Non-Tesla Supercharger Pilot | Hacker News Reader

Non-Tesla Supercharger Pilot

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89 pointspunnerud178 comments

This has been going on for a few months now, and will probably spread in Europe. Remains to be seen what happens in the US, since Tesla has their own charging connector here. European Teslas use CCS, but obviously that wasn't an option for the first years of the US supercharger built-out, so it seems we're stuck with their proprietary connector here.

Tesla does appear to be planning some superchargers in Texas with CCS connectors available, because they're required as a condition of grant money: https://insideevs.com/news/556749/tesla-grant-application-su...

Could be they'll start doing that at other new construction if they want to bring non-Tesla supercharger access to the US. Or maybe they can make a Tesla-to-CCS cable adapter and sell it to people who want to join the supercharger club. Or maybe they won't do anything.

>European Teslas use CCS, but obviously that wasn't an option for the first years of the US supercharger built-out

Why not?

Predates the standard, I think?

CCS didn't exist yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Charging_System

Doing a bit of looking, CCS was standardized in 2011 and first couple charging stations went up in 2012, which is actually similar timing to Tesla's superchargers. But I would assume the Supercharger system was designed in-concert with the Model S and they were well along in development.

If they really wanted to they probably could have got on board in 2011 with the other manufacturers and made it happen. I thought CCS came along a couple of years later.

Add that alongside the UX to reasons I don't want a Tesla.

CCS type 1 was one standard among many. It wasn't until CCS type 2, and many many many years later (my recollection was the EU mandated it's use in 2018 or so?) that it became viable.

Chadamo (IIRC) was the evident standard at the time, and couldn't do supercharging.

CSS type 2 became the EU standard in 2014.

Tesla needed to create the Supercharger network to ~exist - Unfortunate that it didn't get adopted as standard.

Build Back Better bill, in addition to subsidizing non-tesla chargers everywhere, is trying to standardize the charging tech in the US. [1]

[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/11/29/2021-25...

Tesla announced they plan on selling a Tesla to CSS plug and opening up the supercharger network. However, timing is always an issue. It could happen tomorrow or in twenty years and neither would surprise me.

The Superchargers have two cables[1]. One CCS and one Tesla standard. In the US, they can start upgrading the supercharger network with that system.

[1] https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/tesla-c...

>> European Teslas use CCS, but obviously that wasn't an option for the first years of the US supercharger built-out, so it seems we're stuck with their proprietary connector here.

The standard connector for DC chargers in the us is IMHO horrible. The cables are heavy, they have redundant connections - 2 (unused in a fast charger) for AC, 2 for DC. They use an overly complex PLC (powerline communication) interface over signal wires.

The whole notion of "charging networks" is stupid too. People end up having a whole bunch of different phone apps so they can use whatever network they are closest to when they need to charge. I'm not sure why investors think there's going to be big money in charging networks. IMHO the end game will be charges at McDonalds along the major highways, so people can eat and poop while their car charges on long trips. The rest of the time people will charge at home.

Back to connectors, the Tesla connectors are really nice compared to the standard. But politics defined the standard.

> IMHO the end game will be charges at McDonalds along the major highways, so people can eat and poop while their car charges on long trips

Somebody has to manage/monetize those chargers at McDonalds. The "free EV charge while you are at our store" is going away quickly. Hopefully that is an existing charging network, but in the worst case McDonalds will start their own. Hopefully we can get some location/bluetooth based app activation, or maybe just a QR code.

One of Tesla biggest mistakes was not to make that charger an open standard. It might have been an industry standard if they had.

They did, actually. But the patent grant involved a reciprocity agreement (very much along the lines of what was pioneered by open source outfits like Red Hat in the early 2000's), and the industry took a pass. The Japanese CHAdeMO standard was likewise rejected by western automakers in favor of CCS. Which is not one but two incompatible standards. CCS is just awful. It just is. They literally decided to implement the worst available choice two different ways.

But the CHAdeMO example is what gives away the strategy. CHAdeMO was a "real" standard, not a proprietary product, with documents available from real standards organizations publishing it (FWIW: it's better than CCS but not as good as Tesla). But that still wasn't acceptable. Which tells you that the idea that "standards" wasn't ever the requirement. No one wanted to give Nissan a win any more than they did Tesla.

Basically: CCS is bad because it was designed to be bad, because no one wanted EVs to succeed and one tactic picked was to make their charging experience a mess.

> CCS is bad because it was designed to be bad, because no one wanted EVs to succeed

Europe has standardized on CCS Type 2 Combo. The European EV market is three times the size of the US EV market:

https://www.ev-volumes.com/country/total-world-plug-in-vehic...

Your supposed CCS plug conspiracy seems to have backfired.

European CCS standardization is in most cases enforced by law. That doesn't say that CCS is better, it says that it's what the local auto industry demanded in an attempt to freeze out competition. Again, CHAdeMO would have been the objectively better choice.

And even then, it's worth noting that the market leader in Europe is still the company offering an integrated brand-specific charging system. They just have to do it with the inferior connector.

> That doesn't say that CCS is better, it says that it's what the local auto industry demanded in an attempt to freeze out competition.

No, you have this exactly backwards. Common infrastructure standards are what enable competition. New manufacturers can enter the European EV market without wondering what plug to support. New charging networks can build out knowing that they can support all cars on the same plug.

Proprietary plugs freeze out competition by their very nature.

> CHAdeMO would have been the objectively better choice.

No, CHAdeMO 2.0 had no roadmap to 500 kW whereas CCS has for a long time. CHAdeMO also has no AC charging support and requires two separate inlets for DC and AC. CCS has AC by virtue of its combo design only needing the one combo inlet.

CHAdeMO 3.0 has changed the plug design to be a DC and AC combo like CCS, but with control pins in the DC part.

