We are all better off just biting the bullet now and changing everything over to the Tesla plug.
You should probably thank the government, too. When the feds decided they were going to put billions in subsidies to a national charging network, the original regulations basically required CCS, because that was really the only cross-platform game in town - Tesla was proprietary and not open to other automakers. In a brilliant bit of chutzpah, in response Tesla renamed their charging system the "North American Charging Standard" and started coaxing other auto companies to get on board, which most other companies were OK with because Tesla has by far the best fast charging network. But it was really the government subsidies, and the threat that Tesla would be left behind if everyone else went with CCS, that sparked the opening up of NACS in the first place.
Intel had the most, as well as the editor position.
All the Comms should have been done via an OFDM-like scheme rather than just a binary sequence over a twisted pair, giving far more throughput and allowing for compensating for conductive dirt in the plug causing crosstalk.
Overall, I believe such a design would have reduced costs, since there is no longer a need for such precision on cable and plug manufacture, which more than compensates for a tiny OFDM 'modem' inside the USB phy.
Maybe in another 30 years we’ll get a properly symmetrical design with something approaching lighting’s durability.
Google has absolutely none of the expertise required to put such a connector together. It requires a very specific set of skills in chip design, signal integrity, and connector design which Google has none of.
But 9to5 Mac did some sleuthing and it seems that, in the case of Apple, it’s not entirely truthful: https://9to5mac.com/2015/03/14/apple-invent-usb-type-c/
Google also doesn’t seem to have fulfilled a bigger role than Apple did.
Connector design like this is a delicate balance between signal integrity (wants biggger) and mechanical integrity (wants bigger) and size (always smaller).
As for signal integrity: A lot of the signal integrity was papered over by having complex interface chips. This is why there is so much training and negotiation in USB-C.
As for mechanicals: The whole point of USB-C was to take failure-mode data from the previous generations and design a connector that avoided those. USB-C, in spite of how many people bitch about it, was designed so that the the most probable failure modes (which they learned from prior things like mini and micro USB) occur in the cable--ie the replaceable part.
None of this design expertise is inside Google.
I have never encountered an iPhone with a dead lightning port, it’s always the cable that wears out. There’s tons of laptops and android phones with worn out USB-C ports
Compare that to the Supercharger network, where providing a great experience is a huge selling point for Teslas.
I might despise Musk, and I'm not a fan of Tesla lately, but you do really have to hand it to them: they were prescient and put in all the hard work of building out the best fast charging network, so good for them for reaping the benefits.
I didn't know that. Do you have some documentation about that. Would be fun reading material for the holidays
> I might despise Musk, and I'm not a fan of Tesla lately, but you do really have to hand it to them: they were prescient and put in all the hard work of building out the best fast charging network, so good for them for reaping the benefits.
Same boat club.
I’m getting sick of this tiptoeing in every thread that mentions Tesla. No ones going to come to your house and beat you if you say something positive, un-hedged, about Tesla
A combined CCS2 plug is chunkier and might be a bit heavier, but not compared to, say, using a fuel pump.
Really? I don't doubt that Tesla's plugs are smaller and lighter, but it always seemed a bit caricature-ist about people saying how horrible the CCS plugs are and that they weigh like a million pounds or something. They certainly never seemed heavier or harder to manipulate to me compared to a gas pump, so I just never understood this complaint.
I recently tried the ones at Esso in Canada, it literally feels like 4x the weight.
I've never needed 2 handles to manipulate a gas pump or Tesla charger, but with the CCS I had to use both hands and my body weight to sorta force it around. It was wild.
Parking lot style EV chargers mean that I'm frequently pulling the charging cable across the front of my car and trying to plug the cable in straight while the tension on the cable is pulling it sideways. It frequently means it's a two hand job, one on the cable to keep in straight and the other guiding the plug in to the port.
