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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

By the way, that's also how Tesla and all other cars have the same electric plug in EU(not the USB mandate but the car plug standardisation mandate).

Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens if better solutions are found. Will EU block innovation?

That question is addressed in the Q&A: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_...

In essence, they seem to believe that wired charging is mature enough for standardisation but further technologies can be implemented through "Radio Equipment Directive". In the same time, it appears that the wireless charging is unaffected because the tech is new and fast changing, therefore the manufacturers can include whatever wireless charging they see fit.

It really boils down to "No funny cables, why don't you try wireless charging of your liking if USB-C doesn't cut it for you?".

View on HN

> Will EU block innovation?

It already has. Tesla's connector is nicer (you can call that subjective but it isn't) and the supercharging network in the US is deploying the clunky standard sort of connector as well.

If EU legislation were universal, that would preclude any future where the superior connector is licensed and takes over from the crappy designed-by-committee alternative, because Tesla would be forced to stop manufacturing it.

Legislators deciding who gets to be VHS and who has to be Betamax is bad, actually.

How is tesla's connector nicer?

It’s a lot smaller, locks into the car while charging, and doesn’t have an extra flap you have to open when using DC fast charging.

> locks into the car while charging

The EU plug locks into the car while charging. Not sure why you think it doesn't.

There's also no obligation to have an extra flap, my Model 3 does not.

I second this. I'm frequently using the volkswagen ID.3 and there is no way to unplug it unless you unlock it from charging station with the card you find it in the car (at least in Berlin).

Do those small improvement justify fragmentation of standards?

The locking feature is misguided. There should absolutely be a mechanical interlock to prevent unplugging under load. But no key should be required to unplug a home charger, and no key should be needed to plug in a charger once the charge port is open. As I see it, the only security goals should be:

1. At a public charger, one should have to authenticate to _either_ the car or the charger to interrupt an active charging session.

2. When using a portable charger of the sort that is owned by the car’s owner, one should not be able to unplug the charger and thus steal it if one cannot authenticate to the car.

And that’s it. You should be able to unplug someone else from a public charger that can reach multiple parking spaces once it finishes charging.

And this is exactly how the charging in EU works.

The CCS2 standard used in Europe and most of the world locks the cable similarly to Tesla.

The CCS1 standard locks the cable using a little flap that folds down on top of the CCS1 latch to hold it in place. Its every bit as clumsy as it sounds, but it does mean there is a locked cable.

Example CCS1 inlet: http://www.wind-works.org/cms/index.php?id=84&tx_ttnews%5Btt...

I can scarcely imagine the shame of an engineer speccing that awful plastic flap on $100,000 car.

What do you tell your children?

EU is a densely populated place where having multiple charging networks of incomparable plugs will be horrible.

When you are not happy with decisions the governments make, it usually means that you should be involved in the process of making the decisions.

Europeans don't trust that the industry will always come up with the best solutions for the user, Americans usually don't trust the government doing something well unless it's the military. Let's agree to disagree.

I like that the car plugs are the same everywhere in EU and want it to stay that way and enjoy the Tesla plugs on a trip to USA.

> EU is a densely populated place where having multiple charging networks of incomparable plugs will be horrible.

In the short term, yes. In the long term however competition between these different standards will cause consolidation and overall technology improvement. The next step will be regulating wireless charging so that all devices have to use/do the same thing, rinse-wash-repeat.

> Europeans don't trust that the industry will always come up with the best solutions for the user, Americans usually don't trust the government doing something well unless it's the military. Let's agree to disagree.

A better way to think about this is that both "groups" can learn from one another. For example you could say that Europeans should be suspicious about USB-C manufacturers and advocates effectively being granted a monopoly in the name of convenience. Americans should better trust that certainly in the case of infrastructure it makes sense to have a single standard "plug" for electric vehicles because we really need as many people driving them as possible in the most convenient way.

We can copy the US if the cable freedom gives birth to superior cables on the long run. EU stuff is't written on stone, it changes as it needs to.

I guess In Europe we kind of like the idea of being able to overthrow the people in power if they screw us too much. It's much more socially acceptable to burn cars and occupy streets and decapitate politicians than shooting CEO's when you are really not happy with the way things work. It feels like you have control over the stuff going on in your country.

You’re really ignoring the amount of inertia that a deployed fleet of cars creates. You can’t just change standards with the snap of a finger once there are 10M cars in the field with it, once that happens, you’re stuck with that standard for probably decades, as the downsides of changing it become much more acute than the potential upsides.

If the US comes up with the superior cables, EU will simply allow it be optional and the industry will retrofit as needed.

Europe is very old, we are used to have old stuff laying around. Old building that definitely don't meet the modern requirements are everywhere. Besides, the states with Cable Freedom will also have all the obsolate cables when the industry finally comes up with the perfect cable.

> Europe is very old, we are used to have old stuff laying around.

So what's the problem with allowing lightning to exist, since as a standard it predated USB-C (and in fact was the impetus for the creation of the latter)? If we allow neighborhoods to keep their old power connectors without retrofit... why not allow lightning to continue to exist?

There's a difference between allowing old installations to continue existing and allowing mass manufacture of the old standard indefinitely. This legislation isn't going to touch anyone's old phones.

All aside, it’s pretending ‘we’ as civilians have any kind of influence in what the EU does. In reality it’s just an opaque process ran by politicians where 99% of the electorate has no idea whatsoever how they got there or even what party they belong to.

> In the long term however competition between these different standards will cause consolidation and overall technology improvement.

If you think that’s a superior solution, then the regulation should actually support it: require that all EV charging connectors have a free published specification, disallow patents on them, and require that interoperability be permitted without cost or other penalty. (e.g. anyone should be able to implement both ends of the Tesla supercharging protocol such that Tesla’s chargers would charge a competing car at the same prices that they charge Tesla’s; similarly, a competing charger should be able to charge a Tesla.)

I was set to be all libertarian about this, but your suggestion is probably more level headed.

There should be some common ground. Regulations that encourage innovation (perhaps even with timed financial incentives) while also ensuring that the best ideas are eventually freely adoptable across the board.

Seems like, as with most issues, people take one extreme or the other, when a common sense middle ground could be found with proper planning and forethought.

> I was set to be all libertarian about this…

Disallowing patents is the libertarian solution, though it would be up to the customers to demand published specifications and official support for interoperability.

The original intention of patent system was to encourage open publication of inventions. It even still works that way for some verticals. The issue is that it also produced a system that it is profitable to game and thus there are patent attorneys who get by by writing the patent in as vague terms as is possible to pass by patent reviewers, and in these kind of adversarial situations it is quite obvious that the private sector will win over the government bureaucrats.

> The original intention of patent system was to encourage open publication of inventions.

That is how it was sold to the public. Unfortunately the system was never designed with the proper structure and incentives to ensure that patents were only granted when doing so actually resulted in the publication of accurate details about useful inventions which would not have become known to the public anyway well before the patent period expired.

In practice, if you think you can keep something a trade secret for more than 20 years without it being independently reinvented you'll do that and not file for a patent. Patents are thus useful only in those cases where a patent is expected to be worse for the public than a trade secret, as they inhibit independent reinvention and reverse engineering for the duration of the patent.

