Ford EV Customers to Gain Access to 12,000 Tesla Superchargers
media.ford.com
media.ford.com
That’s massive that another automaker is adding the Tesla connector. I’d rather Tesla add the CCS connector, but it will be interesting if Tesla uses their charger network access to push other automakers to add the Tesla connector.
The only truthful argument in this discussion is that Tesla already have a huge charging network using their (previously) proprietary connector and automotive makers want to have access to this. NACS use the same signaling protocol as CCS, which is also why you can get away with a pretty dumb adapter.
It has the same physical limitations as any other cable. If you want to deliver high power at low voltage you need thick cables, there's nothing you can do to get around that fact.
CCS Type 2 is rated at 1000V and 400A, or 400kW.
Is that at all relevant for the North American market, where no one would be using three phase power to charge their car? And is it even relevant to the CCS part of the standard, when really what CCS adds on top of IEC 62196 is the ability to use DC charging, at which point phases are irrelevant.
The whole point of connectors is, firstly, how much power they can deliver (both NACS and CCS1 appear equally capable), then, how affordable they are to make and how easy they are to use.
Affordability is objective, NACS is simply cheaper to make. Less materials go into it, and that's a win. Furthermore, it doesn't require a massive charging port (see how Tesla had to work around CCS2 for the Model S/Y in Europe because their charging port cover is too small), so there's further benefits here.
Ease of use is less objective, but for anyone who has used both, clearly NACS is much, much better. It's lighter, less chonky, simpler (you don't have to remove a cover over the DC plugs). I think the consensus here is just clear.
So what, then, is an objective argument FOR using CCS1 over NACS? I really don't see one. The only argument I can see is that we lose some mild amount of harmony with CCS2 connectors that the rest of the world is going to use, but with the differences between CCS1 and CCS2 that exist anyway, that might be a moot point.
While 240V 3-phase isn't common in the US homes I'd imagine that it would be super handy for places like shopping malls or parking garages where you want to have lots of Level 2 chargers.
> Affordability is objective, NACS is simply cheaper to make. Less materials go into it, and that's a win.
I agree with you there, it looks much better and is slightly easier to handle. I doubt the material difference is much, it's just a little plastic. The amount of adapters likely makes up the difference.
> you don't have to remove a cover over the DC plugs
This isn't really a thing. These hard plastic covers is something people buy thinking it will protect them from being electrocuted. If they had known how the chargers work they'd likely be less worried. Except in France, where they've made CCS Type 3, which is about as French of an idea as you get.
> So what, then, is an objective argument FOR using CCS1 over NACS? I really don't see one.
The main issue here is that US decided to go with CCS Type 1, when it was clear back in 2014 that CCS Type 2 would be a much better and more future proof choice. It's something that should have been solved with regulation a long time ago. And now you're stuck with CCS Type 1 and NACS for the unforeseeable future. It's kinda funny, because in Europe Tesla went from only NACS (V1 superchargers) to NACS and CCS2 (V2 and V3 superchargers) to only CCS2 (V4 superchargers).
> I agree with you there, it looks much better and is slightly easier to handle. I doubt the material difference is much, it's just a little plastic. The amount of adapters likely makes up the difference.
The biggest difference in the US is the latching mechanism. Its a moving part with the US CCS1 connector, and a surprising number also make it an electrically activated latch. Despite the talk about it being rare to be the failure point, it is actually fairly fragile and failure prone. Worse, we've seen a case or two on the forums where the failure mode resulted in a connector stuck to the car!
On top of that, CCS1 still requires an additional active latch on the car.
Both CCS2 and NACS solve this in a much simpler way that puts all of the active latching into the vehicle. It is simpler and more reliable. TBH, I agree with you about the US really messing up with CCS1. CCS2 is marginally more bulky than NACS, but also has some real advantages and the downsides are small.
Regarding the plastic covers, a lot of cars come with them. The concern seems to be that debris could get into the port while AC charging.
Most anyone in an industrial work setting in North America will have 3-phase 240V service installed, minimum. My work has 480V 3-phase for our SMT line. We have permanently-installed charge stations on that 3-phase service. Damn shame they've got nothing for my e-bike, so I just use the benchtop inside and a cable rig.
Are all three phases even being sent to the electric cars? The J1772 only supports a single phase.
