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Comment by Kirby64 | Hacker News Reader

EV chargers aren't this "dumb" for one simple reason: they need to be able to charge you for the power used.

A dumb outlet, if metered properly, would still need some app or something to be able to restrict you from just taking power infinitely. That's not scalable, unfortunately. It can be offered as an amenity for certain businesses, but as more EVs exist, you'll likely see these free offerings go away.

Most RV parks that let you use an EV charge you per day. And it's usually quite expensive, far more than the power you'd consume. $30-50/day isn't unusual.

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> EV chargers aren't this "dumb" for one simple reason: they need to be able to charge you for the power used. A dumb outlet, if metered properly, would still need some app or something to be able to restrict you from just taking power infinitely.

I'm scratching my head here. The old gas/diesel dispensing stations have solved this problem of restricting people taking all of the fuel in the pump with a disruptive financial technology called blo^H^H^H credit card. And I am really, really struggling to understand why I cant buy electricity directly with my credit card. (I do understand why the app might be better experience in many ways, but it is no excuse for not making it possible to pay with card without stupid obligatory app)

You can in the EU (or you will be able to anyway). Thanks to EU red tape you'll be able to use contactless to pay for charging.

https://www.nfcw.com/2023/08/07/384966/eu-mandates-contactle...

Presumably the Brexit dividend will allow UK EV owners to continue to have to deal with a gazillion shitty apps.

I wish they'd do the same for car parks.

You can, a lot of chargers these days do have credit card terminals and can start charging with just a swipe/tap/chip read of a regular card.

The main limit is minimum transaction fees. A gas station is usually at least a $20 transaction. Since most level 2 charges are about $1 of electricity per hour, you're paying massive credit card fees for short charges. The apps all support some sort of balance to combine charges into large single transactions.

Soda machines that take cards are common. It doesn't seem like small charges are a real problem.

So much the better to pay less fees, but I can't imagine it is really driving anything.

I'm not suggesting you couldn't do this directly via credit card payment via terminal. I think they should allow that. In fact, some systems DO allow this. My point is that if you make it a "dumb outlet" like the author suggest, it's literally identical to what we have today except you now have to bring your own charging cord (which, is inconvenient. Like bringing a gas pump handle and line with you to the gas station).

Electricity meters have been known for decades, even with payment terminals.after all, they were invented to bill customers for electricity used. And I can see authors point - if you look at Tesla chargers, it's not only the stalls but whole underground infrastructure with cooling, air conditioners and who knows what else. If cars were designed to use AC instead it would be enough to have an AC outlet (3 phase probably) and a meter, and whole charging station could be built by an electrician, with standard components. Yep you won't get a megawatt power this way, but 30-50kW is realistic

Yeah but even adding a credit card terminal massively increases the complexity compared to the plain plug the author is talking about here. If you're going to have to include relays and ground fault equipment and payment systems you're 95% of the way to a "complicated" EVSE.

So the power meter dutifully ticks up the charge you have used while plugged in. Then what? How do you pay it? Do you have to go track down some person who may or may not be on duty to read the meter, hope they read it before you started, and pay them in quarters?

Cars are designed to use AC. That's how all current Level 2 chargers work. They are basically dumb outlets plus a contractor, GFCI, and optionally a payment terminal. But beyond a certain level (around 20kW) the size and cost of putting a larger AC to DC converter in the car is prohibitive.

At one point Tesla Superchargers were literally racks of the same AC to DC converters found in the car, but fed with 3-phase power, bussed together, and cooled all external to the car. There's no other way to implement a reliable 20-minute roadtrip charge.

Oh come on, pay for use is a solved problem. Look at gas pumps. But if it's not feasible to have a big DC converter in every car then no luck

So an AC outlet with a built in meter and payment terminal, that simply provides AC power to the car with an onboard DC converter, already exists. That's what basically every Level 2 EV charger is today.

(Really it's an "EVSE" not a charger, it is doing no charging work)

They have a couple of extra safety features (like a contractor and GFCI) and include the cable (in North America, in countries with the Type 2 connector you bring your own cable).