I'm not opposed to this and personally think it's all up for discussion/debate and it should be discussed and debated. I'm excited to see what develops in this space.

One nitpick would be:

> e.g. anyone should be able to implement both ends of the Tesla supercharging protocol such that Tesla’s chargers would charge a competing car at the same prices that they charge Tesla’s; similarly, a competing chargers should be able to charge a Tesla.

I think this sounds good, but one of the details here is ensuring that other manufacturers are able to actually build the products correctly so a supercharger doesn't light a car on fire or something due to faulty equipment. Who is at fault? How is it prevented? What are the legal agreements? Etc.

On the pricing side though I'd have to strongly disagree. Tesla (or whoever) builds the infrastructure so they should be able to charge what they want. It's about the plug and interoperability of that standard, not infringing on the business model which I think goes too far. If they charge too much money, people won't use them and competitors will continue to emerge (I see new charging stations in Meijer parking lots being put next to Tesla infrastructure). There's no reason in my view to mandate pricing here and I think it would set back EV adoption to do so.

> being granted a monopoly

Anyone can produce USB-C chargers. That's not a monopoly. This will effectively enable competition on the charging market, since the big players can't bind their products to their own proprietary chargers anymore.

Have you ever felt the Apple/Microsoft charger to be lacking in some way? Breaking easily, too long cords, too short, wrong color, too expensive? Congratulations now you can make and sell those better chargers. Before, this was not possible.

Yes but all you’re really doing is encouraging everyone to stay locked in to a USB-C market. This isn’t enabling competition in the charging market, it’s eliminating or hamstringing competing markets. You won’t create a new charging apparatus because you’re legally required to use USB-C.

"What if we created a charging cable that did X,Y,Z?"

"That would be cool but we have to use USB-C"

> Have you ever felt the Apple/Microsoft charger to be lacking in some way? Breaking easily, too long cords, too short, wrong color, too expensive?

No not really. In fact I’ve found most third-party products to be godawful. Good luck not buying something fraudulent on Amazon.com. But also, I’m not really sure what you are talking about. Companies sell charging equipment and cords now anyway.

Everything has trade-offs. I’m skeptical of the necessity of this regulation, especially given that the only holdout that anyone cares about is Apple and they’ve been adopting USB-C in all of their products over time. One benefit though will be manufacturers won’t include charging cables with new devices anymore. So that will further reduce waste. Wouldn’t be surprised to see lobbying behind the scenes from companies such as Apple to implement regulations like this so they can save money. I kind of like this as an investor because now you can save money by not including a cable (or maybe you still do and it’s just some cheap one for now) and then you go and up sell wireless chargers instead.

I'm not a citizen of the EU, so your various centrally-planned interventions in the world economy affect me without any possibility of representation.

It leaves me hoping your economy becomes much smaller so Asia can start ignoring it. Or reform I guess, the vote is yours, not mine.

We all affect each other, a lot of American things have become de facto stands. Anyway, be careful what you wish because it might become real and you might find out that Asia is not the libertarian utopia.

If anything, Asia is generally more collectivist than Europe or the US.

Imagine different gasoline plugs...that would be stupid, isnt't it? Or different fuel formula for different car models or different AC sockets in the same house...

Also I'm not sure why you hold Asia so dear. You may soon get some centrally planned standards from China in the EV market and not only(i.e online services such tiktok)

I was unable to find any record of legislation forcing standardization of gas pump form factors. Also, in my experience different pumps operate at different rates. I think the fact that pumps tend to be quite similar is a result of their mechanical nature, where less precision is required.

Check this out:

> (f) Every retailer and wholesale purchaser-consumer shall equip all gasoline pumps from which gasoline is dispensed into motor vehicles with a nozzle spout that meets all the following specifications:

> (1) The outside diameter of the terminal end shall not be greater than 0.840 inches (2.134 centimeters).

> (2) The terminal end shall have a straight section of at least 2.5 inches (6.34 centimeters).

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/80.22

Edit: fixed formatting

Fantastic, that’s exactly what I was looking for, thank you! I thought maybe there would be an earlier law, this one is about 100 years after the advent of cars. I suppose we’re close to thirty years past what could reasonably be considered the advent of cell phones, so maybe legislation about now is reasonable.

I appreciate the find.

I agree with you, but noting that fuel may not be the best example as you have both completely different fuels (like diesel) and different types of normal gas (premium)

Still though, having the same “regular” gas at every single gas station is an underrated benefit!

> different AC sockets in the same house

cries in Italian...

How is this different from the American FAA dictating that all aeroplane toilets have to have ashtrays whist at the same time banning smoking on flights[1]?

Should Europeans start hoping the US economy fails so that then FAA has less influence?[3]

Really I don't think this is something that really matters in the grand scheme of things. USB-C is a good enough standard and I don't see Apple coming out with some great new alternative.

From my perspective I have loads of broken Lightning cables but no broken USB-C ones. Also if something is going to break I'd rather the springs be in the cheap cable than the expensive phone socket as with Lightning.

1. Now you might think it's for people who break the smoking rule to have somewhere to put out their fags[2] but the "innovative" solution to that would be the sink.

2. You know that I know you know that's slang for cigarette, so stick to the point at hand please. :P

3. Just in case that's not blindingly obvious, the answer is NO, that would be terrible for everyone involved including both Europeans and Americans.

Would you happier if you were affected by European corporate actions instead?

We live in a global economy, you are constantly affected by things happening thousand of miles away (e.g. Ukraine invasion bumped the price of gas across the world). Not sure why you're conflating that with the fact that these actions are "centrally-planned".

I can imagine that car charging is still too new and fast-moving to enforce a single standard, unlike phone charging, where it's just ridiculous to have 3 separate standards.

On the other hand, you're absolutely right that it doesn't help anyone if your car is incompatible with half of the chargers out there. Are adapter cables an option, perhaps?

Yes. Tesla has a simple passthrough adapter for CCS1. Other adapters are also possible.

Some adapters are more problematic than others. For example if the charger and the vehicle both expect the other side to initiate the charging process and withhold power until some voltage is detected then the adapter may need its own independent power supply to jump-start the charging process. Locks are another problem—some combinations would require the adapter to provide powered locking mechanisms for both sides. None of this makes an adapter impossible, but it could be too expensive or unwieldy to be a practical solution.

That's definitely true. I've used the Tesla chademo adapter and it was a beast. Its heavy, awkward, and the latching mechanism is difficult to fully engage.

The Tesla passive solution to the locking mechanism on their CCS1 passive adapter is as brilliant as it is simple. Just a little springloaded bar that locks the cable onto the adapter if and only if the adapter is inserted into the car. Then the car uses its regular adapter. This works well with CCS1 locking.

The other end of the spectrum are things like the setec adapter or the evhub adapter. Both of those don't have vehicle side locking with CCS1, which is a violation and a potential hazard.

I presume you're talking about the J1772/CCS1 adapter that comes for free with every Tesla. This adapter is occasionally handy but it does not allow fast ("super") DC charging. It's strictly a Level 2 AC adapter, which means it takes a few hours to charge your car fully.

The CCS adapter that allows you to supercharge a Tesla at non-Tesla DC superchargers is not (yet) available in the US [0]. Tesla does make them and you can buy them in South Korea, but not in the US.