> it's worth noting that the market leader in Europe is still the company offering an integrated brand-specific charging system

No, Volkswagen is the EV market leader in Europe by quite some margin:

https://eu-evs.com/bestSellers/ALL/Groups/Year/2021

Volkswagen owns many automotive brands (VW, Audi, Skoda, SEAT, Porsche, etc.) so sales are split across more brands and models:

https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/group.html

> No, CHAdeMO 2.0 had no roadmap to 500 kW whereas CCS has for a long time.

We're talking about decisions made in 2013-14! And it topped out at 400 kW, a power that no one is delivering on a public charger yet anyway. Just stop. Tesla was the clearly superior technology at the time. CHAdeMO wasn't as good but was still much better than CCS, which everyone else picked anyway because they wanted to retard the BEV market.

CCS is, as I said upthread, just a terrible, terrible standard. By design.

> We're talking about decisions made in 2013-14!

Yes, you have to think forward.

> And it topped out at 400 kW

So not as fast as CCS. Tesla's proprietary plug is also still not as a fast as CCS. The fastest charging cars on the road today are CCS cars.

> CCS is, as I said upthread, just a terrible, terrible standard. By design.

Conspiracy theories will get you nowhere in life. CCS is the dominant standard globally. That "terrible, terrible standard" has done well for itself.

What you should moan about is the fact that Tesla still hasn't switched to CCS in North America. The longer they delay the switch, the more it will cost.

The industry, at least in the US, is moving to support for the Plug & Charge standard which will eliminate needing specific accounts with different charging providers. The largest provider, Electrify America, already supports this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15118

Tesla would have CCS everywhere in the US if the BBB federal $$ would come their way as a result.

Due to that bill not passing, it's not a priority.

Not to mention how angry Musk is at Biden for snubbing Tesla...

"Biden is a damp sock puppet in human form"

https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1486767109275328516#m

If anyone here has charged outside the tesla network for a non-tesla EV, the prices being charged for electricity is absurd.

I've heard rates as high as 45c/kWh. How can the government be hellbent on giving EV tax credits and incentives and turn a blind eye to the 5x markup being charged at charge stations.

Canada has several 350KW fast chargers that are 20c per minute. You can pull down 4KW a minute on many fast charge cars (Hyundai Ioniq5, Kia EV6, Porsche Taycan, Lucid Air for example). A drive-up 70% charge (good for ~200 miles) on an Ioniq5 would cost you $3.60 Canadian dollars or just under $3 USD. Electrify America's fast-chargers in California for example are $0.43/kWh - that's $26 USD for the same charge. Electricity costs in California are only about 50% higher than Ontario, so that doesn't account for the markup. Even with a paid monthly membership, you're still at $18 per charge compared to the <$5 cost of power.

Guess what - 200 miles on a 35mpg gas car in San Francisco is $23.

I really think some progress needs to be made on charge costs. Granted it's cheaper than gas and it's a free market, I don't think it's in the industry's best interest to keep on this track.

edit: Just checked PG&E's business EV rate plans... they max out during peak at $0.31/kWh and that is only from 4-9pm. It is $0.13 or $0.11 for the remainder of the day.

https://www.pge.com/en_US/small-medium-business/energy-alter...

ElectrifyAmerica is $0.31 a kWh with a $4 a month subscription (that you can cancel at any time), it’s pretty reasonable, given you’ll basically take it on any road trip where you charge more than 33kwh. $0.31 is less than what PGE charges me most of a time at home, and less than most Tesla Superchargers in the area!

Your example about per minute rates is a bit misleading, given most people who’ll use those PetroCanada stations won’t have such a fast charging car and that petrocanada will charge more when they switch to per-kWh pricing.

I added the discounted membership cost, again it's still pretty heavily marked up over the cost of that power being charged to the stations (which is way lower than you PG&E peak residential rates).

edit: You can head to the business BEV calculator and calculate for 200 cars doing full charges daily between 6am and 10pm (200 mile charges), every day of the month, the total monthly cost for power divided by the number of charges gets you to ~$10.50/charge power cost. So they're marking it up 80% in the cheapest case. If you only charge during peak hours (4-9pm) you could come out slightly ahead of the cost of energy assuming you paid for the membership.

Utility demand charges for pulling 50-300 kw of current makes up the majority of the cost of providing fast DC charging. Fast DC providers like Tesla and Electrify America attempt to offset this by colocating batteries at the station to shave utility demand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqqOM9nzz-A

https://www.osti.gov/pages/servlets/purl/1543251

It's included in the above calculator by PG&E. They have an hourly-rate all-in plan for EV charging which rolls in power demand and energy.

If you ask PGE for 350kw, you'll see quickly how much more they'll charge you in demand charges :)

You can probably think of this as gas prices at motorway stations vs gas prices at your local supermarket. OK, the spread is smaller for gas, but the underlying principle is the same. You pay for convenience and speed. Also, if you don't really need it, you shouldn't use fast chargers - charge at home, or at slower AC charge points. With those higher DC prices you are incentivized to do so.

It pisses me off, and I think it is harmful when 6.6kW Chargepoints cost 34c/kWh (operators say, "gee nobody is using this station, why build more")

On the bright side, it should be improved with competition, and 99% of charging is at home anyway.

There is a reasonable argument to be made that remote 350kW charge banks have high infrastructure & peak price costs, but urban L2 chargers have no such good argument to hide behind.

IMO, EV chargers that provide less than 50 kW never should have existed and did a lot of damage to EV adoption.

For fuck's sake, my charger at home is 11 kW. (240V, 48 amp.) There's no reason any public charger should be less than that.

It's not good for batteries to fast charge them all the time. You should only use fast chargers when you need to, like on long road trips. It absolutely makes sense for public chargers at, e.g., office buildings to only be Level 2.

