[HN Gopher] Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs
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Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs
Author : peutetre
Score : 132 points
Date : 2024-12-06 14:16 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
| xnx wrote:
| 92 locations
| nimbius wrote:
| I applaud the effort to expand charging across the nation as this
| will inevitably increase the comfort level of the average joe on
| the fence with range anxiety.
|
| The elephant in the room that nobody is talking about is the
| connector.
|
| There are SEVEN different competing charging connector types in
| North America. if i dont have an adapter, im either screwed into
| spending 3 hours at a charging station or im calling a tow truck.
| Until the USA adopts a reasonable national standard then all this
| electric car futurism is just branded nonsense and patent
| profiteering.
|
| ICE automobiles have TWO standards for fuel, regular pump, and
| hi-flo nozzles with a wider diameter built to fit commercial
| trucks. they are free to use.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Isn't adoption of NACS supposed to be the solution here?
| i80and wrote:
| In practice there are only three: NACS (currently only at Tesla
| stations); CCS (everywhere that isn't Tesla), and J1772
| (destination charging).
|
| NACS is the industry consensus on the one true North American
| plug to rule them all going forward.
|
| CHAdeMO is completely dead -- you'll sometimes see them, but
| they're being kept on life support if not outright
| decommissioned.
| bdcravens wrote:
| In practical terms, CCS and J1772 are the same standard, in
| the sense that 2 prong and 3 prong US power plugs are the
| same standard, since receiving plugs support both.
|
| I do still see CHAdeMO at a lot of EA and EVgo stations (I
| usually charge at home, so my charging station experience is
| mostly limited to road trips)
| i80and wrote:
| Around here EA's upgrading to CCS-only stations. The older
| non-upgraded stations only have a single CHAdeMO plug that
| is _usually_ out of order because it 's on very old
| hardware.
| floxy wrote:
| There are still in the neighborhood of 190,000 Leafs in the
| U.S.
| i80and wrote:
| For better or for worse, the charging networks have
| generally agreed that the aging Leaf population isn't worth
| supporting.
|
| (Which makes it absolute lunacy that Nissan is _still
| selling the Leaf_ )
| peutetre wrote:
| > _NACS (currently only at Tesla stations)_
|
| The J3400 plug is already being deployed by other charge
| point operators. ChargePoint had J3400 plugs on their
| chargers 6 months ago:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3-0xRTduPI
| isaacdl wrote:
| What are the 7?
|
| In my experience, the two that really matter are J1772/CCS1 and
| NACS (Tesla). There's a scattering of CHADeMO, but I haven't
| yet seen a Level 3 DC charger that has CHADeMO only - the
| cabinet also has a CCS1 plug.
|
| Most (all?) manufacturers will be moving to NACS in the next
| few years. Luckily, J1772/CCS1 and NACS are protocol-level
| compatible, so adaptors are relatively cheap and easy to make.
|
| The remaining incompatibilities are commercial/business
| decisions (e.g. Telsa opening up the Supercharger network to
| other manufacturers).
|
| EDIT to clarify: I'm combining J1772 and CCS1 because there
| aren't any cars that have one but not the other. CCS1 starts
| with J1772 and adds a couple extra pins for DC fast charging
| (Level 3).
| toast0 wrote:
| PHEVs usually only have J1772. Not that we _need_ to charge
| at a station, but I 'm happy to take a free charge when
| available.
| jsight wrote:
| I'm guessing that 7 comes from splitting J1772 from CCS1. It
| sort of makes sense, I guess. There are even a few EVs with
| J1772 but not CCS1 (eg, the early Chevrolet Bolt without the
| DCFC option).
|
| I agree with you, though. Splitting it out is weird at this
| point. It'd be a bit like pointing at all the different
| grades of gasoline and saying filling gas cars is hard. 87
| octane, 89 octane, 92 octane, e-85 (try explaining the
| difference between the 85% ethanol and octane to people for
| some real fun), race gas, 100LL, ethanol free in several
| octanes. And that's not even getting into oil viscosities. Of
| course, the real world isn't hard at all.
|
| EV standards aren't really hard in the real world either,
| though there is a little learning curve.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| There's only 3 plug formats that matter. J1772 for AC charging,
| the Tesla plug (called NACS), and CCS, the other main standard.
| It may look messy but it's trivial in practice, once you can
| use superchargers.
|
| Once you have access to superchargers you can just drive. I've
| driven across the country 3 times in a Tesla, now I have a
| different EV with a CCS plug and access to superchargers with
| an adapter, I'm free to go where I want.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| It's not only the plug shape though, it's also the language
| the plug speaks. Newer Tesla chargers (I think supercharger
| v3 and up) will be able to talk CCS over the NACS connector
| for wide compatibility, but the older ones will look the same
| and only charge a Tesla because they don't communicate with
| CCS.
| greenthrow wrote:
| Yeah the V2s are also slow enough most people wouldn't want
| to use them anyway. They are already drastically
| outnumbered too.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| That "old superchargers don't work with CCS" is true yet
| it's not really a problem. First, the software sites that
| show you chargers know about the different versions. Tesla
| and even Rivian show you only the superchargers you can
| use.
