars to build a network of supercharging stations._
|
| They have. BMW, Daimler, Ford, Hyundai, and VW collaborated to
| build out the IONITY network. VW is also building Electrify
| America (albeit as a result of Dieselgate). Non-Tesla DCFC
| stations far outnumber the Tesla Superchargers now.
| nickik wrote:
| "In some markets" lots of things are true.
|
| In practice 28% of global EV sold are Tesla, and very large
| numbers of the others are tiny city cars or very small cars
| like the Zoe.
|
| In terms of BEV cars Tesla is the clear global market leader.
|
| > They have. BMW, Daimler, Ford, Hyundai, and VW collaborated
| to build out the IONITY network.
|
| And they don't want to pay so the network is not that large and
| doesn't grow very fast and of course its European network.
|
| Electrify America is doing better and as you said, its a
| punishment for Dieselgate and that why they have capital.
| edaemon wrote:
| Well, that applies to this article. Tesla left other
| automakers in the dust "in some markets" -- and by "some" I
| really mean just one: the US.
|
| Tesla is the leader globally, but the article claims that
| other automakers _aren 't even a threat_ to Tesla, and goes
| further to argue that the reason they aren't a threat is
| because they haven't built out charging networks. I don't see
| how one can reach that conclusion when in the two biggest EV
| markets, China and Europe, Tesla is no longer the market
| leader.
|
| I'd also point out that Tesla doesn't have 28% of the global
| EV market anymore (that was H1 2020). As of October 2020
| Tesla comprised 18% of 2020's global market [1]. Still the
| clear leader, and almost the only contender in the US, but
| globally other automakers are threatening their lead.
|
| [1]: https://electrek.co/2020/10/30/tesla-tsla-market-share-
| globa...
| Artlav wrote:
| Makes it double sad that Chevy Volt got discontinued and no
| similar designs were made.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > In North America, that amount would finance approximately 1,000
| locations with 10 charging stalls each.
|
| I don't think this author lives in the USA. 10,000 charging
| stalls for a population of 330 million spread over millions of
| square miles is.... pathetic.
|
| There would be perpetual lines to use v these 10,000 stalls
| antihero wrote:
| I'm not even a driver so I am a bit clueless. Are EV stations
| seriously not standardised? i.e. Is it the conventional
| equivalent of going to any petrol station and having to find a
| fuel pump that isn't leaded/unleaded/diesel but is more like
| trying to find the one that matches to your brand of car? This
| seems absurd.
| pornel wrote:
| They're as standard as USB: there are a few different flavors
| of cables, and wildly different speeds.
| xeromal wrote:
| I think the thing I hate the most about 3rd party chargers is
| how many charger per the minute rather than kilowatt. Their
| shitty charger can put out half the rated throughput but they
| still make the same money
| jsight wrote:
| That is largely a function of state rules that make it hard
| to charge $/KWh without falling under a different (and often
| onerous) set of regulations. It doesn't have to be super
| expensive this way, though. Both Tesla and Electrify America
| offer decent per minute rates here.
|
| EVGo here is over twice as expensive and tends to
| underperform on charge rate, depending on the state of
| charge. Or at least I hope it improves at higher charge
| levels... I think it is amperage limited like CHAdeMO.
| vegardx wrote:
| You can't effectively do that since the spot price per
| kilowatt-hour changes drastically from every minute. The per
| minute pricing reflects that, so you don't have to worry
| about fluctuating prices. It also add a "tax" for "hogging"
| the chargers, as the rate of which you're able to charge
| drops significantly after some time.
|
| You're probably being gauged compared to the true cost per
| kilowatt-hour, but that just mean there's room for more
| competition.
| xeromal wrote:
| I understand that, but I'll take an average even at the
| benefit of the distributor rather than per minute pricing.
| Imagine if we had to pay for gas by per second.
| jsight wrote:
| There are standards, but like all standards there are multiple
| to choose from and at least one major non-standard. In the US,
| the big ones are Tesla, CCS, and CHAdeMO, in roughly that order
| of popularity. Its a bit like Diesel vs E85 vs premium vs plus
| vs regular, except with the added mix of having one branded
| version.
|
| Tesla's is largely the result of getting this stuff figured out
| back in 2012. Back then, standardization wasn't really an
| option.
| mohaine wrote:
| They are standardized, but the standard (at least in the US)
| was less than advanced so if you wanted things like a data
| connection between the charger and the car you had to roll your
| own. Without this you can't do things like:
|
| 1) Have 2 cars share capacity. The car will decide how much
| wattage to draw so you have to limit each car to
| supply/number_of_chargers so that you don't over draw your
| supply. With data connection you have them share the available
| wattage, allowing cars to pull what is currently available,
| often this is more than supply/number_of_chargers as charger
| will empty or underdrawing due to charge state.
|
| 2) Auto bill. Tesla chargers have NO interface other than the
| plug. You literally just plug it in.
|
| This has changed now but Telsas have been pretty common for a
| long time here.
| u678u wrote:
| Its like Apple. All the connectors are the same, except Tesla
| which has its own standard. You can get adapters though.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| > 'can get adapters'
|
| An adapter to the generic standard (ChargePoint, etc) was
| included with my Model 3.
| secabeen wrote:
| They are mostly standardized, but the UX still sucks. Tesla
| takes care of all the billing on their backend, based on
| vehicle VIN transmitted through the cable. All the other
| vendors have to collect a credit card or identify the user
| somehow, which is not as simple as it could be.
| not2b wrote:
| I'm confused. When I gas up my Prius I pay with a credit
| card. It isn't hard. What's the problem with needing a credit
| card to pay at a charging station? Requiring an app is
| stupid, but inserting the card takes a few seconds.
|
| The other problems (limited locations and hours, broken
| charging stations) are real ones, but I don't think this is.
| jsight wrote:
| The stations are unstaffed and card reader issues are
| common.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| It's a "real problem" in the sense that it exists. GP
| forgot "you need to be a member of our petrol club to fill
| up" as an added issue.
|
| Some of this is due to the slow speed. If it took 45
| minutes to fill-up your car, then you might want to get a
| notification of some sort if the pump shut off only 5
| minutes into filling. Really that could be solved by
| punching in a phone number and getting an SMS though.
| secabeen wrote:
| None of the alternate charging solutions I've seen are just
| swipe a credit card. They all want some way to notify you
| back when your charge session is nearing completion, or if
| you get unplugged unexpectedly. They also want the data on
| your usage individually identified, so they can sell/mine
| it.
|
| They do that with an app, or a fob or whatever, but it's
| all way more involved than just swiping a card.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| there are standards for the plugs and adapters so you can
| charge any given brand of car at most brands of chargers.
| spiznnx wrote:
| They are standardized, as far as the high power electronics go.
|
| But imagine having to install the "Chevron" app to pay to fuel
| up at Chevron, no big billboards with the price visible from
| the street (and prices wildly varying from free to $6/gal),
| some gas stations billing by minute instead of by gallons, half
| of the stations hidden in a dense parking lot/structure or "for
| retail customers only" and 1/10 pumps in the US being out of
| order.
| mFixman wrote:
| So the only thing that makes a Tesla charging station
| different from the rest is that they appear in the map of the
| Tesla app? That sounds reasonable, but I don't understand how
| it can be a "killer feature or Tesla" when Ford could just
| show them in their electric cars.
| nickik wrote:
| Tesla have their own custom plug. They appear on the map in
| the car and the car tells you if the station is full (or
| partially broken) of people and potentially re-routes you.
| Tesla charge location also usually have multiple very high
| performance chargers. Tesla chargers are usually higher at
| charging that the waste majority of other chargers. Payment
| is fully integrated with your Tesla account.
|
| So its drive in, plug in, wait, plug out and drive away.
|
| Pretty much non of that works consistently for other
| networks and the are usually slower and you have to spend
| there longer as well.
|
| There are standards for the plug, standards, Europe is well
| standardized, US a bit less, China is a bigger mess.
| Important to note however, the plug is standard, the
| payment system on the other hand is not. Or rather it is
| partially standardized but the software compatibility might
| not actually work very well or is simply not implemented at
| all.
| guerby wrote:
| Everyone knows that at some point non Tesla charging stations
| will catch up.
|
| But I'm still surprised it has not happened yet.
|
| Volkswagen is starting to sell lots of long distance capable EV
| like id.3 and id.4 (at least in Europe) with absolutely zero
| visible/working plan to provide their customer reliable fast
| charging everywhere they need (directly or via a partner
| network).
|
| And Renault still hasn't made a car with more than 50 kW charging
| (and even that is a paying option...). Well at least their
| customer don't need long distance fast charging network ...
