National Standard for "Travel" Charging

[shinytop]

I think we have big elephant in the room as we discuss supercharging and its availability. The elephant is the lack of a national standard. Imagine if you had to choose your refueling stop for an ICE vehicle based on whether the pump was the right shape to fit your gas tank. Or if you had to choose based on what volume of gas per minute your gas tank could accommodate. I don't know exactly when the standard was set or by whom but a standard had to develop before ICE vehicles became common.

That's the situation that is emerging for electric vehicles. There needs to be a standard set for travel charging and by that I mean charging away from your home. Teslas are our vehicle of choice but we plan trips beyond our immediate area by where the chargers are. And we use apps that tell us where SC's are as well as where other type of chargers are. And Tesla gives or sells us adapters to use with other style chargers. I am not familiar with what other electric vehicle owners face. Do Leaf owners had adapters for SC's? Do they have a network that only charges Leafs? The same question can be asked about any EV.

We need more EV's. Set aside the arguments for the environment to consider the only way to get improvements in our choices is to have more choices and let the marketplace decide those that stay in the market. More choices mean manufacturers have to provide proper support for problems and provide more immediate solutions than appointments weeks or months out and then weeks or months wait for parts.

So as other manufacturers consider selling EV's one of the considerations of buyers is how do I use it as I use my current ICE vehicle? A common standard for travel chargers will settle one of the largest issues that ICE owners consider when choosing whether or not to go EV.

I have not looked up the numbers for the different kind of chargers currently in the US. If Tesla SC's are the most common they might be the logical choice for a national standard. But Tesla would have to share their design and the other manufacturers would have contribute immediately to building more SC stations for it to work. If another design, such as the European standard were to be chosen Tesla would have to offer an adapter and, over time, change their current SC network over.

Whatever design is chosen the sooner it is adopted the better off we would all be. And we should work to get other North and South American countries to adopt the same standard. Would be nice if it were the same as Asia or Europe but since few ship their cars back and forth not as necessary.

Do any of you know of any movement toward a common standard? What are your opinions on a common standard?

 

[electricar]

I don't know of any movement to standardize charging but agree that it is absolutely essential

 

[RDoc]

Google CharIN

 

[DCGOO]

There needs to be a standard set for travel charging and by that I mean charging away from your home. Teslas are our vehicle of choice but we plan trips beyond our immediate area by where the chargers are. And we use apps that tell us where SC's are as well as where other type of chargers are. And Tesla gives or sells us adapters to use with other style chargers. I am not familiar with what other electric vehicle owners face. Do Leaf owners had adapters for SC's? Do they have a network that only charges Leafs? The same question can be asked about any EV.

There is no other "network" per se, other than Tesla. No Leaf network, no Bolt network. No Jaguar network. The others all rely on third party charging, other than what the dealers throw up. Thus the reason the SOBs (Some Other Brand) are not really intended to support road trips. The SOB manufacturers have not thought this through. AFAIK, no manufacturer has made any plans to adapt to the Superchargers, even though Elon announced Tesla would support such a move (obviously not for free).

 

[ewoodrick]

There is no other "network" per se, other than Tesla. No Leaf network, no Bolt network. No Jaguar network. The others all rely on third party charging, other than what the dealers throw up. Thus the reason the SOBs (Some Other Brand) are not really intended to support road trips. The SOB manufacturers have not thought this through. AFAIK, no manufacturer has made any plans to adapt to the Superchargers, even though Elon announced Tesla would support such a move (obviously not for free).

I don't think that I remember any Ford or Chevrolet gas stations. There are a few very large charging networks out there with lots of chargers available. And Nissan actually uses these as part of their "No charge to charge" program.
As to not supporting road trips, I'm not in agreement here. There are a lot of fast chargers on the roads and there's a lot more fast charging location in the US than there are Tesla Superchargers.

And then there's the fact that Tesla includes the J-1772 adapter, because it is the most prolific charging solution. And many of those are part of the other Not a Network, Networks.

