Can someone help me wrap my head around this: As part of the Volkswagen cheating scandal, $2B was set aside to create Electrify America which is tasked with installing charging stations, which benefits Volkswagen/Audi and now Lucid Motors. How is that a punitive judgment for cheating? They have to install charging stations anyway to compete with Tesla and other car companies. Please enlighten me. Thank you.
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Electrify America, Volkswagen, Audi, and Lucid Motors
- Thread starter teethdood
- Start date
Tam
Well-Known Member
No, they don't! They don't want to sell electric cars.
They want to delay selling electric cars as long as possible.
They only act as if they want to sell electric cars because they are forced into doing it.
Doing something against their will is a punishment.
My mother made me eat broccoli. I was forced to eat it against my will, but is it punishment?
Volkswagen owns Audi which is coming out with the e-tron SUV. Electrify America is building a charging network to support Audi. Electrify America also just inked a deal with Lucid Motors which is trying to compete with Tesla. The $2B punishment is no punishment at all when it's good for them. They're literally laughing all the way to the bank.
Volkswagen owns Audi which is coming out with the e-tron SUV. Electrify America is building a charging network to support Audi. Electrify America also just inked a deal with Lucid Motors which is trying to compete with Tesla. The $2B punishment is no punishment at all when it's good for them. They're literally laughing all the way to the bank.
Tam
Well-Known Member
You have a point.
Forcing VW doing Charging Stations against their petroleum interest can be profitable for them even though they hate it.
EVie'sDad
Member
My understanding was they had to use a fast charging standard so it wasn't limited to the VW group (VW, Audi, Porsche), So that it would benefit someone who had a Chevy Bolt, or a Jaguar I-Pace.
Here is a paragraph from their "Our Plan"
"In its first ZEV investment cycle, Electrify America will establish a network that includes non-proprietary electric vehicle chargers (CCS, CHAdeMO and J1772 standards) at over 650 community-based sites and nearly 300 highway sites across the country."
For us Tesla owners that's not so great as the car doesn't yet support CCS. At least not that I know of.
My main concern with Electrify America is there won't be enough stalls at a particular location. Having 4-6 stalls at a spot won't really be enough. If you add up all the sales of I-Pace, Leaf, Bolt, BMW's, Audi's.
The Electrify America website also really sucks. It doesn't give any location information as to what's there or what's around there.
Here is a blurb about one of their first locations.
"At the Gulfport Premium Outlets, Electrify America will have six DC Fast Chargers with a range in power from 50kW up to 350kW. The charging station will offer a CHAdeMO1 (50kW) connector, plus additional dual-handle chargers with CCS1 (150kW or 350 kW) connectors, ensuring that all fast charging capable cars will be able to use the Electrify America stations. Mississippi Power will provide the electricity for the station, which is now open to the public."
That's good news to a Tesla owner that might want to charge there, but it's going to be limited to CHADEMO charging speeds until IF/WHEN Tesla has a CCS adapter.
Here is a paragraph from their "Our Plan"
"In its first ZEV investment cycle, Electrify America will establish a network that includes non-proprietary electric vehicle chargers (CCS, CHAdeMO and J1772 standards) at over 650 community-based sites and nearly 300 highway sites across the country."
For us Tesla owners that's not so great as the car doesn't yet support CCS. At least not that I know of.
My main concern with Electrify America is there won't be enough stalls at a particular location. Having 4-6 stalls at a spot won't really be enough. If you add up all the sales of I-Pace, Leaf, Bolt, BMW's, Audi's.
The Electrify America website also really sucks. It doesn't give any location information as to what's there or what's around there.
Here is a blurb about one of their first locations.
"At the Gulfport Premium Outlets, Electrify America will have six DC Fast Chargers with a range in power from 50kW up to 350kW. The charging station will offer a CHAdeMO1 (50kW) connector, plus additional dual-handle chargers with CCS1 (150kW or 350 kW) connectors, ensuring that all fast charging capable cars will be able to use the Electrify America stations. Mississippi Power will provide the electricity for the station, which is now open to the public."
That's good news to a Tesla owner that might want to charge there, but it's going to be limited to CHADEMO charging speeds until IF/WHEN Tesla has a CCS adapter.
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Lasairfion
Member
To the original poster: You answered your own question about how a large company that can afford to lobby politicians and have board members mixing in the right circles is in a position where they can't really fail.
swaltner
Active Member
The Electrify America installation in Wichita, KS is almost live. It looks to just be waiting on the transformer from the utility company (Westar). I see the CHAdeMO and CCS plugs, but didn’t see a J1772 plug at this site.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
I'm trying to find the quote about what they aim to set their pricing at, aiming to have the car owners pay the same [per mile] as gasoline. I know they haven't talked about it much publicly because it's more investor facing stuff, about what they expect their revenue to look like.