Oh yeah, chargers at the office could be level 2.

But at the grocery store? I think those should all be level 3.

Though really, I think that if you can't charge at home, then a BEV just isn't the car for you. Even if you can charge at work, what happens when you start looking for a new job, or you begin working from home?

A simple AC->DC rectifier/transformer and some voltage regulation banks + integrated circuits and 10ft of cables should not be a $200,000 a piece. I can almost guarantee you Tesla's BOM (at least for their 72KW supercharger) is not over $20k as delivered & installed cost for an entire station was on average under $200,000 in 2016, and stations have on average 10 chargers per station.

From Tesla's disclosures on capital expenditure as it relates to supercharger stations in 2016, before scale-out savings or optimizations to date (They are now over 3,000 stations) :

While $40.6 million might seem like a lot, it's a tiny portion of Tesla's total capital expenditures. Tesla spent about $1.3 billion on capital expenditures in 2016.

Since Tesla's total Supercharger locations expanded from 584 to 790 during this period, the company likely spent around $197,000 per new Supercharger location during the year.

Same prices as FastNed and still way cheaper than ionity. Supercharging will always be more expensive than slow-charging, but I've used 45ct/kwh for a 2000km trip this month, and it still is less than half the price of using gasoline.

IIUC, these chargers cost $50-$250k a piece.

I imagine the technology will improve and they'll need to be upgraded in less than ten years.

Each gas pump probably costs similar or less - and you only need to use one for a couple of minutes. A charger you can tie up for a half hour or longer.

Even at that price - charging would be about half the revenue as the average re-fuel. So you need to charge more to make similar profits.

Gas stations don't really make any money selling gas - they make it all from selling candy bars and sodas.

I would expect the spread to be much higher on charging than re-fueling.

I’ve decided I’m going to stop trying to figure out what acronyms like IIUC mean. I figured it out, but I realize my time is better spent elsewhere, and ultimately it’s OK if I don’t solve the little puzzle embedded in the comment.

https://www.google.com/search?q=iiuc+acronym

> I imagine the technology will improve and they'll need to be upgraded in less than ten years.

What improvements do you foresee which will require these to be upgraded?

I imagine we have not reached the physical limit for how much power can be transfered over a period of time.

So I would imagine that better chargers can exist, and I imagine upgrading will be significant capex.

As far as the cables and plugs themselves, we're pretty much nearing the practical limits of our known physics. These days car battery packs can't keep up with the max theoretical rate these chargers can supply for longer than a few minutes. We'll have to come quite a bit further with our battery technology to really stress CCS cables and connectors.

Tesla's installed cost on a supercharger is $20k, that includes manufacturing, transport, installation and anything else needed at the supercharger station.

There's no reason on earth that dc charger would be $250k a piece. That is the price of a large traction transformer for an electric train that can supply 10MW of variable power on-demand.

I have a "screw-you-consumer" price on a 22KW fast charger (ccs) at $8,000. The manufacturing cost does not scale linearly nor does the economy of scale when buying thousands of them.

.69€ or $.77 on on Fastned, one of the largest relatively fast charging networks in the EU. .45€ or $.50 with an 11.99€/$13.37 monthly subscription.

BP just announced in their Q4 earnings report that they are starting to make more money on electric charging in the US than on gas, as their margins are uncomparable. The free market will figure it out.

> You can pull down 4KW a minute on many fast charge cars

What does that mean?

They probably meant 4 kWh

What I want as a Tesla owner, is more non-supercharger charging. My biggest inconvenience is to travel, and stay at a hotel without charging, then I have to drive out of my way every few days find a supercharger, sit and wait while it charges then drive back. If hotels (which already have electricity) could install a few 20A-30A chargers that I could use overnight, it would make traveling with a Tesla significantly easier.

This.

Destination chargers are highly underrated.

I've started inquiring about this on all hotel stays even if I know I probably don't strictly need it. It at least gives the signal that this is something I value. In Europe with 230V if places just install normal outlets it's already a big benefit. It's easy to get 30 to 50% charge overnight from those. With 110V that's more limited and a proper slow charger may be needed.

Oh I've never understood this correctly. My country has 240v/10a power points as standard. Do Americans charge at less than half the speed of this?

This explains the constent complaints about "lines at superchargers", an issue I've never encountered.

In the US houses are supplied with 240V split phase. So most outlets are 120V from one of the two parts of the same phase. There are some outlets (e.g., for a drier) that use the whole 240V and with those getting high amps is also easy because US homes also usually have higher total power supplied than in Europe and they have standardized plugs that mean higher amps are available (without going to the industrial plugs we use in Europe). But if all you have is a pre-existing 120V outlet then it's very slow. So in more cases they need to do an upgrade but when they do the result is usually pretty good.

>With this pilot, some stations are now accessible to Non-Tesla EV drivers in selected countries via the Tesla app

Why should it be necessary to install software in order to fuel a vehicle? What benefit exists for the consumer?

I have noticed this as a trend in physical services, I was asked by a grocery store to install software prior to purchasing groceries, however they were gracious after I declined, and permitted me to purchase groceries using only my debit card.

It's not necessary for regular charging poles, but you do need some way to identify yourself. Using an app is a bit more environmentally friendly than mailing out loads of plastic cards. Personally I don't know why chargepoles don't just support chip and pin, at least in Europe - almost all parking places here do now.

Why identify yourself? Isn't it enough to use a payment system?

Probably because Tesla isn't into retail point of sale and would rather reuse existing app based infrastructure.

Also important to note Tesla drivers don’t need to use the app for charging. Although it does have helpful features if they do, like being able to check on the charge remotely.

The described experience of selecting a charger, pressing start charging / stop charging etc. is only for non-Teslas because they don’t have the integration.

