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Comment by rpmisms | Hacker News Reader

Big potential source of income here. The supercharger network stands head and shoulders above every other charging network in the US.

Some key advantages include: reliability, convenience, ubiquity, and location. I've never been to a supercharger with more than one broken stall, they all "just work". I've also tried other options, but I've actually never found one that was operational at the time.

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The problem is that some of them are already pretty crowded on a consistent basis. For example, I drove from NYC to Wisconsin a few times, every time the Maumee, OH Supercharger is full. There's not really any alternatives to it without going really out of the way. I worry that opening the chargers to all EVs might make it even worse.

I think it will cause more people to use the chargers. It will only be _worse_ if Tesla doesn't react and expand (hopefully with their new-found $$$ from other auto makers).

The solution is charging higher rates for non-Tesla charging, which opens the door for even more aggressive expansion of the network.

I agree completely. The convenience of the Tesla system is the most important thing in my book. Charging my Model Y is the same at home as it is at a SuperCharger; just plug it in. It's so easy my Mom and a teenager have done it with no training.

I've used other non-Tesla chargers while on road trips (just to try them out) and the experience is much, much worse. There is usually an app do download, or you have to swipe your CC, or both. There is usually some sort of screen with instructions, but they are all different and sometimes the screen is not visible/broken. It's a real mess.

>> I've used other non-Tesla chargers while on road trips (just to try them out) and the experience is much, much worse.

Of course it is. They have to support cars from all manufacturers (except Tesla). They all have an app, but so does Tesla. The sum of all charger networks is larger than the Tesla network and growing faster too.

I do think it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Tesla doesn't have an app for charging. The act of plugging in the car is enough to associate the car to a billable account, without requiring fidgeting with a phone to open an app to initiate charging/billing. Don't even need to authorize with NFC.

This is a significant improvement over using NFC and apps.

Just plugging in the car won't work for Non-Teslas, though, so that advantage is straight out the window.

At least until there's further standardization to allow it.

There's no reason current non-Tesla chargers couldn't support this, other than they haven't bothered to.

Apparently you can plug in a Ford Mach-e at an Electrify America charger and it "just works". You cannot yet do that with a VW ID.4 (even thought VW built the network) but since the capability is clearly there, I'd expect to see it come in later software updates for the car.

How do I pay to charge someone’s car I’m borrowing for a day or two then without it going to their account? Seems too restrictive. Much better to have an NFC scanner that works with Apple/Google pay services. Taking 3 seconds on a tap to pay system is not a hardship that needs to be reduced.

Right? With recently updated petrol pumps its been pretty simple to negotiate payment. Tap my phone to the pump, choose fuel grade, start pumping. Since its electric, it would be tap phone, plug it in. Having it all tied to some account related with the car its now a much bigger hassle to change the payment method.

That is kind of a corner case unless you’re renting out your car, and not one worth making the main use case worse for, imo. Your friend can always look up the bill and you can Venmo them or hand them cash.

Have you used superchargers? I get the sense that a lot of commenters here haven’t. The current UX is nearly spot on perfect - plug in, walk off, app notifies you when it’s almost done charging. Only issue I’ve seen is needing to go back to your car to avoid idle fees, but it’s understandable.

My argument isn’t that it’s not a corner case, it most certainly is. I wouldn’t need it more than a few times a year max. My point is that the “extra hassle” of a tap to pay system is so amazingly minuscule it’s more than worth it to include the extra flexibility. Tap to pay credit cards and phone NFC payment options are so easy to use now that losing any flexibility at all to not have to use them is not a good trade off, at least in my opinion.

Eh there’s usually still some interface to deal with in those systems, here you don’t have to do anything, it probably cuts off more than half of the interaction time. When it’s been pouring rain, I’ve been especially thankful I didn’t have to fumble for a card in my wallet.

For pretty much all the tap to pay enabled pumps I have used the process was tap payment method, select fuel grade, start pumping. Since this is electric the fuel grade choice would be eliminated. So the process would just be tap payment choice, plug in.

Also, most fuel pumps were covered so the idea of negotiating payment in the rain wasn't too much of a concern. It almost seems like a regression to me that most EV charging stations usually have no covers to them.