 

[ewoodrick]

I think we have big elephant in the room as we discuss supercharging and its availability. The elephant is the lack of a national standard. Imagine if you had to choose your refueling stop for an ICE vehicle based on whether the pump was the right shape to fit your gas tank. Or if you had to choose based on what volume of gas per minute your gas tank could accommodate. I don't know exactly when the standard was set or by whom but a standard had to develop before ICE vehicles became common.

That's the situation that is emerging for electric vehicles. There needs to be a standard set for travel charging and by that I mean charging away from your home. Teslas are our vehicle of choice but we plan trips beyond our immediate area by where the chargers are. And we use apps that tell us where SC's are as well as where other type of chargers are. And Tesla gives or sells us adapters to use with other style chargers. I am not familiar with what other electric vehicle owners face. Do Leaf owners had adapters for SC's? Do they have a network that only charges Leafs? The same question can be asked about any EV.

We need more EV's. Set aside the arguments for the environment to consider the only way to get improvements in our choices is to have more choices and let the marketplace decide those that stay in the market. More choices mean manufacturers have to provide proper support for problems and provide more immediate solutions than appointments weeks or months out and then weeks or months wait for parts.

So as other manufacturers consider selling EV's one of the considerations of buyers is how do I use it as I use my current ICE vehicle? A common standard for travel chargers will settle one of the largest issues that ICE owners consider when choosing whether or not to go EV.

I have not looked up the numbers for the different kind of chargers currently in the US. If Tesla SC's are the most common they might be the logical choice for a national standard. But Tesla would have to share their design and the other manufacturers would have contribute immediately to building more SC stations for it to work. If another design, such as the European standard were to be chosen Tesla would have to offer an adapter and, over time, change their current SC network over.

Whatever design is chosen the sooner it is adopted the better off we would all be. And we should work to get other North and South American countries to adopt the same standard. Would be nice if it were the same as Asia or Europe but since few ship their cars back and forth not as necessary.

Do any of you know of any movement toward a common standard? What are your opinions on a common standard?

There's a lot of folks wanting a common standard. To a degree, it's Tesla in one island and other chargers on the other island. Only Teslas can charge at Tesla Superchargers and destination chargers. Other DC fast chargers are now supporting CCS and CHAdeMO both. And the other network is also J-1772 charging.

It's a lot more evident in Europe, where Tesla added CCS charging to the Model 3s.

 

[jboy210]

There's a lot of folks wanting a common standard. To a degree, it's Tesla in one island and other chargers on the other island. Only Teslas can charge at Tesla Superchargers and destination chargers. Other DC fast chargers are now supporting CCS and CHAdeMO both. And the other network is also J-1772 charging.

It's a lot more evident in Europe, where Tesla added CCS charging to the Model 3s.

Tesla is also busy retrofiting it Superchargers in Europe to be dual headed, CCS and Tesla. In the coming years all Teslas in Europe will only CCS. Maybe Tesla will start shipping US Models with CCS also and update the US Superchargers to be dual headed. They would also need a way to update HPWC to CCS.

 

[MP3Mike]

Maybe Tesla will start shipping US Models with CCS also and update the US Superchargers to be dual headed. They would also need a way to update HPWC to CCS.

I wouldn't count on that.

 

[ajdelange]

The modern industrial world has dealt with standards many times in the past and this industry will do so too at some point. Currently Tesla's is the only network out there (yes there are several also-ran's but look at the number of stations, the number of connections per station and the stations' capacities). They all have one disadvantage over Tesla: they have to be profitable. Tesla's network, up until recently, was a marketing tool (and a darn good one too). That is, of course, changing as the market is starting to evolve and one day the various players: car manufacturers, energy suppliers, electrical equipment manufacturers, insurers, NFPA etc will sit down and decide that there ought to be a standard and eventually one will evolve.

 

[Rocky_H]

As to not supporting road trips, I'm not in agreement here. There are a lot of fast chargers on the roads and there's a lot more fast charging location in the US than there are Tesla Superchargers.

