Ford EVs gain access to Tesla Superchargers starting today
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
If you check the Find Us map and select "Superchargers Open to NACS" then you will see which ones are compatible and their associated 'Charging Fees for NACS EVs' rates.
1: https://www.tesla.com/findus?v=2&bounds=53.02665397538087%2C...
Some have speculated that it relates to the stall layout, but if that is the case the differences must be really subtle.
Its going to be a dance with the power engineers to evaluate the oldest sites to balance out what it may cost to upgrade the transformers feeding the site, and if the cables from the transformers to the chargers are adequate or not. Distribution devices from the transformer will need to be evaluated as well.
Simplest would be perhaps adding a 250kw charger here and there to the site, dependant on transformer capacity. This would also be the most confusing for users.
Interestingly in LAS, the tesla charging station behind Flamingo (near the monorail) has "destination (basically 240v home chargers)" chargers intermixed for adding overall vehicle capacity.
All of the 250kW chargers support full speed at all stalls. That was one of the major changes with v2+ of the supercharger.
IDK what would be confusing, they have the ability to throttle when over capacity already implemented and every car will ultimately have a charge curve that prevents them from charging from 0% -> 100% at 250kW the entire time.
I'm guessing it is the result of site negotiation between Tesla and Ford, coupled with firmware/hardware/signage changes.
Ford wants chargers where they think they'll be most likely to sell cars, and might have handed off a list to Tesla where market research showed they'd sell the most EVs and there is the worst charging infrastructure, for example.
Tesla might be u an algorithm to pick stations they think that adding smelly Ford-driving plebs to will irritate the fewest Tesla customers but still meet their contraction obligations to Ford.
There may also be agreements with the host site - malls and the like may have agreed to lease land for the chargers and spaces etc in exchange for the wealthy people the stations will bring to the area.
Ford et al are crazy to do this, frankly. Musk is incredibly unstable, extremely self-serving, and while I think Musk ultimately wants to become the Mobil/Shell/BP of electric charging, they're still competitors.
The algorithm seems to be simply which stations can transition to NACS protocol.
Malls are leasing land mostly for rent. Some are obviously more enthusiastic about it than others. Some chargers are off in the corner, out of the way. Some are front and center, placed so that the drivers can have easy access to the mall. Ford is brilliant to partner with Tesla, because the existing fleet of chargers suck, and Tesla's doesn't suck. They certainly have a contract with Tesla that assures a certain lenth of time for reliable service (e.g. Tesla won't cut off Ford drivers or do wild pricing to punish them). Tesla wants more customers - car or energy customers, doesn't matter. So seems like a win-win all around. Unclear why this is bad for Ford or Tesla.
The loser here might be the Tesla drivers, who now need to compete for space with the Ford drivers, especially since the Ford cars don't charge quite as fast as the Teslas do, and there is some friction due to the position of the charge socket.
But in the end, the increased revenue for Tesla will allow Tesla to build more chargers, which is what Tesla drivers have been enjoying anyway. So maybe ultimately it is better for everyone. Everyone, that is, except for the oil company executives.
The few v4 sites that are available do have longer cables.
It would be useful to compare to the publicly available "standard plug" chargers out there. Cars using the adapters are gaining charging options, while presumably near-future models might have access to the entire Tesla charging network.
Meanwhile, all those existing "standard" changers are going to need an upgrade...
Tesla Superchargers are meant to be backed in to with a read driver's side charging port.
A F-150 will need to drive in to the spot adjacent to the charger they want to use and bring the charging cable across, effectivly using 2 stalls to charge, as far as I can tell.
Not really sure what can be done about it except just hoping for more charge infrastructure to be built fast... If Tesla would go back to only offering charging for Tesla vehicles that would be nice when driving Tesla but a step back for the overall electrification so I'm actually ok with some minor annoyance on this.
https://electrek.co/2023/07/26/tesla-confirms-supercharger-v...
I assume they'd opt to put in more spots or longer cables rather than using exclusivity to reduce usage. Have you run into an installation that couldn't be used due to lack of space despite available chargers?
Reminds me of the 1/3 coin revolution problem: Circle A has 1/3 the radius of circle B. Circle A rolls around circle B until it returns to its starting position. How many revolutions of circle A are there in total?
https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2015/07/05/everyone-got-t...