|
| The old superchargers (called v2) used the original
| protocol (CANbus) which is different than CCS's protocol.
| Newer Tesla superchargers speak the original proto and the
| ccs wire protocol. All new chargers uses the new protocol.
| Tesla is slowly replacing their chargers as they age out.
| At the same time this transition helps reserve a few
| chargers for teslas (the older v2 ones).
|
| What this means is you use your incar app or a phone app to
| find chargers, and you only see the ones that you can use.
| This works for Rivian, Tesla, but also GM and Ford. It's a
| messy issue for sure, but it's turns out not to be an
| issue.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Everyone's car already knows what chargers they can use.
| The card doesn't route you to incompatible chargers. This
| is a solved problem. It sounds like you just don't have an
| EV.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Virtually every EV sold today is one of 2 standards.
| Twirrim wrote:
| And adapters for the other standard are <$200, and don't take
| up that much space in a trunk.
| bdcravens wrote:
| In the event I'm ever truly stranded, I do have a Level 1
| charger I keep in my car so that all I need is a 110v
| outlet. Since my car (EV6) supports V2L and has an internal
| 110v outlet, I could also use it to help another stranded
| EV. Not fast, but it is a lifeline.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Half way through your comment I got worried you were
| about to claim you could charge your EV off its own
| internal outlet. No joke, I've seen many people on car
| forums saying EV companies are idiots for not making them
| self charging.
| greenthrow wrote:
| This is not at all accurate. There have only ever been 3 DC
| Fast Charging connectors in use in North America. CCS1, Tesla's
| and Chademo. Chademo was only really used on a couple of cars
| and most popularly on the Nissan Leaf. Chademo is effectively
| dead in the US. Which leaves CCS1 and Tesla/NACS/J3400 (which
| is all the same thing.) All manufacturers are migrating to
| Tesla's plug. This will take time as it's not a trivial change.
| Any EV driver is well served to carry an adapter, but it's not
| totally necessary. My BMW EV does not have accesd to Tesla's
| supercharging network (so no need for an adapter) and I have
| driven over 50k miles in the last 18 months on road trips all
| over the US.
|
| Please stop spreading misinformation.
| mikestew wrote:
| _if i dont have an adapter, im either screwed into spending 3
| hours at a charging station or im calling a tow truck_
|
| Found the commenter that's never actually owned an EV. 13 years
| of EV ownership and numerous road trips, and your hypotheticals
| have never happened to me. Yes, you're _technically_ correct,
| said by some to be the worst kind of correct. Because in day-
| to-day reality, there are basically two kinds of connector
| types.
|
| Though if your day job, as listed in your profile, is changing
| brake pads, I could see how you don't have a lot of contact
| with EVs. :-)
| bdcravens wrote:
| They're technically correct in the same sense that there are
| more than 2 mobile operating systems.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| Or maybe it's kind of like there were more than 4 different
| plugs for mobile phones to charger (lightning for apple,
| several variants of USB, some weirdo proprietary, then
| usb-c). A lot of people like me have 3 there way splitters
| (micro-usb, lightning, usb-c), so I can charge any phone.
|
| The world is switching to usb-c finally
| grecy wrote:
| The US did just adopt a Federal EV charging connector. [1]
|
| Hint: it's Tesla's NACS
|
| 1 : https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/teslas-nacs-set-to-
| become-o...
| titaniumtown wrote:
| Seven? No, there's really just CCS/J1772 and NACS. And those
| are protocol-compatible, just the pins are different. Some
| stations now conveniently have adapters right there too. Your
| portrayal of charging in NA is not accurate.
| bdcravens wrote:
| TIL Rivian has a charging network
| pbreit wrote:
| ~90 locations?
| bdcravens wrote:
| Yeah I've just never seen one, and don't have a Rivian, so it
| never came across the media I consume. I'm in the Houston
| area, and they only have 3 in Texas, none of which are near
| me. Only one is on a freeway that I may likely encounter.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| They're more common further west, especially around
| national parks and other outdoorsy areas
| mikeryan wrote:
| I've got a Rivian and have only used their chargers on a
| road trip to Whistler from the Bay Area. One was in Shasta
| behind a little hotel--you'd not see it if you weren't
| looking for it. The other was at a Homewood Suites lot
| somewhere in Southern Oregon. Unsurprisingly, these were
| back-to-back stops. So, I think they were specifically put
| there to help bridge a gap between Northern CA and Southern
| OR.
| asynchronous wrote:
| They must not have one, because they're ALWAYS taking up two
| stalls at the Tesla supercharger ones.
| menthe wrote:
| Take this to daddy Elon - this has absolutely nothing to do
| with Rivian.
| ggreer wrote:
| Rivian placed their charging port on the front left corner,
| while Teslas have ports on the rear left corner. So to
| charge a Rivian at a Tesla Supercharger, you have to park
| in the adjacent spot and plug in.[1]
|
| More Supercharging stations are adding "trailer compatible"
| spots, so this should become less of an issue over time. I
| would also bet that EV manufacturers will standardize on a
| port location similar to how gas vehicles have. (Early gas
| vehicles often put the fill hole in places like the dash or
| under the seat.)
|
| 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/comments/1f0wt4v/okay_is
| _the...