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| I've said this to loads of people, but the charging infra is 1/3
| of the Tesla "killer app" EV experience.
|
| There were (in my view) three core "problems" facing mass EV
| adoption that Tesla has engaged with and solved very well.
|
| First is the perception that EVs (and their cousins/progenitors,
| hybrids) were slow, terribly boring cards. I think this was
| largely perpetuated by the rise of the Prius. Tesla solved this
| by building true performance cars, using the raw torque power of
| their EVs to assuage any concerns around performance and handling
| people could have.
|
| Second is the concern around "fueling", especially on road trips.
| This is obviously addressed by how stupid-easy the supercharging
| network is to use. I don't think any other auto manufacturer will
| become a true competitor to Tesla until similarly extensive
| networks are built out by Ford, GM, etc.
|
| Third is the paradigm-shift of the minimalist controls and the
| spaceship-like display. There are absolutely drawbacks to this--
| Mazda, for one, refuses to have touchscreens in their cars
| anymore due to safety concerns, and there are instances in my
| Model 3 where I dearly wish for a physical control. But there's
| something incredible about sitting in a modern vehicle and not
| being faced with a baffling array of buttons and dials, and
| having nothing between you and the road.
|
| The combination of these makes for a stellar experience with the
| vehicle, and for EVs in general.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| It's ridiculously wasteful to force every carmaker to build
| their own charging stations. Here regulators may have to step
| in to force them to find a standard and a charging market.
| ssheth wrote:
| There is an "overarching" standard now .. CCS and a couple of
| older standards .. J1772 and ChaDeMo .. but when Tesla was
| getting started making chargers, there was no critical mass
| around any standards so they ended up creating their own.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Are they sharing that standard or putting up obstacles
| around it?
| labcomputer wrote:
| Not only was there no critical mass... CCS network didn't
| even _exist_ until after Tesla had already deployed half a
| dozen Superchargers in California. And most of the CCS
| stations deployed before about 2017 /2018 were the 50kW
| variety (in comparison to the 120kW Superchargers of the
| time).
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Just like when the EU tried to legislate micro-usb
| everywhere.
| Kranar wrote:
| A charging station isn't like a full blown gas station with
| safety critical infrastructure and operations staffing it. A
| charging station is mostly a parking lot space with some
| electronics, a cable and some signage featuring a company
| logo.
|
| The amount of "waste" amounts the the plastic used to display
| said logo and some rubber and copper. The actual electricity
| itself and the infrastructure used to deliver that
| electricity is already standardized and shared among not only
| all electric car companies, but everyone in the area period.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| There could be waste in terms of duplicated effort. If Ford
| has charging stations that cover, e.g., the Rockies very
| well, it'd be "wasteful" to force Tesla to have to build
| out an identical network to cover the same region. (Where
| "force" is accomplished by incompatible cables, or
| communication changes, or some other issue.)
|
| If companies can share infrastructure, then they all will
| benefit from each other improving their own networks. Ford
| adding stations that can be used by other EVs will further
| improve the quality of life for _all_ EVs.
| Kranar wrote:
| They do share infrastructure, the actual infrastructure
| needed to setup a charging station in the Rockies isn't
| in the signage and some fairly basic electronic
| components, it's in how you get the electricity to the
| Rockies. That will be shared by all car companies and
| isn't something the car companies themselves manage.
|
| That said, I think that in many cases they should share
| space. For example on a crowded downtown street, there
| should be standardized charging stations that can
| accommodate multiple types of cars. It would be annoying
| to have one parking spot for Tesla, another for GM,
| another for Ford. But that's not a question of waste or
| resourcefulness and I don't think that needs a government
| to step in to regulate either.
|
| Tesla's, along with pretty much all electric cars,
| support standardized charging as a matter of convenience
| to the user.
| fblp wrote:
| Suggested improvement: To be eligible for government electric
| car subsidies the car maker should meet certain standards for
| their chargers and charging stations that enable
| interoperability and a more competitive market.
| smileysteve wrote:
| This timing works well as regulatory capture as Tesla has
| used up their us subsidies
| nickik wrote:
| First of all, nobody is forcing anybody. Those manufactures
| that want to use a standard are free to use one.
|
| This is intact what happened, the waste majority is
| standardized and that mostly without regulation.
|
| Market forces are driving standardization. Tesla however is
| special because they have in incredibly dominate position in
| the market and they don't have to relay on 3rd parties
| creating charging stations.
|
| They can offer their costumers a premium experience and
| support their own growth. Eventually once charging is more
| universally available Tesla can simply expand to allow others
| to charge there and make a lot of money.
|
| Tesla has invested huge amount of money and this is their
| reward. Not sure why regulation needs to come in and force
| everybody to do things. Specially when early on a lot of
| things were not very clear. Also, government regulation
| defined API standards for payments are usually terrible.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| > Eventually once charging is more universally available
|
| What if Tesla ends up with more or less a monopoly?
|
| > Tesla can simply expand to allow others to charge there
| and make a lot of money.
|
| But will they?
|
| I agree that it's fair that Tesla gets return on their
| investment. But if we end up with a situation where
| infrastructure is disjointed or where it's infeasible for
| anyone else to launch any competetition then Tesla have
| gained a market position that might be "fair" to them but
| unfair to everyone else.
| oneplane wrote:
| It's also ridiculous that some private company has to stamp
| out a good charging setup because nobody else will, but then
| has to let others use it. Granted, it would be nice if
| everyone would play together, but they didn't and they don't.
|
| Some heavy-handed top-down inter-organisational group with
| top-down design-by-committee ideas is going to be a shitshow
| too, so now the question becomes: what IS a good solution
| going to look like?
| [deleted]
| zippergz wrote:
| A lot of this is obviously just personal preference, but the
| spaceship-like display is the exact reason (well, not the only
| reason, but a big and emblematic one) that I don't want a
| Tesla. I have driven them. I do not like the interface. I want
| a "regular car" that happens to be electric, not something
| that's trying to be a smartphone on wheels.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| And that's absolutely okay! I totally get not wanting that
| experience, and I'm glad that we're at a point with EV
| development that the styles are proliferating so people have
| those choices.
|
| Personally I just love the disruption Tesla has caused to the
| "idea" of a car and its interface. I hope it'll encourage
| other car manufacturers to reconsider how they do their
| interfaces--even if they don't consolidate all their controls
| into the touchscreen, I hope at the very least the media
| systems in cars start being of higher-quality, now that
| people see what's possible.
| yardie wrote:
| I tested the Model Y and this was my impression as well.
| Everything about the car was great but the human factor. I
| need my dashboard at eyelevel to the windshield, not down and
| to my right. I need more controls that do a few things. Not
| few controls that try to do too many things. They literally
| took decades of research in automotive human factors research
| and dumped it in the trash. And now they are going to have to
| discover those lessons all over again.
| vondur wrote:
| Can you use other electric vehicles at a Tesla charging
| station? I'm thinking of getting as used Bolt. I'd mainly use
| it for driving around town and back and forth to work where
| they do have really cheap charging available. But it'd be nice
| to have more options when doing some longer trips.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| Not in the US, at least. The US supercharger connectors are
| Tesla-proprietary. In the US, the EU forced Tesla to join the
| CCS standard.
|
| Notably, the CCS standard didn't exist when Tesla began
| rolling out their infrastructure. And I _think_ Tesla open-
| sourced the patents for their DC charging in the hope that
| folks would standardize on their technology, but I don 't
| know that they ever had plans to allow non-Tesla vehicles t o
| use their charging network.
|
| I also don't know if Europe CCS Tesla chargers can be used by
| non-teslas, but I would assume that's the case--otherwise,
| what's the point of the standardization?
|
| At any rate, I do hope to see other manufactures push for a
| unified charging network, explicitly so that non-Tesla EVs
| can experience the same luxuries as first party vehicles.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > but I don't know that they ever had plans to allow non-
| Tesla vehicles t o use their charging network.