I suppose this means one leg of the circuit is not used, meaning the load between the different legs is always going to be out of balance, but this practice (use 2 legs of a 3 phase feed for "240 er... 208v" for "big" loads such as a drier or EVSE or water heater, so likely any industrial / commercial setting just accepts that you're not going to load up all legs your feeds evenly.
NA built EVs typically don't have the internal circuitry to manage 3 phase charging -- the EV takes care of the AC -> DC conversion on a level 2 circuit, and the extra stuff to do that in NA wouldn't ever be used. The same is true of charging off of 400v AC -- it's super rare and likely not something that's worth engineering to implement.
3-phase power is insanely common in commercial buildings for things like HVAC, refrigeration, and massive lighting systems. Sure, it's not at all common in residential areas, but I'd sure love to charge my car when I stop at a grocery store.
CCS2 is less terrible than CCS1, but the US went with the worst possible choice.
I agree with you with regard to cables. That is a charge provider choice and its basically just coincidence that CCS providers are choosing badly. There's nothing intrinsic to the connector that is allowing Tesla to choose better cables.
500 amps for CCS so in principle up to 500 kW. For example, Alpitronic's HY400 charger does 500 amps (with 600A boost):
https://www.hypercharger.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/HYC40...
You can indeed get around this fact (a little bit) if you cool the cables. Tesla's newer superchargers have liquid cooled cables and are thinner than the old cables for exactly this reason.
[1] Tesla's patent pledge is not even close to a grant and its "good faith" rules almost certainly exclude all current major automakers.
Why is that?
Those things are (roughly):
1. Having sued anyone over IP used in EVs, helped anyone due so, or had a financial stake in someone who does.
2. Challenged any patent held by Tesla, now or in the future; or had a stake in such a challenge.
3. Marketed or sold a "knock-off" of any tesla product, or providing material assistance to. Knock-off is defined a product that imitates or copies the design of a tesla product.
If I held stock in a big-three automaker when they sued a non-Tesla EV manufacturer over a patent, does that mean I am excluded? Sure looks like it.
Selling a J1772->Tesla-T adapter could also count, and because it's a "never has done" kind of thing, there is no concept of redemption.
And CCS is capable of of doing 360Kw of charge (with the current 400V units and a chunk more on any 800V unit) which is a tiny bit more than 250 max on the NACS
Tesla uses NACS in North America because there wasn't any unified industry standard when they started their roll-out. The closest thing there was to a standard for DC fast charging was arguably CHAdeMO; while CCS1 was little more than a press release from the Detroit auto companies.
Yes Tesla could have adopted CCS1 but because of the way history played out, there was never a point where it could have made sense to do so. I think many people forget that Tesla wasn't a profitable company until recently. Many had them on a perennial "death watch". By the time CCS1 was looking like it would win over CHAdeMO, the supercharger network was so large that switching would have been well beyond Tesla's financial means.
I don’t think anyone could’ve said with confidence that CCS1 would’ve become the major standard in North America. It could’ve been a future revision of CHAdeMO. Or it could have been CCS3.
Sure, just like adding CCS2 plugs to their European chargers sent Tesla broke and that's why the company folded and we never heard of it again.
North America is majority NACS by units sold; CCS1 is in second place.
Europe has standardised on CCS2, which is equally incompatible with CCS1 and NACS.
China is the world's largest EV market and uses neither CCS1 nor CCS2.
CCS also isn't a "global standard". China has their own standard.
There's a reason why CCS is called "Frankenplug." It's looking like only the EU will be stuck with it. (And they don't have to be, older Superchargers ran over the Menekis (sp?) connector fine.)
The physical layer is easy - mostly just plastic and metal contacts, as well as minor electrical differences. The reliability and payment layer is where Tesla has way outperformed and it will be interesting to see if Ford can support that with their "Ford Pay" system.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=240R6RhLGj0
[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/ev-chargers/how-well-do...
If the charging port is on the rear right (or front left) corner, they won't line up correctly with Tesla's stalls.
So what? It's up to Tesla to build better chargers. Here's a start:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/19/23689247/tesla-v4-superch...
If they only want compatibility with V4 superchargers, they can stick with CCS1 and let their customers connect through the integrated adaptor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y33AArvMUQ
Don't worry about it.
The other big players in the DC fast charging space, like "Electrify America" seem like textbook "malicious compliance" ; they're exemplifying why you shouldn't own an EV -- "look they're expensive and profoundly unreliable; if you try to drive your EV long distances you'll spend 80 extra hours charging!"