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Rivian designed their vehicles long before Tesla offered
| them access to superchargers.
| ericcumbee wrote:
| from my understanding this is addressed with the new v4
| supercharger stations that are coming online now. its not
| just a rivian problem its the same with Ford EVs as well.
| Animats wrote:
| Rivian's R&D center is in Palo Alto, but their charger map
| doesn't show a public charger anywhere near there. They have
| zero chargers of their own in Silicon Valley.
|
| There's a standards group at SAE working on making US charger
| payment compatibility work.[1] BP Pulse, General Motors, Ford,
| ChargePoint, Electrify America, Tesla, Toyota, and Rivian are
| on board.
|
| It's good to see more higher-powered chargers. When and if
| solid state batteries with 9 minute charge times ship in
| volume, they'll need big chargers. QuantumState and ProLogium
| announced "breakthroughs" again this week. They do that a lot.
|
| Samples of solid state batteries do exist. It's quantity
| production that's hard. Ehang, the flying car company,
| demonstrated a 48 minute flight using prototype solid state
| batteries recently.[2]
|
| As I've said before, I think the future is one for one
| replacement of gasoline pumps with fast chargers. Once charge
| times drop below 10 minutes, a charging station doesn't have to
| look like a parking lot.
|
| [1] https://www.sae.org/news/2024/12/sae-itc-plug-and-charge-
| fra...
|
| [2] https://www.ehang.com/article/
| izacus wrote:
| How did we get from a situation where you could just pay with
| cash/card for fuel to having monopolized single-brand car fueling
| stations?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| When it started taking 30 minutes to "fill up" your car.
|
| High speed chargers can cost >$200k installed.
|
| A gas pump costs about $25k installed.
|
| If the average person spends 4 minutes at a pump, that comes
| out to:
|
| The time value of a slot at a super charger can be >$5 for each
| charge.
|
| The time value of a slot at a gas pump is ~$0.07 per fill up.
|
| The economics of a charging business are awful. High CapEx, few
| cars, not many of them need chargers since they can charge at
| home.
|
| The economics of a gas station were not terrible.
|
| There's a reason you don't see immigrants from all over the
| world coming to the US to open charging stations the way you
| saw them opening gas stations.
|
| And that's the reason you have charging monopolies.
| VectorLock wrote:
| >High speed chargers can cost >$200k installed. >A gas pump
| costs about $25k installed.
|
| These numbers seem skewed to me. I think you're quoting
| prices for gas pumps with just the pump, not any storage
| infrastructure like underground tanks, stores, employees.
| Then you're quoting the cost high speed chargers without any
| kind of electrical infrastructure to support them, which
| would be expensive, but more analogous to including the cost
| of all the other infrastructure for gas stations as well.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Storage tanks are (relatively) cheap. Stores and employees
| are needed because margins on gasoline are extremely thin,
| and it's an easy way to make money if you're already
| putting in the pumps.
|
| The infrastructure for high speed chargers is a _lot_ of
| metal, which unlike a store, does not contribute extra
| money in addition to the pump.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| Since fast DC charging takes more time, there's a lot
| more time for a person to buy something from the store.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Gas stations depend on cycling people through quickly
| during rush hour. A half dozen people sitting around for
| half an hour at a time won't spend enough to make up the
| difference in volume of traffic a normal station gets,
| and they don't typically devote space for lounges or
| other amenities unless they're nice long haul truck
| stops.
| toast0 wrote:
| I would think that given the chargers are so expensive,
| they'd want to make them easy to pay to use.
|
| I have a PHEV, so using a charger out and about is silly, but
| I've only managed to use one pay charger, and it was a lot
| harder than a gas pump. Even the free ones are hard to use.
| With the PHEV, the charged amounts are rather low, so I
| understand the desire to push stored value accounts, but
| really there should have been colaboration and portability,
| and at least chargers should have clear information on how to
| make them start. Go to some website and here's my name on the
| website. I've seen some that do, but many that don't.
|
| Gas pumps aren't always easy either. I've had several cars
| where you have to hold it right or the pump stops, but I've
| never had much trouble giving them money. Also had fun when
| VW sent out anti-misfueling inserts for my TDI and I got to
| learn which diesel pumps had unleaded gasoline sized nozzles
| and which had leaded gasoline sized nozzles; before the
| insert, the car would take either, after only the leaded fuel
| size.
| MrHamburger wrote:
| Charging via application brings unnecessary friction and
| severely degrades UX.
|
| Another UX offenders are QR codes on charging stalls and
| locking charging cables unless you will find that correct
| QR code so you can unlock your charging cable. Not that
| one, that will unlock charging cable in the stall next to
| you. For FFS why do I need to search for QR codes at a
| first place...