Only for stations that aren't at the end of a row or lack a parking spot adjacent. And only if the "blocked" spot can't be used by another "mirror image" car design.
I mean, gas stations have been dealing with this problem for decades (different car designs need to pull through along different sides, so sometimes my Mazda "blocks" the two pumps because other cars can't pull in until I move) and we've all survived.
And in any case, unless you're trying to charge on major corridors on high traffic weekends, it's academic anyway. Over 30k miles and almost three years, I can count on one hand the number of times my Model Y has had to wait for a charger spot.
People are making way to big a deal out of a minor issue, basically. Standard Tesla discussion form.
This is a post about Ford's getting access to Superchargers, so I don't think it's making a "big deal" about anything to simply describe the configuration of the trucks and how that impacts their ability to use the superchargers. It just is what it is.
Verifiably false. Put a F-150 in every stall, and only one on the very end is blocked, and only if there isn't an open parking space next to it. If F-150's make up a significant fraction of the charging population, then you're looking at half the impact (25%) at most, not even including the spots on the ends that don't have a spot to block (most rows are 4-8 spots wide, so that's another 12-25% recovered). And of course if F-150's don't make up a significant fraction of the charging population, then you're not looking at a significant impact by definition.
I repeat, in exhaustion: This Is Not A Big Deal. Please stop making everything a big deal Because Tesla. It's exhausting.
Logic and reason have no place in a discussion that still needs to find reasons to hate the F150. ;)
Given the much longer time it takes to charge an EV it's not comparable.
It becomes a serious issue based on demand, obviously, where a dearth of chargers becomes even worse. It'll be sorted out over time but meanwhile there's more pain for EV users even as the number of compatible chargers increases, lessening the positive impact.
Yeah, I've seen way too much stress about this issue. I'm sure there will be a few stations that have issues for short periods of time, but the overall picture just doesn't change that much.
And the solution is the same anyway. Just keep building.
IIRC, Tesla is currently installing ~2,400 stalls per year in the US. It could be higher now as the rate tends to trend up over time.
Of course, lots of third parties are ramping up now too (Pilot, Flying J, Circle-K, and the non-EA/Wal-Mart branded sites).
And really I think that’s probably enough. It’s not like anyone’s putting the charge port in the middle of the roof.
The cables at Electrify America and some other places are often much longer and it doesn’t seem to be a big issue. The only issues I’ve seen with the cables themselves are some form of sabotage like someone cutting them off or breaking the connector.
Although I do think they are going to need a little bit of a redesign of the v4 cabinet. I'm hearing that the holster design isn't working all that well in real world use.
Putting it on the passenger side means I need to walk around the car nearly every time even though I pretty much never street park the car. No thanks.
The important thing to take away from this is we are still figuring out details and so should not lockin yet.
(Now I'm curious if the relationship between range and battery capacity is merely sublinear or if it actually peaks at some point i.e. there is a maximum theoretical range beyond which increasing battery capacity reduces range)
Does the gas port go on the side opposite the exhaust?
diesel trucks figured it out - you can pump from either side (or both).
The problem is when 80% or more are on one side (like Teslas are all on the same side now) and the rest are not.
It works totally fine, my office has slow charging, the public library a short walk from my apartment has slow charging, and many supermarkets have superchargers or other DC fast charging so I almost never waste time dealing with charging.
And no I don't have the time or resources to fix politicians, I have enough crap to do just trying to make money to live here and take care of myself. Even if I had time it's not like anything I do is going to result in Tokyo-quality public transit being built in the time that I live here.
Most of the time "transit" means 4x or more the travel time.
Would use far more resources than most other conveniences you find in a car, but would also be a far more substantial quality of life improvement than the other stuff.
Edit: Sorry I see it says this in the article.
> Ford EVs already use the ISO 15118 "plug and charge" protocol, which means they give the charger their billing details as part of the electronic handshake, obviating the need to use an app or credit card to start a charging session.
Are the prices the same as the rates that Tesla charges for Tesla vehicles? It was really cheap for our Tesla and we loved that.
It’s not clear at the moment if you can start a session in the Tesla app and be billed that way.
ISO 15118 does include provisions for wireless communication to support eventual wireless charging.