Too bad they couldn't sell the plant + Bolt designs to some other company, like when The Expanse moved to Amazon.
GM is killing the bolt in favor of trucks. I'm sure they'd still want the bolt but likely trucks are more lucrative and batteries hard to come by.
My guess is 10 years before that battery crunch eases up.
Also, favoring trucks is quite probably GM worried about Ford's massive US truck fan base and hoping they can outpace Ford's supply chain bootstrapping issues with Ultium, which did have something of a head start (and multiple proven predecessor generations). (It's interesting to compare Ford's stop gap F-150 Lightning/Mach-E on an already announced dead platform and Ford moving to VW's relatively more proven MEB platform as an attempted short-cut around supply chain issues by leveraging VW logistics.)
But yeah, I wish GM would finally announce the remaining "unknown" Ultium models and hope that at least one properly fills the hole left behind by the Bolt.
Are you saying that Tesla can only make money by having a relatively underpaid workforce? Do you think that's sustainable?
>vast inefficiencies in their network (3rd party supplier glut, dealerships, etc)
Wait, you think the automotive supply chain is inefficient? JIT auto manufacturing is a modern marvel...
Dealers? That's a tough one. Lots to improve, but you can't eliminate customer service. I'm not sure being beholder to the manufacturer is great for consumers, either.
It's super efficient for a the current high complexity vehicles we have. It really struggles, though, when you deviate from the formula.
This is pretty evident with the earlier ford evs like the ford focus. Where the only way they could get a battery in is by slapping it into the trunk. The skateboard model of evs is WAY more efficient but requires significant retooling. And, at this point, is pretty much all inhouse standards. There's nobody (AFAIK) manufacturing a standard battery pack module. Every EV manufacture has been left to making their own standards there.
That's what has driven up the cost more than anything. Huge portions of the manufacturing line need to retool and that's a long slow processing. In the meantime, companies like telsa were able disrupt by doing the less efficient ground up approach.
As EVs become more common and standardized, this will of course change and tesla's ev manufacturing will end up a liability rather than an asset. But until that happens, they get some pretty nice profit margins that will be hard to beat.
They have 20% gross profit margins, while capitalizing costs that other companies expense. You can't compare the numbers.
Personally I'd be happier if Chinese products artificially subsidized by CCP government funds be slapped with heavy tariffs to counteract that, but I don't believe that it will happen.
[1] https://insideevs.com/news/629273/byd-plugin-car-sales-decem...
China is violating these rules on a scale that puts the US and Europe combined to shame, the absurd thing is that it's the US who is currently blocking WTO appointments.
After all, unlike in democratic nations, China doesn't have to worry about how heavily subsidizing certain companies will be perceived, and Western nations have already seen how bad of a mistake building a strong reliance on a single nation ended up being for the reliability of their supply chains.
For the US, they will need to sort out US production to get around protectionist trade policy, but that seems likely in the long run.
"Competition" has been "coming" for 10 years now. Tesla also want others to succeed. It's why they open-sourced all of their patents.
Tesla already owns all the "gas stations," people just don't realize it yet.
https://electrek.co/2022/04/15/tesla-cost-deploy-supercharge...
I just did a quick google and this site mentions:
> Hardware costs for a Public DC electric vehicle charging station are very expensive ranging from between $40,000-$100,000 per charging station.
and
> In addition to high hardware costs, installation can also be very expensive given the frequent need to install a 480V transformer, upgrade the electrical supply as well as the permitting and increased labor time needed for the project. Installation costs would likely range from between $15,000-$60,000 depending on the specific nature of the project.
https://evse.com.au/blog/evchargercost/
Note this an Australian site so it'll be in AUD, and I have no idea on the validity of these numbers. I know at one of our client sites (mining) they recently set up a charging station for vehicles that tipped into the $millions. But apples and oranges in that regard.
Which begs the question; do Tesla superchargers have the ability of using only a credit card or cash? Is there any plan to?
My point is, I still need some app. I can't just go up to a Tesla charger and choose to pay with one credit card or the other without involving an app.
In this case, the Tesla charging network is the only one that allows use without a cell phone app. The other charging networks are a mess, I have several apps installed for them.