> is only for non-Teslas because they don’t have the integration.

Several non-Tesla models support a standardized protocol to negotiate billing information in the charging handshake. Its a matter of once again Tesla using a proprietary system instead of adopting industry standards.

> Its a matter of once again Tesla using a proprietary system instead of adopting industry standards.

Ah, you mean there is already an industry standard around this? That's great, but could you tell us what it is (surely the standard that Tesla isn't following has a name or something)?

The standard is the easy to remember ISO 15118. Not all EVs support it yet, and for sure many charging stations don't implement it, but there is an international signaling standard to communicate this data which theoretically everyone can implement and participate in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15118

Thanks. It looks like 4 or 5 vehicles support it starting in 2021. Hopefully Tesla will join them someday.

Ionity chargers (a majority of fast chargers in Europe) are made by a consortium of European car manufacturers, and they strongly nudge you to use their subscriptions (either sold directly or trough the manufacturers). If you try to pay directly, the experience is miserable, most certainly on purpose.

Non-tesla chargers in the US are also awful - different payment models, broken chargers, etc.

That's embarrassing. Another benefit to fossil fuels then. If they don't up their game lawmakers might even catch notice and step in?

How would that work? Tesla would need to install card readers at every supercharger stall?

Is this ironic? Even mcdonalds self-serve kiosks have a card reader each.

That's fine that MCD does that but Tesla already has 30k+ stations around the USA with no reader. A retrofit to include that wouldn't be cheap OR fast and it would introduce another point of failure.

You know McDonalds had tens of thousands of locations before they had self service kiosks, right? They had to "retrofit" them in too.

You mean like every pay-at-the-pump gas stall has for something like a decade? I hate this app payment system for chargers.

I spent something like 30 minutes once trying to get the ChargePoint app to play nice with my phone (didn't want to install on my Motorola phone) then once I finally got it loaded it took another 15 minutes to get my card added and turn on the charger. Then it finally told me the charger wasn't working after it tried to activate the charge cycle.

I eventually gave up and found a hotel 10 minutes away that happened to have a free charge stall. Took the front desk a box of fresh donuts and asked them if I could spend 30 minutes in their lobby so I could get enough charge to make it home in my Nissan Leaf. Luckily they were nice enough to let me use it and I eventually made it home.

They could go with NFC only (swipe card or phone), that's at least one app-less and standardized payment system.

Self serve gas pumps solved this >60 years ago. No advantage (except for Tesla's) to collect more data.

Avoiding card fees is a legitimate thing, I admit

How are they getting paid without fees? Don't you pay via card thru the app? Or do they pay 30% to Apple and Google (unlikely)

Because in this case it's 100x faster to start charging via the app, and there are no card readers at Tesla's superchargers anyway - how else would you pay?

So in the end you have one card for all chargers... except Tesla's. In Europe most charging infrastructure can be accessed through most subscriptions, even those from competitors.

...At a roaming price, which can be up to 500% of the real price.

No-one uses that roaming crap unless they just bought a new car and either don't know better or have some kind of brand-specific deal for a limited time.

Why do you justify that conclusion? There is no reason Tesla couldn’t participate is such a subscription. The app is just because there is no card reader at the charger.

And because the non Tesla car doesn’t identify the car (and thus indirectly the payment account) to the charger as a Tesla automatically does.

I'd wager it's the same reason they're getting rid of parking pay booths and parking meters - it's a hell of a lot cheaper for people to install your app and pay through that, than installing traditional payment options. Why would you pay for the debit/credit terminal, then the monthly fee to connect it to the internet? If people want to use your service so badly they'll install your app.

You mean of course it is simpler and cheaper for the provider, not for "people" (the users).

For actual users nothing beats the simplicity of paying via contactless card (or mobile) payment solution. Right now I have probably over a dozen apps installed just for paying for various services like parking (of course, each city/country has its own), it is _madness_, and I'm not even using anything special. I hate this passionately and would actually pay for simplicity!

I disagree. It's easier for me to have my payment method attached to an account and that account to be automatically debited whenever I connect my car.

It’s sorta also creates a situation where you need to have a smartphone with a decent specs to access basic services like parking and fuel. Whereas earlier it was any legal tender.

I wonder if a lawsuit could be brought against companies that restrict how they accept payment for services. It would seem like something like cashless stores would be illegal if cash is legal tender.

The constitution only specified that cash can be used to settle debts or pay taxes. Stores can (and many do) refuse cash.

You also need to read and write to access basic services.

I wonder where we could just provide all stubborn people with basic government endorsed smartphone just to shut up this argument.

The Government does provide free public education to cover the read/write parts.

And yes, absolutely a subsidy for folks to get a decent smartphone would be just fine.

No business is required to do business with you. Now, if you incur a debt and then they refuse to accept your money, that could potentially be a problem, but otherwise it's perfectly ok for them to refuse your cash at the register and tell you to leave without the products you wanted to purchase.

I have two apps for EV charging, one app for finding charging stations, two apps for parking, one app to connect to the car, and another app to connect to an OBDII bluetooth dongle. My PTSD flairs up (slight exaggeration) whenever I see a new company offering chargers or parking.

Higher costs for the provider translate into higher costs for the customers.

Which is fine by me.

Look, I'm not saying there shouldn't be an app at all, all I'm saying is that people should not be forced to use the app.

Lower costs for the provider do not necessarily translate into lower costs for the customers, most likely higher profits for the provider.

Sometimes. Sometimes it comes out of corporate profits.

If it’s cheaper for them, why isn’t it cheaper for us?

> For actual users nothing beats the simplicity of paying via contactless card (or mobile) payment solution.

