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Comment by kzrdude | Hacker News Reader

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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)

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