I hope they build more to accommodate the extra load
And while people obsess over fast chargers, the real deal is actually slower charging in parking lots, parking garages, shopping malls etc. Those are a lot cheaper and easier to install and they are similar in cost to what people would install at home. Basically, most of the charging happens at home or chargers like that while the driver is doing something else. A lot of venues try to draw in customers by providing them with charging opportunities and they are fairly cheap to install. There are already quite many of those. Hundreds of thousands of them. They're everywhere.
You use fast chargers at a premium when you have to on longer journeys. Plug it in for 20-30 minutes and continue driving for a few hours. Not that big of a deal.
But slower charging is better for your wallet and battery and if you are parking the car anyway, you might as well plug it in to gain a few extra kwh. It won't delay you or cost you much. For most typical EV drivers, that's all they need most of the time. The vast majority of charging is slow charging and it doesn't involve people waiting for that. On average people only drive maybe 10-20 miles on a typical day. That's only about 4-6kwh. You don't need a fast charger for that. Plug it in at home once every few days or at the mall while you are shopping, having some coffee, at work, etc. There are plenty of opportunities for charging even if you don't have a charger at home.
It wouldn't be surprising if Tesla doesn't get that much of the money. TBH, Tesla's current V3 offering doesn't quite meet NEVI standards regardless of the connector.
Iirc Tesla has dropped to installing something like only 50 total chargers (not sites, individual chargers) in May due to it.
They'll likely get at least a few more sites done by the end of the month.
You're conflating two different counts there.
Tesla has commissioned 33 new sites in May. Construction on most of those started in 2+ months ago.
They have started construction on 8 superchargers in the month of May so far, consisting of 96 stalls. With this being a long weekend, that basically leaves them with 2 working days, so I doubt many more entering construction.
They are trending down due to the shortage.
Construction started:
May: 8 sites, 96 stalls
April: 11 sites, 162 stalls
March: 12 sites, 192 stalls
Additionally, it's not hard to find evidence of the transformer shortage.
> Today, the average time for obtaining new transformers in the US has grown from about two months prior to 2021 to 12 months in 2022, according to a survey of public power utilities.
> Already, the shortage has forced 20 per cent of utility companies to either delay or cancel electrical grid projects. Home builders have experienced months-long delays in constructing new houses and apartments because of wait times for connecting with local electrical grids.
The transformer shortage is not a new problem. There's a reason that the pace of openings hasn't really changed that much.
Its probably a net benefit for them, given how quickly they are willing to roll out sites when suitable options are available to them.
Opening the North American charging standard
For Tesla: other automaker will convert to NACS, rendering existing CCS chargers a relic of the past, leaving alternative charging networks in the dust and requiring massive retooling to come back. This positions Tesla as an energy provider like Shell/Chevron.
Eventually I bet they'll be forced to split out the auto manufacturer from the energy vendor to avoid antitrust problems, but that will be in a while.
No, this positions Tesla to be an energy middleman. They're not finding and distributing energy, just reselling it at a markup.
I don't see an argument for self favoring or anti-trust. What am I missing? Why do you think that outcome will happen?
But that's highly speculative of course, and it's just a possible development in a scenario where Tesla ends up being incredibly successful in the way I describe. Which of course is very arguable, as people have done for years.
And I was worried that the "green revolution" was going to be without rent seeking corporate greed getting involved. Yay?
Anyways.. the idea that selecting a plug would make you somehow positioned to be an "energy provider" ala Shell is just awful to me, let alone, but that anyone would seemingly be thrilled about that outcome brought out my sarcasm.
The connector being better is a separate issue. Anyone else can adopt that if they choose to.
Anyone can buy land and sell electricity on it. You should look _forward_ to that market opportunity.. not stand around pretending that Tesla is the new Exxon. As if more "Exxon" like business are at all a good idea.
95% of the time I'm charging at home and on a net-metering Solar plan, so really only paying those $0.12/kWh rates in the dark winter months, basically charging for "free" off solar once we hit the equinox.
What does matter more than price to me is the speed of the fast charging experience when I'm on a road trip. Tesla is not perfect -- I've been to chargers located in mall parking lots, which are an absolute nightmare in the holiday shopping season. I've been to chargers in airport parking garages, where you need to pay to enter the garage, etc. Most of Tesla's newer locations are better than this (like the ones at Sheetz gas stations just off the highway). But whats a real nightmare for me (and which has never happened to me with Tesla) is most of the chargers being down, or running at severely degraded speeds. This DOES happen with EA. So after hearing terrible charging experiences from friends with CCS cars, I'm pretty much tied to the Tesla supercharger network.