|
| In secret, probably not without sharing the cost of
| building out superchargers, but there have been past
| statements by EM saying they'd allow other manufacturers to
| use the network.
|
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1340978686212800513?s=2
| 0 (2020)
|
| https://chargedevs.com/newswire/elon-musk-tesla-is-in-
| talks-... (2015)
|
| There also is indeed another auto-maker integrating Tesla
| chargers called Aptera.
| https://insideevs.com/news/458607/aptera-using-tesla-
| chargin...
| doanerock wrote:
| Cool now just stop using a non standard connector if you actually
| cared about the environment. Tesla's sold in Europe come with
| CCS2, let's just make a standard that all electric cars have the
| change charge port.
| doanerock wrote:
| https://techau.com.au/tesla-supercharger-ccs2-upgrades-are-h...
| josefresco wrote:
| Anecdotally I travel frequently to rural areas in the northeast
| USA. We stopped recently at a truck stop for gas and lo and
| behold, among the semis, huge propane/oil fuel tanks and farm
| feed supply store, there was a Supercharging station. Keep in
| mind this station is hundreds of miles from any substantial city,
| and maybe 75 miles from a large town.
| rstupek wrote:
| Tesla likes to put superchargers on major highway routes in
| between cities so you can stop for 15 minutes and get topped
| off on your way
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| As a Tesla owner, I tried using a third-party charging station
| once just to see what it was like. I ended up leaving and going
| to the closest supercharger instead because of how laughably bad
| the experience was.
|
| Tesla has done a phenomenal job making it easy and convenient to
| own and drive an EV. Other automakers are trying to catch up on
| range and acceleration, but if they really want to compete they
| need to consider the entire user experience.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| Does your user experience rating take into account
| interoperability (or lack thereof of e.g superchargers) and
| service center and replacement part availability?
| jsight wrote:
| I'm going to guess it does and is graded against his own
| personal experience with other vehicles.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| I'm going to guess it doesn't- as the supercharging network
| is a closed platform which is a problem for any vehicle
| other than a Tesla
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Why would a Tesla owner care about interoperability? The
| supercharger network is clearly a selling point for Tesla.
| Why do they need to allow access to other manufacturers? Why
| would they even want to do that?
|
| I mean, this whole article is about how Tesla invested in a
| charging infrastructure that is leaps and bounds above all
| competitors. The whole point is that Tesla decided that was a
| requirement before scaling up production and it is a key
| reason why people choose their EVs over the competition.
| netsharc wrote:
| Huh, true, if Tesla allowed other cars to use the
| Supercharger, then the chances of a Tesla owner arriving to
| a fully occupied Supercharger location (full of all kinds
| of car brands) would increase quite a lot.
|
| But if Elon was serious about what he said about climate,
| and wanting to turn the car industry electric, he should do
| exactly that, so that more people get electric cars,
| regardless of the brand.
| oneplane wrote:
| Elon is likely playing a longer game, just like the 'make
| a luxury car', 'make a better slightly cheaper car',
| 'make a normal car' line of thought where you hope to
| earn enough at each stage to make the whole factory, cell
| production, car, production, charging network,
| governmental interaction viable (economically,
| politically, environmentally, socially).
|
| After it's possible to do it and not lose everything in
| the process, then you can do the "let's team up with the
| competition that didn't thing of this themselves"-game.
| Because that is what it boils down to: before the whole
| Tesla and Musk thing it was not really a thing to have a
| good all-electric car experience. Heck, even a good
| software experience wasn't available (in any car). It
| takes quite a beating for the other car manufacturers the
| get off of their collective asses en start doing
| something new. (and no, creating a different design isn't
| new, they have been re-designing for decades - new would
| be a paradigm shift or beginnings of a shift)
| mapmap wrote:
| What was bad about it?
| djrogers wrote:
| Not OP, but 3rd party chargers often:
|
| 1) require a new app to be installed 2) require you to create
| an account and add your credit card info 3) are broken 4)
| work, but charge slower than they should
| filoleg wrote:
| While a minor thing, I wanted to add to this, even when
| everything works properly and on the first try with third
| party chargers, you gotta pull out your phone and open the
| app (or use it as an Apple Wallet card, if the charging
| station supports it) to activate the charger and start the
| whole charging process.
|
| As opposed to superchargers, where you literally just plug
| the charger in and that's it, everything is handled for
| you.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| Who the heck thought an app was a good idea? Complete non
| starter for me.
| jsight wrote:
| I think they are optional in general, but often more
| reliable. These locations are unstaffed and often
| directly exposed to the elements. The cardreaders don't
| seem to hold up well.
| Symbiote wrote:
| They should be able to accept contactless cards only,
| without a PIN. Plenty of contactless-card vending
| machines (drinks etc) and ticket machines (train tickets
| etc) in Asia and Europe cope with the weather.
| secabeen wrote:
| It's twofold. One, they want some way to notify you back
| when your charge session is nearing completion, or if you
| get unplugged unexpectedly. Two, they want the data on
| your usage individually identified, so they can sell/mine
| it.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| Ok that is a good point, optional app integration is
| sensible.
| waiseristy wrote:
| They really should just call your phone, I can't think of
| a single other long-wait activity that forces you to
| install spyware. Oil changes, doctor / dentist
| appointments, furniture delivery, etc. They all just give
| you a call
| secabeen wrote:
| Many people don't want to give their SMS-capable number
| to a random charging station in another state. I don't
| mind giving my number to my doctor, but a charging
| station is a different risk profile.
| djrogers wrote:
| Frankly I'd rather install an app on my iPhone than give
| the company my phone number. At least with an app I can
| deny location, contacts, and all other access.
| waiseristy wrote:
| What makes you think that company XYZ will let you use
| their app if you deny location, contact, etc. access?
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Just because you want a call doesn't mean everyone else
| does.
|
| I'd much rather have an app notify me than an automated
| phone call, I (and most people I know) probably wouldn't
| even pick it up.
|
| -
|
| I can uninstall an app, I can't ungive someone my phone
| number.
| waiseristy wrote:
| To each their own! I can not stand having random apps
| installed on my phone. They all eventually turn into
| notification spamming spyware. I get spam phone calls all
| the time anyway, have the charging station call / text me
| and leave me a message instead
| kurthr wrote:
| Yes, unless you're using the newest and rarest non-
| superchargers, you're looking at 8-14kW vs 50-150kW. Also
| there are 3 or more different ones (so one app isn't
| enough) and because they take so long to charge people
| often park for extended (e.g. 4+ hours) periods. They
| border on useless, unless they happen to be where you work
| or live, if what you're looking for is a quick fill-up.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Here's the tesla experience.
|
| Pull into charge, plug in the car, start charging.
|
| Here's the competition.
|
| Pull into charge, plug in the car, Maybe swipe a credit if
| you are lucky and start charging. Likely, you need to install
| a 3rd party app first then you need to feed that app your CC
| information and then you need to tell that app a station
| number to activate. You better hope there's good internet
| because if there's not you might not be able to charge.
|
| Further, for stations that do take a credit card or tap and
| pay. It's like 50/50 on whether or not it will actually go
| through. Usually it takes a crazy long time to actually
| validate the card number before charging (Like, I've waited
| 10 minutes before for a charge to start!).
| labcomputer wrote:
| I've also noticed that USA-based users of CCS chargers
| often report needing to fiddle with the plug to get the car
| to charge.
|
| Most of the reports I've seen are drivers of the e-Tron,
| Bolt and Setec CCS (for Tesla) adapter. They often report
| needing to put pressure on the handle while the station is
| handshaking with the car to avoid spurious ground isolation
| faults and/or communication errors. I don't recall reading
| anything similar with Teslas at Superchargers.
|
| Given that this happens across manufacturers, I'm inclined
| to think that it is either a design flaw with CCS or a not-
| clearly-specified part of the CCS spec.
| clintonb wrote:
| The prices I've seen are also slightly more expensive than
| Superchargers.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| EA is at $0.31 a kw in California, just slightly cheaper
| than Superchargers in California which are slightly above
| the national average.
| goshx wrote:
| You forgot to mention they usually cost 2x what the
| supercharger costs and charge super slow.
