Electrify America Fast Chargers - Huh?

[jerry33]

How is home charging relevant??? The charging that needs to be done away from home will certainly be enough to support businesses.

Home charging is relevant because that's where the majority of charging takes place. Right now, there's limited charging at apartments and condos, but that will change in the future as property owners start to realize that no-charging equals no-tenants. The away from home charging market then becomes either some emergency charging or trips. Which means the size of the potential away-from-home charging market will be vastly reduced. This coupled with longer range cars means there's going to be much less of a demand. So a trip that today uses five or six away from home charges, will require only two or three charging stops (or five or six very short charges). Many of the charges will be done at destination chargers which are generally provided as a free service by the business. The leftover won't be enough to support a business unless they charge exorbitant rates, which will further reduce their usage. The away from home charging for profit will become a declining business as time goes on.

 

[Eno Deb]

If they use an adapter the adapter will have the smarts needed. If they are buying into the Tesla charges to the exclusion of the other chargers and want to include the Tesla interface in the car, why can't the car include the smarts??? I'm not following your reasoning at all. If someone can build an EV, it would seem designing an interface to the Tesla chargers would be duck soup. Where do you see the problem exactly?

This week we learned that Tesla measures the energy delivered by the charger in the car, not in the charger, for billing purposes. The car then connects to Tesla's backend over cellular and sends the charging record. Every other network measures the delivered energy in the charger rather than relying on the car. I don't see how this could possibly work for other manufacturers without adding charger-side billing to the Tesla network.

 

[Fredneck]

i think it will have to follow the independent gas station model, offer conveniences, food, coffee, seating, snacks etc, 15-30 minute oriented. A decent slice, pastry, barista coffee, wawa or sheetz, café style ish. Some basic groceries. All that as the profit center, electrons as the hook.

You mean like the hundreds of chargers at Royal Farms, Sheets and Wawas? Yeah, there's no question that business model of gas stations works best and even more essential to EV charging since you will be there for more than five minutes. It will end up being more like the toll road comfort stops with restaurants and other shops.

I'm not sure what they will do about the mismatch between the time for getting a decent meal and a good charge. It isn't good to have to jump up in the middle of a meal to move your car at the end of charging. That part of EV charging on the road is a PITA.

 

[Fredneck]

Home charging is relevant because that's where the majority of charging takes place. Right now, there's limited charging at apartments and condos, but that will change in the future as property owners start to realize that no-charging equals no-tenants. The away from home charging market then becomes either some emergency charging or trips. Which means the size of the potential away-from-home charging market will be vastly reduced. This coupled with longer range cars means there's going to be much less of a demand. So a trip that today uses five or six away from home charges, will require only two or three charging stops (or five or six very short charges). Many of the charges will be done at destination chargers which are generally provided as a free service by the business. The leftover won't be enough to support a business unless they charge exorbitant rates, which will further reduce their usage. The away from home charging for profit will become a declining business as time goes on.

Destination charging (also known as level 2) will likely be available at many locations, but is far from a substitute for fast charging in any way. Hotels offer it because it allows overnight charging. Otherwise it is only useful for local shopping. Fast charging at stations is required for trips.

Your suggestion that charging will be reduced because of longer range is a view into the far, far future. If you talk about shorter charges, that's still a lot more time at the chargers than a gas pump.

There is no reason to think charging won't be a viable business. They will have captive customers for a half hour or longer which means they will sell lots of stuff you probably don't even want.

I charge a lot at a Sheetz. I find nothing sold in the place to be attractive and prices are all inflated. But I still find something to buy since it's better than sitting in a car for a 45 minutes or more. Charging may even require more service stations than we have for ICE when all is done.

 

[Fredneck]

This week we learned that Tesla measures the energy delivered by the charger in the car, not in the charger, for billing purposes. The car then connects to Tesla's backend over cellular and sends the charging record. Every other network measures the delivered energy in the charger rather than relying on the car. I don't see how this could possibly work for other manufacturers without adding charger-side billing to the Tesla network.

Why do you think any car can't do the same thing the Teslas do??? It is a simple board with the data link and tied into the CAN bus for charging data. Either it gets installed in the car or it is part of an adapter. Pick one.

 

[jerry33]

Destination charging (also known as level 2) will likely be available at many locations, but is far from a substitute for fast charging in any way. Hotels offer it because it allows overnight charging.

