Beginning of the end - at least in my mind

[avs007]

What is it about the Supercharger network that you feel will be harmed by this?

I don't think this will be as big an issue as some people think, assuming they install longer cables for the CCS handles. But I think the common worry, is that you'll have something like a Toyota BZ4X AWD pulling in, that has the port on the wrong side, so they'll take up two supercharger spots... And then the car peaks really low, so it'll end up charging very slow. It ramps to below 50kw rather quickly... (Out of spec did a charging test, and they charged it for over 2 hours and still weren't able to fully charge it before the charger gave up and halted)

Hopefully Tesla learns from their European pilots... Over there, they only opened up the ones that are less congested, and from what I heard, even at the ones that are open, they only allow non-teslas to start charging sessions when station utilization is below 50%... I think the biggest takeaway, is they need the CCS cables over here to be longer...

 

[zecar]

The reason I bought a Tesla instead of another EV was the Supercharger network. Take away that one advantage, abs why buy Tesla at all? Tesla needs to think ahead for when they're not the only game in town. Keep the advantages they have.

Musk won't give up most of that advantage. Tesla wants to increase utilization of seldom used superchargers and potentially be eligible for government funding.

Supercharger stations are not generally well suited for CCS1 vehicles to connect. So either you believe Tesla will make a complete mess of their golden goose Supercharger network or the rollout will be slow and limited.

 

[Earl]

Toyota BZ4X AWD pulling in, that has the port on the wrong side, so they'll take up two supercharger spots

It had better back in or somehow only use 1 space. Taking 2 spots is equivalent to ICEing.

 

[RTPEV]

It had better back in or somehow only use 1 space. Taking 2 spots is equivalent to ICEing.

I think what @avs007 is saying that if a vehicle has the charge port on the rear passenger side (versus the driver side like the Tesla) that even backing in, they will have to use the parking spot to the right of the pedestal they are using, effectively taking up the stall they are parked in, and the stall they are using the pedestal of.

 

[Don.Church]

I think what @avs007 is saying that if a vehicle has the charge port on the rear passenger side (versus the driver side like the Tesla) that even backing in, they will have to use the parking spot to the right of the pedestal they are using, effectively taking up the stall they are parked in, and the stall they are using the pedestal of.

Sounds like at some point EV manufacturers need to standardize charge port location. Then standardize the charging station layouts.

 

[RTPEV]

Sounds like at some point EV manufacturers need to standardize charge port location. Then standardize the charging station layouts.

Probably not possible. The charge port location is very dependent on the underlying architecture of the vehicle, and certainly tradeoffs would have to be made, resulting in sub-optimal solutions. Plus it's somewhat of a religious debate.

Instead, I continue to think that the right solution is a gas-station style island arrangement for the stalls themselves that allow the vehicle to approach from whatever direction/angle they need to to access the pedestal. This is not optimal from a site footprint standpoint, but c'est la vie. Neither are gas pumps. As gas stations are decommissioned, replace the pumps with charging stations.

 

[Earl]

EV manufacturers need to standardize charge port location

Just like ICE manufacturers have standardized fuel-fill-port locations . . . /s

I think what @avs007 is saying that if a vehicle has the charge port on the rear passenger side (versus the driver side like the Tesla) that even backing in, they will have to use the parking spot to the right of the pedestal they are using, effectively taking up the stall they are parked in, and the stall they are using the pedestal of.

Basically, without standardized charge port locations, the minimum cable length will need to be approximately the vehicle width plus 1/2 the vehicle length.
IIRC (its been a blissfully long time since I experienced it), Costco stations try to have fuel hoses with hose management that will reach over a vehicle to a fill-port on the other side. Charging cables will be similar.

 

[nwdiver]

Tesla will add CCS connectors to Supercharger stations in the US, says Elon Musk

Most of the superchargers I use on the East coast are already well-used by Tesla owners, and having non-Tesla use at these chargers and inevitable wait times will completely change my approach to road trips, which I do very frequently. I just hope they really think this through and install many more Superchargers out here before making these moves, or I will seriously have to reconsider.

Yeah. I'm afraid of how much the increased flow of funds from other EVs will slow down the deployment of more superchargers sites.

 

[Earl]

Yeah. I'm afraid of how much the increased flow of funds from other EVs will slow down the deployment of more superchargers sites.

Keep in mind though that the 'proprietary' nature of the Tesla Superchargers is one of the barriers Tesla faces when trying to site a supercharger somewhere. CCS support could help smooth the process in some resistant municipalities and build-out speed.

 

[RTPEV]

Just like ICE manufacturers have standardized fuel-fill-port locations . . . /s


Basically, without standardized charge port locations, the minimum cable length will need to be approximately the vehicle width plus 1/2 the vehicle length.
IIRC (its been a blissfully long time since I experienced it), Costco stations try to have fuel hoses with hose management that will reach over a vehicle to a fill-port on the other side. Charging cables will be similar.