These chargers go up to 19.2kW commonly in the US, although the charge rate can be limited by the installation (circuit size) or the car (onboard charger capacity).

A helpful video about what's inside an AC EV "charger":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMxB7zA-e4Y

Really the only difference with the fancier ones is they have a screen and payment terminal or NFC terminal for activating and paying. Like a gas pump, although most want you to use their app and membership to save (them) on credit card processing fees.

DC fast chargers are a whole different story, where the AC to DC conversion happens external to the car.

Gas pumps are larger transactions, so the credit card fees are less of a hit for the business. A level 2 AC charger is about $1 per hour of electricity, so you're taking huge credit card fees for shorter charges.

Most of the apps have some sort of balance that lets you make one $10 transaction and then spend it on a lot of smaller charge sessions.

That's an interesting wrinkle on what should be an otherwise tractable. Perhaps the government should subsidize the transaction fees in some way like they subsidize the oil companies.

You must be using an unusual definition of subsidy. Gasoline is heavily taxed just about everywhere.

Anyway shifting around the costs doesn't change the fact that paying ~30% in fees is very inefficient

There’s a solution right in the problem: mandate a single “balance card” that pays all EV chargers.

Not sure why that gets a downvote. We use this solution all over the place. From transit cards to gift cards you pay a single transaction fee to the credit card company so you can then pay 0 transaction fees on the tiny purchases.

It gets downvotes because people don't need stupid card for gas pumps either. They are using credit/debit cards.

There's actually a clever way to reconfigure the inverter electronics and (induction) motor to essentially do "regenerative braking" off of a 3-phase supply (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5341075A/en).

I'm not sure if this is so widely used as to not be worth mentioning, or if there are hidden gotchas or patent encumbrances that keep it from being widely used.

Jesus. They figured this out with gas pumps like 50 years ago. There's no need for an app. Period, the end. You pre-auth with a card, and then it stops giving you fuel when you hit the limit, or it stops after a certain amount. It then charges you based on how much you used when you stop charging. If you keep charging, it costs you more.

Ya, the problem is solved if we just made electricity into a liquid rather than a current.

Seriously though, the problem is mostly that these are all new with a very different model from being a gas pump (due to longer charge times). They also throw the chargers into random retail locations, they are completely unmanned, and everyone except Tesla pretends maintenance need doesn’t exist.

The author is advocating for outlets that you have to bring your own charger for. If you do this and have a way to meter it, you've literally designed what existing ChargePoint or other J1772 chargers do today, just without the convenience of having the charging cord built into the appliance.

There's nothing stopping people from having a pay-at-the-pump style chargers. I'd advocate for it. I'm just saying that we basically already have this, except it requires apps at the current time for some of them. That has nothing to do with smart vs not.

It need not be any more complicated than a gas pump. Just swipe/tap and use.

Orange Charging offers a low cost "dumb" solution that still manages to bill for the power. It'd be a great fit for a lot of apartment complexes, IMO.

What is the solution?

Really simple outlets with builtin power monitors, cellular for management and billing, bluetooth for mesh connectivity between multiple units, and bluetooth for customer connectivity for activation. Cost ~$400 for a 240V unit.

https://www.orangecharger.com/product/orange-outlet-620

That doesn't sound very dumb, that sounds quite complicated. Bluetooth for customer connectivity? So I'll still need an app...

Well, it can't be completely dumb and still support billing. There are several competing factors here:

- They want to support billing - which requires network access, at least for the station itself

- They want to minimize the cost of the station both up front and maintenance. Fewer cables and accessories (eg, card readers) helps a lot here

- Much of their target audience is inside of parking garages where cell reception can be spotty. This means mesh is a must and bluetooth for client connectivity is best.

- They need to have power metering built-in and there are related regulatory concerns due to usage based billing

All of this means that it can't be a truly dumb device. What they've come up with is essentially the lowest cost solution that can possibly work.

If it can't truly be a dumb device, maybe you shouldn't be telling people its a "dumb" device.

Hey guys, this thing is "green". Well, we couldn't actually paint it green, so it's blue, but that's as close as we could get it!

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