I’ll take my chunky connector with 22kW over your sleek one with 7kW :)
I submit a counterexample of the huge network of Tesla superchargers that can do the job quite well with the NACS connector.
maximum power output of 600 kW and a maximum current of 615A at 1,000V
The practical limits are based on the cars and their batteries, not the charge port.
What was the problem again?
> What was the problem again
Why would I want to wait for more than I have to? e.g. I forgot to charge during the night and need to go on a trip in a few hours. Now I need to find a fasts charger and pay for it instead of charging at home, why exactly?
You want to charge as slow as possible for your need, but needs do vary.
You're referring to DC fast charging. For AC charging the NACS is limited to single phase. This is a charge port thing, not the car or battery.
Which doesn't matter much in the US, but it does in Europe.
That does make it useful to charge it in a few hours in the afternoon, instead of having to wiat the night.
All houses have triphasic power (usually 35A per phase, sometimes 63A), and all apartment buildings with electrics from the last 2-3 decades provide triphasic power to each apartment as well.
Our ovens and cooktops expect triphasic power, with a two-phase downgraded configuration for backup.
Same for Sweden I believe.
I have a 22kW CCS charger at home and it is seems perfectly fine.
The cost of the supercharger isn't really relevant either, most US homes are gonna max out at 200 amp service which is a max of 48kw, but realistically probably half that due to your house needing electricity and a single custom circuit unlikely to be over 100 amps.
If you get the DC cable, you have conductors on the pilot pins and the DC pins, and the AC pin positions are just empty.
If you get the AC cable, you have conductors on the pilot pins and the AC pins, and the DC part of the connector isn't there at all.
I have to admit I haven't used Tesla plugs, but there is already a slight difference between the cable from a 50kW charger and a 350kW charger.
Esso in Canada has free DC charging for a while through their Journie app.
It is like manhandling a pressurized firehose, and I'm a 30 year old male who works out. I had to actually put my phone away and use both hands to force it around, I'm accustomed to the Tesla connector I easily one-hand.
And despite how big and thick it was, it was still so weirdly heavy I had to double check it wasn't somehow secured to the ground as well.
There is a 0% chance either of my elderly parents would be able to get that plugged in.
(No specific comment on the quality of each of the charging standards.)
I think the reality is that uncertainty about charging away from home pushed a lot of people towards Tesla who might otherwise have considered a different make/model. With that gone, a moat vanished. That being said, competition in the US EV market is still weak. Maybe the added charging revenue outweighs that for now, but long-term, it seems like it will undoubtedly be a negative.
They are averaging 1.5 charging stations installed per day over the last year in North America. Each of those stations has at least 8 chargers, some of them have 24, 40, or more.
They have moved to pre-fab construction where a row of 8 chargers are all installed in a concrete slab that can be dropped into a site and commissioned in a very short time period.
Basically nobody else is keeping up with them at charger deployment in the US and that creates a market opportunity for Tesla and a need to make some return on all of that construction by increasing utilization rates.
No it isn't. Most level 3 chargers are 3x-4x the price of electricity.
[1] https://www.pge.com/tariffs/electric.shtml [2] https://electrek.co/2022/09/28/tesla-hikes-supercharger-pric...
https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaModelY/comments/17bls7u/woke_u...
With US population ~14x that of Aus (~350m vs ~25.5m), the ratio of chargers in the US is over double ours, plus your build output is way higher too.
We share that the non-Tesla chargers are largely useless.
1) https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/growth-of-supercharg...
When the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure plan, it became clear that CCS would become the dominant charging standard in the US - unless Tesla acted fast. Tesla's port would go from an advantage to a disadvantage. Tesla has 12,000 US chargers today. Maybe the company would make that 25,000 by 2030. The NEVI pushes for 500,000 chargers by 2030 with the CCS port. Toward the end of the 2020s, Tesla would feel pressure to switch to CCS because the majority of chargers in the US would be CCS. Tesla owners would complain that their Tesla vehicles used a different port from 95% of the public chargers.
