[HN Gopher] Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi say they will use Tesl...
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Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi say they will use Tesla's EV charging
plug
Author : thunderbong
Score : 262 points
Date : 2023-12-20 14:56 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| grecy wrote:
| Stellantis are the only remaining holdout. It seems inevitable
| they'll jump on board too.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| If they are the last domino, they also have the worst
| negotiation position. Whatever number Tesla says will be their
| cost.
| JoshTko wrote:
| Not really, last thing Tesla wants is antitrust oversight for
| monopolistic practice.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Would be a bit ridiculous to penalise Tesla as a monopolist
| given they virtually pioneered the industry in America
| within the last generation.
| skybrian wrote:
| This is just imagining future scenarios, but I don't see
| an inherent contradiction. That's one way to end up with
| a monopoly.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Sure? It's just weird to set the precedent that opening
| up your standard means you're now a monopolist.
| bluGill wrote:
| The conversation is about what if Tesla doesn't open the
| standard to one company. An unlikely situation likely.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Mr. Rockefeller from Standard Oil on line 2.
| evilfred wrote:
| why would Tesla be involved? NACS is an open standard
| formerly_proven wrote:
| * in the US only, since NACS is becoming the US standard.
| SEJeff wrote:
| * in north america, which also includes Canada.
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| Will Greenland use NACS? Probably not.
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| Huh? It feels like you're just being overly pedantic for no
| reason. From Wikipedia and numerous other sources:
|
| > Though a part of the continent of North America,
| Greenland has been politically and culturally associated
| with Europe.
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| It's not even clear if it will prevail in Mexico:
| https://mobilityportal.lat/carga-nacs-estandarizacion-
| nortea...
| CaptainOfCoit wrote:
| Don't forget the neighbor in the south North America too,
| Mexico.
| SEJeff wrote:
| You're absolutely right. Thankyou.
|
| I guess in my head I grouped Latin America with South
| America which wasn't correct.
| cr3ative wrote:
| ...in America. Europe here quite nicely standardising on CCS2.
| alsodumb wrote:
| US is standardizing quite nicely too, on Tesla's charging
| standard. I can't think of a company that is not planning to
| use Tesla's charger going forward.
| jader201 wrote:
| Not really. Many Tesla Superchargers are being equipped with
| Magic Dock, which is perpetuating CCS.
|
| More manufacturers may be moving to NACS, but it's not like
| chargers are moving away from CCS. If anything, the CCS
| infrastructure is growing.
| InTheArena wrote:
| CCS is dead with this. I expect magic dock installs to
| stop.
| jsight wrote:
| I think they are still a requirement for NEVI, and Tesla
| has won a few contracts for NEVI sites.
|
| I do expect them to stop eventually though. IMO, part of
| the reason they exist is that it lets them collect real
| world data on supercharger and adapter usage before the
| bigger rollouts next year.
| eichin wrote:
| How widespread is that really? After the first deployment
| (where every EV youtuber east of the Mississippi converged
| on one tesla lot in New York :-) I haven't seen it in tech
| news since, and looking in the app I see 2 private
| ("destination") chargers in all of MA, and none in CT...
| Hamuko wrote:
| Yeah, even Tesla uses CCS.
|
| https://electrek.co/2018/11/14/tesla-model-3-ccs-2-plug-euro...
| stephen_g wrote:
| Same in Australia, Tesla and most other EVs are all CCS Type
| 2 here, except for some CHAdeMO in Japanese cars, but I can't
| see that being a priority for charging networks going forward
| so I expect that to dwindle and they will have to switch to
| CCS like everyone else.
| Moto7451 wrote:
| IIRC it's a legal requirement vs just a standard like CCS1.
| South Korea has the same legal demand for CCS1 so it'll be
| interesting to see what happens with NACS there.
|
| I personally don't mind using CCS vs NACS. I didn't feel super
| inspired by the flex I felt when inserting a supercharger's
| plug into a Model 3 but clearly it works fine in practice.
|
| My guess is that Electrify America with NACS plugs will still
| be just as problematic if they're unreliable in your area. Plug
| vs Network vs Hardware are being conflated in this discussion.
| Adding CCS to Superchargers would have worked just as well but
| that's not how America works in this case.
| InTheArena wrote:
| CCS charging infrastructure is just awful. This is a problem
| mostly with infrastructure, but also with design compromises
| in the CCS design - both physical and software.
| jsight wrote:
| I suspect the US would have done the same thing, if
| manufacturers had done CCS2 instead of CCS1. Also would have
| helped if the US had done "bring your own cable", which seems
| to be common in Europe.
|
| Interestingly, the new NACS standardization process seems to be
| encouraging that as well.
| pornel wrote:
| BYOC is only for slow AC charging. All CCS2 DC chargers have
| cables built-in.
| stetrain wrote:
| CCS1 is worse than CCS2 in a couple of ways. The latching
| mechanism is external which is bulkier and more fragile, and it
| doesn't support 3-phase AC charging.
|
| NACS does everything CCS1 does in a more compact package with
| an internal vehicle locking mechanism similar to what CCS2
| uses. It also doesn't support 3-phase AC charging but this
| isn't very common in light commercial or residential service in
| the US.
|
| NACS / J3400 will likely stay a North American standard though,
| or maybe migrate to a few other markets like S. Korea which
| have also used CCS1. That lack of 3-phase support makes it a
| non-starter in Europe and CCS2 works perfectly fine there.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Yeah, because CCS1 only supports 1 phase AC because the usual
| standard of residential power is 1 phase AC.
|
| In contrast, in Europe 3 phase AC is the standard, so it makes
| sense to support that advantage (especially the 400V across the
| legs) in charging vehicles.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Three phase power is _not_ "the standard" in Europe. It's
| more available perhaps, but certainly not the default
| residential hookup.
| jgilias wrote:
| Europe is big. Where I live it's pretty much the default.
| You can get a 1-phase connection, but you basically need to
| downgrade to it, and all the default wiring would be done
| in a way to support 3 phases if needed.
| Symbiote wrote:
| In some European countries it is (even in my apartment in
| Copenhagen), in others it isn't.
|
| Where it isn't the default, it's generally available for an
| extra fee, and may well be the default for buildings
| slightly larger than a house -- a shop, mechanic, etc.
| apexalpha wrote:
| in The Netherlands is absolutely is the default.
|
| My home, built in 1971, had 1 phase connected to it but the
| power company already buried the 2 extra copper wires for
| 3-phase hookup, requiring only a new meter for 3 phase to
| be installed.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| It is the default for building hookups (i.e. excluding
| individual apartments/condos/flats, but EV chargers don't
| make sense there anyway) at least in the Western European
| countries - can't speak for much of Eastern Europe but
| Croatia where it is also the default. Even during the 60s
| when the home of my grandparents was built in back-then
| Communist Yugoslavia, it was already 3 phase.
|
| Our transmission grid (that actually extends even down to
| Africa and parts of Asia!) is already three phases, we're
| not sparsely settled to require SWER anywhere, so it
| doesn't save the utilities any money to not lay three-phase
| AC to every building by default.
| lnsru wrote:
| Logical move. North American Charging Standard does not exist in
| Europe making car re-import much more difficult.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| If it's electrical it wouldn't be too hard to conver from one
| standard to another using an adapter, since it's standard on
| both sides there will be a money incentive to make one
| HPsquared wrote:
| How about voltage / current / communication? Seems quite a
| complicated problem, it's not just a case of different USB
| plug styles..
| jsight wrote:
| It actually is very similar to USB plug styles. NACS
| communicates the same way that CCS does. Converting between
| NACS and CCS1 or CCS2 connectors should be easy.
|
| The biggest issue is the amount of current involved.
| 0xfae wrote:
| Actually USB is a great example.
|
| USB C can charge at 5v, 10v, 20v, etc. When you plug in a
| device to the charger a hand shake happens between the
| charger and device and they choose the voltage and amperage
| that makes sense. A macbook pro can take 100W over USBC but
| obviously your headphones or phone aren't going to.
| bluGill wrote:
| Tesla is using the same communication standard, they just
| combine AC and DC on the same pins which means an adapter
| can be pretty cheap.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| The voltage and current are determined by negotiation
| between the car and charger. There were plenty of US Teslas
| imported into Norway in the early days. They have no
| trouble charging here. If necessary a simple conversion can
| be done.
|
| Making my 2015 S70D that had a Type 2 connector work with
| CCS2 was a 300 USD conversion. I can't see any reason why
| converting from NACS to CCS2 would be any more difficult or
| expensive.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Remember teslas come with a CCS adapter that can go the
| other way.
| SEJeff wrote:
| So there is actually a technical reason here. NACS isn't a
| thing in Europe because 3 Phase power is much more common in
| Europe. NACS does not support 3 Phase power, and as a result,
| is not that common in Europe.
| bluGill wrote:
| 3 phase is very common in the US. Most single family houses
| don't have it, everything else is likely to have it.
|
| For chargers 3 phase gains nothing. For induction motors 3
| phase is useful - but in the modern world even where you have
| 3 phase you often will run the power through a VFC just so
| you get control of RPM. For a few other things 3 phase is
| nice because there is always one phase that isn't near zero
| to draw power from, but where that matters you can work
| around it with a few capacitors.
| jankeymeulen wrote:
| 3 phase typically has 400V between the phases and neutral
| in Europe, the phases don't gain you anything, but the
| voltage does.
| phs2501 wrote:
| Pretty sure residential 3-phase in Europe is 400V phase-
| to-phase, it's 220V phase-to-neutral.
| qayxc wrote:
| make that 230V (min.) or rather 240V (nominal).
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| 230V nominal in EU
| qayxc wrote:
| You're right, though tolerances allow for up 253V since
| 2009. I usually measure between 235V and 242V from the
| wall.
| dotancohen wrote:
| It's 220/240 volt RMS to neutral, which is about 312 volt
| maximum to neutral at the top of the phase.
| bluGill wrote:
| Voltage is solely a matter of how the transformer is
| wound. In the US you get a choice when you contact the
| power company, 208, 240, 440, and 480 are all voltages
| I've personally seen in the US, depending on the area
| (not all utilities will provide all voltages, so there
| are some I haven't seen)
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| 3 phases give you three times amount the power as 1-phase
| with only 4 wires (instead of 2 in a single phase, or 3x
| the thickness).
| SEJeff wrote:
| The NACS standard still only supports single phase power.
| It was the electrician who installed my home charger that
| said it is why they weren't in Europe homes.
| gabrielhidasy wrote:
| NACS supports either one or two phases for AC charging
| which would be used in most home chargers. A really high
| power charger would use DC with the AC/DC conversion
| happening before (and that could be from a three-phase
| source)
| ianburrell wrote:
| What the US has is split phase power, when one phase is
| 240V and that is split to make two 120V legs. NACS
| supports single phase power, either 120V (Level 1) or
| 240V (Level 2).
|
| There is no such thing as two-phase power, there is
| single-phase or three-phase. Since three-phase is better
| than two-phase.
| masklinn wrote:
| > NACS supports either one or two phases for AC charging
| which would be used in most home chargers.
|
| Lots of european homes have 3-phase service. I have
| 3-phase 400V in my flat.
| stephen_g wrote:
| Theoretically perhaps, but practically, most single phase
| AC EV chargers on Europe/Australia etc. are only 7 kW but
| 3-phase are 11 or 22 kW (both 7 kW and 22 kW are about 30 A
| per phase, but three phase you obviously have three of
| them, so three times the power!). That's not "gaining
| nothing"!
| bluGill wrote:
| While sometimes you get more power on 3 phase, that is
| only about the size of the feed and nothing to do with 3
| phase.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| But you have three feeds giving you three phases to use,
| so 3x the power available to you. Out here, even electric
| stoves (with ovens) have 3 phase connection options and
| tankless water heaters almost exclusively come as 3 phase
| models.
| bluGill wrote:
| Power is volts times amps. 3 phase just means you add the
| power of all three phases, but you can get the same power
| from one phase with a little algebra. You need different
| size wires and breakers, but there is nothing there that
| 3 phases gives you.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Let's say you have a cable with 2.5mm^2 wires, each of
| which can carry 20A of current to stay within code. At
| 230V that's 4600W.
|
| Now you want more power, to keep the math simple, let's
| say 13800W (3x the power above).
|
| With a one phase system, for 3x the power, you need 3x
| the size of wire, so 7.5mm^2, ie. 3x the amount of copper
| (since all wires, neutral and PE have to be that size
| too).
|
| With a three phase system, you can get the same power
| with 3x2.5mm^2 live wires (+1 neutral + 1 PE), so instead
| of 3x the amount of copper, you only need 5/3's of copper
| to get 3x the power.
| Gasp0de wrote:
| With three phases in Europe you get 400v, which means
| less amps for the same power, which means lower losses or
| thinner cables?
| bluGill wrote:
| You can get 400V 3 phase in the US. While houses don't,
| almost all commercial locations have it already. So most
| public chargers in the US have 3 phase available. charge
| at home doesn't, but those tend to be lower power charge
| all night vs the charge in half and hour commercial
| chargers.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| 3 phases give you 3x the power for only 2x the amount of
| copper
| gabrielhidasy wrote:
| And two phases give you 2x the power for the same copper.
| foobarian wrote:
| I'm guessing the calculation would be based the other way,
| i.e. whether there is an installed base or not. If you have
| a 3-phase source, not using all the phases would limit
| total power delivery needlessly. So most European
| residences will want 3-phase charging.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| On the other hand, there are A LOT more volkswagens and audis
| in europe (and even some porsches) than teslas. Add seat,
| opel and skoda to this, and the number is even higher.
| chrisjc wrote:
| While that is true to some extent, it's a very dynamic
| situation/market.
|
| https://electrek.co/2023/12/19/audi-puts-big-ev-push-on-
| the-...
|
| https://electrek.co/2023/11/16/volkswagens-ev-woes-worsen-
| ov...
|
| VW owns Audi, Seat and Skoda.
|
| (On a side-note, I own a VW EV and love it)
| masklinn wrote:
| The main reason is not technical, it's that the EU mandated
| CCS2 back in 2013. From then on, Tesla's plug became
| irrelevant, chargers must have CCS2.
| stetrain wrote:
| There were already two connector standards for NA and EU, CCS
| Combo 1 vs CCS Combo 2.
|
| NACS / J3400 is a different connector but still uses CCS
| communication protocols. So there isn't a huge market
| differentiation border in swapping CCS Combo 1 to NACS.