[0] Except for a dodgy Chinese gizmo which I won't link to because it's reputed not to work reliably.

There is no combined J1772/CCS1 adapter. There are separate passive J1772 and CCS1 adapters, though. The J1772 adapter is obviously really small and easy to use.

I was referring to the CCS adapter that is currently available in South Korea. Its a little heavier, but its also fairly easy to use (well, as easy as CCS usually is). It has become really easy to import them too, thanks to Harumio and other importers. The speeds are 150+kw, and close to 200kw on the newer Model S/X[1]. I expect that official availability will happen sometime this year, but if it doesn't, then presumably a third party will make a suitable passive adapter. Its a ridiculously simple device.

[1] I know officially S/X isn't even supported, but it has been demonstrated to work. Higher speeds are because of the newer 450V battery pack.

> When you are not happy with decisions the governments make, it usually means that you should be involved in the process of making the decisions.

Most of us are not billionaires.

You don't need to be. "We can't do anything about anything because the system is run by the billionaires and unless you are one, you have no power" narrative is not only false but also harmful.

Please pardon my inadvertent US-centrism! If you live in a country with a functioning democracy, of course it would make sense to participate. Here in the US, average citizens have little to no influence on policy:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

This isn't the case in the US, either. How much influence do you think one person in the US, one of hundreds of millions of people, should normally have? Your power to influence policy is obviously going to dilute the further up the chain of government you go. You could involve yourself in local politics where the population of people is much smaller (and consequentially, your influence is much larger), or you could try to become a representative yourself.

National politics in the US is certainly perverse, though it's probably just your US-centrism at work again if you think it's exceptional in this regard.

> This isn't the case in the US, either.

I was paraphrasing Gilens and Page, from the linked research article. In their words, they found that "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence".

If there has been subsequent research which contradicts their findings, I would be happy to read it.

> Please pardon my inadvertent US-centrism! If you live in a country with a functioning democracy, of course it would make sense to participate.

This implies that you think that the reason the person believes that they should participate in government is because they don't live in the US and as such, have a functioning democracy and can have an impact on policy. I am asserting that people can have an effect on policy, just that you are more likely to have an effect when you are dealing with local government. This doesn't require a research paper to figure out; There are approximately 334 million Americans. The "average citizen" in this case would have almost no influence whatsoever on policy even in a "functioning democracy" and this is how it is designed. However, if you narrow that down to your state, there is a much lower population and the policies implemented will have a more direct impact on you. If you go even further and look at it from a county, township, or city level, you, by the virtue of their being a small fraction of the people potentially involved in governance, have a much larger effect on policy. The issue is that it seems that people don't want to affect how their town is governed, they want to make mass impact with big changes in policies at a national level.

Special interest groups and economic elites affecting national policy isn't a unique trait to the United States and they are not a valid reason to encourage people against participating in government. You are teaching helplessness which just perpetuates the issue.

This reading of their study is well known to be false; what actually happens is that most of the population agrees on almost all policies, more often than they should, and that's the reason why they're in winning coalitions.

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-...

Since the US is education-polarized, rich people are also more left wing than average, as are people who donate to political campaigns, and the more they donate the more left wing they are. (This is called "being Shor pilled".)

Thank you for the link!

Being densely-populated makes it easier to have a range of different plugs, since there will be a range of alternatives, and you'll be able to find the right one for you nearby.

Consider the opposite of a sparsely-populated region, where the next charging point may be 50 miles away. In that case, having a random hodge-podge of competing connectors could have actual consequences.

In practice though, there is not much of an effect either way. All parties have an interest in interoperability: car owners would have adapter to hand if this was a common problem, and charging stations would make themselves available to as many paying customers as possible.

When you have 24 official languages in 27 countries with no physical borders it doesn't end up having an even distribution of plugs but clusters of different types. There are no large wastelands of cheap land where every network can have a station, it's usually one station on each side of the road every 50km on the highways. In cities, a lot of things are retrofitted into medieval city structure so there's not much free space for all your charging needs.

As a result, this will create artificial limits on where people can travel. EU is that much into standardisation because we want to remove these artificial limits created through the thousands years of history.

If the solution would be to use a lot of random adapters then we should simply standardize from the start.

If 35% of ICE had square gas sockets and we had to keep around square-to-circle adapters the situation would not be better.

An EV charging port is handful of metal rods with a handle.

Random anecdote: I once got stuck at a friends place in Denmark with my Tesla, because the mobile connector wouldn't work. Turns out despite the voltage and socket being the same, the grounding can vary between countries and the connector wouldn't let me charge (this was back in 2016, I'm not sure if newer mobile connectors are better in that regard)

Is that because some places have 230V and neutral, while others have -115V and +115V (yes like in the US but in Europe)?

There's a single neighborhood in Rome where that happens and car chargers don't work. The "solution" is to request a three-phase 400V connection: the utility company can't deny it and it must be 220V to neutral.

I would like to live in the alternative reality were all AC is three-phase AC; probably it would be uselessly more expensive for normal domestic stuff but it would be quite cooler.

"When you are not happy with decisions the governments make, it usually means that you should be involved in the process of making the decisions."

Democracy is a very blunt tool. Very important when needed, but not good for fine tuning on any reasonable timescale.

Democracy is not elections.

Democracy is the freedom and right of involvement for the stakeholders (among other things)

> Democracy is a very blunt tool. Very important when needed, but not good for fine tuning on any reasonable time scale.

Very good for fine tuning at human time scales.

Let's say I invent a better connector tomorrow. Nobody other than me really knows if it's better or not. The only way for me to convince people is to get it out there in the market so people can try it.

How does that work by voting or any other democratic activity?

Others will be unconvinced that it's really better, for the same reason people are skeptical of startup ideas until they become mainstream. So nobody will want to update the standard. So I couldn't release it in the market to prove that it's better, because that would be "lock-in". And the idea would die.

No, I do not believe that a multi trillion dollar company would spend billions of dollars making a major change to their devices, without having any idea of if it will be better or not.

Whatever internal research that these companies made, to make them want to change their multi billion dollar market like this, they can go public with it first.

If you're designing such a connector, I'm sure you'll have the car manufacturers on board immediately. After all, your connector is better. Not only a tiny bit better, it's much better.

The EU will obviously be happy to include your better connector, provided that old cars can use it too via an adapter and new cars can use old connectors via an adapter. Then they can without issue transition to the new connector without wasting everyone's time and money.

Unfortunately, bureaucracy usually does not act as fast and as well as your comment assumes.

The committe that handles the Radio Equipment Directive has been fairly reasonable in their reaction time to newer technology coming out. It's not the full blown comission or council, after all.

Industry already converged on charging cables though, just Apple is left and they've been moving away from lightning for some time... this legislation is a waste of time.

I am "European", whatever that word means, and I definitely don't trust the government to do something well. It happens sometimes that some governments in some countries do some specific thing well. That's definitely not a general rule.

On the other hand, companies building wholly proprietary infrastructure is just pure e-waste on the back of the citizens of those countries that ALSO limits innovation.