| TLightful wrote:
| So, swipe a credit card. Install an app. Sorry, that's not
| ideal ... but that doesn't seem to be a deal breaker.
|
| Particularly regarding the app. Do I complain that I need
| to install Sonos and Prime Music and Apple Play once to do
| what I want?
| filoleg wrote:
| >Do I complain that I need to install Sonos and Prime
| Music and Apple Play once to do what I want?
|
| No, because there is no easily available alternative to
| this that gets rid of those pain points in you example.
| While for EVs, there is. Hence the whole disappointment.
|
| It is much more difficult to accept inconveniences, when
| you have an option available that shows you that it is
| possible to perform the exact same functions, but without
| dealing with those inconveniences.
| xeromal wrote:
| Another doozie is that 3rd party chargers are often in
| garages in the city and you lose cell service meaning the
| app doesn't even work. lol. I've had that happen more
| times than I care to count when I use my chademo charger
| for my tesla.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| I mean, the parent comment is explicitly comparing the
| experiences. When the comparison is between that and
| literally just plugging in and immediately starting to
| charge, that is a pretty big deal.
|
| It's not just one time, it's every time you do a larger
| road trip. That's very much a case of death by a thousand
| cuts.
| ncallaway wrote:
| Do you have to install an app when you get gas from Shell
| or BP? No.
|
| Also, you seem to have only picked on part of the
| inconvenience given that this exists:
|
| > Like, I've waited 10 minutes before for a charge to
| start!
|
| Putting a hard dependence on someone having a smart
| phone, and reliable internet in order to get gas or
| charge their car is a ludicrous step backwards in user
| experience compared to either the (described) Tesla
| experience or filling your car with gas.
| bdamm wrote:
| The worst part of this is taking the time to get the app
| all settled (hope they don't need to mail you a
| membership card!) and then find out that the charger is
| broken or slower than advertised. The state of things for
| non-Tesla charging is horrendous right now. Mostly thanks
| to big oil's attempt to corrupt every EV player ever,
| from the standards to the permitting to the carmakers.
| Now they're trying to own the space but they're faced
| with owning their own enormous mess. A tragedy of modern
| proportions.
| umvi wrote:
| You forgot:
|
| Look up nearest charge station on chargepoint. Pull into
| charge, ICE car is parked there. Wait indefinitely or look
| for another charge.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| My personal worst experience was pulling into an
| ElectrifyAmerica station and finding that the only charger
| working was charging at about half the speed it should have
| been. They operate on a pay-by-the-minute scheme so it not
| only took longer but it also cost more!
|
| EA chargers also put you in a price tier based on how much
| energy your car can _accept_, meaning we were paying the
| 75kWh price for 30kWh of actual acceptance.
|
| Fortunately after talking to support for several minutes
| they rebooted all of the chargers and one of them charged
| at a more reasonable speed (but still not the full 75kWh we
| wanted), and they comped the charge at that machine.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| They've fixed this btw sometime in 2020, they charge
| $0.31 per kw now.
| FrojoS wrote:
| Kw is power. Do you mean kwh?
| mohaine wrote:
| You forgot that you can route to a supercharger and it will
| pre-condition the batter for charging so it is faster.
| Also, it will show you how full the charger is, directly
| from the app.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Hadn't heard of this. Is it basically sloshing remaining
| charge around the available individual cells / packs to
| optimize for charge time?
| cogman10 wrote:
| It's getting the cell temperature correct usually by
| heating up the cells.
| ggreer wrote:
| It warms the battery so that it can charge faster. A cold
| battery can't charge/discharge as quickly.
| slg wrote:
| Then if and when you finally get through all that, you are
| likely charging at a much slower speed than a Supercharger.
|
| Using a Supercharger is even easier and more seamless than
| refueling with gas. Other EV chargers are generally much
| worse than gas. I hope they get there eventually, but right
| now it is a night and day difference in my experience.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Agreed. I don't care too much about the charge time or
| cost myself as even with the hiked rates, charging is
| generally comparable or cheaper than a gas fill up (which
| only strikes on road trips for me).
|
| What I really care about is how much time I'm interacting
| with the charge equipment. It sucks to be standing
| outside in the freezing cold waiting for your card to
| maybe get accepted only to find out that for some dumb
| reason the machine decides to decline it (forcing you to
| use an app which you likely don't have).
|
| There's no reason all EV charging can't be a better
| experience than gas charging. There's already a data line
| established when you plug in (Both CCS and Chademo have
| data lines) so it should be beyond trivial for there to
| be a standard payment scheme (It should have existed from
| the start).
| beervirus wrote:
| It's easier and more seamless, but it's also a lot slower
| to fill up. I guess that's why the car has Netflix...
| cogman10 wrote:
| TBH, the charge time hasn't really bothered me. I've got
| a phone which I can surf the internet on or netflix in
| the car. Most charging spots are usually near enough to
| food or bathrooms so I can generally grab something to
| eat or use restrooms.
|
| If you plan things out well, you generally don't end up
| waiting too long for fast charging.
| mint2 wrote:
| And don't forget the price is way too high. I don't know
| how much a Tesla charger charges, but the 3rd party ones
| I've looked at are ridiculous.
| jmpman wrote:
| Many times the third party chargers are broken, or
| vandalized. Some have screens which are completely unreadable
| after a few years in the sun. They're sited in inconvenient
| spots, such as mall parking lots, which have nothing open
| after 9pm.
|
| That being said, the Tesla charging network is far from
| perfect. Check to see how many US National Parks you can
| practically visit with a Tesla. Carlsbad Caverns? Nope. North
| Rim of the Grand Canyon? Barely.
| whoisburbansky wrote:
| Apparently this reddit post from three years ago doesn't
| think so: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/6oq
| 1wb/an_upda.... Looks like only four National Parks aren't
| (as of three years ago) within round trip distance of a
| Supercharger, and Carlsbad isn't one of them.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| Some of those that are near the mid 250s would be risky,
| especially as the car is likely to be loaded down with
| above average mass, maybe some bikes or a roof luggage
| unit hurting aero. Guess you could drive slow.
| ghaff wrote:
| Furthermore, people often don't drive to a national park,
| drive around a bit, and head back. When I visit Death
| Valley, I probably drive hundreds of miles within the
| park.
| jsight wrote:
| Carlsbad caverns is ~100 miles from the nearest
| supercharger. It wouldn't be a comfortable round trip
| even with a Y Long Range. With a standard range vehicle,
| it is not doable.
| icelancer wrote:
| > third party chargers are broken, or vandalized
|
| The Chargepoint / third-party ones in Seattle have almost
| universally destroyed screens by vandals.
| pornel wrote:
| Chargers have the same quality and reliability as a free
| public WiFi. Often broken, slow, difficult to activate, and
| nobody cares.
|
| The market is fragmented. Chargers are run by different
| companies. Very often you can't even use them, because they
| don't accept card payments, and expect you to have a
| membership, or at best use their custom shitty app.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| It is not that Tesla is good, it is that their competitors are
| terrible.
|
| I knew that Tesla is all integrated, you don't even realize you
| are paying. But I naively expected competition to work like a
| gas station: insert your credit card to start charging, or, if
| there is a counter, you can also go there and pay cash.
|
| But no, it doesn't work like that. There are competing
| standards, you have to download apps and all of that nonsense.
|
| And why should automakers deal with charging stations?
| Automakers have to come up with a standard plug, and it looks
| like we are almost there with CCS2. Now it is up to the
| charging stations to provide a better experience. Gas cars and
| electric appliances do it right, why does it have to be worse
| for electric cars?
| dingaling wrote:
| > Tesla has done a phenomenal job making it easy and convenient
| to own and drive an EV.
|
| As they say, your mileage may vary.
|
| There are a total of three (3) Tesla charger stations in all of
| Ireland. That's one location per 2.3 million people.
|
| For any locals wondering: Ballacolla, Birdhill,
| Castlebellingham.
| samch wrote:
| To add to this, there is even more going on behind the scenes
| in the Tesla Supercharging scenario that makes it so incredible
| effective. A lot of it has to do with charger use optimization.