By pushing the industry to adopt the Tesla charger, they ensure that chargers built using the NEVI money will most likely have Tesla ports. They could even argue that the administration should drop the CCS requirement given that the industry has moved to the Tesla port.
Tesla's port would have gone from an advantage to a hinderance. If Tesla didn't move the industry to the Tesla port, they'd eventually have to move to CCS. People would want their cars to be compatible with 95% of the chargers out there. When Tesla announced a switch to CCS, sales of current vehicles would likely crater. With Tesla abandoning their port, people would want to wait for the new model. Tesla might need to offer steep discounts to get people to take the "old" port. Instead, by moving the industry to their port, they put the uncertainty on competing vehicles; they make potential punchers of competing vehicles more likely to buy a Tesla or delay their competing purchase. That either adds to Tesla sales or makes competing companies question their EV commitment.
It's not that Tesla wanted to give up their moat. It's not that Tesla wants a bit of charging revenue. It's that if 95% of the chargers in the US become CCS, that moat is trapping Tesla in rather than keeping competitors out. Yes, having Supercharger exclusivity would still be an advantage for a few more years - and it will still be given that it'll be a couple years before competitors have Tesla's port on their vehicles. However, Tesla doesn't want the situation where their port becomes the odd one out where Tesla owners need to fumble with CCS adaptors. Maybe Tesla gives up a year or two of Supercharger advantage, but they ensure that it doesn't become a disadvantage.
PS Did NEVI (or IRA) actually mandate CCS, or did it simply mandate an open standard, which CCS was the only option to satisfy at the time?
They were never going to corner the EV market long term. But they actually do have a chance of being the dominant charging supplier for every car on the road.
Now that everybody is in Tesla supercharger, Teslas are losing its appeal to me now.
I just need to wait until 2025 when everybody actually uses NACS. lol.
So perhaps they will actually end up losing more revenue than gaining.
Charging networks are IMHO not a viable long term business model. Building out a "platform" to sell commodity electrons is utterly stupid. Nobody wants the stupid app, they want to charge at McDonalds along the highway while they grab something to eat.
Sort of like gas stations weren't a viable long-term business model?
> Nobody wants the stupid app, they want to charge at McDonalds along the highway while they grab something to eat.
So you should put your chargers near convenient amenities... like a convenience store... like a gas station?
In cities I think we will see less chargers as most people just go home to charge. However in poor areas they will be at places like grocery stores so you those who don't have at-home charging can charge and shop.
As an American, it was really eye opening!
If you only sell gas and nothing else you can only compete on price. Good luck with that.
In practice, I don't think any company is meaningfully splitting up their battery pack to take advantage of "better" packaging logistics elsewhere in the frame/body. I know in this example, they could still likely be loosely attached in the same plane, but with less density under the cabin, but I think my point holds.
That's true in my experience. Though it is interesting that cars look more and more similar over time rather than different.
- People generally like their vehicles to look different but not too different. Design of everything is a fashion industry.
- Fuel efficiency, practicality, and safety requirements all lead to a certain level of convergence.
Fragmentation of the charging infrastructure puts a hard limit on EV adoption, they will never replace ICE vehicles unless the infrastructure becomes as ubiquitous as gas stations.
And while it's a good thing that everyone has adopted the same charging standard, branding is just as important. Gas at gas stations is fungible. EV chargers are most certainly not. Right now Tesla's charging network is the only option that is fast and reliable.
Only for the subset of the population that owns a home with off street parking. People in denser neighborhoods, appartments buildings or who rent their property will be looking to top off while running errands or at work.
That may be your perspective, however I have family members who owned a plugin hybrid, had no at home charging capabilities, and found the experience superior. I suspect this is a use case that will become more prevelant at the regulatory incentives begin ramping up.