Not true. The next level of simplicity is not having to do anything at all (eg just plug in to charge and have the money deducted automatically). NFC or fiddling with an app on a phone is definitely worse than that. But now we need more standards to enable it for anyone other than teslas.

It's also easier for me to pay for parking on app rather than - look 5 minutes for parking meter - type car plate number on an antiquated unergonomic keyboard that doesn't work really well in winter - go back to car and put the paper behind windshield, which accidentally is opposite the direction I want to go - few hours later realize that I want to stay longer than I've bought parking for, and go back to prolongate it

>Right now I have probably over a dozen apps installed just for paying for various services like parking (of course, each city/country has its own), it is _madness_, and I'm not even using anything special.

Here in Poland I can do this in my banking app for pretty much every parking in my country. Blame your shitty parking providers rather than technology.

There still needs to be a terminal of sorts to enable charging, usually with a big touch screen these days, and of course it needs to be connected to power and internet. Can't be cheaper than a gas station style card reader - where gas stations sometimes even save on costs by having one card reader for multiple pumps or the whole station.

There's no terminal on Tesla chargers. You just plug in and it starts charging.

For non-teslas, this isn't an option so you have to use the app.

The normal solution is: you drive up, you fill up, and then you go inside and pay when you're done. No app, no smartphone, no problem. You can pay cash or card.

Why in the world would you complicate this?

There's nothing complicated about a Tesla charging.

You drive up. Plug in. Done.

There's no app. There's no wallet.

There's no kiosk or attendant that has to be maintained or paid.

That requires staffing (at a 24/7 level ideally). I just did a cross country drive in a Tesla and most of them are in stations that are around stores, malls, hotels or restaurants - but none of them are staffed. The costs of these stations are already high, adding a physical building that is staffed by somebody 24/7 will just make it even harder to build and more expensive.

How is getting out of your car, walking to a valet or booth to talk to a person, and paying where they ask "What is your stall number?" less complicated than literally just plugging in your car?

To be clear, if you have a Tesla, there is NO app needed. There's nothing. You literally just plug in and it works. That's better than any gas station I've ever been to.

FYI - This isn't a Tesla EV thing. This is an EV thing. EVERY network basically requires either an RFID card or a smart phone app: ElectrifyAmerica, Chargepoint, SOMA, Flo, EVGo. I can't think of one that doesn't.

> EVERY network basically requires either an RFID card or a smart phone app

My Mach E isn't a Tesla and charges on EA stations by just plugging it in. I don't have an EA app. There's a standard protocol for this negotiation. Lots of chargers don't yet support it, but the technology exists for non-Teslas to have a plug and charge experience.

go inside and pay when you're done.

Go inside where and pay whom? The vast majority of charging stations I've seen are unmanned.

Right. I was thinking of non-Tesla terminals. I'm sure its not an insurmountable obstacle to add terminals to future or current charging points (if they are forced to by regulators)

> Why should it be necessary to install software in order to fuel a vehicle? What benefit exists for the consumer?

As far as gas pumps and chargers, less chance of the interface being vandalized? In Tesla's case, I would imagine it is more an easy adaptation to current infrastructure without major changes to the chargers themselves.

> Why should it be necessary to install software in order to fuel a vehicle? What benefit exists for the consumer?

In this particular case, it's because Tesla superchargers aren't point of sale terminals. They don't have a display or any means of interacting with the user beyond grabbing the plug connector and sticking it into a car.

That's a feature, not a bug. People who haven't actually supercharged a Tesla imagine this service to be like pulling into a gas station, and it's really not.

It’s only necessary if your car isn’t designed to identify itself automatically to the Tesla network.

Tesla drivers don’t need to go through the app to charge. They just plug in.

You can also charge elsewhere such as at home. Most public charging stations I’ve seen (I’m in the US) do not have credit card readers and therefore require either a car that identifies itself, or an app.

> Why should it be necessary to install software in order to fuel a vehicle? What benefit exists for the consumer?

It's a pilot.

But, IMO, we should require ordinary credit/debit card access to high-speed chargers. Every time I use a Supercharger, I spend around $10 bucks, so there's no need to work around credit card fees.

POS terminals aren’t cheap, so by require you mean regulation and consumers will bear the costs?

> Every time I use a Supercharger, I spend around $10 bucks, so there's no need to work around credit card fees.

They could always take the Starbucks app approach here and require periodic loading of money to your account, which then only incurs the fee occasionally.

> POS terminals

You can get portable card readers for like $50. Everything including the postage stamps for regulatory approval will be more expensive.

> You can get portable card readers for like $50.

Yes, but we aren't talking about portable readers, we are talking about commercial grade ones that will need their own displays and can stand up to weather and various beatings like gas station POS. So let's add a few zeros to that.

But maybe I misunderstood you and you meant that all the users should get portable card readers for their phones so they can use EV charging with their credit cards?

The original brilliance behind Superchargers is how simple the hardware is. Essentially just a 400V cable. The internet-connected car does most of the work. A payment terminal at superchargers is entirely new hardware (overhead) to install (& fail).

> The original brilliance behind Superchargers is how simple the hardware is.

In theory. But proprietary technologies that work for people like me have the luxury of being simple.

The simplest example is cash. There are still a lot of "unbanked" people who need to buy gas with cash.

I'm perfectly happy with entering my credit card number into a menu on my car, and then, via an open protocol, billing happening automatically. But, for the people who for one reason or another can't / won't use credit / debit cards, high speed chargers need to accept cash.

In Germany newly built charging stations will be required to allow payments with credit/debit cards from July 2023 onwards. There will be no requirement to retrofit existing stations but I think that the pressure from the public will eventually be too high and the app requirement will disappear.