Imagine a world where Ford cars use a different gas nozzle from a GM product in the US. The average person would have to pick and choose stations and if one were to go out of business, the lesser standard would encounter mass disposal and retrofit, all on the backs of consumers. The intent with these products is generally not innovation...it is lock in and licensing fees. The EU law in case here has a committee that reviews the standard yearly and accepts proposals.

>The average person would have to pick and choose stations

Stations would just have two nozzles on their pumps.

What if Ford operates their own stations? Would they still have two plugs?

(see: Tesla superchargers)

This is pure legislation-brain worry about things that markets resolve.

Well, three, because diesel pump nozzles are already a different standard.

Well, eight, because you'd have two each for diesel and each of the three octanes.

Octanes don't need separate nozzles.

You're right, I don't know what I was thinking. You'd just need four. :P

How'd you get two for diesel?

Diesel pump nozzles actually have multiple standards - there's one about the same size as a gas nozzle that's used for diesel cars and pickups, and a bigger one that's used for trucks and buses.

We should also mandate the reduction of open source projects, after all there are too many competing standards. We don’t want code to be wasted now do we? Let’s start by banning the use of Tensorflow

That's just a dumb argument. Open source projects can just be forked with no monetary implications.

Imagine if we had this outlook towards plugs in houses in the US. Standardization is underrated.

Funny, because all of North America uses the NEMA standard and the EU uses a bunch of different plugs.

Probably why they are more conscious it's a problem then.

Yeah. The rollout of domestic wiring standards was pre-EU, and dealing with the entrenched incompatible standardisation gets in the way of the EU goal of a single market in goods and services. They really don't want more arbitrary standards that vary nationally.

Of course, that's not quite the same as the laptop charger question where the fragmentation is between companies and less entrenched. But still.

No, EU uses a single plug, it is called "Type C" (no, not USB-C). What you might find in some poorer regions in EU is old plugs that were there pre-EU, or prestandardization.

I can say that, because Brexit happened, I have no clue what those were thinking when designing their own gigantic plug.

This is just not true. Denmark and Italy use their own plugs; Ireland, Malta, and Cyprus use the British plug; and the heart of the EU is divided between French-style and Schuko plugs. (Switzerland, though outside the EU, also uses its own plugs.)

As I understand it, EU moves to standardise plugs failed in the 90s.

Oh, right I forgot about Malta (basically UK mini) and Cyprus.

But Italy has the "normal" (schuko or French) plug. The old one (three holes in line) are in older houses mostly.

My previous data was based on my travel in EU. Now I'm corrected.

But there is a standardized plug that fits both schuko and French style sockets. That was probably why I didn't notice it earlier.

> But Italy has the "normal" (schuko or French) plug. The old one (three holes in line) are in older houses mostly.

That's a bit of an oversimplification. I was in Italy on Thursday and also early in May. My very modern hotel rooms mostly had Italian three-hole sockets, with a single token 'standard' euro socket provided at the table, that nevertheless didn't always accept my (French-style) laptop cable because the prongs were too thick.

Also, flashy modern hotels aside, I'd say most houses in Italy are "older houses". The three-hole socket is definitely extremely common in Italy in my experience. In fact, there's two incompatible three-hole Italian sockets - a larger one for most appliances, and a smaller one for lights.

Doesn’t Ireland use G?

Regardless, I meant, physically within the borders of the EU, not during the time of the EU.

No. Type C is limited to 2.5 A ungrounded appliances. For regular (16 A, grounded) sockets, half of EU use type E and other half type F. Fortunately, there is CEE 7/7 plug, which is compatible with both type E and type F sockets.

There are a bunch of different plugs in houses in the US, look at electric stoves and clothes dryers.

>look at electric stoves and clothes dryers

Those are 240V plugs, which are also standardized.

They're all a part of the NEMA standard. The different plugs denote different capacities of the circuit and the requirements of the load. That way you can't accidentally plug a 30A device in a 15A circuit or you can't plug a 120V device into a 240V plug. If the wiring to your stove top is only 30A but you bought a 50A stove, you shouldn't be able to plug it in and just hope the circuit breaker trips before the wires melt to let you know you did it wrong.

Its not like there's a plug for Samsung TVs, a different plug for Sonos sound bars, a different plug for a Sony alarm clock, a different plug for a Singer sewing machine, etc. They're all going to be a NEMA 5-15 plug since all of these things are ~120V and use less than 15A.

Having a car manufacturer dictate where you plug in is bad, actually.

Sure, the Tesla connector is smaller, and a little sleeker. But from a functionality perspective, the plug types are basically identical. Both allow AC standard charging and DC fast charging. Electric cables aren't that complicated.

Compared to CCS, Tesla made a ton of smart decisions with their charging setup:

- All Teslas have their charging ports at the rear left side. This means that charging cables can be very short. Longer cables would cause tangles, cost more, and be harder to cool.

- Tesla's protocol has built-in payment. You plug in and charge. With CCS it varies. Sometimes you use a credit card. Sometimes you download a mobile app and sign up for some account. Sometimes the planets align and CCS's plug-and-charge works.

- The CCS plug is much bigger. If you look at the connector sizes[1] or adapters[2], the CSS plug is comically huge. Tesla had to redesign the tail lights on the Model S/X to fit CCS Combo 2 ports.

- Every exposed contact is a potential failure point, and CCS exposes more contacts than Tesla's charging port.

- CCS has two different plug dimensions which are used in different regions, so a European CCS vehicle brought to North America will need an adapter (and vice-versa).

- If your vehicle only supports AC charging, you cannot charge with CCS Combo plugs. They won't fit. Since some Teslas were made before the CCS Combo standard took off, older Model S/X's used a CCS Type 2 port. So now every Supercharger in Europe has two plugs: CCS Type 2 & Combo 2.[3]

1. https://teslatap.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/connector_co...

2. https://www.notateslaapp.com/images/news/2021/ccs-adapter.jp...

3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eu-tesla-supercharge...

Several of your points don't have anything to do with CSS and are simply costs of having multiple competing brands on the markets who need to use the same infrastructure (real estate is a very limited resource in many areas).

- Older X/S were never that numerous and shouldn't hold up the vast majority of the population. First movers disadvantage if you like.

- Moving vehicles across the Atlantic is also a tiny tiny use case and already difficult as is.

> Legislators deciding who gets to be VHS and who has to be Betamax is bad, actually.

They didn't make the decision. It's more like legislators observing that Betamax is failing and deciding that it's in everyone's best interests to tell Sony that they have to adopt VHS instead of creating confusion in the marketplace.

> Tesla's connector is nicer

Tesla's system only goes up to 400 volts. CCS goes up to 800 volts. The higher voltage supports faster charging.

(This is similar to Betamax's critical flaw. The smaller, more elegant Betamax tape compared to the clunky VHS tape meant that VHS could record 6 hours on a tape when Betamax was limited to about 3.5 hours on a tape. It also meant that feature length films were often recorded at slower tape speeds, thus meaning that prerecorded VHS tapes were often a better quality than the Betamax version.)

CCS spec limits are actually 1000V and 500A. Electrify America uses 350A units, hence the 350 kW chargers (1000V x 350A). Lucid battery packs are 924V to maximize CCS capability.

DC Fast charging has to match pack voltage, so with 400ish volt pack voltage Tesla gets big charging speed by providing extreme amperage. CCS is limited to 500A, so the best way to provide really fast charging is higher pack voltages.