Really? At least around here, there’s still usually zip code entry, do you want a car wash, do you want a receipt, etc. I’ve also used some tap enabled non Tesla chargers that are on the better end (no app required, just tap payment), but even there, there’re some screens to go through to accept terms, here’s the rate, which is different from other chargers of this type, wait a little while we authorize the charge, alright now you can go. It’s fine, but it’s not totally frictionless like the Tesla method. Again, you all are arguing for making the UX somewhat worse, in order to add flexibility that’s frankly not needed. I encourage you to just try them, if you haven’t, before having a strong opinion about this.

Lack of coverings, yeah, but you’re not meant to stand around next to the charger, since they’re not as quick as gas pumps - you can sit in the car, and you’re free to “idle” it, running AC/music/surfing the web, or just go inside whatever venue the charger’s associated with. Also, presumably it makes it a good bit cheaper and quicker to deploy more of these.

On the pumps I've used, zip code entry is required for swiped cards but I don't recall a time a tap to pay pump has asked me for one. Also often the "Do you want a car wash? Y/N, Do you want a receipt Y/N" screens can often by bypassed by just choosing fuel grade but I do acknowledge some don't continue until you make some selection. That said, I don't go to too many gas stations with car washes on site so that might be the reason why I don't recall getting stuck on those screens very often.

Either way, the 5-10 seconds of dealing with a prompt or two on the machine pales in inconvenience of waiting for the car to charge, so much at least in my opinion its a rather inconsequential inconvenience. Cool, you've shaved off 10 seconds so I can hurry up and get to my 20-30min wait for the car to charge. Its not like its really saving me that much more time. I've never in my life thought "dang, my life is so hard, I had to tell the pump I didn't want a car wash. If only someone could come up with a process that would prevent the pump from even asking if I would like a wash, my life would be so much better." And I have used the plug-in and charge process with a Mach E and an EA charger, so its not like I don't know what I'm missing. Its just such a massively inconsequential change in my life and yet it gets billed as the best thing since sliced bread and clearly one of the main reasons why you should pick one expensive car over the other. And as I've mentioned elsewhere, it makes it a lot more complicated to change to a different payment method other than the default you've set up on the account. To change a payment method with traditional pumps, I just use a different card. To change the payment method on a plug and go kind of car, well, that depends on the car and how its account is set up and managed.

Also, I get why electric charging stations don't have covers, they're much cheaper to deploy. That said, you're probably going to have your car there longer, there's a higher chance you might be in the car waiting during that time, so it would be really nice especially where I live (Texas) to have that covered. That and while I realize these connectors are designed for it there's something about handling high voltage high amperage power connectors in the rain that makes me quite uncomfortable to plug and unplug in the rain.

Why should the charging stall need an interface? All the cars have a screen that could be used for that.

Probably any other way you'd reimburse them for charges? What are the chances that your charging correlates with usage anyway?

Its an improvement in some ways, a regression in others. Its now much harder to choose a different payment option. On a traditional gas pump, I just use a different card.

> The sum of all charger networks is larger than the Tesla network and growing faster too.

Do you have any stats on this? I'm not doubting you, but I often browse this which can show (crowd-sourced) changes to the Supercharger network and it is growing pretty fast:

https://supercharge.info/changes

https://evadoption.com/ev-charging-stations-statistics/us-ch...

I _think_ that table is measured in groups of chargers.

If so, comparing the brands is a bit moot since most non-Tesla normally has at least 4 (and normally much more) charging bays where as many other DC fast charging places normally have less than 4 (often 2).

No? I guess I'm not sure what you're looking at, it's all explicitly called out. First column is level 2 locations, second column is level 2 connections (aka: charging bays). Column 3 is DC locations, column 4 is DC connections per location. Column 5 they conveniently do the math of average connections per location.

I think people underestimate that simplicity. Sure, the Taycan can charge faster. In real life, the time you'll spend finding a working charger makes it far slower. Tesla makes it just work, and they do so stunningly well. They're compared to Apple for a reason.

As well as software execution. You can see queue times for superchargers, how many stalls are out of order etc, all on the map in each Tesla which is very convenient when on a roadtrip

I hope other OEMs are competent enough to integrate that functionality.

Zapmap and carplay/android auto at least in the UK covers this.

Currently, the best chargers in the UK (for convenience, and as much as my limited experience has been) are Instavolt: contactless payment, no app.

Not quite as convenient, but familiar for most people. Parking meters are worse!

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