Simple... tesla's negotiate automatically between car and chargepoint. This doesn't work for non-tesla's, so you need the app to call into a backend system to unlock/activate a charger (and keep track of who needs to pay)

Well, one part of the charging problem they're trying to solve is getting cars in and out of slots quickly to increase overall capacity. For the existing Tesla owners in the US, there's virtually zero auth/payment overhead: they already have Tesla accounts and it identifies the car, so you just drive up and plug in and get billed. They also charge idle fees ($0.50/min if there are open slots, $1/min if the whole station is full) for occupying slots unproductively.

I imagine they could have added some kind of reliable payment-card reader, maybe. But then you're dealing with a whole other level of things like people trying 3 different cards until they get one to work and burning time, possible fraud, skimming, etc. You also have new hardware and failure modes in the charger itself (the reader, the screen, the buttons, etc), whereas right now they're featureless, just a tall plastic thing with a charge cable on it, and it's charging to a known card pre-registered in the account.

It seems a reasonable tradeoff (at least in the US, to me, at this point in the industry's evolution) to stick with the system they've got for simplicity and speed, and ask for a Tesla app install. The only other open charging network I've tried in the US (Chargepoint) also needs an app install and account.

> Why should it be necessary to install software in order to fuel a vehicle?

You're right, it shouldn't be necessary. It should be as easy to Supercharge any EV as it is a Tesla. There's a standard called Plug & Charge that makes exactly that possible, but most EVs don't support it yet, so the app is the temporary solution until they do.

Hopefully, those Tesla chargers are supporting the Plug & Charge standard that lets different EVs change on various networks without needing separate accounts and apps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15118

The EU mandates the CCS charging connector.

We really need to do the same thing in the US. Every auto manufacturer, except Tesla, is going with CCS. (Even Nissan announced that they are dropping Chdemo in the US and switching to CCS.)

Tesla's proprietary supercharger is just like Betamax: They were first to the market, but the market didn't adopt their standard. There will even be people who bemoan that "supercharger was better" even though CCS supports faster charge rates than supercharger. (CCS has bigger pins than Supercharger.)

Edit: Betamax had a smaller cartridge size limiting the physical amount of tape that would fit in a given cassette. Even though on paper Betamax was "better," a complete movie had to use a slower tape speed than VHS. Thus, the VHS version of a movie often had a clearer picture than Betamax.

People need to relax. We're still in the early days of EVs--things will stabilize, probably around CCS in this particular case, but there's no need to look at this with some kind of schadenfreude. I doubt Tesla cares if the market converges on CCS or not, it's not like they were betting the farm on their proprietary connector. They just needed something to fast charge cars and no such thing existed when they began work on their supercharger fleet. It's really not a big deal for anyone except various deeply committed Tesla critics.

Every Tesla super-charger I have been has a reasonable amount of usage. Every third party one I have seen is either empty, broken, or has a old beat up Nissan Leaf sitting there overnight.

Hopefully that will change, but right now, Tesla owns the market.

Hasn't Tesla sold more EVs in the US than every other automaker combined? Even if literally every other automaker uses CCS, wouldn't Tesla's connector still have more market share?

And their connector isn't it proprietary. They offered it freely (under terms quite similar in spirit to GPLv3, actually) to anyone who wanted it, but they just didn't get any takers.

> Even if literally every other automaker uses CCS, wouldn't Tesla's connector still have more market share?

That will change overnight in a few years as more manufacturers offer EVs.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Charging_System, Tesla joined the consortium in 2016.

Betamax was designed, iirc, more for professional use, like editors or cameramen for the news. So being able to show a full movies was less important.

Betamax was specifically designed as a consumer format. The cassette size was chosen to be similar to a paperback book.

At the time, the industry didn't anticipate that people would view feature length movies on their video cassette players.

The professional betamax format only shares the name.

> More customers using the Supercharger network enables faster expansion.

This seems like the core motivation here -- more people using the chargers justifies a larger investment and a better user experience (more availability) in the short term.

About EV charging: Can Tesla set their own electricity price freely? If so, would you change the charger you use based on how much it costs at different places? I wonder if there's profit to be made in running more EV chargers, especially if they can adjust the charging price based on demand in each location.

> Can Tesla set their own electricity price freely?

This varies wildly by jurisdiction. In some places electricity costs are highly regulated and they would have no control. In other places only utilities are allowed to sell power by the kWh, so charging is sold by time. Here in Canada our measurement regulator has dragged their heels on a standard for DC comsumption measuring, so even utilities like BC and Quebec Hydro can't sell DC fast charging power by the kWh.

It is unlikely there will ever be much profit in selling DC fast charging power. DC fast chargers are a huge capital expense (100k-250k per cabinet for 100 kW+ plus installation that can easily run 3-4 figures) and drawing that much power in bursts comes with huge added costs from the utility. You can save on bursts with battery buffers, but that also raises the initial capital outlay. It's fine though, gas stations don't make any money selling fuel. All their money comes from the captive audience. Charging batteries has gotten a lot better, but it still creates a highly captive audience.

> It's fine though, gas stations don't make any money selling fuel. All their money comes from the captive audience.

Interesting thought -- EV charging might be even easier to make money from then, once there's sufficient adoption. I imagine many more people would get a drink or a meal if they have to wait half an hour anyways.

In that sense having EV chargers would be a large customer driver for businesses, one they'd probably pay for (maybe they do already?). Are gas stations normally franchised out, or owned by a single company?

Interesting how much hate I have seen for how Tesla didn’t do this before and how little enthusiasm or support there seems to be for this. This seems great!

The charging infrastructure has already been somewhat built out using the standard from other companies. Tesla having their own port caused a bifurcation which ultimately harmed EVs...

Back in 2014 Tesla offered up access to all of their supercharger related patents for free, but anyone who wanted to take advantage would have to agree to never attempt to enforce any other patent against Tesla or against any other company using your technology to make electric vehicles.