|
| I can imagine a simple solution - take a cable, connect it
| to the car and start changing by tapping a contactless
| credit card reader next to your cable. But I never saw
| simple solutions, seems like every provider wants to
| torture its customers with half assed applications.
| kraftman wrote:
| You can do this in france. Tap once to open the hatch for
| the port, tap when you're done to pay for what you've
| used.
| ggreer wrote:
| You don't even need the contactless credit card reader.
| ISO 15118 is the standard for plug and charge.[1] Tesla
| implements it, as do most other EV manufacturers. The
| problem is that charging networks and manufacturers
| haven't settled on a way to exchange and update
| certificates.[2]
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15118
|
| 2. https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/4/24312002/ev-plug-
| and-char...
| cyberax wrote:
| Tesla doesn't use the ISO standard for plug&charge, they
| have their own custom implementation.
| ggreer wrote:
| Before the ISO standard existed, Tesla had their own
| implementation of plug and charge. They've since added
| support for ISO 15118, allowing non-Teslas to charge at
| supercharging stations without using the Tesla app.[1]
|
| The issue is that the ISO standard relies on TLS
| certificates, but manufacturers and charging networks
| have not yet agreed upon a standard set of CAs. Tesla
| wants to update the standard to remove the TLS
| requirement, which would improve reliability and time to
| start charging. The issue is that signed metering
| receipts are broken in the existing standard, so that
| needs to be fixed before the TLS requirement can be
| removed.
|
| 1. See page 3 of
| https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/GetDocument.aspx?tn=256283
| vel0city wrote:
| They do on newer chargers.
| MrHamburger wrote:
| After my fair share of car being incompatible with basic
| CCS (Connector fits, car tells me it does not like the
| electricity here) I just want the charging to be working
| without some fancy features which charger manufacturers
| are going to implement wrong anyway.
| vondur wrote:
| I agree. ChargePoint has the contactless payment setup,
| but you need to have the Application setup with your
| account on it. After that it works through the Apple
| Wallet app.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| Add on to that that many gas stations make more money from
| going in and buying something in the store. If you stay at an
| EV charging station for longer, you are going to be more
| likely to buy something. This is a reason there are Tesla
| superchargers now at places like sonic in the west. Also see
| Buckees.
| encoderer wrote:
| I imagine battery technology improving fast enough that it
| stays economically challenging to build out charging to
| anything like gas station level scale.
|
| We will come to think of stopping to fill up your car
| routinely as quaint as lamp lighters.
| dpierce9 wrote:
| This doesn't seem right to me. Is this 200k per dispenser?
| The dispenser is really just a fancy switch and a plug in a
| kiosk. If you are talking about the central
| transformer/switching systems, then yes that makes sense. But
| you can add a lot of dispensers to that.
|
| A pump is only 25k to install if you don't include the
| infrastructure to support the pump (tank, canopy, fire
| suppression, filters, etc).all that costs more than 200k.
|
| Let's say 25k is the marginal cost for an extra pump. What is
| the marginal cost for an extra dispenser?
| bangaladore wrote:
| Exactly. I would be surprised if frankly Tesla's cost to
| open a decent supercharging station (6-10 stalls or
| something) is greater than the cost to open a 4 stall gas
| station.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| DCFCs are much more than a "fancy switch". It's a circuit
| capable of converting 3-phase high voltage AC into variable
| high voltage DC at 150-350kW. The power electronics are
| very, very expensive. As far as I'm aware, the large
| transformer you see usually hidden somewhere nearby is not
| the primary cost (although it is expensive, especially for
| very high wattage ones).
|
| And yes, it's 200k per dispenser including the
| infrastructure. It doesn't scale as well as you think it
| does. I think Tesla has been quoted as around 50k per
| dispenser including infra though, so some of it is just
| poor efficiency in costs by other mfgs.
| dpierce9 wrote:
| The fast charger is the expensive part, the dispenser is
| not nearly so. Just like a gas station, dispensers to
| chargers are many-one. I was being a bit glib when I said
| the dispenser is a fancy switch (esp if the lines are
| cooled) but only just a bit.
|
| I see a report that has Tesla's cost as 43k per installed
| dispenser. That is a fully load cost, not the marginal
| cost of dispenser but it is good enough.
|
| Looking at listings for gas stations for sale (with a
| convenience store but no auto repair), I see about
| 150-300k per dispenser. That isn't exactly apples to
| apples but suffice to say it isn't exactly cheap and much
| closer to representing the cost than the cost of a pump
| (which is I assume cheaper than a dispenser).
| Kirby64 wrote:
| At least the Tesla implementation of their latest stuff,
| dispenser to faster charger ratio is 1:1. Their older
| design would gang 2 dispensers to a single 150kW combined
| charge rate, but new ones are 250kW per dispenser for
| each port simultaneously.