I'm not sure what region you're referring to, but for the most part it's not really like that. There are a lot of fast chargers in big cities. And then there are large impassable gaps on the interstates in between those cities that don't have fast chargers. So other types of EVs don't have access to interstate travel charging like the Supercharger network has. And that certainly made sense, because they were built for the only EVs that existed that had about an 80 mile range. They weren't going to be traveling anyway.

 

[David29]

It seems to me that CCS is the de facto standard for the moment, at least in the USA and Europe. The Japanese have not yet come around and still use Chademo (although I am not sure if there is any movement towards CCS in Japan). China unfortunately has its own standard. IF (big if) the VW charging infrastructure rollout goes along as planned, and IF there is reasonable adoption of EVs besides Tesla, my guess is that CCS will become the actual standard in the US and that Tesla will eventually need to conform to it. But this could take a long time. For now, it is somewhat like the videotape wars, VHS vs. Betamax. Eventually the marketplace will decide, possibly with some help from regulators. (And it is well to remember that the cheaper, inferior standard won in the Beta vs. VHS war...and both were supplanted long ago by other technologies.)
Perhaps the whole thing will be made irrelevant by efficient (and fast) wireless charging and we won't even need cables at all!

 

[Rocky_H]

In North America, I certainly anticipate CSS replacing CHAdeMO. If you've seen how they have to try to fit the two kinds of ports into a car, it takes up a lot of space to have to put the big clunky CHAdeMO and still have to also fit a J1772 port next to it. CSS has the advantage that it's just one big clunky place for the port, but then you can still plug a J1772 handle into part of that port on the car for AC charging, so it saves some space and equipment cost.

 

[rhumbliner]

There are a lot of fast chargers on the roads and there's a lot more fast charging location in the US than there are Tesla Superchargers.

How are you defining “fast chargers”? In the past 3 years we’ve driven coast to coast at least 10 times. Never have we been able to rely on anything other than Tesla chargers (Super or Destination). Sure we’ve used quite a few J-1772 outlets but that’s been mainly for overnight convenience and the (very few) CHAdeMO outlets we’ve encountered were usually out-of-order.

@Rocky_H is right. Without Tesla’s network you’re limited to metropolitan areas and even then I don’t consider those to be fast chargers.

 

[Rocky_H]

CSS replacing CHAdeMO. [...] CSS has the advantage

Ugh. I thought I had messed that up. It's CCS, not CSS. CSS is a website standards thing.

Without Tesla’s network you’re limited to metropolitan areas and even then I don’t consider those to be fast chargers.

I do consider them a passable alternative if they are 50kW. I had a trip for several days along coastal Oregon, using the 50kW CHAdeMO stations every day in several towns along highway 101. I did a few thousand miles of driving that week and so used them a lot. That was back when Tesla didn't have any Superchargers on 101, so I was using those CHAdeMO stations every day. Tesla's urban Superchargers are only 72kW max power, so solid 50kW isn't much off from that. And when you're up to about 60% battery or more, you're going to be slowing below 50kW charging speed anyway, whether at a CHAdeMO or Supercharger. So yeah, I consider other DC fast charging to be roughly "half as fast" as Superchargers, but still kind of reasonable in most cases. Now 10 or 20kW is pretty painful, and that's a level that is hard to put up with if you're having to wait for it.

 

[jboy210]

Ugh. I thought I had messed that up. It's CCS, not CSS. CSS is a website standards thing.
.

But CSS makes the pages look so pretty! Imaging how good your charging would look with appropriate CSS styling.

 

[Rocky_H]

But CSS makes the pages look so pretty! Imaging how good your charging would look with CSS.

Can they use some CSS to make the v9 software not suck ass so badly? I just discovered a few weeks ago that they hide the battery % estimate from you if you're driving on navigation and using either "North up" or "Forward up" zoomed in views. You know--the useful views that you actually use while driving. You only get to see the % remaining estimate if you switch to the useless way zoomed out "Entire trip" view.

(And I've been trying to report that to them through the feedback in my Tesla account on their website for weeks, but it just keeps saying "An error has occurred." They could use some CSS there too.)