I don't realistically see us being able to rollout sidewalk chargers on the scale needed to provide home charging at the sidewalk for people without driveways or garages.
Gas stations can choose from 3-10 grades of gas (octane, ethanol content, road tax) to sell, and 2-6 grades of diesel (cetane, gel point, road tax) depending on what the distributor offers - no station sells them all (at least not that I'm aware of), and getting the wrong fuel can be fatal. Stations also can choose their own additive package which can make a difference.
Note that in almost all cases there is only one distributor you can buy from. Electric is generally a legal monopoly, while gasoline the closest supplier generally has a pipeline and thus can offer much cheaper prices so while it is legal to buy elsewhere it isn't practical.
Tesla is already working on deals to sell their super/ultra-fast chargers to others like EG Group and BP. Expect the number of those deals to grow.
I would argue that this will benefit those with with Teslas. As Tesla scales up to meet the demand for their charging hardware, the cost should drop while availability increases.
Moreover, as the number of independent networks that use Tesla's charging hardware grows, there will be additional pressure/leverage/lobbying on the government, electric companies, etc to provide the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that theses charging locations require. Tesla has on numerous occasions asserted that this is one of the most difficult parts of growing their charging network in places that have the greatest demand.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uk-pet...
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bp-boosts-ev-chargi...
Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your statement, but the Model Y has become the best selling car in the world. That includes ICE vehicles, not just EVs. If you exclude trucks, I think it has also recently become the best selling car in the US, overtaking the Rav4.
That doesn't directly correlate to marketshare. The MY is going to need many many quarters of being the best selling car to have marketshare equal to many other ICE models.
https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a44600661/is-tes...
I do think any Tesla owner will tell you the charging infra is always scales behind demand and there are often delays waiting for an available spot. Hopefully a universal standard means more operators will participate. I just hope the payment experience can remain seamless.
This lets them pivot to something where they have a huge moat.
Walmart has had 25 years to outcompete Amazon, and is still clueless. Phone makers have had 15 years to beat Apple, and the competition is still not as polished.
(Personally, I don't prefer Teslas or iPhones.)
Tesla has much different goals than the other car manufacturers. Although energy sales are only around 5% of total revenue, Tesla expects that to change going forward.
Either way, I think it’s terrific business. Would you rather have a dependable advantage that helps you stay further ahead of competitors in one industry, or have slightly less of an advantage (when you’re already in the lead) and get to dominate a whole second industry too (gas stations, for which superchargers have no peers in the EV world).
(Of course, to the extent they get funding from the government or other manufacturers to offset the capex required for building out more stations and chargers, that's great for Tesla & anyone.)
There may be outlier locations, but overall Supercharging is not a big profit center for them. Maybe it'll improve with scale.
Since the Tesla-Supercharging business is running at break-even, you're looking at something like $8.40 for a non-Tesla adding 70kwh. So that's pretty close to your gas vehicle estimate.
10-80% on a Model S/X is 70kwh. Rate billed to customers will vary from 30-50c/kwh at time of charge. Spot in Texas typically ranges from 5c to 15c/kwh. Assuming charge equipment is fully depreciated all they need to pay is maintenance and network cost, which is marginal across a bank of 20 chargers.
70kwh x 25c = $17.50.
Since the Tesla-Supercharging business is running at break-even, you're looking at something like $8.40 for a non-Tesla adding 70kwh.
> With Tesla now having a fleet of millions of vehicles using the network and opening it up to EVs from other automakers, financial analysts are starting to see the Supercharger network has a massive business that is going to partly replace gas stations, and they want to value it.
> Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, who has been covering Tesla for a long time, came out with a new note to clients today in which he stated that he believes the Supercharger network will represent 3% to 6% of Tesla’s total revenue or $10 to $20 billion in revenue by 2030.
