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Comment by omneity | Hacker News Reader

The fact bp waited all this time to jump in means they finally see the writing on the wall.

A cynical perspective is also potentially possible: that it's greenwashing to distract from continued FF extraction. Both realities can coexist.

Until they make a commitment, timeline, and are excited about measurable progress ending FFs, they lack credibility that they're not the world's and Earth's Big Tobacco.

Of course the difference between oil and tobacco is that the world's population would be 1/10th of what it is without oil.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

500-800m people on bicycles would probably be healthier overall.

Buddy, the choice is not between bicycles and cars. It's either horse and buggy or car. You cannot tow thousands of pounds with a bike. And your whole existence depends on goods and services flown in, boated in, and trucked in to keep you breathing.

> You cannot tow thousands of pounds with a bike. And your whole existence depends on goods and services flown in, boated in, and trucked in to keep you breathing.

So, not cars then.

Demanding a commitment and timeline to drop their core business is asinine. BP's responsibility is to increase profits for shareholders, not save the planet. And the comparison to tobacco is nonsense. Widely available and affordable energy has increased the material well-being of more people than perhaps any other industry, while tobacco offers a cheap high.

The climate issue only gets solved by innovation. There is no reasonable degree to which we can artificially restrict emissions to have a meaningful impact. All that does is make people poorer and further increase incentives to offshore manufacturing to where the energy is cheapest and dirtiest.

You said it better than I did. I hate this path of painting oil and gas companies as the big evil conspirators. They have certainly done things that are not great and have been part of natural disasters that probably could have been prevented.

There is that whole pitch. We need to be using more electricity to drive more innovation which will lead to greener alternatives.

> BP's responsibility is to increase profits for shareholders, not save the planet.

Sad but true. Investors that divert from fossil to renewables remove themselves from BP's shareholder pool. Leaving almost exclusively shareholders that want the company to do what it always did: produce fossil fuel.

So oil companies will remain that as long as they can. Maybe they'll do something for PR reasons, to hedge their bets, or legal requirements.

When demand for fossil fuels collapses, it's a safe bet other companies (like Tesla) will be established players in renewable tech. Oil companies? Too little, too late.

That said: more EV chargers out there = progress no matter who did it.

If BP doubles down on fossil extraction and fails to diversify, they risk destroying all of the shareholder value. Their mission is to be profitable in both the short and long term.

Nobody expects BP to end fossil fuels. I fully expect them to go down with their product and fail to adapt, which is okay.

We passed peak gas stations a time ago. Some of them will be replaced by charging stations and convenience stores, but many of them will have to be demolished.

Given the difference in time to charge vs fill a gas tank that’s going to be an interesting war of supply and demand

It's easier to get a home EV charger than a personal gas station, which helps.

I agree, but there is still a universe of hotels, motels and apartment complexes without chargers.

It's surprising how fast that can change. Look how quickly hotels rolled out WiFi. It would be difficult to find one without any connectivity now.

The investment for the chargers is much higher. The big hotel chains will likely change relatively quickly, but there is a long tail of smaller hotels living paycheck to paycheck. I think that a better comparison is how long it's taking for fiber to arrive everywhere.

Capitalism in action. If people are choosing based on availability of charge points then you can be sure some will gain and others lose.

At current technology we are unable to eliminate fossil fuels. In some regions we can definitely cover a lot with wind and solar but during the day its not always enough and we still have night time generation. How are you expecting a company to provide you timelines?

No, they were waiting for North America to pick a charging standard. North America has picked CCS with Tesla's plug on the end as the standard. The Tesla plug will become CCS Type 3, aka SAE J3400.

Part of the reason why Europe has seen more EV infrastructure investment, development, and deployment is because the EU standardized on CCS Type 2 combo quite some time ago.

Feels like it might be a USB-C vs Lightning thing for Europe. Tesla's standard is clearly superior... is Europe going to bite the bullet and have a painful switchover?

I would guess they'll probably stay with the inferior standard forever.

Europe's standard supports 3 phase supply, which is widespread — even in houses in several countries.

> Tesla's standard is clearly superior

It isn't. It doesn't for example do three phase AC. 400 kW CCS type 2 combo chargers are being deployed right now. Where are the 400 kW chargers on the Tesla plug?

North America now has a painful switchover from CCS type 1 and Tesla's proprietary charging to CCS type 3. Teslas 2019 and earlier will need a CCS retrofit to use all chargers.

North America could have and should have standardized earlier.

- At 400Kw, you're using DC, not AC anyway (whether three or single phase). Three phase is useful for faster (and more efficient) L2 charging (e.g. in the 10-50Kw range)

- CCS type 3 is compatible with existing Tesla vehicles (it's a software update)

- Tesla superchargers max out at 250Kw because they have all been 400V, whereas porche and etc are all 800V. The cybertruck is 800V so I expect faster chargers on newer Tesla vehicles

> At 400Kw, you're using DC

Yes. So CCS type 2 Combo not "clearly inferior" to the "clearly superior" Tesla plug, is it.

> CCS type 3 is compatible with existing Tesla vehicles (it's a software update)

Teslas 2019 and earlier need a CCS retrofit. It's not just a software update.

> Tesla superchargers max out at 250Kw because they have all been 400V

That's wonderful. Show me the charger that's delivering 400 kW on the Tesla plug today. Remember, the contention is that the Tesla plug is "clearly superior" so it should already be faster, right?

This is silly, no Teslas charge at 400 KW, so obviously that doesn't exist. Noone within the industry has expressed concerns in making the NACS connector do 400KW.

It already runs at higher amperages than CCS, despite the lower KW.

> This is silly, no Teslas charge at 400 KW

This is such narrow thinking. What matters is building capable EV infrastructure for all EVs, and that means going beyond 250 kW.

Teslas are mid-range when it comes to charging. Other EVs are faster and need not be limited by what Teslas can achieve.

Think bigger. Europe is:

https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/new-energies/europe/article/f...

I don't think you understood his point.

He wasn't making one.

Yes, I was. There is nothing about NACS that limits things to 250KW.

No, you weren't. Remember: the claim is that NACS is "clearly superior" to CCS Type 2 Combo.

It's clearly not.

> Teslas 2019 and earlier will need a CCS retrofit to use all chargers.

I prefer to say that only about 75-80% of Teslas on the road are able to use the new NACS chargers without an upgrade.

Given the widespread prevalence of superchargers supporting all Teslas, I don't see this as a big issue.

No, this is just a calculated move kind of like biofuel. There is like 20yrs fossiling it up all in.

Hedging is always smart

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