|
| There is an additional requirement with NACS that the vehicle
| needs to route both AC and DC charging over the same connector
| pins.
| ggreer wrote:
| Adapters cost a few hundred dollars. That's not much compared
| to the cost of shipping a car across an ocean.
| clouddrover wrote:
| > _Volkswagen Group, which also owns Audi, Porsche, and Scout
| Motors, is finally doing what nearly every other automaker has
| already done: announce its intention to adopt Tesla's electric
| vehicle charging standard._
|
| The reporting around this has been so poor. NACS is CCS with
| Tesla's plug on the end.
|
| What's happening is that CCS has won the EV charging protocol
| wars, Tesla's plug is being standardized as CCS type 3 (aka SAE
| J3400), and Tesla's chargers will use the CCS protocol (like they
| already do in Europe and elsewhere).
|
| To use NACS chargers older Teslas will need a CCS retrofit:
|
| https://electrek.co/2023/02/28/tesla-ccs-adapter-retrofit-pr...
| valine wrote:
| When people talk about standardizing the charge port they're
| talking about the shape of the port not the protocol. Tesla has
| supported the CCS protocol for years now.
|
| The Tesla port is vastly superior to the CCS type 1 port. They
| should get credit for making it an open standard.
| clouddrover wrote:
| Yes, people aren't aware of what's happening. That's a
| consequence of lazy reporting.
|
| Tesla's charging standard is being dropped and CCS will be
| used by everyone. It's a shame North America still has years
| of plug incompatibilities and adapter fiddling to look
| forward to.
|
| Europe really got EV charging standardization right. The
| European EV infrastructure is much further advanced than the
| North American infrastructure thanks in part to sensible
| standardization.
| SEJeff wrote:
| > It's a shame North America still has years of plug
| incompatibilities and adapter fiddling
|
| Not really, Tesla has over 24k charging stalls in the US.
| The second biggest is Electrify America, and they have only
| 3,800 charging stalls. There really aren't a lot of EV
| chargers that are non-tesla in the US, unlike the EU.
| clouddrover wrote:
| There are 7,869 locations and 15,661 CCS ports in the US
| and Canada (versus 2,297 locations and 25,247 Tesla
| ports):
|
| https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html
|
| It's plugs on chargers and inlets on cars. It'll be a
| slow and tedious process.
| jsight wrote:
| TBH, the afdc data badly overstates the number of
| available locations. Not only do they include a lot of
| broken or otherwise inaccessible locations, but they
| include things like this:
| https://www.plugshare.com/location/1564
|
| I think that currently holds the record for the slowest
| DCFC in the country. :)
| SEJeff wrote:
| > max 13A, 4kW
|
| Wow! You'd get a better charge from a standard 15A 110V
| AC plug.
| jaguar1878 wrote:
| No, you want to compare Watts, not Volts, as Watts
| measures power and Volts is just potential.
|
| A 15A 110V outlet can supply 1500W continuous (1.5kW). A
| 4kW DC charger is almost three times higher power than
| this.
| SEJeff wrote:
| I didn't include the crappy L2 destination chargers, of
| which there are a whole lot more of that support teslas.
|
| I was referring to the L3 superchargers / fast chargers
| or equivalent. The majority of the ones you linked are L2
| chargers are are not that useful outside of destination
| charging.
| clouddrover wrote:
| That is DC fast chargers. If you include J1772 AC
| chargers in the count the numbers are 66,093 locations
| and 146,206 ports.
| freeAgent wrote:
| It sounds like you're talking about DCFC. AC chargers are
| much more common and they are predominantly using the
| J1772 connector today.
| maxdo wrote:
| Stop misleading people.
|
| The opposite is happening. Tesla is opening their network
| to other brands. Ford and a few other car makers have
| already agreed. In new cars made from 2025, you can go to
| the only properly working charging network, plug in the
| car, and leave with no credit card hustle. Basically, like
| Tesla had forever.
|
| It's a shame other brands didn't adopt a much better Tesla
| adapter as a standard. It's much more convenient and light.
|
| I've seen how adapters work; they work badly and are
| glitchy. So, if someone buys a car with an old port in
| 2024, they will start to see lots of pain in 2025.
| clouddrover wrote:
| > _Tesla is opening their network to other brands._
|
| By implementing CCS. How do you think it works in Europe
| right now? They all use CCS, both cars and chargers.
| Tesla included.
| maxdo wrote:
| NACS is protocol agnostic. Cars in Europe have different
| plugs.
|
| Tesla will use their protocol and support CCS on
| chargers.
|
| What Tesla offers to other brands in North America is
| much more advanced.
|
| New cars will be able to see on the map how many stalls
| are available etc.
|
| Payments integration etc.
|
| It's a far more deeper integration and I guess that's the
| real big deal that needs to be standardized.
|
| Tesla got the best-in-class charging experience, and
| finally, in 1 year, other brands can have somewhat
| matching capabilities.
| clouddrover wrote:
| > _NACS is protocol agnostic._
|
| Yes, it's just plug on the end of a CCS charger.
|
| > _What Tesla offers to other brands in North America is
| much more advanced._
|
| They're offering CCS. It's how it works whether you like
| it or not.
| jsight wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean w/r/t the adapters. It sounds
| like most manufacturers will just use Tesla supplied
| adapters. I doubt they will be very bulky. They might
| even be easier to use than native CCS1. :)
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| No one is installing CCS1 any more surely?
| jsight wrote:
| I think they will keep installing them for another few
| years. NEVI requires it and there are still quite a few
| CCS1 cars on the road. All of the cars that are switching
| will still ship with the CCS1 port next year too. They
| don't fully switch until 2025.
| valine wrote:
| CCS1 is still dominate in North America. CCS2 only got
| traction in Europe.
| maxdo wrote:
| It's the opposite. Every single EV car that is sold right now
| in North America except Tesla will need a retrofit. Read the
| article you shared. It's for use on _other charging_ stations.
|
| In the picture, you see a dead charger adapter converted into a
| new Tesla standard one. It's a major pain for other brand EV
| owners
|
| In 1 year, almost at every charging station, you will have to
| deal with plugging converters in snow, rain, etc, making sure
| communication works.
| clouddrover wrote:
| > _Every single EV car that is sold right now in North
| America except Tesla will need a retrofit._
|
| No, they won't need a new ECU because they are already CCS
| cars. They'll need a dumb adapter if they can't get a new
| inlet installed.
| amluto wrote:
| I expect a degree of intelligence to be important in the
| adapter. Specifically, unless the adapter is rated for the
| highest possible current and voltage that the physical form
| factor can support (1kV, 600A? Is there even a pre-ordained
| limit? Tesla reports that they've tested NACS up to quite
| impressive voltages and currents.), then the adapter needs
| to tell the car and/or charger to limit voltage and
| current. Otherwise it risks arcing and/or overheating.
|
| Also, whatever water cooling magic keeps the charger plug
| and its terminals cool won't cool the adapter.
|
| Even the little charge-a-J1772-car-off-a-Tesla-
| level-2-charger hack adapters are generally dumb adapters
| designed for 40A or so and are _not safe_ if connected to a
| full-spec 80A EVSE.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Isn't that negotiation already part of the CCS protocol?
| Otherwise 400v cars would be fried when they end up
| getting 800v from an L3 charger, or a Bolt would end up
| getting 300kW that it can't actually use
| clouddrover wrote:
| > _I expect a degree of intelligence to be important in
| the adapter._
|
| No, that's done by the car. The adapter just changes the
| shape of the plug.
|
| The car controls the charge curve.
| blabla1224 wrote:
| I won't be surprised if Tesla becomes a platform for other
| automakers like android from Google in the future
| bluGill wrote:
| Auto makers are used to making their own platforms, and they
| won't change. Making a platform is not the hard part, and there
| are advantages to a custom platform for each vehicle.
| newsclues wrote:
| Auto makers are used to integrating technology from other
| companies like Bosch.
| bluGill wrote:
| But not their platforms. Automakers generally make their
| own platforms (though they will rebadge someone else's
| too), engines (again they share with each other, but most
| have their own), and transmissions. Everything else is
| outsourced to companies like Bosch.
| chrisjc wrote:
| It definitely seems like Tesla is slowly seeping into the world
| of other car manufactures in an ongoing manner. And I don't
| think they/we have given much thought to what's yet to come.
| Batteries, auto-pilot, training/inference,
| manufacturing/robotics, and so on...
|
| Do any of really think, especially given the track record, that
| most of the auto-industry is going to be able to do any of this
| alone? I imagine that eventually it will come down to a choice
| between partnering with a bunch of disparate tech/manufacturing
| companies or Tesla.
|
| We all know there is disruption to come in general, but it's
| going to hit the incumbent auto-manufacturers like a brick if
| they don't wake up soon.
| InTheArena wrote:
| I think people are missing the big story here. This is Tesla
| winning the charging network battle (it wasn't close before
| this). Any EV car (which will eventually be all cars) will
| immediately be available for Tesla's supercharger network. This
| gives Tesla a massive revenue stream and scale to grow that
| network even bigger. Anyone who wants their superchargers has to
| also support all Teslas.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| But it also takes away Tesla's biggest advantage, no? The
| charging network was a big reason to buy a tesla and now that's
| gone.
|
| So perhaps they will actually end up losing more revenue than
| gaining.
| adrianN wrote:
| I would expect that in the near future EVs become commodities
| based on a small handful of licensed platforms. Owning the
| charging network is a nice hedge against losing the battle to
| become one of the platforms.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| Maybe, but a charging network is not quite a trillion
| dollar business, not to mention that the charging network
| will also become a commodity (especially since the charging
| protocol is open)
| bluGill wrote:
| I disagree. People like their car to look new/different,
| and volumes on cars are high enough that the advantages of
| a custom platform is worth the cost of designing it.
| adrianN wrote:
| The design of the car is only loosely related to the
| skateboard that contains the battery and the drivetrain.
| bluGill wrote:
| Skateboard makes even less sense for EVs than for ICEs.
| in an ICE you have a large engine and various axels that
| have to be in specific places. With an EV you have more
| room to move the motors around where they makes sense.
| While you need a lot of batteries, each cell is small, so
| you want to put things like seats in the car first and
| then add cells anywhere there is extra room.
| sbininit wrote:
| Yeah some cars (like the polestar) have really shallow
| rear-seat legroom, which was a total showstopper. They
| could have move some of those batteries to the
| trunk/frunk
| yurishimo wrote:
| They could, but there is also a cost to separating the
| batteries. More cables, which means more resistance,
| which means inefficiency. Not to mention the extra design
| and manufacturing costs.
|
| In practice, I don't think any company is meaningfully
| splitting up their battery pack to take advantage of
| "better" packaging logistics elsewhere in the frame/body.
| I know in this example, they could still likely be
| loosely attached in the same plane, but with less density
| under the cabin, but I think my point holds.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| Considering 90% of modern consumer automobiles use a
| monocoque frame the design means everything to the
| chassis
| Skunkleton wrote:
| > People like their car to look new/different
|
| That's true in my experience. Though it is interesting
| that cars look more and more similar over time rather
| than different.
| ghaff wrote:
| There are probably two main answers to that.
|
| - People generally like their vehicles to look different
| but not too different. Design of everything is a fashion
| industry.
|
| - Fuel efficiency, practicality, and safety requirements
| all lead to a certain level of convergence.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Why would this be true for EVs when it's clearly not true
| for ICE vehicles?
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Owning the charging network is a nice hedge against
| losing the battle to become one of the platforms.
|
| Charging networks are IMHO not a viable long term business
| model. Building out a "platform" to sell commodity
| electrons is utterly stupid. Nobody wants the stupid app,
| they want to charge at McDonalds along the highway while
| they grab something to eat.
| tw04 wrote:
| >Charging networks are IMHO not a viable long term
| business model.
|
| Sort of like gas stations weren't a viable long-term
| business model?
|
| > Nobody wants the stupid app, they want to charge at
| McDonalds along the highway while they grab something to
| eat.
|
| So you should put your chargers near convenient
| amenities... like a convenience store... like a gas
| station?
| wil421 wrote:
| Tesla isn't building C-Stores that sell Gas or Electrons.
| The superchargers I've seen are in some random parking
| lot without a restroom or convenience store selling
| stuff.
| bluGill wrote:
| Some of them, but I've also seen Tesla at various truck
| stops. In rural areas building at a convenience store
| make sense: they already have restrooms, some form of
| restaurant and various other things to buy on site -
| everything a traveler needs for a quick break to fill the
| car before getting back on the road.
|
| In cities I think we will see less chargers as most
| people just go home to charge. However in poor areas they
| will be at places like grocery stores so you those who
| don't have at-home charging can charge and shop.
| phkahler wrote:
| Not quite. Gas stations don't have enough to keep a
| person busy for an entire charge session. You need real
| shopping or a place to sit down to eat. They will also
| not be needed in town near your home, since people will
| just charge at home.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Norway is perhaps a bit special, but this is very common
| for service stations along the roads or in Oslo to have
| many fast chargers. You can buy a drink or some food, and
| most have some space to sit down.
| yurishimo wrote:
| I remember the first time I visited a gas station in
| Belgium (?) off the highway that actually had 10 or so
| "standing tables" to eat at from the two restaurant
| options in the building. We sit for 4+ hours between
| fill-ups; why do we not see this as the standard in most
| places, with more limited seating for the
| elderly/disabled or children who cannot reach a full
| height standing table?
|
| As an American, it was really eye opening!
| newsclues wrote:
| Infrastructure (to provide fuel or energy for
| transportation) is a long term business model.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| Aren't superchargers just the endpoint? Isn't the actual
| infrastructure mostly the power/energy companies?
| bluGill wrote:
| Yes, but those already have most of the needed
| infrastructure. Most gas stations have enough power to
| run a couple level chargers - they just don't have the
| chargers (note I said 1 or 2 chargers, not 8+ which is
| what anyone serious about charging needs to install)
| bluGill wrote:
| If Tesla hasn't played nice they would have lost too as
| everyone else rolled out the CCS standard cars networks would
| have responded and most chargers wouldn't support your Tesla.
| toddmorey wrote:
| I wonder how profitable operating the charging network is.
| I've always thought they probably operate the locations at
| break even at best, but I honestly don't know.
|
| I do think any Tesla owner will tell you the charging infra
| is always scales behind demand and there are often delays
| waiting for an available spot. Hopefully a universal standard
| means more operators will participate. I just hope the
| payment experience can remain seamless.