| As sales of Teslas outpace growth of the Supercharger network,
| optimization of the chargers is increasingly important. Much
| like Apple, the fact that Tesla has fully integrated the entire
| ecosystem (car, mobile app, Supercharger, payments) means that
| they can also optimize the end-to-end process. For starters,
| the in-car display shows where the nearest Superchargers are
| and automatically plans your trip to incorporate them. After a
| recent update, you can now see the real-time number of open
| spaces. When the Tesla has its next navigation destination as a
| Supercharger, the car will automatically begin conditioning the
| battery pack (heating it, I believe) to allow the battery
| chemistry to more readily accept the pending influx of current.
| While the car is charging, the owner has constant visibility
| and notification of progress via the mobile app. This helps the
| owner plan to be back at the charger when the process has
| completed. Finally, Tesla has implemented monetary penalties
| for leaving a charged Tesla in charging spot after a certain
| grace period.
|
| I suppose that what I'm trying to illustrate here is that the
| overall level of optimization of the charging experience might
| just remain unique to Tesla, enabling them to scale their user
| base more efficiently than competitive, non-integrated
| solutions.
| jsight wrote:
| To be fair, now (8 years after the first superchargers),
| Electrify America supports plug and charge. Because of this,
| the experience with the Mach-E is really close to that of
| supercharging.
|
| There's still a gap, but its much smaller now and EA is even
| ahead in some areas.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| See my other post in this thread specifically about the
| Mustang and Electrify America. Looks like they have a way to
| go.
| jsight wrote:
| Yeah, the recent cannonball run in a Taycan (Search Out of
| Spec Motoring if you want to see the details) had some
| similar issues.
|
| In particular, the Mach-E seems to be struggling with low
| charge rates. However, that review is a press vehicle and
| was technically preproduction. I have yet to see someone
| knowledgeable going through the details with an actual
| customer delivered vehicle.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| It's pretty obvious looking at their current volume of
| charging that ElectrifyAmerica is clearly in beta mode
| right now, targeting mostly enthusiasts.
|
| I've done ~40-50 sessions with them and I never got
| stranded, but I've had to move the car to the next charger
| like half the time. Good thing they're putting 4 to 8
| stalls at each station.
| jsight wrote:
| In my area, most of their installations are 4 stall. IMO,
| this is a mistake, as they have already had multiple
| holidays in which entire sites were taken offline. I
| suspect that over time they will move to 8+ stall
| installations as it greatly reduces the odds of a
| complete site outage.
|
| The good thing is that they appear to be collecting data
| in real time and seem to have really direct insight into
| which manufacturers are consistently producing the
| highest reliability.
| rconti wrote:
| How does EA station status work? Do the latest EVs have a way
| of pulling realtime availability data from the network, or do
| you have to use a phone app? (Or is it not possible at all?)
|
| IMO, more important than catching up to Tesla's headstart in
| total number of chargers, is just to have reliable station
| information before you arrive. This doesn't have to work on
| every network-- just _enough_ of them to trust the system. I
| won 't say it's trivial, but it should be fairly easy to work
| towards. Each network needs to have a way of exposing charger
| status, and the vehicles need the software to query them.
| Again, they don't need to support every single possible
| charger vendor, but the more the better.
|
| The user won't (usually) care if they are unaware of a few
| chargers they could have used, but they want data on the ones
| they plan to use, and they want that data to be accurate.
| wmf wrote:
| The Electrify America app doesn't even show accurate
| status.
| mohaine wrote:
| I have an acquaintance that had just bought his 4th Leaf (2019)
| and decided to drive it on a 400ish mile road trip to a
| conference. It took him over 10 hours. When he got to the next
| charger they
|
| 1) Often only had 1 high output charger. 2) The one they had
| was often either in use, or broken leading to very long charge
| times.
|
| This combined with the less than stellar driver assist the
| would never get any better for the life of car made him almost
| instantly regret sticking with the leaf.
|
| He owned it for about 2 months before trading it in on new
| Model 3.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| To be fair there is about a 10k price difference between a
| model 3 and Leaf.
|
| Not saying your points are untrue but for completeness you
| would expect less for a cheaper car. We can certainly point
| to the technology gap between the two being too wide but at
| the end of the day they are not at the same price point.
| notJim wrote:
| Even greater for used Leafs.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Yep you can even buy a 2013 leaf retrofitted with a 2019
| battery and 150+ miles of range for $12k from a shop in
| Oregon.
| moistbar wrote:
| It's only about a 6k difference if you compare base models.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Is it not possible to charge a Leaf at a Tesla station? If so
| we have to have a drive towards standardisation fast. Or
| Tesla will have a monopoly.
| speedgoose wrote:
| No it's not. Tesla uses a Tesla proprietary plug in USA,
| and now a CCS-Type2 combo in Europe, which is the standard.
|
| Even though the plug is standard, you actually can't charge
| a non Tesla on a Tesla charger because the charger only
| accepts Tesla. Recently it has been possible to charge cars
| from other brands for free during a few days in Germany,
| some say it was a bug, some other say it was a trial.
|
| Also unless it has changed recently, in the Tesla ecosystem
| the car is connected to internet and reporting the
| consumption to the paiement system, not the charger. This
| is not standard and Tesla would have to put some 4G/5G
| network equipment in their chargers if they have to support
| cars from other brands.
|
| They may be required at some point in Europe.
|
| The Nissan Leaf uses a Chademo plug which is another
| standard, more common in Japan and it's very unlikely to
| charge on a Tesla charger ever, unless someone hacks an
| adapter.
| rconti wrote:
| To be fair, this is kind of neat-- it means the Tesla
| system fails "open" and, as long as there's power at the
| supercharger station (and all the electronics work, of
| course), the car will charge. I had some anxiety the
| first time or two I used a supercharger-- "what if it
| doesn't work?" -- but so far, that's been completely
| unfounded. When it 'fails', you get a free charge! I once
| found a supercharger that said "limited service" which
| concerned me. All it actually meant was, it charged at
| 75kW instead of 150. And my charge was free.
| netsharc wrote:
| > Even though the plug is standard, you actually can't
| charge a non Tesla on a Tesla charger because the charger
| only accepts Tesla.
|
| If I had an electric car I'd try to figure out the auth
| protocol, surely software-wise it's possible to pretend
| that a Tesla is plugged in (worst case is that there's a
| cryptographically secure key exchange, and someone would
| have to extract the key from a Tesla).
|
| Hah, an adapter that pretends to be a Tesla that plugs
| between the supercharger and your car, that would fit in
| a cyberpunk-ish 2021.
| oneplane wrote:
| IIRC they use PKI with your keypair bound to your
| account. So if you own a Tesla and hack it you can
| pretend another car is that Tesla. You can also hack
| someone else's car but then they'd have to pay for your
| charging and that'd probably be stealing or something
| like that.
| labcomputer wrote:
| Both of the other answers are incomplete:
|
| In Europe, where there is only one DCFC standard, Tesla
| uses a standard connector but only allows Tesla cars to
| charge at superchargers (there is no way for drivers of
| other cars to pay or be billed for use of the station).
|
| In the USA, where both CCS and Chademo are standards, Tesla
| uses their own proprietary connector (which is
| substantially more ergonomic than either CCS or Chademo).
| Tesla sells a Chademo adapter and a third party sells a CCS
| adapter, so Tesla cars can use third-party DCFC stations.
|
| In both cases, only Tesla cars can use Tesla Superchargers.
| ReidZB wrote:
| For superchargers, where you'd want it most, no.
| Superchargers use a specific protocol to communicate with
| the car for purposes of billing -- tied to the Tesla
| account associated with the car. I don't think the plug
| itself is different than a normal Tesla plug (other than
| being beefier, perhaps?) but I could be wrong.
|
| For normal Tesla wall chargers, like one that might be
| installed at someone's house, I think there are adapters
| that might work for the Leaf, but I have no experience with
| them.
|
| That said, other than Tesla, I think there _is_
| standardization. Especially with Electrify America. But,
| Tesla 's network is so convenient and widespread that it is
| currently a big selling point for the brand, in my opinion.
| vel0city wrote:
| You cannot charge any non-Tesla car from a Tesla
| connector. Tesla uses a proprietary connector and
| signaling protocol.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| This is not true. Tesla destination chargers [1] will
| charge non-Tesla vehicles with an adapter. I have this
| adapter [2], and my friend's Bolt charges from my home
| charger (a high power wall charger on a 100A circuit)
| when he's over for beers.