>In general, the cost of charging a Tesla is more than 3 times cheaper per mile than the cost of fueling a gas-powered car (4.56 cents per mile compared to approximately 13.73 cents per mile for gas vehicles). from: https://news.energysage.com/tesla-charging-cost-vs-gas/
a different take: >It depends on what you are comparing it to gas wise. In my area, approximate numbers are 11 cents a kWh at home, 28 cent at a SC. I will get roughly 3 miles to the kWh so a mile costs me 9 cents if I SC. Gas is $3.30 a gallon so my car would need to get 36 miles to the gallon or better to compete with SC'ing.
from: https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaModel3/comments/stbpfb/comment...
A 10 year Prius ownership will still cost you more.
Not if you factor in all the side costs associated with owning an ICE car in maintenance. With an electric car, basically all you have to do is tire exchanges and brake pads - and less of the latter too, because most braking of an electric vehicle is done by regenerative braking so the pads aren't used at all if you're a decent driver.
https://preview.redd.it/insane-23-prius-markup-v0-t422zsfhnm...
I'm all for electric, but thinking we are missing a huge opportunity during the 30-50 year transition to cut gas use in half TODAY with hybrids. And this eliminates all the range anxiety excuses as well.
Right now, EV users are the very rich. EV users actually have MORE cars on average, and tend to drive their EVs less than their ICE cars. They have a house to charge their car in at night. (I know there are many anecdotes that will give counter examples. But this is what the data say on average.)
We need a way to get to the rest of the population.
Or, you could just see what the superior attitude gets you.
You do have to be a little careful if you want to go that route though, Tesla has pulled free supercharging from some vehicles, and some had the free supercharging limited to just one owner. Also, Tesla is trying to entice people with the free supercharging to give it up, I believe the deal is $5k off a new Tesla if you give up free SC.
It looks like the Model S 2017 and older came with free supercharging, and the Model 3 Performance in 2018 and 2019. Model X in 2016 and 2017. Some S & X up to 2020 had unlimited supercharging.
Login to the Tesla website, click on "Manage" next to the car, then click on "Details" and it'll say "Free unlimited supercharging" if it has it.
The premise is that Tesla offers more for trade-ins for cars that have free lifetime SC and things like "Full Self Driving". They optionally disable these add-ons for new users because they're recapturing the expense of their higher trade-in offers for the cars that have them.
Yes, they're making a profit in the process, but what used car dealer doesn't?
https://electrek.co/2021/07/21/how-to-tell-if-your-tesla-qua...
Assuming 4 miles/kWh, that's $36 to drive 400 miles. Charging at home cuts the cost roughly in half. These numbers vary depending on location.
But if I did have to pay, I believe my apartment charges $0.30 per kWh. And I get 4.5 miles of range per kWh. So it's $6 to drive 100 miles. Gas is over $4/gallon here so a car that gets 33 mpg would spend over $12 to go 100 miles.
If I was paying $0.125 per kWh like I've seen other people report in this thread then I'd spend $2.50 to go 100 miles.
$16 in my ICE camry will take me a lot further.
Just looked it up: $0.45/kWh the last 4 times at Tesla Superchargers in California.
They can for sure build up Cali and catch up to demand. It’s a solvable problem. The fact they just work is so huge.
That is not true at all, at least around me (Los Angeles). The mall by me has a supercharger and a set of CCS chargers. The supercharger often has a line, but I've never seen one at the CCS chargers
moreover, in the EU non-Tesla's pay a higher price per kWh, I assume this is the same in the US? This would give Tesla even more resources to expand faster.
Tesla superchargers are a lot more reliable and easier to use than the alternative fast-chargers. So I'm happy that they opened up and will expand faster.
Meanwhile, we've got states saying that they will deploy their first NEVI installations late next year. But the lines at CCS stations already exist!
Also the "North American Charging Standard" is revisionist doublespeak.
The only reason Tesla uses NACS in the US is that CCS did not exist at the time they started rolling out the Supercharger network.
I'm not sure why it matters what the rest of the world does. A charging plug seems a lot less of a change than say putting the driver on a different side of the car. Bonus points, you can even use a converter between the two plugs if you take your American Tesla to Europe!
As stated elsewhere in the comments, the European CCS charger and the US CCS charger are not the same.