Higher voltage does have some benefits around heat and losses, but also has downsides like cost of electronics and installations over 600V generally require special electrical licensing.

It's hard to deny the tesla connector is a lot nicer to work with (especially V3 with thin, liquid cooled cables), but I still wish my model 3 sr+ had CCS like euro cars. I'd love to be able to have more charging options.

I'm not sure that Tesla's connector is a limiting element there. The Tesla system can also go to higher amperages than CCS, which is an advantage. For example, the F150 Lightning charging rate is hampered by its 400 volt CCS system. It can't do more than 200kw. That's creating a lot of the pressure to move to 800 volt.

Tesla doesn't have a similar limitation and can do 250-300kw on the existing 400-450V cars.

It's more like legislators observing that Betamax is failing and deciding that it's in everyone's best interests to tell Sony that they have to adopt VHS instead of creating confusion in the marketplace.

Or like 1996 when Apple was failing and everyone should have been forced to standardize on Windows.

Windows is not a standard that someone can build an independent implementation and run the same applications.

React OS dares to disagree

Different countries already have many different rules for autos. That's why it's difficult to be a world-wide auto manufacturer: you have to comply with so many different rules from different countries. That's just the cost of doing business and has been for decades.

If Apple believes USB-C is really that bad (which I don't think they do) - then they have the option of creating a handset only for sale in Europe or they can remove all charging ports and go wireless charging. I bet they go with USB-C charging and wireless charging.

>Legislators deciding who gets to be VHS and who has to be Betamax is bad, actually

Interesting example. Betamax was technologically superior, but lost out due to marginally higher costs. What makes you think Tesla's connector wouldn't suffer the same fate?

> Tesla's connector is nicer (you can call that subjective but it isn't)

I like the Tesla connector in the US, but in Europe, I'd argue that CCS2 is objectively superior. They need 3-phase power support and the Tesla connector doesn't support that. They also use a different CCS connector from the US. The CCS2 connector uses a latching mechanism that is similar to the proprietary Tesla one. Its simple and very reliable.

The US CCS1 system uses a dual latching mechanism. The cable and the car each have moving parts that are somewhat complicated. The cable side latch is a common failure point. It makes sense, given the desire to retain backward compatiblity with J1772 L1/L2 chargers, but I don't really think that was worth the tradeoff, tbh.

I would say that the IEC 62196-2 used by Tesla in Europe is the most sane EV charging connector design there is. It is standard (albeit in the fast charge mode it is apparently only used by Tesla), the connector is not ridiculously large and the whole mechanical design is derived from industrial power connector that can be used to power entire typical European household.

Yeah, that one seems really practical to me. I think CCS2 is only slightly worse, with the additional dedicated DC charging pins.

I would rather have a shared and slightly less optimal cable, than a unique and "nicer" cable. USB-C is the perfect example, you can argue that lightning cable is actually nicer, but being able to charge all my different devices with a single cable is far nicer.

If every company thought like Tesla/Apple, we'd quickly go down a very untenable road.

It makes sense for cars to have a standard connector so that they may be charged without any problem at any public charging station. After all, there is a standard fuel nozzle for ICE vehicles.

On the other hand, this requirement to have an USB-C connector is pretty useless to downright counter-productive as it will indeed prevent innovation. It's just political hand-waving.

This is the case I try to make to friends and relatives (non-EV owners) who insist that a common plug is a prerequisite to EV ownership.

Standardizing against Tesla at any earlier point would have been a gift on a silver platter for legacy auto by slowing EV adoption, and it's Tesla's freedom to innovate that is why we're even having this discussion instead of theoretical questions about what EVs might be like in the future.

I usually tell them to let Tesla solve the remaining edge cases (semis, trailer hauling, and charge speeds comparable to ICE fill-ups) before we start regulating. Setting things in stone now would be like standardizing on DSL as the only last-mile broadband in 2004. We don't want to do that.

> charge speeds comparable to ICE fill-ups

That's just impossible. Filling a 100 kWh "tank" in one minute requires 6 MW of power, plus all the power that goes into heat. The only solution would be replacing batteries on the fly but Tesla discontinued it.

Moving stuff is inherently faster than chemical reactions (unless you're talking about explosions).

It doesn't have to be equivalent. Just being comparable from a user experience and business case perspective would be enough.

Getting it down to five minutes to fill to 80% may be sufficient. Right now it's 15-20 minutes.

The problem is not just the time to charge a single car but the capacity in cars/hour.

First, if a car takes five times longer to charge, you need a lot more space to cover the needs for peak days. This may not be a problem on highways (or in the US) but space in Europe is much more limited.

Second, a smallish 6-pump filling station serves 150-200 cars per hour. An equivalent charging station would need 12-15 MW which means working at 40 kV.

Dealing with peak days is easy for filling stations, you just request gasoline trucks more frequently. For charging stations you need to build infrastructure that might hardly exist in more rural places, it's the same as sneakernet vs broadband.

It's hard to calculate how many charging stations will be needed. Most EV owners plug their cars in at home and wake up every day with a full charge. They only use charging stations for road trips. Also charging stations can be installed in far more places than gas stations. There are no hazardous fumes or massive fire risks. They don't require nearly as much maintenance or staff. For these reasons it's common to see charging stations in parking garages, in front of hotels, or even next to the beach[1].

1. https://imgur.com/a/vd4dStk

In fact, I've already seen some employers list charging-at-work as a perk on their job offers.

The problem is the peak demand on the road trips, such as everybody doing hundreds of km on the same days to go on vacation. Using the car for your summer holidays is quite more common in Europe than in the US for example.

> If EU legislation were universal, that would preclude any future where...

Your crystal ball seems broken. You could have said the exact same thing about micro-usb for phone chargers, yet somehow we ended up in the present.

Hint: Your supposed critical flaw is incredibly obvious. So either everyone but you is an idiot or just maybe the people making laws have thought of that too...

I's absolutely true that Tesla's EV connector is better than CCS, and it's a pity that Tesla lost that battle.

But it's also true that USB-C with PD is better than the alternatives in its space so occasionally the committees get things right.

>> I's absolutely true that Tesla's EV connector is better than CCS, and it's a pity that Tesla lost that battle.

Currently working at a company that makes CCS chargers. Can confirm the standard is an absolute shit show, the cables are heavy, and the plugs are a giant pain in the ass. But hey, it's the standard so that's what we make. Oh, and why TF do we have a PowerLine Communication chip to talk to the vehicle over (non-power) signal wires? A few CAN messages would have done the job. One of the stupidest communication standards ever.

Tesla's connector uses CAN over signal wires, and it uses the same power pins for both AC and DC which makes the connector light and sleek. If you think VHS is worse than Betamax, CCS is more worse than Tesla's connector.

I wonder if 50 years from now we will all still be stuck with the comically awful CCS.

No it doesn't, in the legislation itself there is the provision of how to deal with technological advancements.

A good enough standard that works for everyone > dozens of cutting-edge amazing technologies competing with each other and no standardization

>It already has. Tesla's connector is nicer (you can call that subjective but it isn't) and the supercharging network in the US is deploying the clunky standard sort of connector as well.

you know what's even nicer? Being able to charge your car at any charging station and not just the ones built by your manufacturer.