| kccqzy wrote:
| The expensive power electronics you speak of are not part
| of the dispenser. The dispenser is really just a very
| fancy switch. It performs some payment authorization and
| then switches on those expensive power electronics.
|
| If you look at a modern Electrify America unit, the
| dispenser is an extremely slim panel with a screen. It
| clearly isn't big enough to contain these power
| electronics.
|
| Now transformer isn't a great name because it implies an
| AC-to-AC device which this is not. So I can see where the
| confusion comes from.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| I'm not confused here, to be clear. There is a giant
| transformer that converts from mid voltage AC to low
| voltage AC at most installations. Because they draw so
| much power they need their own dedicated transformers.
| There's sometimes (depending on the installation) a
| separate cabinet to convert the AC to DC and then
| transfers it to dispensers, though, as you say. The more
| modern high power ones tend to use separate cabinets, I'd
| agree. Older ones could take 3-phase AC directly since
| they're much lower power overall.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| > The time value of a slot at a gas pump is ~$0.07 per fill
| up
|
| I think charging stations have an asset that you have
| neglected to consider: a captive audience.
|
| Yeah, there will always be people who plug in their car and
| then scroll for half an hour. But there are also people who
| would be interested in grabbing a bite to eat, walking
| around, spending money on something dumb, etc. Having a
| charging station be a place that you can spend money on human
| amenities in addition to charging improves the economics.
|
| But instead our charging stations are like, three plugs in
| the back of a hotel parking lot.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > But instead our charging stations are like, three plugs
| in the back of a hotel parking lot.
|
| It's almost as if there's an economic reason for that.
| triceratops wrote:
| Maybe it's a chicken-and-egg situation that needs a
| tipping point. If there's enough EVs on the road it
| becomes profitable.
| ggreer wrote:
| Companies tend not to publish their costs, but we can find
| some info about the economics of charging stations. A grant
| program in Texas subsidized up to 70% of the cost of charging
| stations. Tesla bid $500k for a fast charging station with 17
| plugs, and around $380k for a station with 9 plugs.[1] That's
| $29k per plug for the 17 charger station. Assuming they asked
| for the maximum subsidy, that means Tesla's costs are around
| $41k per plug.
|
| If Tesla bills customers 20 cents per kWh above market
| electricity rates, they'll make back the cost of the plug
| after 205,000kWh. A typical EV has a 70-100kWh battery, so
| that's 2,000-3,000 full charges. If it takes an hour to fully
| charge a car, then each plug will be profitable after 2-4
| months assuming a 100% duty cycle. Actual duty cycles are
| much lower. If we assume the charger is active 15% of the
| time, then it will be profitable after 18-30 months. Again,
| these are all rather pessimistic estimates. Actual markups
| and duty cycles are higher, and actual charging times are
| shorter. If we assume a 20% duty cycle, 45 minute charging
| time, and a 30 cent per kWh markup, it only takes 8-10 months
| to become profitable. I didn't include maintenance costs, but
| those are much lower than gas stations because charging
| stations require no full time staff.
|
| 1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2022/04/14/tesl
| as...
| no_wizard wrote:
| EV manufacturers (re: most car manufactures) are going to
| do all they can to get the government to subsidize this as
| much as possible.
|
| I noticed an explosion of EV charging stations where I live
| after the state government put incentives in to subsidize
| their build out. Other states have done it already and are
| doing it now.
|
| They're going to see the pattern of "I can get the
| government to subsidize this" and will hold out for them
| going forward, is my best guess.
| ggreer wrote:
| It's important to distinguish Tesla from other companies.
| The others haven't figured out how to make chargers
| cheaply yet, so they're forced to ask for subsidies.
| That's why Tesla's bids on that Texas contract were so
| much lower than the competition.
|
| Tesla mass produces their charging stations in factories.
| Entire stations are assembled from modular units, mounted
| on a concrete slab, and shipped to the installation site
| on a flatbed.[1] These optimizations have gotten
| installation times down to 4 days.[2] Sources inside of
| Tesla have claimed their charging network is profitable,
| which is impressive considering that until recently,
| their network got no subsidies because it only supported
| charging Teslas.
|
| 1. https://x.com/Tesla/status/1636085524694695939
|
| 2. https://x.com/TeslaCharging/status/1777395990766432596
| cogman10 wrote:
| > The economics of a charging business are awful.
|
| Ish. I mean one thing the charging business has going for it
| is that after the initial investment the ongoing investment
| is basically 0. You don't have weekly fuel shipments or any
| real ongoing maintenance costs.
|
| You also don't see immigrants all over charging stations
| because they are mostly unmanned. Usually placed in parking
| lots of retail stores.
| MrHamburger wrote:
| > I mean one thing the charging business has going for it
| is that after the initial investment the ongoing investment
| is basically 0
|
| That's not actually correct. You need to pay for reserved
| power in the grid, which can be significant amount
| regardless if you are using that power or not. So
| installing big DCFC charger where nobody is going to use it
| will eat you up on fees for reserved power.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Any insights to what the reserved rates are? Nothing
| really came up on google. I could find some commercial
| power rates which tended to be lower than residential
| rates, but I assumed that's not accurate since these
| things will eat a lot more power than most businesses
| would.