The user experience for CCS sucks. You should be able to enter payment information into the car, which it would exchange with the charger so you could just pull up, plug in and walk away, without having to fuck around with NFC taps or custom apps for five minutes before you can actually start charging.
I don't think we should be surprised that the company that brought us "Autopilot" chose to market its proprietary connector as the "North American Charging Standard". Marketing-wise, I think the name is pretty good, though it is cringe-worthy revisionist doublespeak.
At this rate they'll double the existing number of stations in ~5 years.
I have driven thousands of miles around the east coast and have waited in a line once around 3 years ago.
Another way to spell "fuck the people, why should their life get better ?"
Half joking aside, supercharger usage might save Tesla if their vehicles stop selling well enough a few years down the road. People's taste come and go, infra will always be needed.
But the lives of many people are getting better and I bet the net effect is positive, even if you as a Tesla driver (like me), now has to wait a little longer.
So how can you make money on this? Be the one providing all them the energy and charging infrastructure. It's a better business than the car themselves and are likely to have less competition due to the fact that car companies aren't going to want to build out the infrastructure themselves.
They still keep a competitive advantage by having their cars have faster charge times due to having the latest charging tech.
Teslas are middle of the pack for charging. Hyundai's E-GMP platform cars for example (Ioniq 5, Ioniq 6, Kia EV6, Genesis GV60) are capable of 10 to 80% in 18 minutes at their fastest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y33AArvMUQ
Incompatible charging infrastructure is a profoundly stupid outcome. All brands of charger must charge all brands of EVs.
It's a mistake to support closed infrastructure. Demand more and better.
> https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/...
> In Europe you can go ahead and charge your BMW i4 on a Tesla charger.
You also can in the USA at some Tesla super chargers and new ones going forward, thanks to Tesla's new Magic Dock at the US superchargers (they now support both CCS and NACS). While a common standard would have been nicer, this is a relatively neat solution that lets a single cable work for both standards and provide DC fast charge.
> https://insideevs.com/news/657335/tesla-magic-dock-rollout-m...
Europe uses CCS Type 2 Combo. Teslas sold in Europe use CCS Type 2 Combo. Old Tesla chargers were retrofitted with CCS plugs years ago. New V3 and V4 Tesla chargers in Europe only have CCS plugs.
Yes, that's true.
The video you linked to is not a result of that standardization, but of Tesla deciding to open its Supercharger network. They are doing this in US also despite not yet having a standard plug, so you could make the same video today in the US. The rollout of non-Tesla charging at Superchargers is more or less in the same state in both regions, so therefore the standard plug did not help.
It is not.
There are 11 Tesla charging sites open to all EVs in the US. There are many more than that in Europe and there's no need for goofy adapters. That's the usefulness of standardization.
Use Tesla's own map. Turn off all options except for "Superchargers Open to Non-Tesla". Compare the US and Europe:
https://www.tesla.com/findus?v=2&bounds=55.56650460365597%2C...
Try using A Better Routeplanner to plan some drives in Europe. Use any EV model with CCS. Configure the planner to prefer Tesla charging sites over other charging networks:
That did happen a little bit at a few legacy superchargers, but that minor inconvenience was outweighed by the sheer preponderance of additional superchargers built, everywhere. Instead of worrying about the sole charger being full, I can look on the map, and choose among several nearby chargers, each with reasonable meal options.
I hope this happens with Ford. More cars should increase demand for stations, and additional stations increase convenience for everyone.
Hopefully something ford sorts out when they embed the port in 2025.
The superchargers have short cables, so they are worse, but CCS stations have issues with charger placement too. People often end up parking on the "wrong" side of the charger that they actually use due to weird placement issues.
I've seen a guy with a Taycan reposition his car at least twice to get an EVGo cable to reach. Its a bad situation all around.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/19/23689247/tesla-v4-superch...
I still got the i4, CCS coverage is good enough, but ya, superchargers are pretty common on longer trips. I'm going to do my first roadtrip tomorrow (up to BC for a short holiday), hopefully Electrify America in Bellingham is open without much of a wait.
This is a huge win for Tesla. They own the "gas stations."
People are always spreading FUD about Supercharger congestion but the number of superchargers is always increasing at the same time.
This is nonsense. Congress gave him tax breaks.
More government overreach if this is what we get!
Stores could encourage visitors vs online shopping by making the charge free after checkout.
Adding slow chargers at places people aren't going to spend hours seems mostly pointless.