When on trips, the overnight charging at a hotel or motel is a significant part of the day's charging.

 

[ralph142]

You mean like the hundreds of chargers at Royal Farms, Sheets and Wawas? Yeah, there's no question that business model of gas stations works best and even more essential to EV charging since you will be there for more than five minutes. It will end up being more like the toll road comfort stops with restaurants and other shops.

I'm not sure what they will do about the mismatch between the time for getting a decent meal and a good charge. It isn't good to have to jump up in the middle of a meal to move your car at the end of charging. That part of EV charging on the road is a PITA.

so far that’s a mostly East of the Mississippi thing, at least on the coastal and interior west, chargers tend to be at malls with businesses in easy striking distance, but often not directly associated with them. Cle Elum, along 90 is a cool example of an exception. Fred Meyer is popular.

 

[Eno Deb]

Why do you think any car can't do the same thing the Teslas do??? It is a simple board with the data link and tied into the CAN bus for charging data. Either it gets installed in the car or it is part of an adapter. Pick one.

Seems quite a bit more complicated than you make it out to be. Besides an extra compute board with cellular connection (and subscription), you need the proper instrumentation to accurately measure the energy intake, some way to display the pricing on the car's dashboard (since the Tesla superchargers have no display), and some kind of verification program so Tesla can trust the accuracy of the transmitted charging records. This can not be done with a simple external Tesla-to-CCS adapter.

 

[israndy]

All those screen and card readers on the charging stations are going to be a maintenance nightmare. From my experience with Chargepoint, Blink and other pay-to-use public chargers, it can be difficult to find a station that is still functional. The screens become illegible in a year or two. Tesla's simple, interface-free system is the only way to go.

Wonder what will happen here in Cali next year when new Superchargers are required to have a display

 

[FlatSix911]

Wonder what will happen here in Cali next year when new Superchargers are required to have a display

See this thread for details... California bans per-minute billing; Tesla Superchargers will need displays

 

[AZ Ed]

The legacy folks have already shown they’re okay with absolutely no control over the charger network — witness EA — despite the fact a working network is paramount to selling EV’s.

Are these pictures an indication that Ford may be considering getting into the "supercharger" business? The accompanying information said "150 kW chargers in the FordPass Charging Network". This display was just inside the entrance to the Barrett-Jackson event. There was no Mustang Mach-E on display on opening day (Saturday 1/11/20) but it appeared there was plans to display one.

 

[cwerdna]

^^^
A white pedestal with the same shape and design was at Ford's booth at CES. It was just J1772 (for L1 or L2 AC charging), NOT any sort of DC FC. Connector didn't have the 2 extra pins that SAE Combo has.

I took this pic at the booth.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

Are these pictures an indication that Ford may be considering getting into the "supercharger" business? The accompanying information said "150 kW chargers in the FordPass Charging Network". This display was just inside the entrance to the Barrett-Jackson event. There was no Mustang Mach-E on display on opening day (Saturday 1/11/20) but it appeared there was plans to display one.View attachment 501206 View attachment 501207 View attachment 501208

^^^
A white pedestal with the same shape and design was at Ford's booth at CES. It was just J1772 (for L1 or L2 AC charging), NOT any sort of DC FC. Connector didn't have the 2 extra pins that SAE Combo has.

I took this pic at the booth.
View attachment 501213

I think they had the same display at SEMA in November 2019 as well.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

i think it will have to follow the independent gas station model, offer conveniences, food, coffee, seating, snacks etc, 15-30 minute oriented. A decent slice, pastry, barista coffee, wawa or sheetz, café style ish. Some basic groceries. All that as the profit center, electrons as the hook.

Volume is a problem.
Charging is suited to being an addition to a business.
If BEVs are successful, it would likely lead to more home charging.
So, you could have locations near highways that are charging hubs with appropriate businesses around them. Also, Supermarkets with charging in the lot will be a norm.

That may work for small properties, but not for bigger apartment complexes. E.g. there is no way to balance the power from the utility feed between all the outlets (dimensioning the feed to supply full power to all outlets simultaneously would be prohibitively expensive for a big garage), and 14-50 is not a good connector from a durability and safety perspective. It's far more likely that property owners will use the services from companies like Chargepoint. There will also have to be solutions for street parkers on public land, such as the before mentioned lamp post chargers.

