Except that it's not about me.
It's about what charging networks think make sense for them financially....
...and charging stations that are underutilized 364 out of 365 days a year are unlikely to make sense to them
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Electrify America general discussion
- Thread starter Mockingbird
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It's about what charging networks think make sense for them financially....
...and charging stations that are underutilized 364 out of 365 days a year are unlikely to make sense to them
Rivian recognized the attributes about Tesla that made them attractive.
Duplicating those don't guarantee success, but they go a long way into attracting people to the vehicle.
Tesla created expectations.
Things like Sentry Mode, Dash Cam, OTA Updates, and lots of other things.
A lot of those expectations are not matched by legacy automakers, and likely won't be. So there is huge opportunity for Rivian to capitalize on it.
The biggest time killer for me was the time between plugging in, and the time it took me to activate the charger in the EA app.
I wish it was auto charge so I didn't have to bother with the App.
I've mentioned bloom filters a few times here. I should probably go into a bit more detail...
Wikipedia link above. I've not ever created them for real, but I've done a few analogous things. Below is oversimplified and deliberately makes some bad implementation decisions, but is just supposed to show the idea.
Let's say you have a (likely) unique identifier for your vehicle like 01:02:03:04:05 that you can pull during the CCS negotiation. Let also say that EA expects to have around 100k vehicles enrolled, but doesn't have infinite memory on each device. Hopefully they can support 1 meg of DB?
For each vehicle they support, take the vehicle identifier and hash it a few different times to get different (small) hash values. You them set the bits in the total data structure. A Q&D Unix shell implementation:
Then when you plug into the charger, the charger does the same calculation with the provided identifier, and verifies all the bits expected to be set are set. If they're all set, then it's "likely" that your ID was in the original set of valid IDs, and we go ahead and speculatively provide you power while we verify internally that you actually are in the allowed set.
This is probabilistic because of aliasing. Given "enough" IDs, there's a chance that there exists an ID+iteration that sets the 7619044th bit. And if a different one sets the 1946733th bit and yet another different one sets the 4528362th bit... your ID could be accepted incorrectly. These odds increase as the fullness of the structure increases, and the wikipedia page suggests using ~10-bits per entry in the structure... so 100M devices would require a ~125MB structure to keep a 1% false-positive rate.
Wikipedia link above. I've not ever created them for real, but I've done a few analogous things. Below is oversimplified and deliberately makes some bad implementation decisions, but is just supposed to show the idea.
Let's say you have a (likely) unique identifier for your vehicle like 01:02:03:04:05 that you can pull during the CCS negotiation. Let also say that EA expects to have around 100k vehicles enrolled, but doesn't have infinite memory on each device. Hopefully they can support 1 meg of DB?
For each vehicle they support, take the vehicle identifier and hash it a few different times to get different (small) hash values. You them set the bits in the total data structure. A Q&D Unix shell implementation:
Set the 7619044th bit in your 1-meg structure, and then 1946733rd, and the 4528362th bit. Do that for each ID you support, and ship the resulting 1-meg blob out to each charger.
Then when you plug into the charger, the charger does the same calculation with the provided identifier, and verifies all the bits expected to be set are set. If they're all set, then it's "likely" that your ID was in the original set of valid IDs, and we go ahead and speculatively provide you power while we verify internally that you actually are in the allowed set.
This is probabilistic because of aliasing. Given "enough" IDs, there's a chance that there exists an ID+iteration that sets the 7619044th bit. And if a different one sets the 1946733th bit and yet another different one sets the 4528362th bit... your ID could be accepted incorrectly. These odds increase as the fullness of the structure increases, and the wikipedia page suggests using ~10-bits per entry in the structure... so 100M devices would require a ~125MB structure to keep a 1% false-positive rate.
Why do you think Tesla makes charging free after 9-10 pm on holidays? The other thing they could do is raise the price. But what's not acceptable is to have any sort of line that's longer than 5-10 minutes.
...to reduce demand charges, obviously
Tesla is where it is today because traditional automakers didn't take BEVs seriously. (Nissan made a good effort but didn't follow it up until over a decade later.)
That was a different time and Tesla had the market to itself.
Now, just about every traditional automaker is pushing out BEVs.
If Rivian thinks that it can replicate Tesla's sucess by following Tesla's footsteps, it is doomed.
The sites are still full, thus incurring the maximum demand charge. Offering free power in off hours encourages people to travel in off-peak times, reducing the lines during the peak travel times.
More Teslas on the Road Meant Hours-Long Supercharger Lines Over Thanksgiving
The busiest travel weekend of the year was an interesting test for Tesla's fast-charging network.
www.thedrive.com
According to the article, there are 50 vehicles in lines and 40 chargers.More Teslas on the Road Meant Hours-Long Supercharger Lines Over Thanksgiving
The busiest travel weekend of the year was an interesting test for Tesla's fast-charging network.