Unless secretly, VW Group wanted to electrify but felt their shareholders wouldn't back it, it's a negative.
This really helps other companies selling CCS vehicles in small numbers, because somebody else is paying a huge amount to get chargers installed. Nissan might be a pit pissed that they're getting 1 CHAdeMO per site when they have a bigger BEV fleet than the total CCS fleet, with one car they're still over 50% of total CCS-BEV sales, and they have a BEV coming next year. But, since they didn't argue too hard, I wouldn't be surprised if Nissan's going to have CCS on the Leaf+.
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The company that's really hurt by this is Tesla. $2B is being pumped into charging infrastructure for a competing standard and it's not an investment.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
Nah. Who's really hurt is the poor SOB owners of the future NA Teslas that add the monstrosity that is the Type-1 port onto their vehicle.
It could be quite a while before there's cause to do it in NA, though. From what I've seen EA has some time before they even complete their shadow stations (basically "me too", where they mirror a number of SC locations). I don't see any value added, yet, for me to be able to charge at them. At some point there could be a convince factor for people that are regularly using DC charging in place of home charging and their specific address is closer to a CCS station. If the distance differential is great enough it could overcome the higher charging costs.
EDIT: Ok, one potential benefit. Until V3 SC rolls out, I expect they'd save a couple minutes in the bottom of the battery because of the nearly 20% higher peak rate. It'd be about the same price for that bottom half of the battery, even slightly cheaper in some states. It'd become an progressively more unhappy cost situation past that point, though. How much potential there is for this will depend greatly on how fast Tesla rolls out V3 vs EA's rollout, and how EA handles pricing for 150KW in the future. (Seems unlikely they'll keep it at the same price as 50KW once there are meaningful number of vehicles that use it.)
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Tam
Well-Known Member
The old article below talks about adapters but they are very expensive:
Fast charge adapters are possible, but how many really need CHAdeMO-CCS adapters?
Even if CCS adapter will not be possible, you can still use CHAdeMO adapter.
Electrify America will deploy 2,000 350kW fast chargers by the end of 2019
The picture below shows each Electry America station with both150kW CCS green handle#1 on the left and 50kW CHAdeMO blue handle#2 on the right.
50kW CHAdeMO is slow but still faster than J1772 and NEMA 14-50.
I read an article today where they were lamenting that this wasn't an easy thing to do what with working with different municipalities and their codes, power providers, construction firms, permits, etc. Yes, Tesla has already been through this. These guys don't really want to be involved in all this charging infrastructure. As always they just want to provide the car and let someone else deal with the rest just like they did with ICE vehicles and gasoline or dealerships and selling the vehicles. They are beginning to see where that is going to get them, like left behind, but I expect them to complain about having to spend money on this the whole time. Wonder if the shorts will start to go after some of these companies, either not staying current and getting left behind, or how will they be profitable with these EV designs of theirs. I see it as an evening of the field. Really looking forward to learning more on the battery technology they go with at the high charge rates that we are hearing and what their warranty will be on these cars/batteries.
Lasairfion
Member
I shouldn't worry too much about this charging infrastructure affecting Tesla adversely. The half hearted way in which they are doing this roll-out, the complaining, the potential expensive rates, and the wasteful inefficiency of these huge corporations will likely add up to something that will be a mediocre experience at best.
Lasairfion
Member
As an update for this side of the pond, here is the CEO of Ecotricity (green energy production and a major charging infrastructure in the UK) talking to Robert Llewellyn on Fully Charged.
The old article below talks about adapters but they are very expensive:
Fast charge adapters are possible, but how many really need CHAdeMO-CCS adapters?
Even if CCS adapter will not be possible, you can still use CHAdeMO adapter.
Electrify America will deploy 2,000 350kW fast chargers by the end of 2019
The picture below shows each Electry America station with both150kW CCS green handle#1 on the left and 50kW CHAdeMO blue handle#2 on the right.
50kW CHAdeMO is slow but still faster than J1772 and NEMA 14-50.
All EA locations to date only have a single CHAdeMO plug. All the rest of the stations are CCS only. As a Bolt owner, that makes me very happy as two of the most populus EV brands (Nissan/Tesla) cannot use most of the EA stations.
Tam
Well-Known Member
But @eldis says that's false:
Tesla CCS fast charging adapter?
Tesla can but not about technology, legal... it's more about business. You've got to convince that it's good profits for producing CCS adapters.
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