So obviously no one used it because "give out free access to all of your future electric car technology forever" is a pretty shit trade for "we'll share our couple year head start on charging" in the long term, and now we have incompatible charging networks.

I’ve been to non-Tesla charging stations with three different port types (regular charging, then CCS and Chademo for high speed). So I wouldn’t blame Tesla entirely for that.

For a company that received billions in subsidies having open infrastructure really shouldn't be a choice IMO. But the government is probably more to blame for not making it mandatory.

No other automaker built a network [1], and Tesla used vehicle profits from the S and X to do it. The subsidies received were used to bootstrap manufacturing capacity, and all other automakers were eligible for them if they had built EVs (Tesla's DOE loan was paid back 9 years early, with interest [2]). Only recently did they open a manufacturing facility in China solely to build Supercharger stations [3] (older versions of Superchargers were bespoke, built with Model S and X stacked inverters; newer versions are purpose built).

TLDR Tesla recognized the charging story was crucial to EV sales, and spent the capital to have a superior product. To this day, no other automaker is doing the same.

[1] Electrify America doesn't count, as it was funded out of VW's Dieselgate settlement, which is also why it couldn't be VW branded and the EA brand was created: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/10/vws-2-billion-penalty-for-di...

[2] https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-repays-department-energy-lo... (May 22, 2013: Tesla Motors announced that it has paid off the entire loan awarded to the company by the Department of Energy in 2010. In addition to payments made in 2012 and Q1 2013, today’s wire of almost half a billion dollars ($451.8M) repays the full loan facility with interest. Following this payment, Tesla will be the only American car company to have fully repaid the government.)

[3] https://insideevs.com/news/531709/tesla-completes-supercharg... (Tesla Completes Supercharger Factory In Shanghai; It will make 10,000 units (stalls) per year.)

> No other automaker built a network

False. In North America, Electrify America (https://www.electrifyamerica.com/) and Electrify Canada (https://www.electrify-canada.ca/) are automaker built. Trying to claim it "doesn't count" is just childish.

GM is funding EVgo's build of 350 kW chargers: https://insideevs.com/news/546869/gm-evgo-boost-charging-pla...

And of course you have Ionity in Europe: https://ionity.eu/

I clicked on the "Electrify America" link and could not see mention of any auto makers on either the page you linked or their "About Us" page.

I'm unsure why you'd come in so hot with a link that doesn't back your point, and still not name the auto makers in your text.

Electrify America and Electrify Canada are subsidiaries of Volkswagen.

I cautiously support this. I'm glad they're monitoring congestion closely :)

I think it's because if you're a Tesla owner, it's hard to be against this but it's really hard to be for it when you know that with superchargers in some locations/routes being at insane capacity that this will only make things worse. So if you own a Tesla and you're concerned you'll be shouted down. If you were previously complaining then now you don't have as much to complain about so you just don't post.

I'm really curious to see how Tesla handles this. Will there be a surcharge or will it be more expensive for non-Tesla EVs? Will you be able to get priority in some fashion? Will Tesla, if it's truly an energy company and not an automaker begin to slowly not make as many cars? I mean if I can get a Model Y version of a Mercedes for $5k less and use all of Tesla's infrastructure ya know maybe that's an attractive option? ETC.

As an investor though I love it because my thesis is Tesla is just a slow-moving all-encompassing energy conglomerate that makes cars and this is furthering that thesis.

> superchargers in some locations/routes being at insane capacity that this will only make things worse

If that happens, Tesla should set a price for other EVs which makes it profitable for them, and then just build as many charging locations as there is demand for. Everyone wins.

Yea I'm generally onboard - how long until people start complaining about the "Tesla Tax" though? Or "why do I have to use the Tesla app"?

Unless I misread the article it will be more expensive for non-tesla evs (the mentioned about the cost going towards supporting just that and building it out furhter), tesla's would pay the same. There would be no priority given either way afaik.

Ooof, this makes me conflicted.

On the one hand, it's great to share empty supercharger capacity with all EVs, making EVs generally more attractive - and of course, more money for Tesla from charging maybe = even more superchargers.

On the other hand, the biggest challenges with an EV vs. ICE car are (obviously) range and charging. With this in mind, the supercharger network, and supercharger capacity generally being ample, probably rate pretty high when choosing a Tesla.

It mightn't take many instances of having to wait to charge due to non-Teslas filling up supercharger capacity for that USP to fade and the Tesla ownership experience to be significantly damaged.

I'm not a frequent user of superchargers. So far I have had one experience where I had to wait about 25 minutes before a stall became available (a Tesla-only supercharger with quite a lot of capacity too). It is unusual enough that it doesn't damage my ownership experience... petrol stations have queues too when they're busy.

I mean, essentially what's happening here is that Tesla is exploring becoming the replacement of a Gas Station.

The benefit of not waiting by being a Tesla customer is a pretty high benefit, but could you imagine that same benefit with ICE vehicles? A gas station that you can't fuel at unless you have a specific brand of car?

This change was and is likely inevitable.

> The benefit of not waiting by being a Tesla customer is a pretty high benefit, but could you imagine that same benefit with ICE vehicles? A gas station that you can't fuel at unless you have a specific brand of car?

The best way Tesla can solve this is by building more of them. So you would have way more cars using the chargers but you would have physically more chargers so it would even out (in the best case scenario).

What has me wondering is, how will charge time affect the economics of these places? If you pull into just about any gas station now, you can fill your tank in 5-10minutes, more or less depending on the pump but it's exponentially less time than even waiting for an EV to charge. With more folks stopped in these places for longer, I wonder how the economics of these places will evolve.

I think this has been explored quite extensively here on HN and other places. The viewpoint a few years ago was that you could transform what it means to be a refueling station. Like chargers in places that gas stations can't be.

