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Comment by revscat | Hacker News Reader

One of Tesla‘s biggest market advantages is the quality and ubiquity of their charging network. There’s no other charging network that you can just drive up to, be 95% certain that it’s going to work, plug in, and start charging without having to download an app. Blink at least allows for contactless payments now, but their chargers are still all slow chargers, I believe.

It’s no surprise that he is resistant.

It needs to happen, though. Like you I’m glad and incentives are being provided.

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> It’s no surprise that he is resistant.

For many years now Tesla offered other car makers to use Tesla's superchargers as long as they chip in some of the cost of building it.

It was a fair offer that no car maker took.

The Fed offers a fair deal: free money under the condition of chargers being open to all.

Tesla was always willing to open supercharging to others under fair terms so it's incorrect to label Musk as "resistant" to this. If he was "resistant", Tesla wouldn't take the deal.

Is this referring to Tesla's "patent pledge" or some other offer?

Because the patent pledge was a bit of a joke. It amounted to "You can use Tesla's patents, as long as you agree not to assert any patent or other IP against any company for making EVs or related equipment."

So you don't just have to let Tesla use your patents in exchange for you using theirs, you have to give them away to every competitor, whether or not those competitors are sharing their own patents. It's not surprising that no one has taken them up on this.

If you squint, that almost sounds like an AGPL license but for physical chargers.

If using one piece of AGPL software forced your company to release every other piece of software as AGPL too, and then people spent the next 10 years acting surprised that nobody else was willing to touch Tesla's software with a ten foot pole

im fairly certain I'll have to download an app to use a tesla charger with my car. tesla cars already have "the app" inside them because the car / charger / billing is all integrated and owned by a single company. I'd rather not buy into a monolithic arrangement like that.

Well, yes, but that’s going to be true regardless of the network. I meant after the initial download and account set up. I should’ve been more clear. Tesla is the only network I have used where I can just drive up, plug in, and start charging. I hope this is where everyone eventually goes.

I don't own a Tesla and have had many experiences of drive up, plug in, and start charging.

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

What do you own and where are those magic EV chargers that don't require you to do SOMETHING other than plugging in, like swiping a credit card or some such?

I own a Ford Mustang Mach E. I've had plug and charge work successfully every time I've used an Electrify America station. I've also had it work at EVGo and Chargepoint locations.

If you have to download an app, it looks like Tesla won't get the incentive money: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34805587

Having an app == contactless payment according to the document.

Other car manufacturers could easily put the necessary apps in their entertainment systems.

Other manufacturers can barely make a working play button for music on my phone, I’m not very optimistic about two way billing communication through a charge port.

Not really, because Tesla uses a proprietary system instead of the industry standard to negotiate payment information.

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