The problem right now is that those middle men are expensive, making it unattractive for tenants.
But smart chargers are becoming the norm, with even Tesla now switching their HPWC over, it's just a layer on top of other cheap tech, so the cost will fall with volume, and you'll just end up with smart being a choice of hardware that connects to a cheap data service.

 

[rhumbliner]

I think they had the same display at SEMA in November 2019 as well.

They did. I asked about it and the attendant said it was a mock up of what their dealers might install. I couldn’t tell if it was working model or not.

 

[jerry33]

They did. I asked about it and the attendant said it was a mock up of what their dealers might install.

Translation: It's not even at the clay model stage.

 

[FlatSix911]

Not good news for the EU and UK... IONITY to increase electric vehicle charging prices 500% - Electrek

IONITY, a European EV charging network owned by BMW, Daimler, Ford, Hyundai, Kia, and VW Group (with Audi and Porsche) has announced that prices will be going up over 500% starting January 31 as they transition to a pay-per-kWh system. Starting next month, however, IONITY will be charging users a whopping €0.79 per kWh. (PDF press release). The Audi e-Tron battery is 95 kWh, so if you “filled it up” with 80 kWh, that’s €63.20 to travel probably about 160 miles, give or take. Terribly expensive...

If IONITY’s owners want to make driving electric as unappealing as possible, keep it up. One positive thing we can say at least: Thanks to the UK regulations and the subsequent pricing per kWh, it’s abundantly transparent what a terrible deal it is. Conversely in the United States, Electrify America still hides its terrible pricing behind per-minute billing, although we expect that to change as California’s ban on pricing by the minute comes into effect at DCFC stations in 2023.

 

[DrDabbles]

Not good news for the EU and UK... IONITY to increase electric vehicle charging prices 500% - Electrek

IONITY, a European EV charging network owned by BMW, Daimler, Ford, Hyundai, Kia, and VW Group (with Audi and Porsche) has announced that prices will be going up over 500% starting January 31 as they transition to a pay-per-kWh system. Starting next month, however, IONITY will be charging users a whopping €0.79 per kWh. (PDF press release). The Audi e-Tron battery is 95 kWh, so if you “filled it up” with 80 kWh, that’s €63.20 to travel probably about 160 miles, give or take. Terribly expensive...

If IONITY’s owners want to make driving electric as unappealing as possible, keep it up. One positive thing we can say at least: Thanks to the UK regulations and the subsequent pricing per kWh, it’s abundantly transparent what a terrible deal it is. Conversely in the United States, Electrify America still hides its terrible pricing behind per-minute billing, although we expect that to change as California’s ban on pricing by the minute comes into effect at DCFC stations in 2023.

Please stop repeating this BS. The price for members is vastly lower, and this price is for non-member users of the network. All these news outlets that are wringing their hands about this are totally full of it. Read literally any of the MSP pricing sheets and see how disastrously poorly this posts have been written. Literally 6 seconds on damn google would have helped here, but none of these crap blog sites have the wherewithal to bother looking into any story they post about.

 

[miimura]

Please stop repeating this BS. The price for members is vastly lower, and this price is for non-member users of the network. All these news outlets that are wringing their hands about this are totally full of it. Read literally any of the MSP pricing sheets and see how disastrously poorly this posts have been written. Literally 6 seconds on damn google would have helped here, but none of these crap blog sites have the wherewithal to bother looking into any story they post about.

Can a Tesla owner buy a MSP plan?

 

[DrDabbles]

Can a Tesla owner buy a MSP plan?

Yes, from one of several MSPs depending on where the owner is located. These articles were complete, low effort crap. Literally you can google an European country name and "charging msp" to find details. Plus, all of the VW group brands, ford, kia, hyundai, BMW, and Mercedes are members of Ionity's network and offer their own MSP service.

This "story" really does it for me. I tried to think that maybe these sites were just naive and articles were written quickly to get them published. But now I see that there's a willful rejection of facts, and an intentional lack of even basic curiosity like asking "Huh, I wonder what an MSP is and how someone can join one". Teslarati had easily the worst coverage, and now all the others have blindly followed their insane lead.

The good news is, I can just add each site reporting this story to my news feed block list so I don't have to be subject to such low quality posts.