The IRA EV grants can be found here: https://www.atlasevhub.com/materials/the-inflation-reduction... and if you think Tesla is not going to apply (amd receive) most of the $7 billion for infrastructure, I don't know what to tell you (I'm willing take the other side of your bet in this though). Earlier this year, most in the industry assumed CCS networks would get the money because the law was written with a requirement for interoperability (3 or more makes).
Time line of events:
2014: Tesla opens up its charger patents
[Crickets]
2022H2: IRA signed with billions available to fund interoperable charging networks (i.e. CCS at tine of signing)
2022 November: Tesla renames standard to NACS.
2023: Tesla signs agreements with other manufacturers to use it's network.
Do you suppose it was a coincidence that Tesla's standardization and agreements came within months of billions of federal money being put in the table? Billions that would have gone to an competing charging networks/competing standards?
Also, every other automaker can make cars that qualify. In fact, many already do!
Also note Tesla do not make a single PEHV, so in fact plenty of automakers make vehicles that qualify and Tesla doesn't.
Here's the lists:
EVs: https://electrek.co/2023/11/07/which-electric-vehicles-still...
PEHVs: https://electrek.co/2023/11/07/which-electric-vehicles-still...
You're technically correct, when limiting to first order effects of the rebate. It would be equally technically correct to state farmers don't get any money from SNAP (it goes to the customer!), and yet SNAP is "surprisingly" (to pendants) included in the Farm bill.
Your assertion that Tesla doesn't get any money from subsides is radical because it suggests that either subsidies don't work, or the do work with none value making it's way to the upstream industry the government explicitly set out to support with subsidies. Either one of these positions need supporting evidence.
Did the government set out to subsidise an upstream industry, or did they set out to incentivise consumers to purchase certain products? i.e. EVs not ICE.
> Either one of these positions need supporting evidence.
Interesting that mine do, and yours don't.
It's both. If you want customers to buy certain products in large volumes, there has to be capacity to manufacture said products in large volumes.
> Interesting that mine do, and yours don't.
Me asking you for evidence does not preclude you from asking the same of me. If you want evidence that government subsidies and incentives do work, I can readily provide that[1] - it seems pretty self-evident to me considering history, and international trade complaints about subsidies.
1. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/1/534, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10131743/, cash for clunkers, etc
But people will be able to compare how fast Teslas charge, and how Teslas are able to just plug in without using an app or swiping a credit card, and how the owners can watch YouTube or Netflix while charging. Things like these will be the real eye opener, not the brand exposure.
That being said, if any of these legacy companies who were not willing to invest in a charging network decide they want to finally step up and install some chargers of their own (I’m not holding my breath for any at scale), I’m pretty certain there will be no requirement for Tesla branding. Elon has said he doesn’t give a shit about branding.
It’s more important people will see the Tesla product and witness the features of Tesla cars first hand.
https://www.sae.org/news/2023/12/sae-j3400-tir-released
Access to Tesla's charging network is a separate issue, but the connector itself is a published standard.
Tesla's supercharger network is a loss leader whose purpose is to sell their cars [1], whose margins are also under pressure.
There's no significant barrier to entry for EV supercharging other than perhaps having a profitable business to pair it with. The NACS connector and the exclusivity of its charging stations was a moat, one that Tesla traded for tax credits.
It's mostly a real estate game. Shell is already adding EV chargers at key stations. Others will follow.
1. https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/ev-charging/major-autom....
The estimates are somewhere around 10B $ of revenue (not profit !) per year by 2030, and that's an optimistic scenario. Base case scenarios are much worse. And even that hypothetical 10B$ is hardly a 'massive' revenue stream for a company projecting to sell 10 million cars by that time (I would put their chances of achieving that goal at 0.01%). As usual with Tesla - it's all about projections, hyperboles etc, while usually ignoring actual numbers (not a shot at you, just an observation).
There is a fair point to be made though, that this is a big loss for Tesla, as their charging network was pretty much the sole remaining advantage over their competition.