I didn't have to imagine as, for a while, Tesla owners have had the best of both worlds: access to most 3rd party chargers out there, plus private access to the supercharger network.

Hence the conflict: the head is all in favour of breaking down those walls, but the heart likes being private members' clubs, when it's looking outwards from inside them :)

This seems like a net-negative for Tesla, in terms of customer retention. My inital reactions to this as a current Tesla owner:

o I'm not looking forward to additional crowding at superchargers.

o I'm EV enthusiast who road-trips and who is locked into Tesla due to the supercharger network. So I'm excited because this makes other car brands far more attractive, and means my next car will likely not be a Tesla.

Neither of these reactions is good for Tesla.

It seems inevitable that Tesla will have to start catering more in the future to a upscale/luxury market (even if they are technically already, despite the popular perception that works in their favor that EVs = Tesla's for many people), which might be difficult for them with some of their QC issues. Hopefully, they can get that under control and not end up like the Jaguar of the EV market.

FWIW, Tesla has a CCS adapter. Not sure if it's available in all locations or not (and apparently it only supports model s and x atm), but I imagine it will be made more widely available (why would Tesla want to lock you into its own charging stations when they make their money on car sales?).

https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/CCS/CCS_Combo_2_Ad...

I say "locked in" mainly because the tesla network is the only reliable network in the USA. There are many horror stories about other vendors' fast chargers.

It's a weird move by Tesla. I haven't considered any other EV brand because of Tesla's superior charging network.

Tesla will receive government subsidies for opening up its network. Considering the $600 million they've spent to deploy it globally, that seems reasonable.

That's probably thanks to the EU. The EC and some EEA governments have been pushing Tesla to open up their network, notably Germany and Norway.

I think that is changing. In certain countries the alternative networks are now comparable. And I think this is also to increase their own revenue. If it affects the availability for their own cars they can just ramp up the non-Tesla prices.

It may also be to be one step ahead of legislation that might make it mandatory. Or as part of government grants etc.

I did notice they were only opening this up on the less busy superchargers.

It's only weird if you think it's really Tesla's choice. It's not happening in the EU for no reason.

What I think is happening.

1. They've spent a decade building the largest, highest quality network. From site selection, permitting, building components, construction, they are probably the most capital efficient org out there.

2. Others are catching up, eventually the supercharger network will be a commodity.

3. They have plenty of capital, so they can just get ahead and outbuild everyone else. There's only so many chargers a geolocation needs. They may come to dominate fast charging. 4. It's still clunky for non Tesla's, but about the same as the competition. The Tesla charging experience is still gonna be a step ahead.

Point 3 about limited need starts falling apart in cities. Sure, in the suburbs you can put chargers in your garage. But in cities people need to use the super chargers regularly because their apartment complex only has one charger per hundred cars or something similar, and the percentage of EVs keeps growing.

Interesting move.

While I understand some of the fears of Tesla owners about congested charging stations, as a non-Tesla EV owner I appreciate this opening.

I'm willing to pay more for good infrastructure and Tesla sure is providing that. So is Ionity and fastned but most others (speaking about Germany) fail to do that.

Maybe Tesla should outsource the charging stuff to not get in conflict with antitrust laws or sth. like that, but I'd love to see another big player provide good charging infrastructure for all EVs.

Commodify your complement https://www.gwern.net/Complement

They should make a Chademo adapter. It would take some doing since it's a bit more than a simple dongle, but there are a lot of cars out there that have fewer fast charge options. I have a Leaf and would buy this and get a Tesla account in a heartbeat if they offered this.

Chademo is already deprecated in Europe (where this trial is happening), so don't hold your breath. If you need fast DC charging, sorry, but you bought the wrong car...

It's apparently possible to convert one to CCS, but that would cost more than a mega-dongle. There's talk of Nissan making a kit. It's basically the jack plus a software update so it's not that involved. They've sold CCS Leaf models in other markets.

There are a good number of Chademo chargers around here. Tesla has better coverage though so it would be nice.

In the US, Nissan has abandoned Chademo. All newer models will use CCS. I would not expect any more Chademo charger stations to be added.

"With your Tesla, you’ll also have access to the lowest Supercharger pricing."

This feels like something that would be illegal if say, a gas station had a deal to give better gas prices to Toyota owners.

If Toyota had their own gas stations, I'm pretty sure they could offer a discount to their customers. Why not?

Antitrust

How does that violate any antitrust laws?

I think the main issue would be tying under antitrust law, although that probably would only apply under the current DoJ approach if they sold the gas below cost.

If gas station were invented today, each company would require a monthly subscription.

Gas stations already do this, they offer deals to certain credit cards, grocery chains, or even if you buy a car wash.

There's a bit of a difference between a promotion of "buy this, get a discount on this" on a small transactional item like a car wash. The company with the most electric vehicles giving special pricing at the most electric car charging stations moves into tying territory very quickly.

My old S has free supercharging for life, the cost is subsidized in the price of the vehicle.

Yeah but it wouldn't be illegal if the rationale was that they had priced some gas discounts into the Toyota purchase price as part of the deal.

I wish they would build out more stations first. We have three Supercharger stations in my area within a 50 mile radius and every time I had to use one, the lot was almost always full.

This is why the comparisons to ford are so absurd.

Tesla is a car manufacturer, and the gas station (chargers), and the oil company (grid tech, battery tech).

Not only that: Tesla has said that they will start licensing their FSD tech to other companies.

The electric car is here to save the auto industry, not the planet.

Agreed. And this is from someone who would like to buy one. I have no misgivings that I am saving the planet by doing so.

I'm curious how this is related to the article? lol

> Launched in November 2021, our Non-Tesla Supercharger pilot will continue to expand to new sites and countries in support of our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

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