Selling some of the cars is one thing; selling fuel to all of the cars is another. Who's richer: car manufacturers or oil companies?
Yes, you have the issue with many urban dwellers not having a garage/private parking space in which to install a home charger, but I think that cheap, ubiquitous, lvl 2 chargers are going to become more and more common in apartment parking complexes, office parking lots, parking structures, and more. And these much cheaper, slower chargers are always going to have more competition simply by virtue of not needing a large "network" and therfore having very low entry costs.
Tesla very well might come to completely dominate the lvl 3 fast charging space. But I think that that is always going to remain a pretty small part of EV fuel sales.
Fast chargers for long trips is an objection-overcomer, that is important and is used, but daily commute is the main use (as you say). 0 < fast-chargers < oil
Now that they’re opening it, it’s a competitive advantage lost. You could argue that it was always a matter of time before everyone else caught up, but this is accelerating the schedule.
Tesla (the company, the stock) seems to be a time bomb of trying to outrun the competition before they catch up. Lately they seem to be squandering the massive lead they had, partially because of Elon’s stupid shenanigans.
If you go by what Elon and fanatical TSLA “uberbulls” say, Tesla is no longer a car company but an AI company that just happens to make cars on the side. So there’s that.
Then it’s a matter of whether you think that’s a worthwhile investment, or just more Elon BS.
Nobody is selling NACS cars with the Tesla connector yet. They will soon but why bother with a cheap imitation of Tesla when you could go with the clear market leader and not do any mental gymnastics?
Seems simple to me
I don’t, and I know a lot of other people think likewise. I see this becoming a wider phenomenon as the competition continues to grow. Hence, what I referred to as the “time bomb”.
I say this as someone with a huge number of TSLA shares, albeit someone that wants to dump them sooner rather than later because of reasons like this.
I wonder what actually happens if you try to use a Tesla destination to J1772 adapter with a NACS DC charger? In that case, the 400-1000VDC pins are connected to the 240VAC pins on the vehicle. Is the NACS handshake smart enough to detect this fault before the power turns on?
I have one of those adapters, but I stuck a "120-240V AC ONLY" label on it because I don't want to find out.
If the DC charger is required to passively sense the battery voltage before charging, then it's probably fine. Otherwise, magic smoke!
I'm a non-tesla EV owner, and on the relatively rare occasions that I need a lvl 3 charger, I do find myself almost (but not entirely) exclusively using EA chargers, but this is because A)they are usually conveniently located and B) they are almost always the cheapest available option. I do not care at all that they are part of the same network, and I would happily use whatever charger was convenient and cheap, just like I used to do with gas stations.
There is no advantage, to me as a driver, of it being part of a "network".
So I would think it's simply easier to always use the same network or else you're juggling apps and payment methods.
It’s extra odd given that Tesla’s sort-of-sister-company SpaceX is notes for its transparent pricing.
https://www.tesla.com/findus?v=2&bounds=39.04279611004773%2C...
Not sure what you mean
It's finally a good time to start considering other EVs than Tesla assuming one drives relatively far distances. One thing that Tesla car still does exceptionally well is trip planning where I don't have to think anything about planning the trip w.r.t. charging. I don't know if using CarPlay with Apple Maps would provide similar experience.
https://www.carscoops.com/2023/09/tesla-owner-loses-supercha...
That Tesla didn't fix the issue until a news crew contacted them is an indictment of Tesla's customer support, not some sort of fickleness where they gleefully disable supercharging for random cars.
Edit: The parent comment originally said "They block access to current Tesla owners for no reason."
Having said that, I think this actually solves some problems for them in the long run. I doubt they'd have any interest in limiting access.
Similarly, these NACS equipped vehicles can use any open NACS station, or any open CCS station via an adapter. There is nothing in the standard that limits charge station providers to only Tesla.
Any charge station (whether CCS or NACS) could implement restrictions in any way that they see fit. The most common cases of this are CCS stations at dealers, where they often restrict it to their company's vehicles.
It is unlikely that a public charge company would want to cut themselves off from revenue by severely limiting who could use their site.
I would be in the market for that with the fast charging standards rolling out
All the government standard ones are broken
https://www.hyundai.com/worldwide/en/eco/ioniq5/design https://www.hyundai.com/content/dam/hyundai/ww/en/images/fin...