That means that 10 vehicles have to wait 2 vehicles to charge while 40 vehicles only have to wait for 1 vehicle to charge.
Rivian isn't just blinding following what Tesla did.
They duplicate what makes sense, and they do their own thing for other stuff.
In 2018 Tesla bet the company on the Model 3 where it was really about increasing the volume of vehicles sold versus only focusing on the higher end. I don't expect Rivian to follow that playbook. Instead I expect them to focus on high margin vehicles like Cargo Vans, Trucks, SUV's. I also don't seem them creating a Semi truck.
It's a different reality now than it was. There is a much larger push towards EV's than there was a four years ago. Lots of states/countries have goals on when to phase out ICE cars.
We're entering a new phase where other EV's other than Tesla are being considered by buyers. This is really important to Rivian and the rest of the industry as it allows them to compete on the merits of the vehicle, and not on brand name recognition only.
Rivian won't be successful if consumers only associate EV's with Tesla.
I don't know if this is a recent addition, or if it was always like this.... But when I was using the Tesla Navigation, and I tapped on charging, to show superchargers... It also showed EA chargers when L3 chargers are selected in the filters. Altho I think it's showing up, becuase it has chademo, as it says "Up to 50kW charging" in the description.... But I don't remember these chargers showing up when searching for chargers... Maybe I just never noticed?
While traditional automakers were looking away, Tesla made itself the world's biggest BEV maker.
By contrast, even Ford is going to end up delivering more BEVs than Rivian.
Why wouldn't Ford deliver more BEVs than Rivian?
The F150 Lighting is going to sell like hotcakes, and Ford can leverage revenue from ICE Trucks/SUV's to fund EV development.
Rivians goal isn't to sell a LOT of EV's like Tesla's goal is.
Right. They are making other, different mistakes. They are already building another second factory, when they haven't established production output volume or stability from their first one. That is dangerously overextending themselves by spending obscene amounts of money, when they need to be firming up their revenue.
The 40th vehicle would have to wait for about the average amount of time it takes those vehicles that already have stalls to charge. But it had probably already been waiting for a while. And the 50th? 120% of the average time. BIG problem, especially considering that the advantage of an EV is that you don't have to make separate refueling stops and can refuel it while you are doing other things. Except that would not happen for those vehicles waiting in line, and the type of waiting done by those drivers is the worst type of waiting: busy waiting, just like people do when they stand by an active gas pump. Those drivers can't go get food or use the restroom because they'd lose their place in line.
How much time are we talking about, though? A 40 stall site should be turning a vehicle over once per minute if the average charging session is 40 minutes. Many charging sessions are shorter than that (my average is <20 minutes), so I would expect an even faster turnover rate.
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I would get slightly irritated if I had to wait more than 5 minutes if I'm trying to get somewhere on a road trip. I'd get irritated after 10 minutes, and extremely irritated after 15 minutes. Even assuming an average turnover of 15 minutes, that still puts the guy who shows up as the 50th person in line at 18.75 minutes.
Exactly.
They're going to make their own mistakes. There is that one you pointed out, and there is the mishandling of the inflation related price increases that I mentioned. The screwup meant they lost control to dictate the pricing for reserved vehicles. A reservation is no guarantee of price because it's not an order.
History is littered with companies who tried to expand too fast, and made critical missteps.
I can't have a dunkin donuts or a boston market because of this, and I used to enjoy both of those.
Even when a company survives a mass expansion like Tesla is they tend to be a different company. My experience with my 2015 Model S was vastly different than my experience with my 2018 Model 3. The customer engagement just wasn't there anymore, and critical fleet wide problems like the autolights not turning on in the rain weren't being addressed. Email addresses for customer support no longer worked.
Sometimes what they did to survive diminishes their credibility.
The terrible delivery quality was a result of trying to deliver too many cars, and not checking them over properly. I almost denied delivery of the 2018, but decided to go the due bill instead. They never really got the fender piece aligned properly so that part was always a bit of an annoyance. In 2022 a friend rejected delivery of the Y due to a significant door alignment issue, but the next one was good.
FSD shattered Tesla credibility because it was science fiction. It joins a long list of failed AI promises.
We're only now discovering what Uber did to accomplish what they did.
Bringing this back onto topic the most important thing for all EV companies is the charging infrastructure. In my decision to buy the Rivian it was my biggest concern. I'm a little concerned that companies like Rivian, and Porsche are a bit too focused on building their own special network and not on improvements to the EA network.
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