| yardie wrote:
| I feel the bigger goal is the viability of the network effect
| (clustering) of electric cars. When Tesla was the only
| electric car company most buyers thought it was neat but
| didn't really consider it. A lot of buyers want their next
| vehicle to be EV but have range anxiety. While the Model 3/Y
| was top seller amongst EV buyers it's overall marketshare is
| still miniscule. More competition drives more churn which
| creates more transactions.
| chrisjc wrote:
| > While the Model 3/Y was top seller amongst EV buyers it's
| overall marketshare is still miniscule.
|
| Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your statement, but the Model Y
| has become the best selling car in the world. That includes
| ICE vehicles, not just EVs. If you exclude trucks, I think
| it has also recently become the best selling car in the US,
| overtaking the Rav4.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > but the Model Y has become the best selling car in the
| world.
|
| That doesn't directly correlate to marketshare. The MY is
| going to need many many quarters of being the best
| selling car to have marketshare equal to many other ICE
| models.
| SCM-Enthusiast wrote:
| is it really gone? Tesla will still have a OEM advantage here
| in the software and internals. Alot of the "Technology" here
| is the software that does thermal management and the like.
| Tesla's still charge faster on a supercharger than a ford
| f-150 would, and i imagine some future where buying a Tesla
| gets you "Credits" to use at the chargers.
|
| Tesla has much different goals than the other car
| manufacturers. Although energy sales are only around 5% of
| total revenue, Tesla expects that to change going forward.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| Tesla already charges more to charge a non-tesla.
| malermeister wrote:
| Tesla was always going to lose the EV battle in the long run
| - if not to VW and co, then to BYD and co.
|
| This lets them pivot to something where they have a huge
| moat.
| bluGill wrote:
| They have less a moat here. Anyone can buy a level 3
| charger and install it. while the economics of that are not
| clear, they are becoming clearer as EVs catch on. Many gas
| stations are looking at if chargers make sense long term,
| and if it does they will also install chargers.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Seems like the auto market is plenty large enough for
| multiple winners.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| Yes and no. Tesla already has the #1 selling car (Model Y)
| and makes up more than half of EVs sold in the US. Eventually
| other networks were going to catch up. Now the other half
| will pay them too but they own the network. Long term it was
| the right choice.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| But like you said, other networks will eventually catch up
| so long term tesla won't control the network either.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| People buy Teslas because they like them. Although chargers
| are necessary, they aren't sufficient.
|
| Walmart has had 25 years to outcompete Amazon, and is still
| clueless. Phone makers have had 15 years to beat Apple, and
| the competition is still not as polished.
|
| (Personally, I don't prefer Teslas or iPhones.)
| bwat49 wrote:
| Fragmented infrastructure benefits no one. Imagine if you
| could only fill up your ICE vehicle at shell stations because
| of your vehicle's brand.
|
| Fragmentation of the charging infrastructure puts a hard
| limit on EV adoption, they will never replace ICE vehicles
| unless the infrastructure becomes as ubiquitous as gas
| stations.
| izacus wrote:
| It benefits Tesla right now - because people bought Teslas
| due to their charging network. It'll stop being a big
| benefit and that's great for competition.
| ggreer wrote:
| It's hard to make direct analogies because unlike gas
| vehicles, EVs "refuel" at home. You wake up every day with
| a full tank of gas. Fast DC chargers are mostly for road
| trips.
|
| And while it's a good thing that everyone has adopted the
| same charging standard, branding is just as important. Gas
| at gas stations is fungible. EV chargers are most certainly
| not. Right now Tesla's charging network is the only option
| that is fast and reliable.
| bluGill wrote:
| So long as the charger supports the same connector they
| all work - some might be a level2 charger that takes
| forever, but you plug it into any car.
|
| Gas stations can choose from 3-10 grades of gas (octane,
| ethanol content, road tax) to sell, and 2-6 grades of
| diesel (cetane, gel point, road tax) depending on what
| the distributor offers - no station sells them all (at
| least not that I'm aware of), and getting the wrong fuel
| can be fatal. Stations also can choose their own additive
| package which can make a difference.
|
| Note that in almost all cases there is only one
| distributor you can buy from. Electric is generally a
| legal monopoly, while gasoline the closest supplier
| generally has a pipeline and thus can offer much cheaper
| prices so while it is legal to buy elsewhere it isn't
| practical.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > unlike gas vehicles, EVs "refuel" at home. You wake up
| every day with a full tank of gas.
|
| Only for the subset of the population that owns a home
| with off street parking. People in denser neighborhoods,
| appartments buildings or who rent their property will be
| looking to top off while running errands or at work.
| highwaylights wrote:
| Honestly I doubt it. Musk already said himself that the
| company hinges on getting to full self-driving _eventually_ ,
| so it wouldn't be surprising if every other decision is
| ultimately in service of that however unlikely it now seems.
|
| Either way, I think it's terrific business. Would you rather
| have a dependable advantage that helps you stay further ahead
| of competitors in one industry, or have slightly less of an
| advantage (when you're already in the lead) and get to
| dominate a whole second industry too (gas stations, for which
| superchargers have no peers in the EV world).
| ethanbond wrote:
| Every new manufacturer switching to the Tesla standard
| further incentivizes e.g. BP, Shell, etc. to offer charging
| though. I don't see why they'd dominate this space.
| highwaylights wrote:
| Im working on the assumption that they'd need Tesla's
| consent to use their interface and protocols.
| chrisjc wrote:
| Nope. Tesla has opened up the standard, but there are a
| few caveats.
| chrisjc wrote:
| Exactly. But with a twist:
|
| https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bp-boosts-ev-
| chargi...
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uk-
| pet...
| chrisjc wrote:
| Not necessarily. Using the plug doesn't imply that you have
| to use Tesla's charging network, even while still using
| Tesla's charging hardware.
|
| Tesla is already working on deals to sell their super/ultra-
| fast chargers to others like EG Group and BP. Expect the
| number of those deals to grow.
|
| I would argue that this will benefit those with with Teslas.
| As Tesla scales up to meet the demand for their charging
| hardware, the cost should drop while availability increases.
|
| Moreover, as the number of independent networks that use
| Tesla's charging hardware grows, there will be additional
| pressure/leverage/lobbying on the government, electric
| companies, etc to provide the behind-the-scenes
| infrastructure that theses charging locations require. Tesla
| has on numerous occasions asserted that this is one of the
| most difficult parts of growing their charging network in
| places that have the greatest demand.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uk-
| pet...
|
| https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bp-boosts-ev-
| chargi...
| basiccalendar74 wrote:
| by opening up supercharging network, Tesla becomes eligible
| for billions of federal money. that tips the scales towards
| open superchargers.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| The actual gains are never discussed. It could be massive or
| much less than you expect.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://electrek.co/2023/08/25/tesla-supercharger-network-
| bi... ("Tesla Supercharger network to become $10 to $20
| billion a year business, says Wedbush")
|
| > With Tesla now having a fleet of millions of vehicles using
| the network and opening it up to EVs from other automakers,
| financial analysts are starting to see the Supercharger
| network has a massive business that is going to partly
| replace gas stations, and they want to value it.
|
| > Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, who has been covering
| Tesla for a long time, came out with a new note to clients
| today in which he stated that he believes the Supercharger
| network will represent 3% to 6% of Tesla's total revenue or
| $10 to $20 billion in revenue by 2030.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Estimates aren't gains. Something in their financials
| report would be a much better and accurate representation
| of gains.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Valuations and future revenue expectations are based on
| forecasting, based on currently available information.
| intrasight wrote:
| At least they are not charging a license fee for the
| connector.
| jmac01 wrote:
| Yet
| stetrain wrote:
| It's a standard published by SAE:
|
| https://www.sae.org/news/2023/12/sae-j3400-tir-released
|
| Access to Tesla's charging network is a separate issue,
| but the connector itself is a published standard.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Probably having the brand Tesla exposed to other cars
| drivers will be enough PR.
| intrasight wrote:
| How is the brand exposed? Do the plugs have to have the
| Tesla name or logo on them?
| natch wrote:
| Google "Tesla supercharger" and you'll see plenty of
| pictures of the huge installed base with the brand
| clearly there.
|
| That being said, if any of these legacy companies who
| were not willing to invest in a charging network decide
| they want to finally step up and install some chargers of
| their own (I'm not holding my breath for any at scale),
| I'm pretty certain there will be no requirement for Tesla
| branding. Elon has said he doesn't give a shit about
| branding.
|
| It's more important people will see the Tesla product and
| witness the features of Tesla cars first hand.
| natch wrote:
| Agree, the brand and the product.
| Spivak wrote:
| > which will eventually be all cars
|
| God I hope that day is long long in the future given the
| current ecosystem surrounding this crap. The last thing I want
| to add to my car is the multi-variant USB-C, thunderbolt,
| lightning adapter bullshit with accounts and subscriptions.
| It's the very worst of tech bro culture applied to critical
| infrastructure. What if the car makers owned and/or could
| strike deals with specific gas stations is an idea that only
| sounds good in a shareholder's mind.
|
| Every day as car companies try to turn cars into toasters with
| subscription bread I'm happier with my ICE car / ebike setup.
| Gas used almost every day, 0. Range anxiety, 0. Using
| infrastructure that has been stable for longer than my parents
| have been alive, priceless.
| justrealist wrote:
| I have a Tesla with no subscription and a single plug I use
| when I go out. Not sure what you are on about.
| lostlogin wrote:
| You can plug in at home and use chargers very rarely. After a
| year or so, I'm yet to try use one.
|
| I guess this very much depends on your driving patterns.
| bluGill wrote:
| Anyone who has an ICE car will probably still prefer that
| for long trips. Most people are multiple car families and
| so will have that choice today.
|
| Even if the EV was the choice, a lot of people will fly (or
| take a train) for longer trips and so never hit the limits.
| ryandrake wrote:
| If ICE cars were invented today, every manufacturer would try
| to lock you in with their own shape of fuel tank opening.
| Have a toyota? Use the round fuel pumps. Ford? You need to
| find a pump with a notch on the end of the end so it's
| compatible with your tank. BMW? Two notches--find a different
| fuel station! Jeep? Square shaped pump! Or you need to keep a
| set of $100 dongle adapters in your trunk at all times. $400
| for the California-approved dongles.
| Spivak wrote:
| Oh I know, it's not a condemnation of EVs the technology.
| The actual technology is amazing. It's just that companies
| can't seem to get out of their own way and our government
| is completely inept at forcing everyone to be less shitty.
| nicwolff wrote:
| If cars were invented today, they'd never let us have them.
|
| "It's like a horse and buggy, but much faster and heavier."
|
| "But it'll know somehow how to avoid other vehicles and
| pedestrians and trees and houses and such?"
|
| "No, the driver has to pay continuous attention or it'll
| veer wildly and hit whatever's in front of it."
|
| "Shouldn't it run on rails? Or between protective
| barriers?"
|
| "Painted lines."
| bluGill wrote:
| You should have looked up what was really said about cars
| (both gas and electric!) when they were first invented.
| Some of them look much like your list, but others it
| looks like you made up something when reality already had
| an example.
| antisthenes wrote:
| That's a good and hilarious point.
|
| In today's safety obsessed world, cars are a terribly
| unsafe anachronism. Somehow tech people are more afraid
| to run an non-sandboxed tab in a browser than drive a
| 3-ton vehicle 1 painted line away from similar vehicles
| going the other way with a speed differential of 100
| miles per hour.
|
| That fair, I guess, since physics aren't part of a JS-
| bootcamp.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Blaming collective action problems on techbro culture.
| History would like some of your time :)
| Spivak wrote:
| Blaming cultural problems on culture -- yes that's correct.
|
| Use whatever words you'd like if you don't like tech bro as
| the colloquium. But the intersection of this behavior of
| end-to-end control and things labeled "tech" and headed by
| "tech people" is very nearly a sphere.
|
| For the people whose whole shtick is building autonomous
| systems we are remarkably bad at letting go and letting
| those systems be autonomous when it benefits the customer.
|
| It's like we all watched Robocop, a film about how terrible
| it would be if an autonomous system created for the
| improvement of society at large was programmed to always
| obey the will of its creators for their personal gain and
| said, "That's a great idea, I could productize that."
| danans wrote:
| > This gives Tesla a massive revenue stream and scale to grow
| that network even bigger.
|
| Tesla's supercharger network is a loss leader whose purpose is
| to sell their cars [1], whose margins are also under pressure.
|
| There's no significant barrier to entry for EV supercharging
| other than perhaps having a profitable business to pair it
| with. The NACS connector and the exclusivity of its charging
| stations was a moat, one that Tesla traded for tax credits.
|
| It's mostly a real estate game. Shell is already adding EV
| chargers at key stations. Others will follow.
|
| 1. https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/ev-charging/major-
| autom....
| phkahler wrote:
| Nah. The real win here is for the public. The "standard"
| charging plug and cables weigh a LOT, so much that my elderly
| mother probably couldn't use one. The "standard" also mandates
| the use of PowerLine Communication chips even though the signal
| is not over the high power conductor.
|
| We are all better off just biting the bullet now and changing
| everything over to the Tesla plug.
| aik wrote:
| Agreed. Thank you Tesla for helping bring about a better
| standard here!
| alephnerd wrote:
| Better maintained than the horror show that is Electrify
| America as well
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I've posted about this before, but the reason EA is such
| a horror show is due to their history. EA was created
| basically as _government-mandated punishment_ against
| Volkswagen for dieselgate. So it 's not that surprising
| that they didn't feel incentivized to deliver a great
| product.
|
| Compare that to the Supercharger network, where providing
| a great experience is a huge selling point for Teslas.
|
| I might despise Musk, and I'm not a fan of Tesla lately,
| but you do really have to hand it to them: they were
| prescient and put in all the hard work of building out
| the best fast charging network, so good for them for
| reaping the benefits.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > EA was created basically as government-mandated
| punishment against Volkswagen
|
| I didn't know that. Do you have some documentation about
| that. Would be fun reading material for the holidays
|
| > I might despise Musk, and I'm not a fan of Tesla
| lately, but you do really have to hand it to them: they
| were prescient and put in all the hard work of building
| out the best fast charging network, so good for them for
| reaping the benefits.
|
| Same boat club.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The Wikipedia pages for EA and the VW emissions scandal
| give a good overview with linked sources. As part of the
| consent decree, VW had to put $2 billion into EA.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Thank you Tesla for helping bring about a better standard
| here!