Building DC fast chargers along travel routes or in places people might spend 30-45min in their weekly routine (grocery stores etc.) makes sense too, but these are also more expensive to install and operate.
If I'm parked for 8 hours at work (thank god I now WFH though...) depending on the car & weather, etc. I could get 30-40km of charge for my Volt just from an L1 hookup. Most people's commutes are less than that.
(Where I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta it used to be fairly common to wire staff parking lots up with 120v lines for people to plug in their block heaters for extremely cold days. Granted, in that case there was not continuous service -- just rotating or intermittent or whatever -- because you didn't need a full charge all day to give heat. Newer cars don't really require this, they start more reliably.)
Also especially in cold weather the charging efficiency can be very low. Energy is needed to run the car and BMS systems, and to condition the battery temperature. With a 240v charge a higher percentage of that input energy is actually making it into the battery.
The wiring isn't necessarily more expensive either.
120V * 12A = ~1.4kW. Wiring here is 12awg or 14awg, 1 hot, 1 neutral, 1 ground.
240V * 12A = ~2.8kW. Same amps so same wire size. 2 hots, 1 ground.
If you go with 12awg I think that's actually rated for 16A continuous which would give you ~3.8kW
They already have access today, via an adapter?
> Tesla will develop an adapter that will be provided to customers who buy any of Ford’s EVs, including the F-150 Lightning truck, Mustang Mach-E, and E-Transit delivery van.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/25/23737896/ford-tesla-ev-fa...
If a Ford F150e takes up two hours charging in a stall that’s designed to charge a Tesla in 15 minutes, there’s gonna be huge delays in certain areas.
The previous "offer" was a patent sharing agreement that I really doubt any major automaker would accept and find themselves beholden to Tesla for their charging connector in perpetuity.
Nobody has forced Tesla to do anything. They don't have to open up anything if they don't want to bid for the public funds for building EV chargers along interstates.
It probably helps that Tesla is a mature company now, and such an agreement would likely involve patent sharing on both sides.
So they didn’t get any bites until they actually bothered to make it an interoperable standard that didn’t require patent sharing.
Its also possible that Tesla is just opening NACS->CCS via adapter to everyone. Given the mentioned stall counts, it'd at least be limited to V3 stations, though.
The current superchargers with the "magic dock" captive CCS adapter require using the Tesla app to initiate charging and handle billing.
But it wasn't palatable, because Tesla didn't look like a meaningful threat to sue anyone back then. :)
* sue anyone over anything EV patent related, or have a stake in someone who does,
* if you ever challenged, or had stake in a challenge to any patent Tesla currently holds, or buys in the future,
* or if you marketed or sold anything that imitates the design or appearance of a Tesla product, or provided any material assistance to someone else who did.
then you are forever excluded from the pledge.
Tesla summaries this as:
What this pledge means is that as long as someone uses our patents for electric vehicles and doesn’t do bad things, such as knocking off our products or using our patents and then suing us for intellectual property infringement, they should have no fear of Tesla asserting its patents against them.
but the actual legal definition goes way above "such as knocking off our products or using our patents and then suing us for intellectual property infringement".
It also has no time bounding, so that patent spat from the 1900s that Ford had probably counts.
Looking at the way things played out, its obvious that they wouldn't faced competitive pressure due to this.
For the same reasons, the existing industry didn't bother. It was a long time before Ford took EVs seriously.
Petrol has several interfaces as well: diesel and unleaded are slightly different, and leaded is different again.
Liquids are too hard to conjunct with data but printer cartridges industry is doing a great research in this direction and who knows, maybe in 100 years from now we are gonna to buy some plastic thing with computers running some proprietary code in order just to refuel your petrol car or tractor.
It is a brilliant move by China: they have the tech, no one else seems to have it, and by not exporting it outside of completed cars, they can get an advantage.
> While the cars look identical to those still made in America, there is one key difference: the batteries.
> Chinese Model 3s use lithium-iron phosphate (or lithium ferro phosphate/LFP) batteries instead of the previous lithium nickel cobalt aluminium oxide (NCA) batteries.
But maybe this changed recently? Here it says the model 3 standard doesn’t qualify for the credit because it uses a Chinese made LFP: https://pandaily.com/batteries-from-chinese-made-tesla-model...
This new base Model 3 dropped the "SR+" designation at the same time.
I don't think you're seeing this clearly.