The bigger issue with Supercharger is the voltage, if it's not a 800V charger. The internal converter in the E-GMP platform for a 400V source ends up being a limiting factor and drags the system down to something like 75kW, similar to a Bolt.
50-60k for a vehicle with good utility, cheap maintenance and fueling, and ability to power your house is a pretty good purchase. Home natural gas generators can cost up to $10k, Tesla Powerwalls are even more. Utility of the truck is unparalleled if you actually need to carry gear for whatever reason. So many people see practical. These people are also not carrying large stuff all the time where a foot of bed length matters, nor are towing big things. Fast charging is also mostly irrelevant as people top up at home and rarely take long trips where they need to use public charging.
Spending 90k+ for pretty much the same stuff is stupid.
Pretty sure I addressed price. There are cheaper models not yet available as they are still supply constrained so are selling the most expensive options first. As they did with every other vehicle they released.
Either way people are paying 90k and more for trucks already. It's only stupid if you can't afford it. You're not going to find another eye catching, steer by wire truck out there to buy.
Bed length matters for carrying big stuff with tailgate up, which most people dont do, and for most stuff like motorcycles, the tailgate is left down. Both cybertruck and lightning can power a house btw, im just saying that for most people if you subtract that value from both vehicles if you are going to invest in backup power anyways, Lightning becomes a 30k nice pickup truck.
Also the 90k trucks that people are buying are way more capable than a Cybertruck, and have actual good quality construction and finish.
You seem obsessed with price, and in terms of price Tesla really can't be beat. Best selling vehicles in the world right now. Good luck betting against them.
That’s the Cybertruck segment.
Back in mid 2000s, the midsize truck segment was booming, despite the fact that you could get a similarly equipped f150 for the same price that was better in almost every way except for one thing, size.
But you're correct, very little substitution. One targets gangly code monkeys, the other targets the bearded and obese
It’s excellent for any working professional that remotely deals with any power tools or other electronics at job sites and wants to always be ready and charged
Also not sure that a little added charging convenience is going to sway Cybertruck buyers to an F150. The "antialiased 3D polygon" design is a big part of the appeal.
What is the objective in your opinion?
Perhaps. Or maybe they decided that having ads would cheapen their brand and hurt sales in the long term.
Money was always the objective, hell it's even their legal duty, and shareholders could sue if you claimed otherwise.
Some companies just choose to look further than the next quarter ahead with their plan to get that money.
> And the adapter is only for DC fast charging, not for Tesla's AC destination chargers.
While charging interoperability is a great step forward, all these conditionals will make the transition to EV’s much slower.
Imagine if gas stations had a different charger for each vehicle manufacturer. Now imagine that gas station (really ought to rebrand them as refuel stations) had to replace charge points every 2-5 years when newer charger models are made.
And this model is supposed to be more sustainable? We really need a standard charging plug / port for EV’s, and it needs to be enforced by the relevant authorities.
Free shipping too.
So you put in your order, your vehicle gets a software update, and you’re ready at any station. You don’t have to wait for a new vehicle with the NACS plug. The car doesn’t need to be retrofit.
The Mach-E’s first year was 2021 so this all modern Ford electrics.
The United States dropped the ball here.
Tesla should have opened the spec much earlier (independent from if they actually wanted other car companies to use their super charger). Had Tesla done this they would be in a much better position now.
And my point about North America was that now North America has a better standard, even if its later. The NACS Standard is better then the CCS-2 standard.
We let the market do a 15 year free-for-all so we can end up with as many incompatible options as possible.
We don’t support communist concepts like sharing and working together.
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/s, obviously. They should have picked something before a ton of DC chargers had to be built with multiple connectors, both of which are now dead.
I'm glad the federal government isn't forcing computer manufacturers to include them.
Guess we better hope USB-C is the best port a phone can possibly have, because the EU is hell-bent on locking it in for eternity.
No it hasn't. The EU Commission also gets the right to examine future common charging solutions.
Also your comparison is not apt. The USB-C port is not required if the device does not require a wired charging port just as a computing device without a serial interface does not need a DB9 connector.
What future common charging solutions? You mean the ones which are illegal to sell? Bit of a chicken and egg dilemma, mes non?