|
| You should probably thank the government, too. When the
| feds decided they were going to put billions in subsidies
| to a national charging network, the original regulations
| basically required CCS, because that was really the only
| _cross-platform_ game in town - Tesla was proprietary and
| not open to other automakers. In a brilliant bit of
| chutzpah, in response Tesla renamed their charging system
| the "North American Charging Standard" and started coaxing
| other auto companies to get on board, which most other
| companies were OK with because Tesla has by far the best
| fast charging network. But it was really the government
| subsidies, and the threat that Tesla would be left behind
| if everyone else went with CCS, that sparked the opening up
| of NACS in the first place.
| bluGill wrote:
| A large number of standards are what one company did on
| their own and then made available to everybody via the
| likes of ANSI/ECMA/ISO. There are a number of reasons a
| company would want to do this.
| antonjs wrote:
| Rough consensus, running chargers at work. [1]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_consensus
| reportingsjr wrote:
| This is basically how USB C became a thing. A group of
| engineers at Google created the connector design and then
| gave it to the USB standards body to use as the next gen.
| bsder wrote:
| Citation, please. More bluntly: I simply don't believe
| you.
|
| Google has absolutely none of the expertise required to
| put such a connector together. It requires a _very_
| specific set of skills in chip design, signal integrity,
| and connector design which Google has none of.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| There was a similar rumor making the rounds about Apple,
| spurred by Gruber.
|
| But 9to5 Mac did some sleuthing and it seems that, in the
| case of Apple, it's not entirely truthful:
| https://9to5mac.com/2015/03/14/apple-invent-usb-type-c/
|
| Google also doesn't seem to have fulfilled a bigger role
| than Apple did.
| bsder wrote:
| Apple is, at least, far more plausible as they _did_
| design a connector in the same timeframe.
| parineum wrote:
| I have no idea if Google had anything to do with USB C
| but "design" doesn't mean "build schematics for". It
| could be that they just had a few specs they liked and
| thought would make a good connector and did a rough
| proposal of form factor and specs.
| bsder wrote:
| That's _not_ useful. Here 's my diagram for a new
| connector -> .
|
| Connector design like this is a delicate balance between
| signal integrity (wants biggger) and mechanical integrity
| (wants bigger) and size (always smaller).
|
| As for signal integrity: A _lot_ of the signal integrity
| was papered over by having complex interface chips. This
| is why there is so much training and negotiation in
| USB-C.
|
| As for mechanicals: The whole point of USB-C was to take
| failure-mode data from the previous generations and
| design a connector that avoided those. USB-C, in spite of
| how many people bitch about it, was designed so that the
| the most probable failure modes (which they learned from
| prior things like mini and micro USB) occur in the cable
| --ie the replaceable part.
|
| None of this design expertise is inside Google.
| InTheArena wrote:
| Go look at the number of engineers that were on USB-C.
| Apple, not Google, contributed 18 of 79 named engineers
| listed on the connector certification project, or under
| 23%.
|
| Intel had the most, as well as the editor position.
| stetrain wrote:
| NACS / J3400 still uses CCS communications, just over Tesla's
| connector.
| arghwhat wrote:
| Cable weight corresponds to charging power rating and choice
| of materials, not plug choice.
|
| A combined CCS2 plug is chunkier and might be a bit heavier,
| but not compared to, say, using a fuel pump.
| phkahler wrote:
| Just go try them both. CCS2 Has separate AC and DC
| conductors, and the plug is huge owing to having 2 pair of
| charging pins and backward compatibility. They are more
| awkward and heavier than a fuel pump, and significantly
| heavier than the Tesla plugs. It's terrible.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > They are more awkward and heavier than a fuel pump
|
| Really? I don't doubt that Tesla's plugs are smaller and
| lighter, but it always seemed a bit caricature-ist about
| people saying how horrible the CCS plugs are and that
| they weigh like a million pounds or something. They
| certainly never seemed heavier or harder to manipulate to
| me compared to a gas pump, so I just never understood
| this complaint.
| parineum wrote:
| I do think they are worse than fuel pumps in those
| aspects but the real issue is that, when you pull up to a
| gas pump, you usually pull your car right up to the pump
| and it's just a foot or two away from where the pump is.
|
| Parking lot style EV chargers mean that I'm frequently
| pulling the charging cable across the front of my car and
| trying to plug the cable in straight while the tension on
| the cable is pulling it sideways. It frequently means
| it's a two hand job, one on the cable to keep in straight
| and the other guiding the plug in to the port.
| jorvi wrote:
| NACS is fundamentally incompatible for 3-phase power. You
| need a live, a neutral, a ground, and two extra wires for
| each extra phase.
|
| I'll take my chunky connector with 22kW over your sleek
| one with 7kW :)
| ttfkam wrote:
| > You need...
|
| I submit a counterexample of the huge network of Tesla
| superchargers that can do the job quite well with the
| NACS connector. maximum power output of
| 600 kW and a maximum current of 615A at 1,000V
|
| https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/1269/tesla-v4-superchar
| ger...
|
| The practical limits are based on the cars and their
| batteries, not the charge port.
| jorvi wrote:
| Supercharging, yeah. But you (or rather "everyone") won't
| constantly be supercharging. You'll mostly do it at home
| or at your office. 7kW :)
| ttfkam wrote:
| Places where you don't need a fast charge? Overnight at
| home. From arrival to lunch at work. After lunch to
| quitting time. And even those times assume you drive more
| than 50 miles/day, which most folks don't.
|
| What was the problem again?
| pitaj wrote:
| So what? For high-power charging, DC is better anyways.
| For low-power charging, having extra phases is useless.
| Acinyx wrote:
| In europe the connections are a lot lower amperage,
| around here for example 35 ampere per phase. But having 3
| phases is pretty normal and the standard in any new
| house, which means 3 phases can let you charge at 22kW
| with a few Ampere left, while with 1 phase you can only
| charge at 7 KW.
|
| That does make it useful to charge it in a few hours in
| the afternoon, instead of having to wiat the night.
| 93po wrote:
| Super chargers can charge a Tesla up to 250kw
| myself248 wrote:
| CCS1 has separate AC and DC pins in the connector, but no
| cable has conductors for both. I've looked, since I was
| trying to make a passthrough testing device! Is CCS2
| different?
|
| If you get the DC cable, you have conductors on the pilot
| pins and the DC pins, and the AC pin positions are just
| empty.
|
| If you get the AC cable, you have conductors on the pilot
| pins and the AC pins, and the DC part of the connector
| isn't there at all.
| paul7986 wrote:
| How long does it take to charge if my EV battery is at about
| zero with a supercharger? The same time it takes to pump gas?
| voisin wrote:
| No. Much longer. And it depends massively on battery size too
| since they vary quite a bit more than gas tank sizes.
|
| https://insideevs.com/reviews/516438/tesla-supercharger-
| comp...
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Battery size only really matters if you are maxing out the
| charger since the amount of power the battery can take
| scales with kwhs. To be fair being charger limited is
| pretty common currently, but in ideal conditions a larger
| battery will be able to charge more miles/minute than a
| smaller one.
| njovin wrote:
| Depends on the EV. A few years back I did a ~400 mile road
| trip in a Model Y. We had to make one top-up charging stop
| which took about 15 minutes. We walked to a spot and got a
| snack while we waited.
|
| A similarly-sized ICE vehicle could have possibly done the
| trip without a stop, or required a quick 5-minute top-up
| depending on conditions.
|
| I've done lots of long road trips in ICE vehicles and we
| usually stop to walk around and stretch for about the same
| amount of time and with the same frequency as charge stops
| call for.
|
| If you're trying to shave every minute off of a trip you'd
| come out behind, but IMO you're a glutton for punishment if
| you're trying to race through a 1000+ mile road trip without
| stopping for more than 5 minutes at a time.
| paul7986 wrote:
| I travel a lot in my SUV in remote areas like between Reno
| and Vegas.
|
| As a gas driver I like the fact there's a gas station in
| remote areas and it takes me three minutes to fill my tank
| and go.
|
| When do we think as interested EV driver will my driving
| experience match my gas car diving experience and needs?
| Are we there yet?
| omnimus wrote:
| Maybe in future with different approach like
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=VmWL1hZQmD0
| paul7986 wrote:
| Oh just maybe (yikes) ..I'm on the fence about buying an
| EV as gas car provides me the best experience for my
| needs. I drive a Ton and in remote areas too
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Do those places have no power sockets?
| p1mrx wrote:
| Regular outlets are limited to 1.5 kW, so charging a car
| takes more than a day.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| You assume the slowest outlet + full tank worth of
| driving. Possible, but not how most road trips happen.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Are you imagining a road trip where you ask random
| strangers to move their oven and run a cord out the
| window for several hours?
| bluGill wrote:
| I'm guessing 5-10 years. However in 30 years the opposite
| question will be the case - if you are driving a gas car
| you will have to plan ahead. As EVs take over gas
| stations will start to disappear.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Well maybe you hope ..have skin in this game... as
| nothing is for certain. Hybrids seems to becoming even
| more popular as well other car manufacturers are looking
| into hydrogen and other sources.
|
| In five to ten years we'll see if indeed there are more
| EV chargers everywhere like there are currently gas
| stations. An infrastructure that's over a 100 years old.
|
| I'm all for new tech but as a UX professional new tech
| needs to provide an even better experience which
| personally something like a key fob (can be RFID hacked,
| you lose the fob you have to get your car towed to dealer
| and pay additional / hundreds for a new key fob)is a
| terrible UX compared to just a metal key (can't be
| hacked.. can easily drive to dealer to have a metal key
| made).
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| It depends on the EV and the supercharger. But in general
| it'll be slower than pumping gas. My CCS car takes around
| 15-18 minutes to get to 80% (because of diminishing charging
| curves, with most (all?) cars it's faster to do 5 charging
| stops from 0-80% than 4 charging stops from 0-100).
|
| I haven't done a super long road trip in an EV, but for
| drives with 1-2 charging stops it doesn't feel that different
| than ICE cars, especially if have passengers and invariably
| end up waiting for everyone to go to the bathroom, get a
| snack, etc. Only exception is places like quartzite where
| there can be a long line of EVs waiting to charge.
| dietsche wrote:
| we took a road trip last summer about 4000 miles in our model
| Y Long range. You end up supercharging approximately every
| three hours for about 15 minutes. it actually worked out very
| well because our first stop of the day was almost always
| lunch. we picked hotels that had chargers on site so we
| started each day with enough charge to make the next
| supercharger.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Were you traveling in remote areas something like between
| Reno and Vegas or other similar long remote stretches?
| bluGill wrote:
| So stop in Tonopah NV,which is half way inbetween. Most
| EVs have the range to make it that far. I just picked
| that town by looking at a map - I'm sure there are a
| couple other choices even tough it is a desolate area.
|
| I don't know if there is a charger there today, but it is
| an obvious place where one is likely to be added
| sometime.
| dietsche wrote:
| minneapolis, mn to kitty hawk, nc
| cstejerean wrote:
| There's 3 Tesla superchargers between Vegas to Reno, in
| Beatty, Tonopah and Hawthorne, which is roughly 1/4, 1/2
| and 3/4 of the way through. So definitely doable but
| definitely less convenient than an ICE car that can make
| that drive in one shot without refueling.
| sib wrote:
| Not sure how much margin that Tesla will be making on the
| charging. I don't think the financial details of these deals
| have been disclosed. Adding lots of revenue but with no margin
| doesn't really add value to Tesla.
|
| (Of course, to the extent they get funding from the government
| or other manufacturers to offset the capex required for
| building out more stations and chargers, that's great for Tesla
| & anyone.)
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| In states where they are registered as an energy provider? A
| lot. A 10-80% charge will net Tesla $20. Comparatively a gas
| station that refills a midsize car with a 20 gallon tank will
| only net $6.
| conjecTech wrote:
| And where is that?
| akouri wrote:
| I think you mean it will _gross_ Tesla $20. From my
| research, Tesla is (currently) not making much on energy
| delivered. That _will_ certainly change in the future
| though.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| Using Texas as an example:
|
| 10-80% on a Model S/X is 70kwh. Rate billed to customers
| will vary from 30-50c/kwh at time of charge. Spot in
| Texas typically ranges from 5c to 15c/kwh. Assuming
| charge equipment is fully depreciated all they need to
| pay is maintenance and network cost, which is marginal
| across a bank of 20 chargers.
|
| 70kwh x 25c = $17.50.
| conjecTech wrote:
| People also made the argument that the exclusivity of the Tesla
| supercharger network was a positive for Tesla. It's hard for
| both to be true.
|
| I think the reality is that uncertainty about charging away
| from home pushed a lot of people towards Tesla who might
| otherwise have considered a different make/model. With that
| gone, a moat vanished. That being said, competition in the US
| EV market is still weak. Maybe the added charging revenue
| outweighs that for now, but long-term, it seems like it will
| undoubtedly be a negative.
| stetrain wrote:
| I think the difference is that over time Tesla has
| streamlined mass production, installation, and reliable
| operation of their chargers.
|
| They are averaging 1.5 charging stations installed per day
| over the last year in North America. Each of those stations
| has at least 8 chargers, some of them have 24, 40, or more.
|
| They have moved to pre-fab construction where a row of 8
| chargers are all installed in a concrete slab that can be
| dropped into a site and commissioned in a very short time
| period.
|
| Basically nobody else is keeping up with them at charger
| deployment in the US and that creates a market opportunity
| for Tesla and a need to make some return on all of that
| construction by increasing utilization rates.
| conjecTech wrote:
| The price of charging is already dominated by the marginal
| cost of electricity, in the same way the price of filling
| your gas tank is by the price of gas. That will only be
| more true as charging gets faster. So an advantage in fixed
| costs is unlikely to be much of a strategic benefit. If
| they can save 100k/stall, that's great. But that is only a
| few hundred million a year at that install rate.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > The price of charging is already dominated by the
| marginal cost of electricity
|
| No it isn't. Most level 3 chargers are 3x-4x the price of
| electricity.
| conjecTech wrote:
| PG&E commercial energy rates in California are $0.36/kwh
| including delivery[1]. Tesla charges about $0.50/kwh[2].
|
| [1] https://www.pge.com/tariffs/electric.shtml [2]
| https://electrek.co/2022/09/28/tesla-hikes-supercharger-
| pric...
| stetrain wrote:
| Up to around $0.70 now at peak times:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaModelY/comments/17bls7u/wok
| e_u...
| reitzensteinm wrote:
| How are you estimating demand charges?