I buy this statement for a pull-in stall, but with an island stall, I think the cable length would have to reach 1/2 the width of the vehicle.

I don't know about Costco, but the BJs station I used to visit (over a decade ago now) had that kind of hose management, but that was only because they had a one-way entrance/exit path to their pumps (maybe to better manage lines--wait, there are lines at gas stations?) so unlike a traditional gas station where you could approach the pump from either direction to accommodate filler doors on either side of the car. That's what I'm saying should become the new standard for charging stations. One island with 4 pedestals (2 for each side of the island) with enough distance between the pair on each side for roughly 2 vehicles. Most EVs would then just pull up and park directly next to one of the pedestals and plug in, pulling in from whatever direction is appropriate given their charge port location (just like we did with gas doors). The only cars that would need to have slightly longer cables are the LEAF and other vehicles with the charge port in the front, and even then it would only have to reach at most halfway across the front bumper.

 

[Earl]

I buy this statement for a pull-in stall, but with an island stall, I think the cable length would have to reach 1/2 the width of the vehicle.

I don't know about Costco, but the BJs station I used to visit (over a decade ago now) had that kind of hose management, but that was only because they had a one-way entrance/exit path to their pumps (maybe to better manage lines--wait, there are lines at gas stations?) so unlike a traditional gas station where you could approach the pump from either direction to accommodate filler doors on either side of the car. That's what I'm saying should become the new standard for charging stations. One island with 4 pedestals (2 for each side of the island) with enough distance between the pair on each side for roughly 2 vehicles. Most EVs would then just pull up and park directly next to one of the pedestals and plug in, pulling in from whatever direction is appropriate given their charge port location (just like we did with gas doors). The only cars that would need to have slightly longer cables are the LEAF and other vehicles with the charge port in the front, and even then it would only have to reach at most halfway across the front bumper.

Yep, even easier solution for smaller sites.

 

[LoudMusic]

If charging stations were like gas stations instead of parking lots it wouldn't matter where the charge port was on the car and the cable wouldn't need to be any longer than Supercharger cables. There's just this mindset that EV charging is to be done in parking spaces. There are a lot of charging locations in Norway that are more like gas stations - likely because they're former gas stations?

 

[RTPEV]

If charging stations were like gas stations instead of parking lots it wouldn't matter where the charge port was on the car and the cable wouldn't need to be any longer than Supercharger cables. There's just this mindset that EV charging is to be done in parking spaces. There are a lot of charging locations in Norway that are more like gas stations - likely because they're former gas stations?

Yes, we can probably learn a lot by looking at Norway.

I think initially charging stations didn't have the luxury of being choosy where they were sited, usually in back corners of seedy motel parking lots and old malls (okay, I'm exaggerating a bit, but not too much!)

Even now, with chains like Sheetz and Wawa (and other convenience chains around the country), the stations are relegated to a corner of the parking lot. One reason is that real estate is prime, and also siting the equipment at the edge of the pavement makes installation easier.

But what happens when we do get to a point where we start needing more real estate allocated to charging, and less to gas pumps. Well, running power to an island may not be trivial, but hey, somehow they are getting gas to those islands, so why not repurpose the trenches with gas pipes going to the island to run conduit with power?

If you've seen some of those artists conceptions of charging hubs of the future, they still all seem to feature pull in stalls, more or less arranged in a circle or square with a huge open area in the middle. Yes, it's beautiful and looks like a great place to hang out and do yoga (which is what the artists conceptions show), but let's be real--that's not going to be practical. And as we start to decommission all those gas pumps, it may be a reasonable thing to switch over some of those islands to charging stalls.

 

[Earl]

If you've seen some of those artists conceptions of charging hubs of the future, they still all seem to feature pull in stalls, more or less arranged in a circle or square with a huge open area in the middle. Yes, it's beautiful and looks like a great place to hang out and do yoga (which is what the artists conceptions show), but let's be real--that's not going to be practical. And as we start to decommission all those gas pumps, it may be a reasonable thing to switch over some of those islands to charging stalls.

The purpose-built mega-charging stations such as Baker, CA
903569.jpg
and
Kettleman City, CA
837371.jpg
are built more like you're describing. They aren't the future, they're they're the present. They just haven't reached beyond CA, where Tesla's dominate, yet. I'm sure we'll start seeing these along I-95 and other high traffic routes soon.

 

[RTPEV]

Yes. I'm hoping the next iteration in the "pre-fab" model (the ones with 1 charger and 4 pedestals on a slab of concrete) will be in the form factor of a gas station island with the charger in the middle and a pedestal at each of the 4 corners, essentially leaving 2 (or more) travel lanes between the islands so as to allow 2-way traffic at each island.