Imagine if you could only fill up your gas tank at specific gas stations that support your tank opening.

In the USA all modern electric cars also use the normal standard, except for Tesla. There were a few early offshoots and Tesla had good reason to come up with their own connector initially (no other plug could transfer that much power!) but these days everything has been pretty much consolidated.

For charging your car at Tesla chargers that haven't been upgraded to the standard yet there are adaptors available from Tesla plugs to standard fast charging plugs.

Older cars may need their weird custom connections but everything else has been pretty much been standardised. I don't know how much the EU decision has affected this, but it's not an EU exclusive feat.

There's this thing called Brussels effect where manufacturers pick to default to EU requirements instead of having different supply chains unless they absolutely have to.

EU don't like the idea of manufacturers locking down their users through different standards. EU is a densely populated place with limited natural resources and free space, therefore cables piling up or 10 different types of charging stations are problems that EU cannot afford. EU trash being shipped to poorer countries is already a serious problem for example.

Good to hear that in the US only Tesla was the outlier and the industry acted responsibly but unless regulated you can't guarantee that it will be like that or stay like that.

Businesses love to lock down their users, Tesla chargers are a major selling point for Tesla and from EU perspective having multiple charging networks that cannot be made interoperable without a substantial modifications is a no-no.

> cannot be made interoperable without a substantial modifications is a no-no.

This sentence seems to imply that one cannot charge their non-Tesla car with the Tesla charging network without substantial modifications.

What do you mean by substantial modification? It is already possible for non-Tesla cars, in the United States, to charge at Tesla destination chargers with an adapter: https://qccharge.com/collections/jdapter-stub™-tesla-station...

There isn’t anything particular magic about Tesla Superchargers, either. A simple adapter+some API for the app will open it right up.

I’m not against standardization, btw.

True, and tbh, the adapters don't have to be particularly clunky. The CCS1 -> Tesla connector adapter is generally pretty elegant. Its not as nice as the Tesla connector itself, of course.

Sadly, the US standard (CCS1) was heavily influenced by a desire for backward compatibility with J1772. Its not a great standard in itself.

I don't really get this trash argument even though I hear it over and over. I throw away a higher volume of stuff in one or two average days than all the wall warts and phone cables I've ever owned probably add up to. I've been on smart phones since Blackberry, and I don't think all of the chargers and cables I've used over the two decades combined add up to a single trash can full.

Interoperability sure.

> I throw away a higher volume of stuff in one or two average days than all the wall warts and phone cables I've ever owned probably add up to.

I would think ‘mass’ is a better metric to use than ‘volume’. Also, it’s not only the waste, but also the work needed to make it, and I would guess that’s a lot harder for electric chargers than for, say, the plastic bags that take up the bulk of the volume of trash.

Also, “Others are worse” isn’t a strong argument. Some of the large contributors to trash may not be completely unavoidable (example: plastic packaging). Because of that, it’s not possible to significantly reduce the amount of waste by making a few cuts on the largest contributors of trash. You have to do it by making lots of small cuts. This is one of them, and also a relatively easy gain.

I would think volume is a better metric because landfills don't really much care about mass.

If you wanted to save trash you'd probably go after packaging. Ban disposable water bottles (or something less drastic like taxing them extra) and there's 50 lifetimes of wall warts per person per annum.

This just isn't really an enviromental problem. Or if it is, it's so far down the scale as to be pointless to prioritize over almost anything. It's really about competition.

> I would think volume is a better metric because landfills don't really much care about mass.

Most EU countries have actually outlawed landfills in favor of waste-to-energy systems. [1] Of course waste-to-energy only works for stuff like plastics, not for electronics which you'd rather want to disassemble carefully to recover the precious metals.

> If you wanted to save trash you'd probably go after packaging.

Which the EU does too. There is legislation underway (or possibly already passed) to outlaw many types of single-use plastic items. Everyone switching from plastic straws to paper straws may actually be another case of Brussels effect.

> it's so far down the scale as to be pointless to prioritize over almost anything

The thing is, from experience we know that these legislations take so long to enact and enforce that you cannot just start with the biggest items, wait for it to be done, and then move to the next biggest item. You need to tackle many possible avenues for waste reduction at once.

[1] https://www.cewep.eu/landfill-taxes-and-restrictions/

> Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens if better solutions are found. Will EU block innovation?

The EU has no problem with updating to improved standards. First there was USB-Mini-B, then USB-Micro-B, now USB-C. I would expect some different connector to replace it in a about a decade and 100% wireless in two decades roughly.

Mini-B (2000) had serious reliability problems, and would often damage the device rather than the cable. Micro-B (2007) was a pretty smart & necessary response. USB-C (2014) elegantly encompassed the additional high-speed data-connectivity that the hideous huge SuperSpeed USB Micro-B (2008) tacked on, & added significant future-proofing/adaptability (alt-modes).

I have a hard time imagining much advantage beyond USB-C. It's pretty mechanically fit & reliable, it has huge bandwidth (I think DisplayPort alt-modes can do 80Gbps?), it can transmit 240W in Extended Power Range variants. Someday perhaps. But I also think this might be here to stay for a long long time.

I would bet the industry will invent something to replace it anyway, even if there's no good reason for the change. Or maybe there will be some fundamental leap making 80 Gbps as irrelevant as 9600 bps are today.

Please Intel... I still want it: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/03/intel-thunderbolt-op...

Side note, there's some really really cheap fiber optic DisplayPort cables out there. They work, they're whatever length you want, mine were ~$0.60/foot. My monitors are 4k60 & 2k170; all resolutions run great. I feel like we're not too far off from fiber maybe happening for real.

USB-C only came to light because of the out of standard Intel's lightning cable. Same thing for x86 vs arm, you can't really block one in favour of the other.

> Will EU block innovation?

Innovation is overrated. And standardising is not blocking.

What we need more urgently than innovation is to stop creating so much waste, extracting so much stuff from the earth, and in general reduce consumption. Standardisation accomplishes at least some of that.

> Innovation is overrated. And standardising is not blocking.

Hard disagree? Both lightning and USB C were massive improvements in durability compared to Micro USB - I'd argue lightning is still better in that regard, because there's no thin piece inside the phone that can break (did phone repair, and 99% of the time a "broken" iphone port was just stuck lint).

USB C is not universally better then then Micro, namely it has a much larger footprint both on the connector side and the PCB.

> Will EU block innovation?

So my question is - if there's a new USB standard connector that's smaller, or is inside-out for better durability - is it now prevented from being used?

Granted this isn't the fault of the connector, but USB-C is certainly a mess. My Nintendo Switch uses USB-C charging, but I can't use my MacBook charger for it. There are different cables, ratings, etc. "make everything USB-C" is asking for confusion. As much as I hate having a different cable for every device, at least when I pick up a (Apple-branded) lightning cable, I know it will work correctly for my iPhone.

Isn't the switch a notorious outlier and oddball with respect to its usb-c implementation though? I think it's more just that Nintendo screwed up one product than the standard is bad.

It's certainly the most popular example of poor implementation. But one could argue that USB-C isn't even implemented and they just used the connector/form factor for their cable. I recall the RPI4 also having issues early on with power over USB-C.