| mdasen wrote:
| Times change and companies need to adapt with the times.
| 2015-2022, exclusivity would be a huge positive for Tesla.
| Their vehicles would have lots of charging stations while
| other vehicles wouldn't. That's great for Tesla.
|
| When the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure plan, it
| became clear that CCS would become the dominant charging
| standard in the US - unless Tesla acted fast. Tesla's port
| would go from an advantage to a disadvantage. Tesla has
| 12,000 US chargers today. Maybe the company would make that
| 25,000 by 2030. The NEVI pushes for 500,000 chargers by 2030
| with the CCS port. Toward the end of the 2020s, Tesla would
| feel pressure to switch to CCS because the majority of
| chargers in the US would be CCS. Tesla owners would complain
| that their Tesla vehicles used a different port from 95% of
| the public chargers.
|
| By pushing the industry to adopt the Tesla charger, they
| ensure that chargers built using the NEVI money will most
| likely have Tesla ports. They could even argue that the
| administration should drop the CCS requirement given that the
| industry has moved to the Tesla port.
|
| Tesla's port would have gone from an advantage to a
| hinderance. If Tesla didn't move the industry to the Tesla
| port, they'd eventually have to move to CCS. People would
| want their cars to be compatible with 95% of the chargers out
| there. When Tesla announced a switch to CCS, sales of current
| vehicles would likely crater. With Tesla abandoning their
| port, people would want to wait for the new model. Tesla
| might need to offer steep discounts to get people to take the
| "old" port. Instead, by moving the industry to their port,
| they put the uncertainty on competing vehicles; they make
| potential punchers of competing vehicles more likely to buy a
| Tesla or delay their competing purchase. That either adds to
| Tesla sales or makes competing companies question their EV
| commitment.
|
| It's not that Tesla wanted to give up their moat. It's not
| that Tesla wants a bit of charging revenue. It's that if 95%
| of the chargers in the US become CCS, that moat is trapping
| Tesla in rather than keeping competitors out. Yes, having
| Supercharger exclusivity would still be an advantage for a
| few more years - and it will still be given that it'll be a
| couple years before competitors have Tesla's port on their
| vehicles. However, Tesla doesn't want the situation where
| their port becomes the odd one out where Tesla owners need to
| fumble with CCS adaptors. Maybe Tesla gives up a year or two
| of Supercharger advantage, but they ensure that it doesn't
| become a disadvantage.
| conjecTech wrote:
| Agreed, I think its much fairer to say they snatched a
| stalemate out of the jaws of defeat rather than just "this
| is good for Tesla".
| mahastore wrote:
| Where is the FTC?
| tempestn wrote:
| I think the idea is that so far, and for now, the chargers
| have indeed helped them keep a significant lead in EV sales.
| Eventually though, many other companies will also be selling
| very good EVs, and if Tesla doesn't open their chargers, the
| rest of the industry will standardize on something else, and
| it will eventually get good (or at least good enough) out of
| necessity. So instead of being the only decent option, Teslas
| will be the odd one out that have their own weird charging
| setup. As long as that setup is good it might not be too much
| of a detriment for them, but eventually it would stop being a
| major benefit either. So, better to use their current
| position to become the dominant charging solution for all
| brands.
|
| They were never going to corner the EV market long term. But
| they actually do have a chance of being the dominant charging
| supplier for every car on the road.
| joshl32532 wrote:
| Yeah, I was holding out on buying Ionic5 because of the lack
| of good charging network, even though I will only use it for
| occasional roadtrip. I will be charging at home for everyday
| use.
|
| Now that everybody is in Tesla supercharger, Teslas are
| losing its appeal to me now.
|
| I just need to wait until 2025 when everybody actually uses
| NACS. lol.
| robin_reala wrote:
| To be clear, this is only in the US. In the EU for example,
| Tesla were required to adopt the common standard instead, and
| Superchargers will already charge every EV on the market, as
| will every other charger.
|
| (No specific comment on the quality of each of the charging
| standards.)
| TheAlchemist wrote:
| There is no such big story here.
|
| The estimates are somewhere around 10B $ of revenue (not profit
| !) per year by 2030, and that's an optimistic scenario. Base
| case scenarios are much worse. And even that hypothetical 10B$
| is hardly a 'massive' revenue stream for a company projecting
| to sell 10 million cars by that time (I would put their chances
| of achieving that goal at 0.01%). As usual with Tesla - it's
| all about projections, hyperboles etc, while usually ignoring
| actual numbers (not a shot at you, just an observation).
|
| There is a fair point to be made though, that this is a big
| loss for Tesla, as their charging network was pretty much the
| sole remaining advantage over their competition.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Other Audi EV news: "Audi puts big EV push on the back burner"
| https://electrek.co/2023/12/19/audi-puts-big-ev-push-on-the-...
| chaosprint wrote:
| Will it be possible that Benz uses Nio's battery swap?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Great work by Tesla recognizing that infrastructure is half the
| equation for an EV future.
|
| They have moved the EV future forward by at least a decade.
| apexalpha wrote:
| I understand the ridicule that the EU gets sometimes, and
| especially so when trying to regulate stuff like AI where it
| seems the EU wants to regulate more than to create start ups
| etc...
|
| But this is one thing the EU just nailed the hammer into the wood
| immediatly, and rightly so.
|
| I can't even remember the time it was. Maybe 2013? 2014? They
| just set a standard and everyone, even Tesla, adopted it.
|
| Every single EV can plug into every charger. Whether it's a
| public one, a private at the office, a Tesla supercharger or a
| home charger at your home. Plug and go!
|
| Glad to see NA finally agrees on a standard now. This can only
| help EV adoption. Especially given the sorry state of other
| chargers than Tesla's over there.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Eh, I think if NA had forced a standard quickly (which the US
| has actually _sort of_ done with the infrastructure bill), it
| would 've been CCS which has a lot of downsides
| justapassenger wrote:
| Any downside other than bigger plug?
|
| And plug is bigger partially because it needs to support 3
| phases, which isn't a thing in USA houses (while common
| across the whole world) but is a thing at industrial
| locations. Tesla plug doesn't work with 3 phases.
| Symbiote wrote:
| CCS1 used in North America is only single phase.
|
| CCS2 used in Europe (and elsewhere) supports three phase.
| sebazzz wrote:
| The electricity grid has three phases in the US right?
| Are devices seldom connected to three phases?
| vel0city wrote:
| Three phase power is out there but you never see it in
| residential and rarely in commercial. It's pretty much
| just an industrial kind of thing.
| rekoil wrote:
| I have two 3-phase 480V 16A sockets in my 50m2 European
| apartment.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Bigger plug is a big one, like you mentioned. 3 phase isn't
| an issue in the US version IIRC, but it still has more pins
| than NACS to maintain backwards compatibility.
|
| Thicker + heavier cables too (not sure if that's required
| by CCS or just an implementation difference w/ NACS).
| Together that makes CCS much more unwieldy than a gas pump.
|
| The NACS latching mechanism is a lot better- latch failures
| are a big part of why so many J1772 chargers are broken and
| unusable.
| ggreer wrote:
| CCS is a worse standard than NACS. The connector is huge. Also
| CCS locks the cable on both sides (charger and car), so a bad
| charger or cable can strand your car. NACS locks only on the
| car side.
| apexalpha wrote:
| Both have up and downsides to them. The NACS is physically
| smaller yes, but CCS2 supports 3-phase power, which NACS does
| not.
|
| In the end the most important thing it that you can charge
| when you want to. So I'm glad there's now a standard in NA.
| And congrats to Tesla, they've earned it.
| sschueller wrote:
| The CCS2 does not have the issues of the CCS1 but is as big
| that is the only downside. But if you want to fit 3 phase AC
| charging you need a big plug.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Huh? If anything this disproves your point. Industrial players
| quickly (all things considered) converged on a superior format.
| I usually agree with you on standardizing stuff like this but
| this isn't an example of top down standardization leading to
| better outcomes. Not necessarily worse, but not better either.
| apexalpha wrote:
| Well there are now thousands and thousands of chargers in the
| US that have to be retrofitted to NACS, if possible.
|
| On top of that many cars will now need adapters to charge at
| public infrastructure.
|
| And in the meanwhile many people _still_ can 't charge at
| every public charger because they have CCS or Chademo or
| Tesla and the charger has another one.
| keep_reading wrote:
| CCS2 is terrible, I'd hate to be forced to use that giant bulky
| connector and cable. The EU got it wrong. Design by committee
| always sucks.
| apexalpha wrote:
| It was designed by VW I think, who handed it over to other
| car companies so there could be a universal connector.
|
| The reason it's bigger is because it supports 3-phase power,
| which NACS does not. 3-phase power is a big thing in Europe.
| keep_reading wrote:
| This is very true about 3 phase, but I have heard that
| there is interest in it being used in EU for AC charging in
| public garages because it can handle anything up to 277
| volts vs J1772 which can only do 208/240. So they can give
| it 1 of the 3 phases @ 220V and it will work unlike J1772.
| Allegedly.
|
| But I kind of doubt it will go anywhere when they've been
| forcing CCS2 on everyone.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The CCS2 AC-only connector (the one for normal charging
| at home, destination charging and so on) already supports
| 3-phase with up to 480V phase-to-phase, up to 22kW. It's
| larger than the NACS connector -- there are two
| additional large pins -- but not unwieldy.
| _zoltan_ wrote:
| so much so that I have a 22kW 3 phase charger at home. (AC,
| type 2)
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| It is a horrible, heavy connector.
| rekoil wrote:
| It's big, but it really doesn't matter in practice. Yes,
| J1772 looks nicer and is easier to handle, but it can't
| pump as much wattage as CCS2, and in the end that's watt
| (:P) matters.
| rockinghigh wrote:
| I've used both the US Tesla plug and CCS2. CCS2 is bulkier
| and heavier but it makes no difference in the daily life. A
| standardized connector is also a lot nicer than dealing with
| adapters.
| encom wrote:
| >Every single EV can plug into every charger.
|
| Nit picking, but there's a bunch of Nissan Chademo still
| around. Like my Leaf. I'm a bit perplexed that Nissan is still
| selling new Chademo cars here, since it's on the way out. I
| very rarely need DC charging though, and there's still lots of
| Chademo locations if I do. That aside, the Leaf is a wonderful
| car.
| lol768 wrote:
| As a fellow Leaf owner, I agree it's really perplexing and
| frustrating. I was looking at what else Nissan are doing, and
| while they've gone for CCS on the Ariya (and also got the
| active battery thermal management), frankly I don't want or
| need an SUV.
| p1mrx wrote:
| DalasEVRepair on YouTube is testing a Chinese CCS to CHAdeMO
| adapter. If that ever becomes a reliable product, then NACS
| to CHAdeMO would be an incremental change.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Serious question is every EU charger outlet billed in a common
| way, like with cash, an app, debit/credit card, in car screen,
| with a payment screen, or preconfigured to bill seamlessly?
|
| Seems like the billing issues at non Tesla chargers in the US
| were a large part of the issues..
| perlgeek wrote:
| Here in Germany at least, most chargers accept RFID cards for
| billing, and basically all through an app.
|
| My only problem with it is that the app that comes with my
| company's card is total crap (often won't start to charge,
| and then sees the charging port as being in use for like 5-10
| minutes, so you have to wait that long for a second attempt.
| It's HORRIBLE.)
| rockinghigh wrote:
| I can only talk for France. The payment is not standardized.
| Tesla is plug-and-pay like in the US but others are not.
| Every charging stations brand has its own app with the same
| issues as the US, where it may or may not work that day.
| micwag wrote:
| There is no mandated billing method, but the ability to pay
| without registering an account is mandated. Additionally
| every charger has a unique id with a QR code.
|
| Usually you either just plug it in (first party charger) or
| just scan the QR code with your favorite charging app which
| will handles the billing (third party charger).
| evilfred wrote:
| the Technology Connections video on NACS is very educational on
| the topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJOfyMCEzjQ
| raphaelj wrote:
| I don't own any electric car. What are the advantages and
| disadvantages of Tesla's standard vs CCS2 (pretty common in
| Europe as far as I know) ?
| akouri wrote:
| I am the founder of Starlight Charging[1]. We are working on
| crazy-low-cost L2 chargers for multifamily apartments. Plug-and-
| charge is a sine-qua-non for us.
|
| One still major unsolved problem is the lack of agreement on a
| standard for payment/powerline communication from the EVSE to the
| vehicle. OCPP 2.0.1 and ISO 15118 is supposed to bring "Plug and
| Charge" capabilities -- this, in theory, would allow drivers to
| simply pull up to a station, plug in, and charging start right
| away. i.e. No more fiddling with multiple different
| manufacturer's apps, no more being SOL if your phone battery is
| dead.
|
| While we're seeing agreement on the physical standard for the
| shape and size of the conductors, there's still progress to be
| made on the protocol between vehicles and charger. Tesla refuses
| to implement OCPP because they have a great walled garden right
| now and don't want to release the stranglehold on the payments.
|
| [1] https://www.starlightcharging.com
| why_at wrote:
| Can you explain why you feel plug-and-charge is so important? I
| have used chargers with and without it and while it is slightly
| more convenient to just plug in and go, it doesn't feel like
| such a huge improvement that I absolutely need it.
|
| I agree that having a different app for every brand of charging
| station would be annoying, but what about just accepting a
| credit card the way we do with gas stations now?
| jakewins wrote:
| Have you done any road tripping in an EV? my experience of
| the app-based charging landscape has been complete horror;
| apps don't work, chargers don't start, payments don't
| through..
|
| Just last month was a new app at McDonalds in Sweden, that
| one asks me to, in the freezing cold, scan a dirty QR code
| sticker, which takes me to a website I've never heard of that
| wants me to manually enter credit card info, like a phishing
| attack smorgasbord.
|
| It's the one thing I miss from a gas car: just let me fill
| up.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I have done multiple 10+ hour (although no multi day) road
| trips in an ev. It was fine. I had problems exactly one
| time and i was able to just go to a different charger a
| mile away.
|
| All of the chargers I've used had apps, but they also
| allowed using a credit card, which seems like it would have
| solved your problem just as well. And that's already a
| solved problem, even if not every charging network uses it.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Now go abroad where charging app is not available in your
| country or requires local phone number to register, uses
| local language, or even wants local address or local
| payment method.
|
| Just give me website god damn it.
| gambiting wrote:
| My story of charging in Germany one time a year ago:
|
| The charger requires an app, ok fine. Downloaded the app,
| had to setup the whole account with my address(UK address
| was allowed as my address), verify my email, verify my
| phone number(UK one was accepted), fine, done.
|
| Went to add my payment card - nope, the billing address
| has a pre-filled country field set to Germany, can't
| change it. It says ring this number in case of any
| problems. I ring the number just to hear:
|
| "Sorry, our customer service operators are not available
| on Sunday. Call back on Monday after 9am".
|
| Imagine if filling up with petrol was such a lottery.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| German "Sunday is rest day" at it's best.
|
| If fuel stations are essential(as in allowed to be open
| on Sundays), then with the EVs becoming the norm so
| should be the support for these stations.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I know it's not quite the problem you are talking about
| (which would be dealt with by making normal contactless /
| chip and pin readers a requirement) - but I'd love to see
| a legal requirement that when your charge point can't
| contact the piece of shit payment / authentication
| service the user gets to charge for free. That would soon
| see an uptick in the reliability of charge points...