|
| It _is_ true that the V3 version of the Tesla destination
| charger (which is relatively new), which has a
| microcontroller /wifi/etc, has a config flag you can set
| to only charge Tesla vehicles and can whitelist by VIN,
| but it's still in the very early stage of release.
|
| @vel0city: In response to your deleted reply to this
| comment, if legacy automakers want access to Tesla's
| supercharging network for their own EVs, they should be
| prepared to contribute towards the enormous capex costs
| Tesla incurred as well as the ongoing operational
| expenses. Otherwise, legacy automakers who made _no
| material effort_ to transition to EVs are free riding off
| of Tesla 's hard work to build the network they now
| desperately need to remain in business.
|
| [1] https://www.tesla.com/destination-charging
|
| [2] https://smile.amazon.com/Lectron-Tesla-
| Charger-J1772-Adapter...
| vel0city wrote:
| Ok, so you'll be able to use _some_ of the Tesla charging
| stations assuming you 're carrying around a bulky $150
| adapter cable. You won't be able to use the Supercharger
| stations which I took as the main focus of TFA. I'm also
| wondering if this would work for any stations which would
| be selling power, it seems these are only basic systems
| without any billing. So mostly only those "patrons only"
| kind of stations.
|
| Ultimately buying Tesla is supporting vendor lock-in and
| proprietary connectors instead of industry standards. And
| what a joke, as if Tesla bothered to even offer such a
| thing to allow the other automakers to use their
| connector and signaling.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I support innovation over industry standards that sandbag
| the innovator ("the industry" came up with J1772 and
| CHAdeMO, which were both clearly designed by committee).
| The industry setting the standards is the problem, which
| is why Tesla had to create Superchargers as a proprietary
| standard (and CCS is only now catching up to, and is
| still arguably inferior). The industry should consider
| setting better standards if they don't want Tesla setting
| them.
| vel0city wrote:
| Cool, and we'll have Tesla chargers, and Ford chargers,
| and GM chargers, and VW chargers, and...
|
| Or, Tesla could adopt the industry standard so I don't
| have to tear out the charger on the wall every time I
| want to buy a different brand of car.
|
| Its quite a joke that having vendor lock-in increases
| competition and innovation. If you've paid the thousands
| of dollars to have a Tesla wall charger installed, and
| you'll have to pay to get a different one for a different
| brand, do you think that'll weigh on your decision to buy
| another car even if the other car is technically better?
| Proprietary connectors lock people into the platform and
| increases friction to customers leaving for a different
| product.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You say it's a joke, but Tesla setting their own standard
| is one of the reasons they're the world's most valuable
| automaker (as it contributes to an amazing user
| experience). I understand that you may be dogmatic about
| the desire for open standards, but the evidence is clear
| it's not necessary (even with the EU requiring fast
| charger interoperability). My opinion is that this is
| very similar to those railing against software projects
| who have to go "fair source" instead of "open source" to
| protect their financial interests from others, and in the
| same vein, Tesla should be compensated for their
| investment in infrastructure.
|
| If you don't want a Tesla, don't buy one. No one is
| forcing people to buy them, or to use their chargers
| (fast DC or otherwise). If jurisdictions desire Tesla to
| open their network for others, _compensate them for their
| private investment they 're demanding they open up_.
|
| Regardless, I appreciate the conversation and the
| perspective as an electric vehicle enthusiast.
| vel0city wrote:
| let's let the proprietary connector play out, and lets
| say all the other automakers wither and die due to their
| shortsightedness to help deploy charging stations. Now
| we're down to only the single Tesla connector out there
| for charging in the wild, and effectively only Tesla
| cars. Is this a good thing for innovation? Do you think
| this will increase or decrease innovation? And all
| because they were first to market with a proprietary
| connector they heavily pushed. Effectively, if you want
| to buy a car with the ability to charge in the wild you
| will be forced to buy a Tesla due to a monopoly of
| charging stations. Sounds like a good future filled with
| innovation to me!
|
| Lets also look at it the other way in a theoretical to
| analyze the idea of widespread proprietary connectors and
| their connection to innovation. Say Nissan had a
| proprietary connector and made the big investment to
| deploy a massive charging network. The Nissan cars are
| technically vastly inferior to the Tesla cars, but
| because Nissan made a well-timed capex they've got a leg
| up on the chargers. People then tend to buy the inferior
| Nissan cars because of the brand presence and vast
| availability of chargers. While the Tesla cars are
| technically better, all of those owners already have
| proprietary Nissan connectors at home. Their offices have
| Nissan chargers. Their grocery store has Nissan chargers.
| The highway rest stops have Nissan chargers. Truck stops
| have Nissan chargers. Do you think the technically better
| Tesla wins? Imagine when new construction of houses
| starts to have vehicle charging connections common. If
| your house came with a Nissan charger and it'll cost you
| $500 to swap it out for a Tesla one, doesn't that raise
| the price of the Tesla $500 simply because of the cable
| in your home? Sounds terrible to me.
| FrojoS wrote:
| How far we have come from the days when people here
| argued that Tesla was dead the moment one of the big old
| car manufacturers was starting to build electric cars in
| earnest.
| zamfi wrote:
| This is a huge straw man.
|
| Obviously it would be better for consumers if all these
| companies got together and used a single standard and
| shared resources to build out a great network. Also
| better for consumers would be decoupling the charging
| network from the manufacturers, like ICE cars and mobile
| phones do (cables aside, in the latter case). No one is
| arguing otherwise, the discussion is about why this isn't
| better for _manufacturers_.
|
| One way to make it better for manufacturers is to mandate
| a standard, leaving manufacturers who don't use the
| standard in violation of statute.
|
| But _another_ way is to wait until there are enough
| manufacturers of EVs, who _actually care_ about their EVs
| and not just making compliance vehicles, and who
| _actually care_ about building EV charging networks and
| not just building them to comply with consent decrees
| they 're subject to thanks to past illegal behavior, and
| who as a result _actually care_ about having a useful,
| usable, reliable network of fast charging stations for
| cross-country trips.
|
| Right now, only Tesla cares about this.
|
| Eventually, other manufacturers will too. Then, one day,
| it will make sense for both manufacturers and consumers
| to use a single shared plug, and all new installations
| will have it, and old installations will be retrofitted.
| It will take 10+ years here, but it's already happening
| in Europe thanks to mandates. In the meantime, mandating
| everyone follow some terrible standard and support other
| manufacturers' vehicles is just punitive to the
| manufacturers who do care, and punitive to future
| consumers who would like to use a functional system and
| not be stuck with the garbage that passes for fast
| charging outside Tesla's network in the US today.
|
| </soapbox>
| vel0city wrote:
| The thing is, Tesla wants to push their proprietary
| connector and have that be the dominant plug. Its their
| connector which will only be featured on Tesla cars. You
| really think Tesla would be going along with retrofitting
| in Europe if it wasn't for regulations? That they'd just
| willingly give up their market dominance position in
| charging network just because they feel like it and have
| some altruistic desire to embrace some future connector?
|
| The industry standard answer to the Supercharger
| connector exists. Its available on multiple brands of
| cars today. The day for a single shared plug could be
| today if Elon says so. Retrofits for charging stations
| could start happening tomorrow. They could probably start
| cranking out CCS compatible cars for the US market within
| a quarter. But Tesla doesn't want a single shared plug,
| they want to own the market for chargers. They want to
| use the wide spread proprietary connector as a selling
| point to sell their cars. Which is _exactly_ the concept
| in my "straw man" post. Its not really a straw man when
| its _literally_ the exact scenario that 's currently
| playing out in the market though, a car manufacturer
| using a dominant position in deploying chargers to push
| their cars. For evidence, see TFA. Do you think Tesla
| owners are installing J1772/CCS chargers at their homes
| and using adapters, or are they installing Tesla
| chargers? When someone sees an article like this, is that
| not convincing shoppers to look at Teslas first over
| other brands of electric cars? Seems less like a straw
| man and just taking a hard look at the objective reality
| of today.
|
| Buying Tesla is supporting vendor lock-in. Its obvious to
| you that a single, open connector is better for the
| market and yet you'll continue to support a proprietary
| one.
| labcomputer wrote:
| I think it was clear from context that the person you're
| replying to was talking about DC fast chargers, not L2 AC
| charging.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Words means things, and those were not the words in their
| comment.