| beAbU wrote:
| > You also don't see immigrants all over charging stations
| because they are mostly unmanned. Usually placed in parking
| lots of retail stores
|
| tf is this supposed to mean
| cogman10 wrote:
| Mostly just responding to the OP
|
| > There's a reason you don't see immigrants from all over
| the world coming to the US to open charging stations the
| way you saw them opening gas stations.
|
| My guess is what they meant by this is the very visible
| minimarts on gas stations often manned by (presumed)
| immigrants.
| ipdashc wrote:
| > There's a reason you don't see immigrants from all over the
| world coming to the US to open charging stations the way you
| saw them opening gas stations.
|
| As the other commenter said, AFAIK, the majority of a gas
| station's income comes from the convenience store, no? Profit
| margins on gas are really low - Google says it's around 2%.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I imagine there are additional factors.
|
| * many prime charging station locations are where the gas
| stations currently are. The high installation costs and
| long charging times mean you'd lose money swapping them 1:1
| right now, and most gas stations are already optimized to
| hold the max pumps per spot of land.
|
| * it is challenging to find new locations not least because
| cities have found out that gas stations are pretty
| problematic uses of land when it comes to neighborhood
| desirability, traffic, etc. so many are loth to approve new
| charging locations.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _from a situation where you could just pay with cash /card
| for fuel to having monopolized single-brand car fueling
| stations?_
|
| The Model T was released in 1908 [1]. Standard Oil was broken
| up in 1911 [2], 6 years after Bowser added a hose attachment to
| his pumps [3].
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T
|
| [2]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil_Co._of_New_Jers...
|
| [3] https://www.saferack.com/evolution-gas-pump/
| Yeul wrote:
| No laws on campaign financing. You let money rule democracy.
| And now the CEO of a car company is part of the US government.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| Because you can't DRM a liquid but you can DRM a charger.
| Vertical monopolies are always a good business plan when
| there's no regulations to prevent you from forcing people to
| buy your overpriced "premium certified" garbage instead of
| paying market rate for the same thing from a generic brand.
| vel0city wrote:
| The last several times I did a DC fast charge that wasn't just
| plug and charge it had a credit card terminal that took chipped
| cards, swiped cards, and tap to pay. Plug in, tap credit card,
| it starts charging.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Most new chargers now have chip/tap readers. Including Tesla's
| V4 chargers.
| peutetre wrote:
| Lack of ambition. Regulation solves the problem. Europe has
| mandated contactless payment for all chargers.
|
| Here's a Tesla V4 charger charging a Kia with contactless
| payment, no Tesla account and no Tesla app:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yflZN0dLT8s
| Suppafly wrote:
| I had no idea that Rivian had a charging network and they build
| them like an hour from where I live so I see them all over the
| place. I just assumed they used the Tesla ones or the generic
| ones you see all over.
| asynchronous wrote:
| They do (mis)use the Tesla ones. I don't expect this
| announcement means literally anything to any EV brand.
| Suppafly wrote:
| in what sense do they misuse them?
| xnx wrote:
| They take up 2 spots: https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/comme
| nts/1f0wt4v/okay_is_the...
| Suppafly wrote:
| Apparently that's the recommended way from Tesla to do
| it, per that thread. Do they not make extension cords you
| can use with the charger cables so you charge from other
| angles?
| Kirby64 wrote:
| No, they don't. Extension cables for something that is
| dumping 250kW would be dangerous, or outrageously
| expensive and bulky.
| floxy wrote:
| Tesla is rolling out stations with longer cables.
| Supposedly, there will be more long cable V4
| supercharging stations than the older short cable version
| in 18 months.
|
| https://insideevs.com/news/742106/tesla-supercharger-
| longer-...
|
| https://electrek.co/2024/11/27/tesla-adds-longer-cables-
| and-...
| vel0city wrote:
| To add to the understanding of why there aren't just
| extension cords for these, those cables are liquid
| cooled. You pretty much need the right sized cable the
| first time to handle this much power.
| jsight wrote:
| A2Z has announced an extension cord, but tbh it sounds
| like a bad idea: https://a2zevshop.com/products/dc-nacs-
| extension-cord-6-9-ft...
|
| That's a lot of power through an air cooled cable.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| How are they supposed to use them?
| peutetre wrote:
| That's a straightforward failure of charger design.
| Tesla's cables are too short.
|
| The V4 chargers have longer cables and solve the problem.
| x13 wrote:
| 3,500 new locations is helpful for all EV owners (and brands)
| Schiendelman wrote:
| They are using them correctly. That is how Tesla tells Rivian
| owners to use them. Tesla is updating their chargers with a
| longer cable to make this less of a problem over time.
| whicks wrote:
| Rivian's charging network map:
| https://rivian.com/experience/charging#map
|
| They have plans to install 3,500 stations across North America,
| but they have a ways to go to reach that level of density.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| Their strategy was to build them where there weren't other dcfc
| chargers, opening up new areas especially around outdoors places.
