Comment by gonehome | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gonehome | Hacker News Reader

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Yeah - it's pretty wild, Tesla really committed to this a decade ago and has been chipping away at it since, the investment paid off.

Even better, strategically Tesla created the "NACS" or North American Charging Standard which is a clever name for their far superior Tesla charger. They also pivoted from the superchargers being an exclusive reason to buy a Tesla to licensing them for other EVs - now Ford is onboard, Electrify America is switching to NACS, GM too.

They pulled off this switch perfectly in a way most companies fail to do (ex: blackberry bbm) and as a result their investment in these will remain dominant and everyone will be unified around a superior standard (the EU charging standard CCS plug is a committee designed monster that's worse categorically). They're also continuing to expand.

I love manual transmission sports cars, but EVs today are just superior for regular use and Teslas are the best option for most people (especially when considering their lower cost), putting subjective opinions about their mercurial leader aside. There's a reason the Model Y was the best selling car in 2023 Q1 across all categories globally [0].

HN has historically been poor at objectively evaluating this sort of thing especially about Tesla.

[0]: https://cleantechnica.com/2023/05/31/best-selling-car-worldw....

Can you explain why other manufacturers switching to NACS is advantageous to Tesla?

Are they collecting fees or is there some reason bp or Shell or Exxon couldn’t just add NACS chargers to all their real estate and steal share from Superchargers?

I have yet to see any explanation as to how the switch to NACS is actually good for Tesla, other than testimony to the standard design being better than CCS?

It's good for Tesla customers because it means NACS charging infrastructure will be more widely available from more companies. Tesla will have reason (and economic motive) to add more Supercharger sites and make them larger than they'd otherwise be.

It's good for Tesla because it costs them a lot less to have everyone else shift to NACS than for them to redeploy ten thousand Supercharger stalls with CCS1.

Honestly the only losers in the continental shift to NACS are those with significant existing CCS1 investments, like Electrify America. And I don't see why they deserve any sympathy from the likes of Ford and GM. The poor reliability of many CCS1 networks has been an albatross around the neck of Tesla's competitors.

Right so they were backed into a corner by everyone else starting to build out infrastructure and they had to cede access to their previously privileged network to pull it off.

I agree, I have no sympathy for CCS1 investments etc, NACS seems superior and it looks like consumers writ large will win etc etc., I'm just wondering how any of this adds up to a bullish case for Tesla and I'm afraid your comment doesn't clarify that. It just illustrates that the alternative would've been more bearish than this one (which I agree).

It’s bullish for Tesla that their extremely costly NACS investments will be proved correct, they now have increased economic value, and a future risk is eliminated. Having long calls proven right is bullish. This level of influence over the North American automotive sector is bullish.

It also plays into the perception that Tesla are technology leaders the EV sector. Which is a big deal if EV technology is the future of the the automotive sector.

It’s licensed access iirc so they’re getting some payment for it (which they deserve for their investment in building it out despite the odds).

They also charge a higher rate to non-Tesla EVs.

The other benefit is if they continued to refuse access they could have ended up like blackberry. The other companies would have adopted the CCS standard and (eventually) would have a competitive network. Then what was once a Tesla advantage would become more of a liability as the transition to EVs gets more complete.

Few companies make this strategic shift at the right time imo and I think Tesla did. By leveraging their advantage now it’s a win win.

I cannot find any information about the licensing, which would be a good answer to the question if real (I've actively looked for this info!)

I agree that the alternative was worse, but that doesn't make this a particularly good outcome?

The licensing discussion I heard between Ben Thompson and John Gruber on their Dithering podcast (not sure the details).

Even ignoring that, I think it's still a good outcome for Tesla - they effectively own and control a large percentage of all charging infrastructure in the world. Every other car company adopting their standard means they have a lot of customers that will pay them to charge at their stations (even independent of the licensing).

That plus avoiding a future where without making this transition they could end up isolated with an obscure and incompatible charger that would eventually become a liability rather than an advantage.

Got it! I've been meaning to check out Dithering anyway so I'll give that a listen.

> they effectively own and control a large percentage of all charging infrastructure in the world. Every other car company adopting their standard means they have a lot of customers that will pay them to charge at their stations (even independent of the licensing).

This is the argument I find interesting... IMO if everything does centralize on NACS, nothing (AFAICT) is stopping the really big players like bp, Shell, Exxon, etc from just outfitting their already-existing real estate, already-existing infrastructure with NACS. The petro-companies are ludicrously well capitalized, very sophisticated, and have tons of baked-in advantages. Memes aside, they're also already the biggest players in the energy transition anyway. Basically if I were investing in Tesla, I'd be curious why this doesn't just create a great opening for the huge huge players to mop the floor.

Again, consumers (and the environment, probably) win here, so I'm happy about it!

P.S. Also thank you for entertaining a thoughtful convo. Usually this question just attracts zealots and it doesn't get me closer to an answer. You did -- so thank you!

No worries - trying to engage in thoughtful conversation despite the internet incentivizing craziness is my goal!

Fair point about existing players, I just tend to discount old large companies being able to execute for the same reasons startups tend to eat their lunch. Why haven’t they done it already? Why haven’t they started even now?

Why did it require Tesla to build EVs? Why did existing car companies ignore Tesla for 20 years until they were way behind?

Probably the innovators dilemma - it’s rare existing providers are much of a threat.

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