But that's precisely my problem with this - if we're forcing every device to merely adopt a USB-C port, that does nothing to ensure they're actually using USB-C specifications or interoperable. Game System X and Phone Y may only work with USB-C cables/chargers X and Y, which satisfy the requirement without fixing the compatibility problem.

> …if we're forcing every device to merely adopt a USB-C port, that does nothing to ensure they're actually using USB-C specifications or interoperable.

You certainly need more than just the physical port. IMHO the minimum reasonable requirement would be that the device must charge at near the maximum supported rate (minimum of the device's, cable's, and charger's advertised rates) with any combination of compliant charger & cable. There wouldn't be much point in mandating the use of USB-C ports otherwise.

> My Nintendo Switch uses USB-C charging, but I can't use my MacBook charger for it.

Then I guess you got one from the first hardware revision. I have a 2018 Switch (second hardware revision as far as I understand), and I have in the past charged it successfully with Apple chargers and Lenovo chargers.

I really like what USB-C has done for peripherals and non-iphone devices, but I agree with you.

I'd be fine with a new USB-D that fixed all these issues. USB-C is just mostly better than the other alternatives for Android and charging laptops. Its far from perfect.

Don't get me wrong I do too. I'd prefer it if everything just used USB C.

I just wanted to point out that it's not universally superior to micro USB or lightning, and there are places it could be improved.

I've read that USB-C is a durability improvement over micro USB. This surprised me because I've never had the USB port on a phone fail on me until I got a USB-C phone.

Are really the non-standard cables to blame here?

How about non-removable batteries and unrepairable phones? Many phones would be still ok, but the non-removable (cheaply) battery means that they get replaced prematurely, because the cost of replacement is overlapping the price of a low/mid tear phones. Back in the day, you pulled the back cover off, put a new batter in, and the phone was as good as new. Same with other types of repair, especially the kinds where manufacturer just replaces the whole assembly just because of one small part malfunctioning.

Probably several things. They're working on the battery-issue: https://repair.eu/news/the-european-parliament-calls-for-rem...

Look, we have the headphone jack (6.35mm) stemming from 1877, and its miniature form (3.5mm) from 1960.

It’s ok to let USB-C live for another 60-100 years.

It will probably last for very long consider 24 wire of type c is a lot compares to 4 of 3.5mm jack. And it can actually be repurposed by changing the protocol (software) ?

Probably until someday that 24 physical wire isn't enough for a phone. (but the iPhone don't even use the usb3 yet, why did it even need these bandwidth?)

This is a flawed comparison because the use cases for the former examples are very limited in comparison to USB C which is arguably evolving rapidly still.

You could imagine if we had formed such a standard around USB A in the 90s and how it might have blocked the already high friction establishment of USB C and thunderbolt 3 standards.

USB C currently seems more mature than USB A, so I can see where things ar ea bit subjective here, but it's not really possible to see where unrestricted development would have put us.

I think I would have been more comfortable with simply banning lightning and micro USB than restricting to only USB C.

The first version of the EU regulation suggested USB micro. There's a reason why it took ten years to go from suggestion to requirement.

This regulation is about charging - so power, not data / thunderbolt. And when it comes to charging USB C can delvier 100W, which is enough for any small gadget, phone, etc.

They upgraded it to 240W.

The 3.5mm jack is not that good in my opinion. It fails too quickly. Less than a year for a portable device that bumps around in your pocket and reconnect a couple times a day. Now I still prefer it in many situations to bluetooth with its latency and packet drop issues, but I do think that a better jack could be made and is worth making.

As for suggestions for improvements: it should not be able to spin, because spinning wears it down. Second, maybe some kind of latch to lock it into place.

> "No funny cables, why don't you try wireless charging of your liking if USB-C doesn't cut it for you?".

it boils down to "as long as the USB-C is provided"

anyway electric plugs have been a standard for decades, better options to supply energy have come out, the plugs have stayed the same.

I don't understand the FOMO.

> it boils down to "as long as the USB-C is provided"

Can you provide a source? AFAIK you can have a device without USB-C and only wireless charging.

it's literally in the first page

in so far as they are capable of being recharged via wired charging, shall:

so you can have all the funny cables you want, as long as you provide the USB-C plug

If there is no wired charging, there is no problem of funny cables.

but companies are free to experiment all the kinds of wired charging they want, it's just more convenient to have a standard and they'll comply happily I guess, now that they are forced by the law and can stop competing on stupid stuff like charging cables.

There is a huge question of what exactly “are capable of being recharged via wired charging” means. Does the hidden Lightning connector on Apple Watch that most consumers don't even know is there count?

IIRC it doesn't even exclude funny cables as long as the option remains to use an USB-C cable too

So if you really want I believe you could issue a double port

Clunky for smartphones maybe, but should be trivial for larger devices

That's also my understanding.

So Macbook Air 2022 with MagSafe charging will be completely legal as long as the USB-C can be used for charging.

That is good because I think as late as three years ago there was still at least one "laptop" (possibly more, only one I have heard of) which were heavy desktop replacement that required two power bricks during some gaming.

For that kind of power draw I think the proposal doesn't mandate anything anyway

> Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens if better solutions are found. Will EU block innovation?

Previously the EU had a (non-compulsory) rule on micro A as the charging standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply

Plus they leave the door open for a wireless alternative.

What if Apple finally comes out with wired mag safe for the iPhone? Does they count as wireless? Or would it be illegal in Europe because a wire was still involved even if the connection was magnetic?

How about we wait until Apple comes up with a MagSafe connector for phones they want to use and the big bad regulators won't let them?

Tim Cook has his own PR team, haha.

Don’t you think this might discourage them from investing the R&D to make something that’ll require a fight to release?

Since they've been using Lightning for about 10 years now, I'd say there's other things that are inhibiting their innovation. I suspect it has more to do with third-party accessory manufacturers. Unless you're suggesting that connector innovation requires at least a 10 year iteration cycle?

Yeah, people generally don’t want to have to throw out all that stuff after a short period of time, and after a long period, they’ve got even more money invested in that setup, so if it’s not broken… there’s just not really much of a compelling benefit to change types from the perspective of most normal people, and there are concrete downsides in the form of money sunk into it.

Anyway, I like USB-C more, I have to carry them anyway, so it’d eliminate one cable when I travel. We’re as close as I’ve ever seen to having the one cable to rule them all, which is pretty cool.

USBC can be made to be "MagSafe". When Apple only sold laptops with USB-C ports there were a bunch of MagSafe knockoffs sold for laptops. Although most of the time they would break eventually but it's not impossible. If it just was a special cord as long as you could use a regular USBC cord it seems like it would be compliant but IANAL.

Those solutions aren’t very good, so I doubt Apple would go that route.

Frankly, I’m expecting the lightning port to be replaced with a purely inductive/magnetic solution eventually, there probably will not even be a receptacle for it, just a wireless contact to the phone from the wire like how the Apple Watch can only charged.

I’m guessing in that case, they would be exempt from providing a usb-c port since the phones would be technically purely wireless by that point. At that point, other vendors will follow and the EU will mandate Qi as the standard wireless charging solution since the USB-C mandate will be obsolete.