| Their chargers are much better maintained in general than the
| infamous Electrify America (they really struggle to fix EA
| chargers when they have problems, and they have problems) -
| there's a long story behind this.
|
| Rivian started before the plan to use superchargers was even
| envisioned, so today some of those holes that Rivian was filling
| aren't so important because tesla superchargers are nearby.
|
| Rivian has done a great job keeping their chargers working, have
| the software be reliable, just running a good service. Many and
| maybe most DCFC charger networks (DCFC meaning high power CCS
| chargers not including Tesla superchargers) really have struggled
| to match the uptime and reliability tesla SC. Tesla's magic
| ability it: (1) fix them when they break, quickly. (2) don't just
| build 4 chargers in a spot, it's almost the same cost to build 8
| or 10. (3) string them together along main travel routes to make
| it possible to travel.
|
| The entire rest of the the charging industry basically fails at
| those 3 things. Most of them can't manage to fix a broken
| charger, sometimes in months. One major reason is they often
| don't have standardized hardware so there might not be a spare
| hardware to fix something there.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Tesla's magic is excellent, quick, and cheap manufacturing
| coupled with their own dedicated software for them. And
| constant iteration.
|
| EA is a pathetic failure because its a hodgepodge of outsourced
| components (so very difficult to iterate) running on some
| shitty outsourced windows based software.
| piva00 wrote:
| EA is a pathetic failure because it was the punishment for
| Volkswagen for the emissions scandal. They were obliged to do
| it, not chosen.
| qwerpy wrote:
| As a cybertruck owner who likes to drive deep into national
| parks, I'm optimistic about this. Tesla covers the big highways
| really well with their superchargers, but where they fall short
| are those adventure/outdoors destinations. E.g. the north
| cascades loop in WA state. You can find the occasional level 2
| charger but they are painfully slow and aren't maintained well.
| Prior to the CT, Tesla didn't have "adventure-capable"
| vehicles, so serving those locations was not a priority.
| Hopefully with Rivian's DNA being more outdoors-oriented,
| everyone with a beefy EV can benefit.
| m463 wrote:
| I've come to notice that there is no incentive for 3rd party
| ev-chargers to be dependable.
|
| Telsa and rivian have a vested interest in keeping the chargers
| working. Their sales _depend_ on the chargers working. Even a
| little bad press is a multiplier against sales.
|
| They also have significant engineering effort throughout the
| charging ecosystem, from the batteries, on-board
| infrastructure, standards, mapping, strategic coverage for
| sales and more. Lots of engineering support and problems solved
| quickyly
|
| Meanwhile I kind of suspect 3rd party charging systems are
| probably like 3rd-party public telephones or atms -- a rent-
| seeking opportunity from someone who will not shell out for
| quick detection and fixing of broken chargers.
|
| I noticed this years ago - chaging a non-tesla EV was a
| crapshoot. evgo was expensive and pretty reliable, but only
| ever had two fast chargers. blink was _always_ broken -
| completely undependable ev chargers. chargepoint seemed ok, but
| only had l2 /slower chargers.
|
| There is basically no downside to these folks letting chargers
| be offline for a while.
| PaulWaldman wrote:
| > I've come to notice that there is no incentive for 3rd
| party ev-chargers to be dependable.
|
| I don't know, how often would you stop at a gas station if
| their pumps weren't reliable? Many 3rd party chargers are
| selling electricity at a mark-up.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Unfortunately, the lost income is marginal. The risk for
| Tesla/Rivian, or even a gas station, is more existential.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Yeah, the forging of EA from the Dieselgate money
| probably has a lot to do with why they don't feel the
| heat on unreliable chargers.
|
| I suppose it would be different if chargers were run by
| electric utilities or were there to goose the sales of
| convenience stores.
| jsight wrote:
| That's true, but there's also another weird counteracting
| effect. Lets say you have 4 chargers offering a full 350 kw
| each. If they get used at full power for ~15 minutes in the
| month, the demand charge for the month might be ~$10k
| (probably will be higher, tbh). This will be true even if
| the stations themselves see ~15% utilization.
|
| But break two of them? Yeah, there might be an occasional
| line, but your fee drops to $5k and you still produce the
| same revenue. TBH, some of these stations likely have
| better ROI when a stall or two are broken.
|
| High utilization sites are completely different, of course.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I think the answer is that there needs to be, like gas
| stations, substantial retail/dining side-quest stuff set up
| to get revenue. If you don't have working chargers, people
| won't buy your hamburgers and pop. Or whatever.
|
| Likely though this market is going to need some
| regulation/standardization.
|
| In the end though, the demand is sporadic. Supercharger use
| is only for a minority of use cases (road trips) for a small
| segment of EV users. I've had my Polestar2 for 3 months and
| have yet to use one. It will never carry the same revenue
| possibilities as gas stations, esp as battery sizes go up.