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| I'm in the process of deactivating my family Apple One
| account (they overseas) so I can change app store for few
| minutes and download all the local apps I need.
|
| I have to wait until end of month so my subscription
| actually expires, then make sure family sharing is
| disabled (which already screwed up location sharing). Oh
| and about 2.5TB of entire generation photos are up to be
| deleted by Apple if I screw up.
| alibarber wrote:
| I have literally gotten visas for and worked in another
| country with greater ease than trying to get my Apple
| account to work well with local apps in my new country of
| residence while still allowing me to download and update
| apps from the first country.
| alibarber wrote:
| Just trying to move to or be in another country and have
| the App store actually work properly for local apps (and
| the ones you want to keep from your original country) is
| a complete nightmare anyway.
|
| It amazes me that for such a progressive and forward
| thinking company as Apple, that the very thought that
| their customers might actually move countries with their
| device and account seems to have been relegated to 'edge
| case'.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| Like i said, credit card terminals seem the best way to
| fix this problem, Rather than done complicated plug-and-
| charge mechanism
| masklinn wrote:
| Yeah, CC terminals (and NFC / tap if you want to be
| fancy) are working things which work.
|
| The only opposition I've heard is "uwu but charge costs
| are lower so CC fees add up".
| HenryBemis wrote:
| CC fees add up, but/and electricity is cheaper than gas,
| so net-net, you gain. Also considering the convenience
| that you have zero worries and you will be able to charge
| hassle-free in any charging stations, I'd pay an extra
| EUR1 to not have any headaches, apps, phone charged, and
| any/all hoops by any apps.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Things like little kiddy rides and vending machines are
| able to take contactless payments (in the UK). I don't
| really see how this can be a valid arguement.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| It varies by country. In NZ we pay about $0.5 each time
| using contactless/apple pay, but 0 when using chip+pin.
|
| IMO websites and/or open API's are way to go - allows
| third parties to build integrations, automations and
| superapps that enable all sort of benefits for users.
| jdsully wrote:
| Some chargers have tap&pay on the machine like a gas pump.
| No app needed.
| yurishimo wrote:
| This should be mandated by law.
| akouri wrote:
| disagree. see my comment above
| afavour wrote:
| IMO that would be better solved by mandating tap and pay
| payment at EV charging spots. Integrating payments into the
| charging standard feels like a wild overcomplication by
| comparison.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Not only that, how do you even propose to do it?
|
| If you just send the payment info via the charging plug,
| now you have to worry about the payment info being stored
| in the car and potentially stolen if the car has any
| security vulnerabilities, including in the charging port.
|
| If you use some kind of tokenization or similar then
| you're inserting third party payment processors into the
| system and they'll be wanting a cut.
|
| Just put a card reader on the charger and be done with
| it.
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| Wouldn't presence of the key address most of this?
|
| Sure, they can steal the car AND the key, but more often,
| it's the car alone.
| tzs wrote:
| Another reason for a card reader is that it easily
| handles the case of a borrowed EV.
|
| It is customary when borrowing someone's ICE car to pay
| for the gas used by returning the car with as much gas as
| it had when you borrowed it, or even with a full tank.
| I'd expect people will want to continue that custom when
| the car is an EV.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Particularly in a world where every new phone and
| smartwatch integrates tap-to-pay, seems like a no-brainer
| to just integrate at that point.
| highwaylights wrote:
| It also brings that part of the charging experience to
| parity with gas, which is really simple for non-tech
| savvy switchers to understand.
|
| The process for EV and gas refuelling is then identical:
|
| Lift thingamabob -> tap card -> plug into car -> leave
|
| Easy.
| Animats wrote:
| The tap-and-pay RF people need to get their act together.
| The average number of tries needed to get a good read is
| > 1. For Veriphone units, > 2.
|
| Please make it clear where, exactly, the near-field
| antenna is. Behind the screen? Behind the logo that looks
| like WiFi? Somewhere inside a separate hockey-puck
| device? And indicate when the reader is active, too.
| Light up something.
|
| One place I visit regularly had a POS system which worked
| perfectly. They recently switched it out for a Clover
| unit with much lower read reliability and a worse
| customer-facing UI.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| For what it's worth, contactless is ubiquitous in the UK
| - the experience is almost always seamless. The only
| exception being the odd reader with the antenna in a
| stupid place (these have gotten less common over time) or
| when your bank decides to force a pin check.
| Affric wrote:
| I want to echo this. When contactless is ubiquitous there
| are pretty much no problems.
| Daneel_ wrote:
| It's ubiquitous in Australia as well. I haven't carried a
| wallet in almost 5 years. My credit card, driver's
| license, and other important cards are all digital.
| Sophira wrote:
| Okay, hear me out here. What's stopping us from just
| having payments be out of band, like with petrol?
|
| Is being able to ask your car to make a long drive across
| long distances on its own actually something people want
| to do? Or is it a solution in search of a problem?
|
| (Disclaimer, I live in the UK and not the US. It's
| possible there are cultural reasons I've missed.)
| ketralnis wrote:
| I've done a fair amount of road tripping (~15k mi over
| 1.5yr) along the WA/OR/CA/NV corridors where Electrify
| America is dense enough to use solely, which is convenient
| since my car came with 2 years of free charging from them.
|
| Ignoring their pervasive station reliability problems,
| their app is pretty bad and only barely functions.
|
| * I've had to skip a perfectly functioning station because
| the app thought I was still charging from the previous time
| and wouldn't change its mind about it.
|
| * Their Carplay app has literally never worked for me, not
| once (usually it shows me still charging from a session
| >1wk ago even when the regular app doesn't, sometimes it
| doesn't boot, sometimes it shows me as not logged in. The
| main screen has never once rendered.).
|
| * One of their level 2 stations (which tend even less
| reliable) existed in the app on about 50% of refreshes.
|
| * The app requires a pretty solid signal to work at all
| since it seems to consult their API to query for stations
| near where you are and then you guess at which one it is
| ("is this the target one or the mall one? it's the target
| that's in the mall?") which is pretty silly when you're
| parked at the station so it's in range of your hands and
| eyes.
|
| * I eventually figured out that I can add the EA plan to my
| Apple Wallet and tap the phone instead of ever opening the
| app, but that seems to randomly select between the "free"
| plan (rather, included in the purchase price of my car) and
| the $10 balance that they make me maintain for god-knows-
| why when at California electricity prices no charge has
| ever been below $10.
|
| * The stations have credit card readers which I've never
| tried to use but almost always when I see somebody having
| trouble at a station it's because they're fighting with
| that thing. I assume EA's response would be "just use the
| app, it's so much better"
|
| That's all just _one_ app, not a slew of them for every
| charging network in my area (which also includes at least
| evgo & chargepoint just to cover the big ones). The sooner
| this app bullshit can die the better.
| progman32 wrote:
| Every time I use the app I have to force quit it at least
| once to get it to stop doing whatever backend query it's
| doing. Doesn't help that their chargers are barely
| compatible with my car (2014 i3) so the charging fails to
| start about half the time. The machine itself rejects the
| charge in about ten seconds so no big deal, but the app
| isn't built to handle this case and takes multiple
| minutes to realize something is wrong. So my charging
| cycle is to initiate via app, plug in, see a failed
| charge, force quit the app, find the station again, and
| repeat probably twice. Probably isn't this bad with newer
| cars, but I love my car otherwise. Made sure to get the
| one with the extra scooter engine in the back, so I can
| just drive around on gas if it comes down to it.
| why_at wrote:
| Yeah I agree having a different app for each station sucks,
| but I don't really understand how plug-and-charge would
| solve this. For anything that does support plug-and-charge,
| don't you still need to register the payment method
| somewhere in advance?
|
| Unless we have some universal payment processor which all
| the charging networks agree to use I will still need
| register through an app or something when I encounter a new
| brand of charger on a road trip.
|
| It seems like the real solution is a law which requires the
| stations to accept a more universal payment system like
| credit cards. I think there is already a law like this in
| California IIRC.
| ldarby wrote:
| > It seems like the real solution is a law which requires
| the stations to accept a more universal payment system
| like credit cards.
|
| No shit, Sherlock? In the UK a lot of fuel pumps have
| credit/debit card readers built in, and if not cards are
| accepted everywhere for payment already. But yes electric
| charging companies here are still wierd about accepting
| such standardised payments, and we did just introduce a
| new law about it [0] promising "most" but not all
| chargers will accept cards.
|
| [0] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-laws-to-make-
| charging...
| akouri wrote:
| Tap & Pay still requires you to fiddle with a station and
| slows you down. If you are plugging in at home (which is
| our target market), the fewer interactions needed the
| better. Imagine every time you get home you need to take
| your wallet out, tap the machine, wait for some 3rd party
| api to talk to the charger in the dimly lit basement, and
| then and only then you can leave. This is like 30 seconds
| of your day wasted.
|
| Plus, ultimately we want to make charging as cheap as
| possible and having to pay the $.30 interchange fee each
| time a user plugs in would add a ton of overhead to our
| cost model.
| namdnay wrote:
| Surely the interchange fee can be negotiated for volume?
| Or even mandated by law. When I tap my credit card to buy
| a 1$ bus ticket I doubt the interchange is keeping 30
| cents?
| ska wrote:
| There are transit systems that have made this work
| smoothly, you just walk up to a gate, tap your card as
| you walk through, so I can't imagine the barrier is
| technological unachievable. Seems like similar frequency
| and $.
| alibarber wrote:
| It takes something like half of a second for my Apple Pay
| Amex/Visa to let me through the barrier in the London
| Underground, and the complexity they have to deal with
| for fare calculations is quite something too.
| greenthrow wrote:
| GP is talking about L2 charging for multi family homes. Not
| DCFC.
|
| But I agree, DCFC need to all accept credit cards like gas
| pumps. Fortunately NEVI funding requires it.
| spaceywilly wrote:
| If I may ask what seems like an obvious question... why
| can't they just use credit card terminals like gas stations
| have been using for many decades?
| yurishimo wrote:
| They could, and many do, but the difference is that those
| types of interfaces are mandated/regulated while EV
| charging is not. Guess what's slightly cheaper when
| amortized across tens of thousands of customers in the
| products lifetime? Not to mention the amount of data that
| could be mined from those customers by having yet another
| app on their phone with bullshit location permissions
| "for the best user experience."
|
| Every gas pump has looked/functioned largely the same
| since the widespread adoption of cashless payments around
| the world. Until governments mandate a standard payment
| interface, I think it's more likely that companies will
| continue to find ways to mine data from consumers through
| shitty apps.
|
| Oh, and that's not even to mention the companies that
| include some amount of "free charging" credits with the
| purchase of the vehicle. Not only is that cost baked into
| the cost of the car, you're also disincentivized from
| using the network at all because of how crappy it is.
| /tinfoilhat
| spaceywilly wrote:
| Yeah that just seems like a poor decision on the part of
| these charger owners. I feel like there's an opportunity
| for a company called "EZCharge - we take credit cards".
| People will seek it out when looking for a charging
| station because they know they won't need to download a
| BS app.
|
| Or maybe another solution would be like WeChat Pay in
| China, something that's so ubiquitous that all stores
| just have a QR code you scan to pay for anything
| nowadays. I'm surprised nothing like that has taken off
| in the US, it's crazy convenient.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| There is no way to communicate when you are charged up
| that way, maybe via an SMS that you add with your phone
| number. Also, you have to communicate your charging
| preference somehow. It's not like pumping gas, you rarely
| want it to stop at 100%, although the charging standard
| might at least be able to control that from the car.
| spaceywilly wrote:
| True I see what you mean, but that would seem to be an
| easy function to build into the car's charging
| controller. I'm not sure how it works today but I would
| imagine most cars have a "stop charging at x%" function
| already without depending on the charger for that.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Ya, I think they even get status otherwise I'm not sure
| how electrify America's app works in the first place.
|
| I once charged at an L2 in Canada that involved a QR
| code, and then payment via a web form. In that case, a
| POS would make the setup too expensive compared to just
| putting power out there with a networked microcontroller.
| ska wrote:
| > There is no way to communicate when you are charged up
| that way
|
| Cant' the car do it?
| staplers wrote:
| Or ya know.. the pump, like has existed for decades..
| ska wrote:
| I thought the problem was that it takes long enough that
| you aren't by the "pump" during process. Also that the
| chargepoints are likely less infrastructure than a pump.
| So something has to contact you (SMS/email/whatever)
| Smoosh wrote:
| > Not to mention the amount of data that could be mined
| from those customers
|
| That was my cynical take on it.
| flutas wrote:
| IIRC the federal infrastructure bill required chargers to
| accept via CC reader or plug and charge. So I'm sure we
| will be seeing more chargers with it shortly.
| al_borland wrote:
| So solving this problem would be as simple as
| mandating/regulating it? Sounds like a no-brainer to end
| this debate, standardize things, and allow the build out
| to happen in a quick and standard way across companies.
|
| With all the EV goals that various countries are making,
| this seems like a foundational part of it. Consumers
| aren't going to buy into EVs in mass until charging in a
| solved problem.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The epic solution is free charging financed by gasoline
| taxes.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| RV charging has much smaller installations than gas.
| Instead of gas stations, the most common SV charging will
| eventually be thick poles on the footpath so you can
| charge wherever you park, or small one or two bay
| charging facilities at various businesses. That's the
| sort of charging infrastructure you want and seamless
| payment solutions is an enabling tech.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| But why not just have contactless bank card payment?