I'd guess that they'd be required to implement both. If there's a USB-C charging option, I don't think the EU would prevent an additional magsafe charging. They havent banned wireless charging, for example. This is to insure an essential minimum compatibility (I hope/as I see it).

It would be nice if we could limit new standards to once every 5-10 years. At which time people can submit new ideas for standardization approval and then the best one gets picked and everyone is required to switch. Backwards compatibility would probably score a lot of points.

Speaking of cars and standardization, I'm still waiting for the European Union to put the steering wheel on the left side of the car and while we're at it, make it mandatory to drive on the right side of the road.

Demographics seems to suggest that the prospect of unification is not unrealistic within our lifetimes.

In another generation, cars will be self driving and this will just be a code change.

Is your point that since there exist a standard which occurred without government intervention, then the government should never intervene to create any standards?

No, the point is the UE can't standardize even this "simple" thing.

Standards are a good thing but I’m not sure that we have reached this point where USB-C is functionally the best. If we could completely eliminate on all other types of connectors on not just phones but computers then I would say it’s time to standardize. Unfortunately on my computer if I want a 4K resolution and frame rate that is way 300 hz then is it even possible that can be done over a USB-C connector? Hopefully some expert can chime in but display port or hdmi 2.1+ or multiple of those cables is what is used typically, and if USB-c worked perfectly why isn’t that already replacing every single port on a computer? Phones will eventually be as fast or faster than the current computers, so why implement a limitation when it feels like phones are still at the baby steps in phone evolution? That is just data transfer and I’m no expert but I’m not certain either than charging has reached it’s final form either. Am I wrong, is the USB-c connector capable of infinite data transfer rate as long as your cable is good enough?

> Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens if better solutions are found. Will EU block innovation?

Usb typec wire from 65A(non e-marked wire) to 240A(the latest standardized e-marked wire) uses literally the same plug.

Typec is the header but not the protocol. Even China phone vendor's proprietary high speed charging protocol use typec wire. And Intel's tb4 wire also use a type c wire. (the bandwidth of tb4 is definitely overkill for every phone ever made on the world for now)

Force use of typec header and baseline charging protocol prevent innovation is just bs consider this didn't even prevent apple from making a MFA e-marked typec cable.(Or they don't want this to pass because they actually want to do this again?)

> the bandwidth of tb4 is definitely overkill for every phone ever made on the world for now

That depends on what you're doing with it. It would not be very strange to power a VR headset with a phone, which could easily get into that bandwidth range.

I'm considering TBT3/4 for our VR headset's tethered mode. It's a bit of a pain to implement, but the data rate is worth it.

For reference, we need 2-4 lanes of DP HBR3 (depending on compression) + PCIe Gen3x4 for the camera passthrough. TBT3/4 could do it over a single cable.

Feeds into the nightmare that is implementing that entire ecosystem though...

> Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens if better solutions are found.

Didn’t the EU previously mandate micro USB A? I believe Apple included an adapter in the box for all EU SKUs.

Edit: it was not compulsory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply

The tech for wireless charging is not really that new and isn't really changing a large amount. My Nokia 920 uses the same charging standard as the latest iPhones. iPhones can charge on the old charger I have, the 920 can charge on an iPhone charger. That phone came out a decade ago.

> Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens if better solutions are found. Will EU block innovation?

no... we also had the Micro USB standard because of Europe...

The constitution gives US congress the right to set standards for weights and measures, which unless you use a very strict reading says they can set charging standards. I wish they would. Tesla (and Nissan) as early movers 10 years ago can be forgiven for not adopting a standard charger, but now they need to update to the standard. (IIRC both are planning on it)

Reading charging standards as "weights and measures" is on par with classifying bumblebees as fish.

Not only aren't these strict readings, they aren't even sensible.

Standardization of metering devices used in commerce is directly in the purview of Weights and Measures regulation.

For example, NIST Weights and Measures division regulates the nozzle on the dispenser used for gasoline in the US.

> Each retail dispensing device from which fuel products are sold shall be equipped with a nozzle spout having a diameter that conforms with the latest version of SAE J285, “Dispenser Nozzle Spouts for Liquid Fuel Intended for Use with Spark-Ignition and Compression Ignition Engines.”

https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2019/12/06/00-20...

A metering devices that dispenses electrical power is no different. https://www.nist.gov/pml/weights-and-measures/legal-metrolog...

It's an overreach. "A pound is 16 ounces" is not the same as "cakes shall only be 5 ounces," i.e., a standard of measure does not extend to regulation of what is measured and what measures are permitted. An originalist court could fix this.

That analogy does not hold up. A fuel dispenser is a metering device. The scale at your grocery store that measures the weight of the cake is, likewise, an NTEP scale: https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/national-type-evaluat...

These are very fundamental consumer protection regulations that have been solidly cemented in western civilization for many centuries now.

>not extend to regulation of [...] what measures are permitted.

That was exactly the point of that clause. The colonies all had their own system of measurement and it was a mess trying to do business. Now, congress did very little about it, but the founders intentionally reserved the right for them to fix that problem.

The problem with your formulation is that there is no limiting principle. Perversely, the government could rule that a pregnant person is a metering device for gestation and establish standards.

No, a pregnancy does not meter any commercial exchange of goods.

Ensuring accurate metering in the context of commerce is within the scope of "To … fix the Standard of Weights and Measures". The specific form of the nozzle clearly is not, but they might justify it on the basis of some other enumerated power—the interstate commerce clause is frequently (ab)used for this sort of thing. Nothing technically requires every regulation produced by the NIST Weights and Measures division to be grounded exclusively in the Weights and Measures clause, though one could be forgiven for making that assumption.

As dpratt remarked earlier[0], any interpretation which would deem nozzle size—or the specific form of an electrical connector—to be covered by the Weights and Measures clause of the Constitution would effectively cede unlimited power to the federal government. What couldn't they regulate under such broad rules?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31654558

I'm not saying that the regulatory power in this case is derived solely from the weights and measures clause, I'm countering golemotron's suggestion that it's a wholly unrelated topic. It's a topic so closely relevant to weights and measures that the regulatory division that currently regulates them bears that title.

> on par with classifying bumblebees as fish

So you're saying it's quite reasonable when you look at what actually happened?

The law defined a handful of categories. "fish" is actually "fish and miscellaneous". Invertebrates are explicitly part of that miscellaneous.

> par with classifying bumblebees as fish

Society claiming this is wrong and being correct is exactly balanced by society claiming whales aren't fish and being incorrect.

(Whales are fish because they're descendants of fish and are more closely related to salmon than sharks are. The same goes for you. You're also a fish.)

If by “strict reading” you mean “any reading at all”, I would agree.

I’m not sure how the legal power to say “the unit of mass called the ‘gram’ shall be defined as the mass of a cube of pure water, one centimeter on each side” allows you to say “anybody that manufactures a phone must include the following physical and logical features.” If you go off that definition, you’re basically ceding pretty much unlimited power to the government.

For phones, you’re right.

For cars, we have public metering devices that measure units of stuff and charge money. This makes it fall into the category of metering devices used in trade. And we do regulate those almost universally. You can’t just put a different shape nozzle on a gas pump, for instance.

If only we had mandated VGA 20 years ago I wouldn't have to stress over all these different connections under my monitor.

You can't possibly believe what you typed.

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