| nkrebs13 wrote:
| Agree with your thoughts. To add - I've taken my Model Y on
| many roadtrips and have been to many superchargers. A solid
| number _are_ at restaurants/shops/etc. Some aren't -- but
| there are so many chargers that usually you can alter the
| planned route to include a longer charge wherever you want.
|
| Not only will batteries get bigger, but chargers will get
| faster. Most of my stops now are 10-15min so often there's
| not really a need for any side-questing. Tesla recently
| added a supercharger-specific leaderboard for their in-car
| Mario Kart clone, which is super cool. I think we'll see
| some growth there for that kind of thing, but the market is
| obviously much lower than gas stations/etc
| peutetre wrote:
| The main problem has been lack of standardization. No one
| wants to invest in infrastructure when there's no common
| standard to build to.
|
| North America is a long way behind Europe in EV charging
| infrastructure:
|
| https://evboosters.com/ev-charging-news/europe-
| surpasses-900...
|
| And both are behind China:
|
| https://evboosters.com/ev-charging-news/the-state-of-
| public-...
|
| Europe and China have charging standards that everyone can
| build to. There is more investment, more charge point
| operators, more charger manufacturers, and more chargers
| simply because companies can deploy chargers that will work
| with all cars.
|
| Eventually North America will achieve standardization by
| building to CCS chargers with the J3400 plug but that will be
| a slow and gradual process. There will be many adapters and
| retrofits in the meantime.
| agarwa90 wrote:
| I wonder why did they didnt consider doing this right from the
| start!
| 78adad2323 wrote:
| Has anyone does a trade-in value for these EVs?
|
| The depreciation of these EV vehicles are crazy...
| titaniumtown wrote:
| Speaking from the other side, I got an EV (Ioniq 5) ~$10,000
| off with ~15k miles on it.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| $10k off what? Original list price? Or advertised used price?
| tirant wrote:
| The real deal today is to buy an EV second hand, not to sell
| it.
|
| There's still so much fear on how long the battery will hold
| up, however all statistics are pointing at > 80% capacity for
| 10 years old / 200,000 miles.
|
| Expectations for replacement costs in 2026-2027 are around
| $40/kWh, which will be around $3000 for replacing the typical
| Tesla battery.
| jsight wrote:
| People say that, but just like with other cars, it is very
| vehicle, timing, and trim dependent. The Rivians seem to be
| doing ok. Even a lot of Teslas are doing ok, not great.
|
| Those Model Ys that people bought for ~70k a couple of years
| ago? Those are makin' some headlines.
| ulrischa wrote:
| Cool feature: The Rivian R1T and R1S are equipped with a "Tank
| Turn" feature, allowing the vehicle to rotate 360 degrees in
| place by spinning the left and right wheels in opposite
| directions.
| hinkley wrote:
| That's hell on the tires if they are fixed axle isn't it?
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Not if you are on a loose offroad surface. The Sherp offroad
| vehicle for example, only turns this way.
| titaniumtown wrote:
| Very neat! I bet it isn't good for the tires though haha.
| HeavenFox wrote:
| The Mercedes G implementation of this specifically called out
| not to use this feature on pavement :)
| mrkurt wrote:
| This was a demo they did in a video but it's not available to
| anyone who actually owns one of these. I believe the EV
| Mercedes G Wagon does have it as a feature though.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Could you edit your comment? This is incorrect. It was a demo,
| but they chose not to do it because it does so much damage to
| ground surface, and their vehicles are intended to be used in
| places like national parks where that matters a lot.
| fredsmith219 wrote:
| The have a charger very near to where I go in Michigan, and 30
| miles from the nearest supercharger. They announced earlier this
| year that they would open up the RAN "near the end of the year"
| so I've been waiting for this announcement. The fact that they
| will only gradually modify existing chargers to work with other
| vehicles is a disappointment. It's all CCS so it should just be a
| software update. I am really looking forward to charging my model
| Y at the Rivian charger. I'm guessing that that will be a long
| time coming now. Oh well, I guess the Red E charger gets my
| business for the foreseeable future. They have excellent customer
| service and they just upgraded the charger to be much faster.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > It's all CCS so it should just be a software update.
|
| Nope.
|
| CCS has to negotiate voltages with the attached vehicle.
| Unfortunately there isn't a standardized pack voltage and the
| range of what it can be is anywhere from 400 -> 900V.
|
| That can mean new inverter hardware at a location to handle the
| varying range of voltages that come in. For a single
| manufacturer, it's easier as the cars and charging stations are
| more aligned on the supported voltages.
| jsight wrote:
| All CCS cars support 400V charging, though. Just some of them
| do it much more slowly compared to an 800V charger.
|
| This is why Tesla is able to work with CCS, despite
| superchargers not supporting 800V.
| mikeryan wrote:
| I've only used the RAN chargers once, but IIRC, they don't
| really have an interface for allowing third-party transactions
| (i.e., paying with a credit card).
|
| You have to register your vehicle through their app, which may
| also make this a bit more difficult.
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