|
| Yeah it is a pain, I have an electric car, but only because
| they force you to use their broken apps. All they have to
| do is let you pay with a bank card and it'll be just as
| easy as buying petrol.
| brnt wrote:
| So, I haven't got the money for an electric car... One just
| can't use the payment card at a bog standard self service
| payment terminal? I had assumed that, but apparently no?
| You seriously visit random websites and enter CC details?
| hcal wrote:
| Right, many or most don't have credit card terminals. You
| plug in, load an app, find you station, select a port
| number, tell it to start and hope it works. It doesn't
| sound that bad, but the chargers janky, the apps are
| janky and it takes a long time often with multiple
| attempts.
| brnt wrote:
| Installing random apps sounds janky as hell. I only
| install vetted apps from F droid. I wouldn't give a
| charging station access to my phone.
| akouri wrote:
| This is exactly it. My dad almost missed some of my
| sister's wedding fiddling with the same type of crappy UX
| on a no-name charger.
| solatic wrote:
| Recharging electric vehicles is not like refilling gas-
| powered cars. You will intentionally drive a gas vehicle down
| to 20%, even 10% tank left before going out of your way to a
| gas station, maybe once a week on average. But with electric
| cars, you should intentionally be plugging in to recharge as
| frequently as possible, at least once a day, as you are
| penalized (with longer recharge times) the longer you go
| between recharges.
|
| Imagine needing to negotiate a credit card with your wall
| outlet before recharging your phone every night, and you'll
| get an idea why people would _hate_ needing to pull out their
| credit card for every EV charge.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You must not have had a dad that harped on you about
| letting your tank get below 50%. If I let mine get down to
| 10%, my dad would have taken my keys away. There are many
| reasons people give for this that do not involve zombies
| and go bags
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Your car is rear-wheel-drive and the extra weight you are
| carrying around in the fuel tank helps your acceleration
| in the snow?
| dylan604 wrote:
| no, i had a small truck, so we'd just throw extra ballast
| in the back to help with that
| NewJazz wrote:
| Driving with a near empty tank is more likely to cause
| corrosion.
| dylan604 wrote:
| this isn't technically correct. the low levels are not
| causing the corrosion. it's the contaminants that float
| in the fuel is the issue. when the tank has plenty of
| fuel, those floaters are not near the fuel pump. as the
| levels lower, the contaminants become more concentrated
| and are more likely to interact with the pump. at least,
| that's how it was described to me. by described, of
| course i mean harped on at every opportunity the parental
| unit could berate about lack of proper care for the car
| blah blah blah
| hgomersall wrote:
| I remember the garage owner telling my parents they
| should only half fill the tank to reduce the weight being
| driven around.
| olyjohn wrote:
| It's pretty much completely pointless to worry about when
| you fill up your tank. Just fill it up when you need or
| want to.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| For apartments I think it makes a lot of sense. Having to do
| a couple transactions every road trip is one thing, but
| having to complete a transaction just to top off every night
| the way a homeowner would sounds really annoying.
| jsight wrote:
| The flip side to that is that you'd only have to setup the
| app once at your home. If the charging activation is as
| smooth as chargepoint, it wouldn't be bad at all.
| spaceywilly wrote:
| It would be easy to support both options. Many gas stations
| have their own app payment system.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| I am thinking of buildings where they got 100+ parking
| spots, and one can install a charging station for
| his/her/their car. THAT station needs some 'lock' (software
| or hardware). Otherwise what stops someone else to abuse my
| parking spot's 'e-pump', when I drive to work and the spot
| will be unoccupied for the next 10h?
|
| So some hoop-jumping should also be required.
| namdnay wrote:
| For apartments it would make more sense to have it read the
| same key fob you use to open the gates or whatever. Then
| just add it on your monthly building bill
| akouri wrote:
| Not a bad idea. We are looking into this. One issue is
| that the vendors for these keyfobs are super fragmented
| -- even more so than Plug & Charge adoption.
| g_p wrote:
| Worth being aware that, as well as keyfobs being super
| fragmented, many are woefully insecure. Think "they just
| say their ID number when you put them in a reader field".
|
| That means you can trivially clone them. Not hugely
| exciting for access to a (common) hallway in a large
| building. If cloning someone else's fob gets you free car
| charging, the incentive is there to clone them. Also, not
| all buildings will use unique fobs per "unit" (and you'd
| likely need to support per-resident/tenant fob
| uniqueness... And something for guests!) -- sometimes
| it's a single hardcoded value for the whole block or door
| zone that the fob opens...
|
| You can, of course, build something proper using NFC (and
| a smartcard running a smartcard applet), which is
| effectively like your own custom mini "chip and PIN" EMV
| system -- you would have to design and implement the wire
| protocol to authenticate the card etc etc, and all the
| security design around that, but it could be done. That
| would at least let you have something more than simply
| shouting your tag ID number into the air like a super
| basic NFC tag (or RFID keyfob).
| jsight wrote:
| With an L2 at an apartment, you might be plugging in daily.
| It'd be nice to keep the steps as minimal as possible.
|
| Having said that, something like an NFC card + QR code
| support would be good enough, IMO. The main thing would be to
| keep the app as simple and fast as possible.
| dylan604 wrote:
| QR sticker manipulation is too easy of a vector for me to
| take anything seriously when it comes to "just scan the
| code, enter card data, and carry on" is just too easy to
| fake. it's even easier than credit card skimmers. I like QR
| codes and their convenience for non-critical things like
| marketing. For things that are direct payment links it is
| just too unsecure for my comfort
| jsight wrote:
| That's a fair point. TBH, a combination of GPS (or just
| smart defaulting) and entering a short code would work
| pretty easily as well.
|
| They could also put the QR on a small screen to make it
| harder to fake. A little epaper display wouldn't add much
| to the cost.
| dylan604 wrote:
| also, who plugs in daily? do you fuel your ICE car daily?
| other than professional drivers, i'm doubting this is the
| normal routine for normal drivers. the irrational idea
| that EVs need to be plugged in at any and every
| opportunity is something that should be rationalized
| away. <referring to your point earlier>
|
| i don't own an EV, so maybe my preconceived ideas of only
| charging when necessary may be what needs updating???
| however, regular battery maintenance routines suggests
| daily charging might not be the best for the battery.
| jsight wrote:
| I'd guess that most EV owners with home charging do plug
| in daily, but also limit charge based on the type of
| pack. For most of us, that means ~80% as a daily limit,
| if not less.
|
| In practice, I don't think EV owners are seeing a
| meaningful difference between repeatedly doing charges
| from 70 to 80% vs periodically doing bigger charges (eg,
| 20-80%).
|
| So why not have a full-enough pack every morning? It is
| one of the big conveniences of an EV. Obviously this will
| be different if they don't have home charging or have a
| less than convenient setup.
| g_p wrote:
| The problem with fancy variants on trying to "better
| protect" a QR code is that users don't know what to
| expect, and the lowest common denomenator of social
| compliance means they'll (have to, if they want to not be
| stranded) eventually scan whatever QR code is there, in
| an attempt to charge.
|
| It feels like this whole "scan the QR code" is a reverse
| of the ideal paradigm that is (obviously) very easily
| exploited by scammers and opportunists, especially if
| payment information is requested! We spent long enough
| trying to train users to not enter usernames, passwords,
| and payment details into random web pages when asked...
| Now they're being asked to do it!
|
| I don't think a QR on a small screen is the answer -
| people will just cover it with their sticker. If that's
| not good enough, they'll make a sticker that looks like a
| small screen with some frame around it.
|
| We need to treat the charger itself as an untrusted piece
| of infrastructure, and do discovery the other way around.
| If a user knows they are going to an "ABC Corp" charger,
| there is presumably a route for them to use a relatively
| trustworthy discovery platform (i.e. an app store, their
| EV charging map already knowing where they are headed) to
| navigate the user to the genuine interface.
|
| For the issue of "which charger to activate", I'm not an
| EV user, but this feels like if the car communicates any
| form of usable information to the charger, this could be
| used to help the user. Easy (and private) paradigms like
| unlocking a given charger by a map view wouldn't be
| intuitive for people with reduced spatial awareness (or
| at night when nobody has a clue where they are in
| relation to things on a map), but at a small enough
| charging station you could just ask the user to confirm
| if they are using "charger 3" (like gas station pump
| numbers), since that's the only port with a car not yet
| enabled to charge. For larger places, surely it's easier
| to use "pump numbers".
|
| (Which is effectively what you are suggesting with a
| short code, but I think the QR part is a potentially bad
| paradigm we should try to kill off before it sticks
| around!)
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yep. Regular petrol stations figured out pay at the pump
| decades ago. Why is this such a problem for EV charging?
| quickthrowman wrote:
| That's a easyn one. The charger manufacturers (ChargePoint,
| etc) want to rake a percentage of the charging revenue for
| themselves, so they force you to route payment processing
| through them.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Companies don't want want the hassle and expense of PCI
| compliance across their charger network. If it's just
| session auth shit going across the wire, they only need to
| worry about PCI compliance on the back end.
|
| By collecting lots of info about you, they get a lower
| processing rate because the transaction is lower risk vs a
| swipe/tap.
|
| They can save on transaction fees if they consolidate
| charging sessions; say you do 2-3 charging sessions in one
| day.
|
| They want all the personal data they can collect on you
| constantly if you have the app installed, and to spam you
| with marketing notifications.
|
| They want resistance to using a different charging network.
| Charger Company A's charger is $1/minute and Charger
| Company B's charger is $1.10, and they're on the same
| block? Obviously you're going to go to the cheaper one if
| you can just swipe your credit card.
|
| If you have to download an app (using your mobile data, and
| it might be quite slow), register an account, etc - then
| you not going to bother with the cheaper station.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| This is before EV charging becomes a commodity or a
| public utility...
|
| Though public utilities are typically even worse, than
| the current landscape of charging apps :(
| ska wrote:
| Honestly, it may not matter if companies don't want it.
|
| Consumers are going to demand it, and it may be necessary
| before EV's become ubiquitous, assuming they do. One
| thing that has helped their case in the US is that
| payments have historically been a pain in the ass anyway,
| compared to many other countries. That is changing
| though.
| hedora wrote:
| > Charger Company A's charger is $1/minute and Charger
| Company B's charger is $1.10, and they're on the same
| block?
|
| I'd go to the one that accepted my credit card and didn't
| have an app.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| You forgot the part where the EV charger manufacturer
| forces you to route payment processing through them so
| they can take a cut of the charger revenue, that and the
| data collection are the two main reasons you have to
| install the ChargePoint app or whatever.
| isk517 wrote:
| EV are brand new and give us a chance to think of new and
| interesting solutions for problems that were solved decades
| ago. The average baby is about 75% water so do you really
| want to go through the trouble of separating it from the
| bath water? /s
| hehhehaha wrote:
| I think the credit card thing would require the chargers to
| be monitored in a way.
| autoexecbat wrote:
| It's a _really_ big improvement, I don 't want to mess around
| with some random app or some credit card reader. Having
| experienced it I'd never go back
| akouri wrote:
| Tap & Pay with a ccard still requires you to fiddle with a
| station and slows you down. If you are plugging in at home
| (which is our target market), the fewer interactions needed
| the better. Imagine every time you get home you need to take
| your wallet out, tap the machine, wait for some 3rd party api
| to talk to the charger in the dimly lit basement, and then
| and only then you can leave. This is like 30 seconds of your
| day wasted.
|
| Plus, ultimately we want to make charging as cheap as
| possible and having to pay the $.30 interchange fee each time
| a user plugs in would add a ton of overhead to our cost
| model.
| hedora wrote:
| This would be infinitely better than the current model,
| where you have to install a bullshit app, which doesn't
| work over 20% of the time.
|
| I'd happily pay $0.30 per charge session to just use
| standard NFC or chip payments.
|
| Also, why in god's name would I have authentication on my
| home charger?
| akouri wrote:
| > Also, why in god's name would I have authentication on
| my home charger?
|
| Not everyone in the US lives in a single family home
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Surely this could be dealt with by accepting a
| "membership card" over NFC. I'm sure my dad has a token
| for the parking barriers at his place of work which can
| also take direct card payments.
|
| As an added bonus, when you have family or friends
| visiting they can pay to charge as normal (at presumably
| a slightly less attractive rate).
| namdnay wrote:
| If it's a multi-family home system, why not just use
| contactless badges/fobs to identify each family? When you
| move in you sign the contract, give your bank details and
| get a fob. Then just badge with the fob to charge
| akouri wrote:
| Not a bad idea. Will look into it!
| Symbiote wrote:
| The only EVs I've used are the hire-from-the-street ones
| available in some cities in Europe. There's generally a
| small credit (free minutes) if you leave them charging at
| the end of a trip. There are RFID tags in the car to
| activate the charger -- I assume it's essentially
| equivalent to a company credit card used to buy petrol,
| or when you hire an ICE car with fuel included and
| there's a special credit card in the glovebox to use to
| pay for the petrol.
|
| E.g. https://www.greenmobility.com/dk/en/faq/
| ska wrote:
| That makes sense that the use case in a shared home lot is
| different than out and about, but still doesn't obviously
| suggest payment routing over the charger - wouldn't monthly
| billing be better from the consumers point of view? You'd
| only need a car identifier for that.
| akouri wrote:
| Yes, to your point the Plug & Charge mechanism is just
| for authentication. Through our integrations with Yardi,
| Buildium, etc. payment can just be taken out of rent or
| tacked onto the sub-metered utility bill.
| ska wrote:
| Gotcha, that makes sense.
|
| How do you handle for example visitor spots (e.g. one off
| charge) in a multi-family unit?
| CarVac wrote:
| For routine home charging, you don't want to require a credit
| card transaction.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| Because according to the parent commenter, any company that
| doesn't let them take control of their payments is a walled
| garden. I mean, how is their startup going to make any money
| if these charging companies don't give it to them?
| andrejk wrote:
| This road trip video does a good job showing the papercuts
| and more significant issues that make a non-Tesla road trip
| painful.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92w5doU68D8
| dybber wrote:
| That's where governmental regulation should kick in and require
| compatibility, so you aren't forced to change charger because
| you either change car or power company. I expect EU to get
| there at some point.
| akira2501 wrote:
| It's interesting that governments are more interested in
| telling you what kind of stove you can buy and seem to have
| zero interests in telling EV makers what kind of plug they
| have to use.
|
| It took them the better part of a decade just to bring Apple
| to the table on USB. I don't have the same faith you do
| they're going to be able to even partially repeat this
| success in a much more diverse ecosystem like vehicles.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> I expect EU to get there at some point._
|
| IMHO, the EU should have done this yester-five-years-ago.
