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.
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 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.
I wonder where we could just provide all stubborn people with basic government endorsed smartphone just to shut up this argument.
And yes, absolutely a subsidy for folks to get a decent smartphone would be just fine.
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.
> 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.
>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.
For non-teslas, this isn't an option so you have to use the app.
Why in the world would you complicate this?
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.
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.
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 where and pay whom? The vast majority of charging stations I've seen are unmanned.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)?
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.
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.
> 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.
You can get portable card readers for like $50. Everything including the postage stamps for regulatory approval will be more expensive.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.