> a company projecting to sell 10 million cars by that time
At their latest investment day they very clearly said their goal is 20 million cars a year by 2030.
Yeah, infinite demand for sure ! That's certainly why they were cutting prices aggressively.
The Model Y is now the second best selling vehicle in the US, and the number one in the world. They're selling every single vehicle they can make, right on 2 million vehicles this year.
So far, demand continues to exceed production.
As far as we know, the factories are not operating at full capacity and the inventory increased considerably lately. And this is despite the price cuts.
A similarly-sized ICE vehicle could have possibly done the trip without a stop, or required a quick 5-minute top-up depending on conditions.
I've done lots of long road trips in ICE vehicles and we usually stop to walk around and stretch for about the same amount of time and with the same frequency as charge stops call for.
If you're trying to shave every minute off of a trip you'd come out behind, but IMO you're a glutton for punishment if you're trying to race through a 1000+ mile road trip without stopping for more than 5 minutes at a time.
As a gas driver I like the fact there's a gas station in remote areas and it takes me three minutes to fill my tank and go.
When do we think as interested EV driver will my driving experience match my gas car diving experience and needs? Are we there yet?
In five to ten years we'll see if indeed there are more EV chargers everywhere like there are currently gas stations. An infrastructure that's over a 100 years old.
I'm all for new tech but as a UX professional new tech needs to provide an even better experience which personally something like a key fob (can be RFID hacked, you lose the fob you have to get your car towed to dealer and pay additional / hundreds for a new key fob)is a terrible UX compared to just a metal key (can't be hacked.. can easily drive to dealer to have a metal key made).
I haven't done a super long road trip in an EV, but for drives with 1-2 charging stops it doesn't feel that different than ICE cars, especially if have passengers and invariably end up waiting for everyone to go to the bathroom, get a snack, etc. Only exception is places like quartzite where there can be a long line of EVs waiting to charge.
I don't know if there is a charger there today, but it is an obvious place where one is likely to be added sometime.
https://insideevs.com/reviews/516438/tesla-supercharger-comp...
God I hope that day is long long in the future given the current ecosystem surrounding this crap. The last thing I want to add to my car is the multi-variant USB-C, thunderbolt, lightning adapter bullshit with accounts and subscriptions. It's the very worst of tech bro culture applied to critical infrastructure. What if the car makers owned and/or could strike deals with specific gas stations is an idea that only sounds good in a shareholder's mind.
Every day as car companies try to turn cars into toasters with subscription bread I'm happier with my ICE car / ebike setup. Gas used almost every day, 0. Range anxiety, 0. Using infrastructure that has been stable for longer than my parents have been alive, priceless.
"It's like a horse and buggy, but much faster and heavier."
"But it'll know somehow how to avoid other vehicles and pedestrians and trees and houses and such?"
"No, the driver has to pay continuous attention or it'll veer wildly and hit whatever's in front of it."
"Shouldn't it run on rails? Or between protective barriers?"
"Painted lines."
In today's safety obsessed world, cars are a terribly unsafe anachronism. Somehow tech people are more afraid to run an non-sandboxed tab in a browser than drive a 3-ton vehicle 1 painted line away from similar vehicles going the other way with a speed differential of 100 miles per hour.
That fair, I guess, since physics aren't part of a JS-bootcamp.
I guess this very much depends on your driving patterns.
Even if the EV was the choice, a lot of people will fly (or take a train) for longer trips and so never hit the limits.
Use whatever words you'd like if you don't like tech bro as the colloquium. But the intersection of this behavior of end-to-end control and things labeled "tech" and headed by "tech people" is very nearly a sphere.
For the people whose whole shtick is building autonomous systems we are remarkably bad at letting go and letting those systems be autonomous when it benefits the customer.
It's like we all watched Robocop, a film about how terrible it would be if an autonomous system created for the improvement of society at large was programmed to always obey the will of its creators for their personal gain and said, "That's a great idea, I could productize that."