| It's absolutely baffling they haven't already, considering
| they're going to outlaw ICE cars in just 6 years time, yet we
| don't yet have friggin EV charging regulations in place to
| ensure it always just works for evryone.
|
| I assume politicians are too busy with the inflation/CoL,
| wars, migration and how to win the upcoming elections in
| 2024, to worry that we'll be caught wither our pants down on
| the EV infrastructure side in a few years, because they've
| been asleep at the wheel.
|
| Mark my words, come 2029, and everyone's gonna freak out,
| there will be outcry from the voters, and the ICE ban will be
| postponed for 5 more years so we can get charging
| infrastructure sorted.
| Caddickbrown wrote:
| Did Tesla not release all of their patents a few years back?
| Can people not just... use the stuff?
| GuB-42 wrote:
| It came with a lot of strings attached. For instance, in
| order to use Tesla patents a company cannot attack Tesla for
| _any_ intellectual property matter. Also, Tesla still makes
| use of trade secrets and its design patents are not released.
|
| Which is the reason why about no one took on the offer, it is
| a legal minefield for not that much value. NACS became a
| thing only after they truly released the standard.
| akouri wrote:
| The patents for the NACS connector were open sourced. We are
| utilizing that for our charger hub/connector.
|
| The communication and payment protocol is still proprietary.
| 7952 wrote:
| Any thoughts on having a credit card reader instead?
| castratikron wrote:
| You could either 1. itemize the charging bill on their monthly
| rent, if that parking spot is reserved for one tenant. Really
| should be no difference from the rest of their electricity use.
| 2. Charge a flat fee on their rent, and then give them charging
| for free between off-peak hours. Some utilities offer very
| cheap off peak rates for EV charging, 3. integrate a credit
| card reader or bill acceptor for cash payment. Option 3 seems
| hard if you are trying to cost optimize the charger hardware.
|
| I am bearish on universal PnC being practical to implement.
| Every EV manufacturer has to make agreements with every EVSE
| operator to use the same root CAs and same billing system. If
| you think of an EVSE like a vending machine, there really is no
| interoperability precedent for this kind of payment. Tesla is
| special case because they operate both the cars and charging
| network. But if Pepsi owned and operated all of their vending
| machines, we probably would have seen the same walled garden.
| Animats wrote:
| Can Tesla refuse to charge a car at their whim? Because, say,
| you were banned from Twitter/X? Too many fast charges this
| week? Covered the driver-facing camera?
| Shank wrote:
| Tesla currently revokes supercharging status on salvage title
| vehicles on their network. Depending on the title and
| circumstances, it can be annoying to get working again.
| iwontberude wrote:
| Using sine-qua-non was a classy way to obfuscate your meaning.
| I liked it and I don't know why exactly. I had to read a
| definition to understand something that was so simple.
| akouri wrote:
| Glad my high school Latin classes came in useful for
| something.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Why does it need to be app based? Can't you use CC terminals
| like a normal gas station? Swipe or tap card like any other
| payment?
| heyoni wrote:
| Isn't that what OP is saying? That it shouldn't be app based
| and that the new ISO would resolve that by having the car
| communicate with the charging station? /edit I may have
| misread that
|
| /edit2 the proposal uses certificate exchange between the car
| and the charging station. No app.
| port914 wrote:
| I think you'll need to pivot soon. Tesla has it all figured
| out, including destination charging.
| zackmorris wrote:
| This makes me sad in a way that's a little hard to articulate.
| But I'll try!
|
| I plug my $9000 2013 Nissan Leaf into an ordinary 120V extension
| cord each night so I can commute to a neighboring city for work,
| and the electricity costs me $20/mo. I also have a 1986 Toyota
| pickup like on Back to the Future that I had to gas up every
| other week, using 30 gallons of gas per month and costing over
| $100. So the operating cost of an EV is about 3-5 times lower
| than a gas vehicle.
|
| My friend has an EV charging dongle that we jokingly call the
| octopus, which has a dozen adapters for plugging into every kind
| of 120/240V outlet like on ovens and dryers. So he charges his
| car in 4 hours out of whatever outlet is available, for the same
| $20/mo that I pay.
|
| So convincing the public that everyone needs to buy a $500-1000
| charging station for their EV was a social engineering campaign
| to slow the adoption of EVs.
|
| The real engineering work to let us plug EVs into any outlet has
| not been done yet. But it would look like this:
|
| * Level 2 J1772 chargers have a resistor that tells the EV how
| much wattage to draw. But that just passes the buck to the user,
| who now must ensure that the outlet can provide that wattage. A
| better system would have a smart power manager that senses
| current saturation or voltage drop near the point where the
| circuit breaker trips. We also need smart breakers that add
| noise/harmonics/phase as they approach their limit, which EVs
| would detect to self-regulate. And we need breakers that trip for
| a nominal time like 1 second or shorter, or however long power
| supplies can continue to operate uninterrupted, so that a tripped
| breaker isn't a showstopper.
|
| * Nearly all US portable battery power stations come in only 120V
| with a 30A TT-30 plug normally used for RVs, with no 240V option
| unless you connect two stations for twice the price. If we want a
| 5000Wh/240V station so we can charge our EVs on solar power,
| we'll have to go to Europe or Alibaba to get it.
|
| * Battery chargers, BMSs and inverters are notoriously finicky.
| They often won't charge below a certain voltage threshold,
| causing some solar installations to spend part of the day off. We
| need 95% efficient 10kW rectifiers/inverters that can take any
| AC/DC voltage from 0-500V and output standard
| 12/24/48/96/120/240/480V in all phases without requiring
| configuration from the user, for under $1000.
|
| If we had these ubiquitous power tools, then choice of
| NACS/CCS/CHAdeMO would be moot.
|
| Edit: I forgot to add that before Google fell, they held their
| Little Box Challenge in 2014 to develop a high-efficiency low-
| cost 95% efficient 2 kW inverter similar to the one I mentioned,
| so the tech has been available for almost a decade now:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Box_Challenge
| martythemaniak wrote:
| I don't understand your comment. Tesla sells a charger for $230
| that comes with 120V/15A and 240V/50A connectors
| (https://shop.tesla.com/product/mobile-connector). You can also
| buy a connectors for every type of socket there is
| (https://shop.tesla.com/product/gen-2-nema-adapters).
|
| I had a 240V outlet installed in my garage and plug that in
| there to charge. I also bring it with me if I go to cottages,
| etc. I've used that with questionable sockets and extension
| cables and the charging speed automatically switches to lower
| amps if it can't draw the full 12A. You install a dedicated
| charger if you want 80A or to mount it outside (it's
| weatherproof)
|
| What am I missing?
| megaman821 wrote:
| NEMA 50 with the mobile charger is the way to go. It is
| future proof and only charges a tiny bit slower than the
| dedicated Tesla wall connector. Not to mention with a NEMA 30
| adapter it can charge up RVs.
| stefan_ wrote:
| The reality is that particularly in winter and outside, most
| recent EV cars will barely gain any charge from a 120V standard
| power outlet - keeping the battery conditioned eats up all of
| that power.
| ben0x539 wrote:
| When you say winter and outside, what temperature ranges do
| you mean?
| gruez wrote:
| >* Level 2 J1772 chargers have a resistor that tells the EV how
| much wattage to draw. But that just passes the buck to the
| user, who now must ensure that the outlet can provide that
| wattage. A better system would have a smart power manager that
| senses current saturation or voltage drop near the point where
| the circuit breaker trips. We also need smart breakers that add
| noise/harmonics/phase as they approach their limit, which EVs
| would detect to self-regulate. And we need breakers that trip
| for a nominal time like 1 second or shorter, or however long
| power supplies can continue to operate uninterrupted, so that a
| tripped breaker isn't a showstopper.
|
| wouldn't it be way less work for the homeowner to figure out
| how much current their wiring is rated for, and use an adapter
| that reports a static current? Why introduce complexity by
| making current negotiation dynamic?
| l72 wrote:
| While this sounds good, why are we so focused on charging
| stations? It seems to me, it would make much more sense to have a
| series of batteries that can quickly be removed, and have battery
| exchanges.
|
| Then, if you need a charge, you pull over to a battery exchange,
| swap out batteries in a few seconds, and go on your way.
|
| I have seen this in China with electric scooters, and it seems
| like it could scale well for cars too.
| whalesalad wrote:
| For most EV's (specifically Tesla) the battery is a structural
| component of the vehicle (for better or for worse).
|
| Would require a complete architectural shift. Also, they would
| be incredibly heavy and difficult to swap. Would require
| multiple smaller batteries. People would abuse them. Would
| require huge inventory of batteries all over the place. Imagine
| going on a long road trip, you wouldn't bring batteries with
| you. You'd swap them along the way. What if a particular
| vendor/station is out of batteries for the day? Or doesn't have
| your particular flavor of battery because (like we have seen
| with charging ports in this exact story) manufacturers couldn't
| agree on the interface/size? Or the batteries they have are
| abused and low quality / at end of life? This is very common
| with scooters. It would be a shit show.
|
| On the other hand, electricity is essentially fluid. It does
| not require a container. As battery tech improves and as high
| voltage charging becomes more commonplace, plugging in to
| charge won't be so bad.
| sudobash1 wrote:
| I can think of many reasons:
|
| * Batteries are really expensive and have a limited life. If my
| batteries were wearing out, could I go to one of these swaps
| and hope for a fresher set?
|
| * Different sized cars require different battery capacities (EV
| Ford F150 vs Nissan Leaf). Not a problem with charging cables,
| but a big issue with battery swapping.
|
| * Battery swapping stations would be orders of magnitude more
| expensive than charging stations.
|
| * This is not really useful for many (or maybe most) users. If
| you are driving around town or commuting, charging overnight at
| home should be good enough for most people. (The main hurdle
| here would be convincing landlords of the importance of
| charging).
|
| * It is a lot easier to standardize on a charging port, than to
| standardize one a battery pack. A standardized battery pack
| would dictate how the car is structured.
|
| * It would make innovation harder on battery packs. It could
| make it impractical to try a new battery chemistry or capacity,
| whereas these are fairly easy changes to make without changing
| the charging port.
| asylteltine wrote:
| I agree. Battery replacements need to be the goal not charging.
| It's WAY more efficient and cost effective since you can charge
| at off peak times. Smaller EVs like motorcycles have no chance
| until replacement is an option
| superjan wrote:
| why is this downvoted? It is a legitimate question. You can
| comment if you have a counterargument.
| dkbrk wrote:
| Tesla already tried that, years and years ago. They built a
| fully automated battery swapping station for the Model S, as a
| test of concept, and nobody used it. So the program was
| abandoned as a complete failure, and now Tesla's newer models
| no longer have the capability.
|
| In fact, Tesla's Head of Design and VP of vehicle engineering
| discussed this very topic just a few days ago in Jay Leno's
| video on the Cybertruck [0]:
|
| [0]: https://youtu.be/BGDOKD7ZZqI?si=TR7Txex7qg5VGYar&t=3158
| spaceywilly wrote:
| There's also a company in China that does EV swaps for cars.
| It's a very cumbersome process, the battery can be thousands of
| pounds, and there are also cooling connectors to worry about.
| On top of that, it would require every car to have a
| standardized battery, or else we'd be back to we are today.
|
| It would require a large increase in battery energy density
| combined with a large improvement in thermal efficiency to be
| successful on a large scale. Plug in chargers make way more
| sense. Solid state batteries are on the horizon that will
| charge as quickly as filling a gas tank.
| fexatious wrote:
| I think scooters are about where it stops working well at a
| consumer level.
|
| Battery swapping exists in the forklift industry but it is
| complicated and dangerous. Forklift batteries are about a
| thousand pounds (less than car batteries) and often open cell
| lead acid (which has additional challenges that lithium doesn't
| like spills, watering, and gas discharge). In the type of
| forklifts I occasionally see, the batteries sit on rollers with
| a side access door and lockout. the tunnel the battery lives in
| is a little wider than the battery, has a gate that must be
| reinstalled, and the battery slides around a little during
| operation. Battery is connected to the system with a flexible
| connector.
|
| Despite the electric forklift battery swapping industry being a
| lot smaller than the car charging industry it seems to be a
| reasonably dangerous affair. there are significant OSHA
| regulations, and a nonzero number of yearly injuries.
|
| If you were going to operate a car battery swapping lot, you
| would probably need: powered battery swapping trucks manned by
| professional operators, a very flat well maintained driving
| surface, an indoor charging room, a standardized car battery
| placement, access system, tie down system, and battery size.
| you would need to worry about things getting caught in the
| battery doors, the battery - car cable getting severed, making
| sure you were perfectly lined up with the access door, and
| about doing some sort of tie down routine.
|
| It's doable but it would be a LOT of work to get right.
| Batteries aren't as fungible as tanks of gas so you'd probably
| only use such a system for corporate vehicle fleets or special
| lease pools.
|
| Second link isn't great and is selling batteries but it seems
| to cite useful figures
|
| https://www.osha.gov/etools/powered-industrial-trucks/types-...
|
| https://www.onecharge.biz/blog/lithium-batteries-get-the-
| top...!
| ttyyzz wrote:
| I work in the Volkswagen Group and will only add that Audi and
| Porsche have to go along just because of synergy effects, apart
| from the fact that they also belong to the Volkswagen Group and
| do what their mother wants.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > ... apart from the fact that they also belong to the
| Volkswagen Group
|
| Volkswagen group with itself belongs to the Porsche SE holding.
| The Porsche SE holding is the biggest owner of Volkswagen
| shares (with 1/3rd of all the shares) and holds the majority of
| the shares with voting rights.
|
| And the Porsche SE holding shares are mostly held by the two
| Porsche and Piech families.
|
| So, in the end, Porsche the car manufacturer belongs to the VW
| group which itself belongs to the Porsche SE holding which
| itself belongs to the Porsche (and Piech) families.
| maximus-decimus wrote:
| I wonder how much this will have an Osborne effect i.e. will
| people just stop buying their EVs until they release cars with
| the Tesla connector?
|
| Buying a car without that plug now is a bit like buying a Betamax
| player right after everybody announces they'll soon only support
| VHS.
| londons_explore wrote:
| And that just leaves stellantis brands... Abarth, Alfa Romeo,
| Chrysler, Citroen, Dodge, DS, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel,
| Peugeot, Ram, and Vauxhall.
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