|
| > You cannot charge any non-Tesla car from a Tesla
| connector
| labcomputer wrote:
| With the implied context
|
| > [...] at a Supercharger station.
|
| But I repeat myself.
| icefrakker wrote:
| Weird how your ego can't acknowledge you misspoke.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| That wasn't implied to me. When people go out of their
| way to point out how what you said isn't what you meant
| to say, and you brush it off as "no no, it's you who
| don't understand my eloquent prose," you might want to
| consider taking the feedback as constructive.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYAuR5bkIlQ
| worldsayshi wrote:
| > if legacy automakers want access to Tesla's
| supercharging network for their own EVs, they should be
| prepared to contribute towards the enormous capex costs
| Tesla incurred as well as the ongoing operational
| expenses
|
| While this seems very fair it also seems very
| problematic. They definitely should do that. But if they
| chose to not do that and build disjointed infrastructure
| instead the outcome will be worse for everyone and it
| will give Tesla an advantage that perhaps would not be
| unfair to them but at least would be unfair to consumers.
| Retric wrote:
| The other side of this is the standard uses a
| significantly worse connector in terms of weight etc vs
| the Tesla connector to preserve backward compatibility to
| an earlier standard at low cost. That's always the issue
| with industry standards where it's less about creating a
| useful standard than minimizing the changes required to
| existing infrastructure.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| It seems fine that they create a standard of their own as
| long as they also allow others to make use of it and
| don't wall it in.
| Spivak wrote:
| There's really no good solution for problems like this
| that don't make someone upset.
|
| Tesla wants to profit off the fruit of their labor and
| extract some value from their product that is providing
| value to others and fund its development. It also is used
| as a sales vector since their charging network is a huge
| selling point for their cars.
|
| Consumers don't want to be stuck with two standards for
| no reason other than corporate politics and pay higher
| prices via those licensing fees. Or be locked out from
| certain charging stations just because of the model of
| their car.
|
| And other automakers don't want to be put at a
| competitive disadvantage because they have little choice
| but have to license the tech from Tesla.
|
| And the world doesn't want to put up with having to
| duplicate the massive human effort of setting up a
| charging network n times just because of corporate
| politics.
|
| I always thought this was the basically the perfect
| situation for gov't to step in and "fix" the market by
| just funding the development of the charging technology
| and providing it to all automakers for free/at cost so
| everyone gets the best charger on the cheap.
| setr wrote:
| Wouldn't the normal thing be for Tesla to license/rent
| their existing infrastructure out to other brands? It
| mainly becomes an issue if Tesla decides its part of
| their car value -- but otherwise they could basically
| 100% own and entirely govern the development of America's
| charging network
| vel0city wrote:
| Sorry, I guess I spoke too broadly. I was intending for
| this to be about the Supercharger stations as that's what
| TFA was about. This adapter will not work for any of the
| Telsa Supercharger stations you'll commonly find around.
| They'll work for the smaller charging stations that
| private individuals will own, but you won't be able to
| use Tesla's charging network with this adapter.
|
| Buying Tesla is supporting vendor lock-in and proprietary
| standards instead of supporting open standards.
| speedgoose wrote:
| In Europe they use the CCS-Type2 standard, but only
| authorize Tesla cars to charge.
| mahkeiro wrote:
| It's almost certain that one brand charging station are
| going to be forbidden soon in Europe, as it is going to
| create a huge mess. Try to imagine if the gas station
| were only able to serve one brand...
| speedgoose wrote:
| Yes Tesla should open its chargers to everyone before
| they are forced to do so. I know some Tesla owners like
| the exclusivity but I think it will benefit the brand
| more to open the chargers.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| There is definitely a Tesla Level 2 -> CCS adapter, but
| no such luck for Superchargers. Not sure about Chademo,
| which is what a lot of the Leaf line uses.
| vel0city wrote:
| It is not possible to charge a Leaf at a Tesla station.
| Tesla uses proprietary connectors instead of the industry
| standard J1772/CCS connectors.
| stcredzero wrote:
| When I went for my test drive of a Model 3, I noted that
| there was a Chevy Bolt being traded in for a Model 3.
| bdamm wrote:
| Yeah. The Bolt is a nice driving car, but the charging rate
| is a joke compared to any Tesla.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| The Supercharger is definitely faster, but a Bolt on a
| CCS DC Type-3 charger is slower, but in the same league.
|
| On the other hand, the "user experience" of every Type-3
| charger I've seen is _terrible_. The chargers are often
| in inconvenient places, the super thick cables are very
| short, and then you 've got to try a couple of times to
| get the charger and the car to talk to each other and get
| the payment sorted out. Tesla wins on this _hands down_ ,
| and it's not even close.
|
| Oddly enough, the Type-2 experience isn't nearly as bad.
| Other than requiring 6+ hours to charge...
| starfallg wrote:
| In the UK, there are several different networks now and they
| offer a good enough experience. Polar Network (now BP Pulse)
| has many more locations than Tesla, and their rapid chargers
| are located in convenient locations, such as restaurants and
| hotels or on a side street in the city center. Cost-wise, the
| rapid charger price is just 60% of the Tesla Supercharger per
| kwh.
| mprev wrote:
| My experience has been different.
|
| Electric Highway (Ecotricity) has a high rate of broken
| chargers. When you find one, they seem to charge a minimum
| fee of PS12 regardless of how much you use.
|
| Most chargers are slow. Either 7kw or 11kw is common; 20kw is
| considered rapid in some places.
|
| The fragmentation of networks means you need at least four
| crap apps just to get around and then you'll probably need to
| install a new app if you're going somewhere new.
|
| What you call convenient locations are a mixed blessing.
| Spaces for chargers are often ICEd in my experience because
| they're in busy car parks.
|
| I just want to pull up, plug in, and tap my credit card. The
| charge networks seem to go out of their way to make using the
| service painful.
| starfallg wrote:
| >I just want to pull up, plug in, and tap my credit card.
|
| That's exactly the way that all Polar rapid chargers work,
| and there's a lot of them scattered around now. The rate is
| lower if you join as a member though.
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| I'm really shocked that other manufacturers haven't invested in
| more infrastructure. Toyota and Honda pushed hydrogen fuel cell
| vehicles for years, they could have easily accelerated adoption
| of the tech by investing in refueling infrastructure. Now all
| that money they invested in fuel cell cars looks to be wasted
| as they both are playing catchup with battery electric
| vehicles, mostly because of Tesla.
| Animats wrote:
| _Toyota and Honda pushed hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for
| years_
|
| Toyota wanted someone else to pay for the infrastructure.
|
| California has 27 hydrogen stations up today.[1] There's not
| much interest in building more.
|
| [1] https://m.cafcp.org/
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Legacy automakers never thought they were going to have to
| build and sell EVs at scale until Tesla forced their hand
| (and also demonstrated to governments that it was time to
| schedule new combustion vehicle sales bans), hence why they
| didn't invest in their own charging networks (which cost
| Tesla over half a billion dollars and counting [1] [2]).
|
| [1] https://supercharge.info/changes [2]
| https://supercharge.info/map
| cronix wrote:
| One thing I like about Nio is they are using swappable
| batteries[1] that can be swapped out in about 3-5 minutes,
| which is comparable, or likely faster, than filling (from
| empty) at a gas station depending on tank size. It also leaves
| Nio in charge of keeping the batteries up to date so your car
| won't lose value over time like a 10 year old car with degraded
| batteries that won't hold as much of a charge and take longer
| and longer to charge over time as the battery degrades and cost
| a heck of a lot to swap out. It costs about $16k[2] to get a
| Model 3 battery replaced. Nio is able to sell cars for about
| $10k cheaper by using swappable batteries. Batteries as a
| Service.
|
| [1] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a33670482/nio-swappable-
| ba...
|
| Edit, added link: [2] https://www.msn.com/en-
| us/autos/enthusiasts/it-costs-nearly-...