Maybe that wouldn't work as well at the mega-sites (the pictures you shared can be more tightly packed with what are essentially one-way channels)--maybe this is the mega-site equivalent of the one-way Costco & BJs stations) but for traditional 8, 12, 16, 24 stall sites I think it would be space efficient enough while being able to serve many vehicle types.

 

[electricar]

4 stalls would make sense to try to grab money. Federal requirement for "completing" the highway network is to have locations no more than 50 miles apart with at least 4 CCS plugs capable of 150kW or more. So add 4 CCS cables and it counts, even at a v2.

Tesla has a bunch of v2 locations that would qualify. They know which locations are busy and which aren't.
They've opened up lots of locations in Norway but not the busiest ones.

The negative of opening up is that they'd lose their moat. The positive is that it helps pay to expand the network.

Tesla can probably see that with the combination of the settlements that led to EVGo and Electrify America, plus the taxpayer funding, plus Plug&Charge likely finally, actually coming over the next 5 years, they're going to be losing a lot of the benefit of their moat anyway, so they might as well just try to be better at charging than other companies.

This makes sense to me because one of Elon's most impressive skills is the ability to get government money.

 

[Earl]

Elon's most impressive skills is the ability to get government money

Even more impressive is how folks grouse about his getting government money when he is #3 in the auto industry behind GM and Chrysler in the US for getting it.
He has also delivered way more of what it was supposed to go to than anyone else in the auto industry.
His most impressive skill, however, is that he is #1 at paying government loans back.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Probably not possible. The charge port location is very dependent on the underlying architecture of the vehicle, and certainly tradeoffs would have to be made, resulting in sub-optimal solutions. Plus it's somewhat of a religious debate.

Instead, I continue to think that the right solution is a gas-station style island arrangement for the stalls themselves that allow the vehicle to approach from whatever direction/angle they need to to access the pedestal. This is not optimal from a site footprint standpoint, but c'est la vie. Neither are gas pumps. As gas stations are decommissioned, replace the pumps with charging stations.

Gas station style is good for fast charging, but shouldn't dictate the port location, because so much charging is done at home.

Because there's always a driver, I think that driver's side ports can be the most convenient. BUT it depends on where and how you're parking and what you do when you exit the vehicle. There is no one position to rule them all.

I wouldn't want to buy an EV with the charge port on the passenger side, front-center, or front-passenger because that would be the most inconvenient arrangement _for us_.
We pull our cars forward into our garage and walk out the door we drive through and the garage setup is such that driver's side the most convenient for both.

But some people park outside on a driveway in front of their house. Could be front, left or right.
Best position somewhere towards the front, right?
But what if they live on a main road and have to back in? Or just want to back in? Then rear is best!

Some park on the street. So, passenger side is good, right?
But what if they park on the driver's side of a one-way street? Then passenger side sucks and driver's side is best.
Or what if there's angled parking? Then ports towards the rear suck, and you want the port towards the front.
Generically, for on-street parking, front works OK, but then there is a possibility of damage from a car in front backing up.

 

[avs007]

fob is not an acronym

You've never seen the show Fresh Off the Boat, lol? FOB is a pretty common slang/acronym for that.

 

[Earl]

Gas station style is good for fast charging, but shouldn't dictate the port location, because so much charging is done at home.

Because there's always a driver, I think that driver's side ports can be the most convenient. BUT it depends on where and how you're parking and what you do when you exit the vehicle. There is no one position to rule them all.

I wouldn't want to buy an EV with the charge port on the passenger side, front-center, or front-passenger because that would be the most inconvenient arrangement _for us_.
We pull our cars forward into our garage and walk out the door we drive through and the garage setup is such that driver's side the most convenient for both.

But some people park outside on a driveway in front of their house. Could be front, left or right.
Best position somewhere towards the front, right?
But what if they live on a main road and have to back in? Or just want to back in? Then rear is best!

Some park on the street. So, passenger side is good, right?
But what if they park on the driver's side of a one-way street? Then passenger side sucks and driver's side is best.
Or what if there's angled parking? Then ports towards the rear suck, and you want the port towards the front.
Generically, for on-street parking, front works OK, but then there is a possibility of damage from a car in front backing up.

I've had EVs with charge ports on the front center, driver side front, driver side forward of rear bumper, and just behind driver door. I can also see how passenger side could be best for on-street parking/charging but driver side reduces walk-around time else wise.
I can't say any is more optimal than others, none are particularly bad either.
I can see how, some day, luxury EVs might offer multiple ports to distinguish themselves though.
All are more convenient than filling a gas tank!