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Tesla tried that too
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY), but they only
| built one swap station and they decommissioned it a couple of
| years later. They claimed lack of demand and doubled down on
| supercharging instead.
|
| A company named Better Place got a ton of VC funding to set
| up a battery swapping service for electric cars, and flamed
| out spectacularly.
|
| Perhaps NIO can succeed where Tesla and Better Place failed,
| but I'm doubtful. OTOH, Shanghai is probably a great place to
| start.
| secabeen wrote:
| It's going to be very interesting to see what kinds and
| levels of fraud they experience with those batteries.
| Generally, companies don't lend or rent assets valued at
| $15k+ to individuals without a lot of legal and contractual
| protections (see your average rental car contract.) Were I
| them, I would worry a lot about battery wear-and-tear,
| undeclared damage, and even internal component substitution.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Were I them, I would worry a lot about battery wear-and-
| tear, undeclared damage, and even internal component
| substitution.
|
| A car battery can definitely carry its own anti tamper
| mechanism and an LTE modem to report issues. Besides... a
| car battery isn't actually worth 15k$ to a thief. Not much
| to part out (PCBs are custom, casing ain't gonna fetch much
| in terms of scrap metal, and there's not much of a market
| for used li-ion 18650's with the exception of ecig
| hobbyists so swapping them out for lower quality isn't
| worth the effort), if it's an exclusively rent model there
| is no market for a stolen pack.
|
| Wear and tear also isn't that much of an issue as Tesla
| proved.
| Jonanin wrote:
| This is a pretty neat idea, but it seems insanely expensive
| for the network operator. Not only would having a large
| inventory of spare batteries be very capital intensive, but
| the swapping stations themselves look complex and expensive
| too. I wonder if Nio even has the capital required to do this
| at a large enough scale.
| ericmay wrote:
| I like the swappable batteries, but I think they are
| impractical as a comparison to Tesla SuperChargers.
|
| First, it's a logistics problem. Tesla has like 20,000
| SuperChargers. If I'm driving on a road trip, I need to stop
| at a SuperCharger and there's let's say a dozen spots. In
| some locations those spots are full, others might be half
| empty and so forth. How will NIO supply the hardware to do
| these battery swaps? Will there be a dozen battery swap
| stations spread out similar to the SuperCharger network? Who
| will deliver the batteries? How many do you need? What
| happens if you show up and NIO ran out of batteries to swap?
| Will this actually be cheaper than the SuperCharger network
| for me?
|
| I think it makes more sense to swap the batteries out from a
| manufacturing standpoint, but much less so for road trips.
| You can see NIO already shifting away from this with
| increased range.
|
| If you could just swap out the batteries why even bother
| working on range (NIO touting 600km+ cars IIRC)? I guess that
| could further limit how many swap stations you need (they
| could be more spread out), but the problem is you end up
| spreading them just a long main routes. I need a
| SuperCharger/battery swap location in places like Marquette,
| Michigan or Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
|
| And as a Tesla owner and road trip driver... I really don't
| mind waiting like 20 minutes for the battery to charge. It
| encourages me to take breaks I otherwise wouldn't have taken
| which are probably more healthy. Destination charging or a
| SuperCharger within a 20 minute drive of my destination are
| more of concerns for me now that I own an EV, but it just
| means the trip has to be planned out a little more.
|
| I like NIO's ambitions and like the battery as a service
| prospect, but much more for hey I want to swap out my old
| battery for a new one to extend the life of my car.
| JackPoach wrote:
| It should be noted that is is a US only/mostly story. A fair
| analogy is Uber - dominant in US and some other markets, but
| clear loser in China, India, Africa and many European markets
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Here is a good article on what non Tesla owners face, not just I
| convince but often higher charges. The final take...
|
| " As I wrote in my review, the Mustang Mach-E is one impressive
| EV, one that stands tall against the Tesla Model Y in most
| competitive measures. But Tesla's foresight and investment in its
| own proprietary network remains a key competitive advantage,
| right up there with its edge in electric efficiency and range"
|
| https://www.autoblog.com/2020/12/24/2021-ford-mustang-mach-e...
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| I am not sure how big of a deal this is.
|
| The main use case for EV is short distance daily trips where you
| can charge at home.
|
| Going on a long distance trip, a gas powered vehicle is superior.
| With gas, especially with cell phone gps, you basically need no
| planning or forethought. You just drive, and if you think you are
| runnning low, you just look for a gas station along your route.
|
| So yes, Tesla has a vastly superior charging network compared to
| to the others, but it is still vastly inferior to the gas station
| network.
| ggreer wrote:
| Charging time is a non-issue nowadays. Last weekend I drove
| from Portland to Spokane and back (almost 400 miles each way).
| I entered my destination on the Tesla's giant touchscreen. The
| car figured out the route and the one charging stop. I drove to
| the freeway, turned on autopilot, and let the car do its thing.
| Then three hours later the car took an exit. I drove from the
| offramp to the charging station, plugged in, and had a
| snack/coffee. By the time I was back, the car was ready to go.
| The only issue was that automatic lane change was occasionally
| disabled due to snow obscuring cameras. The whole experience
| was far less tiring or stressful than any road trip I've taken
| with a gas car.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I think they can do even better. Stop charging the car. Keep is
| as an option, but make it something people only do at home with
| their solar power and leisure time. Make the battery modules hot
| swappable. Even better, make it so I can drive over a thing, the
| batteries swap while I am moving. This means I stop owning
| batteries and as batteries improve, my car gets automatic
| upgrades. I bet Elon can not only do this, but can probably even
| one-up this idea.
| clintonb wrote:
| They tried: https://www.businessinsider.com/teslas-battery-
| swapping-plan.... Supercharging is more convenient.
| recursive wrote:
| That results either in a decrease in range or increase in
| weight and size. Physical space for these batteries is a
| limiting factor. Making the whole thing modular increases
| complexity, size, and weight.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| True, but according to Elons plans around the airline
| industry, the extra module space should be a wash in a couple
| of years as battery capacity is expected to grow
| substantially.
| greedo wrote:
| So instead of having a few parking spots with charging
| stations, now you need to have some sort of hydraulic lift
| system to swap out a multi-ton battery. And a facility to store
| these batteries (and charge them). Oh and these batteries are
| quite valuable, at least half the price of the EV. You would
| also need to have different size batteries, based on the EV
| model, the battery model (LF or SF), etc etc.
|
| You would have to staff these Battery Swap (I'll call them BS)
| facilities for when the machinery breaks down, or damages a
| car, or any other of a myriad number of problems. You would
| also need substantial real estate for this BS facility, zoned
| appropriately.
|
| Or you could simply install some automated charging stations
| that don't require any of this CAPEX or headache. Pretty easy
| to see why this is the model Tesla pursued.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I am not considering parking spots at all. That is where the
| traditional charge stations would remain. This would be for
| modernizing gas stations, or adding refueling stations
| anywhere there is room for a "drive through". No hydraulics.
| Just a set of carbide gears and points that push on a set of
| battery module releases one set at a time. Old module roles
| out, new module roles in. Never more than 1 disconnected at a
| time to ensure vehicle does not lose power. I envision that
| with time, the speed allowed in the drive-through should
| increase exponentially, speeding up commute times. No
| stopping, no lifting, just keep driving.
| nickik wrote:
| Tesla tried this and they realized its a bad idea.
| Standardizing a mechanism like this is insanely complex so
| for the most part it would be 'per company'.
|
| And even within the vehicles of one company, changing a
| Model S and Cybertruck battery is very challenge.
|
| Even assuming all of that works, it requires you to totally
| change the whole engineering on the car. Designing the car
| to have battery swap makes it far more complex to integrate
| the battery pack with the vehicle structure and makes it
| more difficult to protect the battery.
|
| Tesla moved away from even having the option of a swapable
| battery when they added extra protection on the bottom of
| the car to prevent more fires and accidents like that.
|
| NIO in China does operate a system like that, but the swap
| stations are human operated. So you drive up, hand over
| your car to a person, who drives it into the swap station
| for you and returns it.
|
| Its also incredibly expensive to build these stations, let
| alone operate 1000s of them.
| greedo wrote:
| Have you looked at the size of the battery pack in a Tesla?
| Imagine a "gas station" being able to store at least 10-20
| of them, as well as all the machinery that swaps them. Then
| figure that the value of 20 battery packs is roughly $15K
| each. Then add the facilities cost, rent, staffing,
| insurance etc. A gas station is pretty cheap overall, just
| tanks and self-service pumps with a stooge selling
| cigarettes inside. The value proposition just isn't there.
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