Superchargers open to all other EVs later this year (2021)

[xxxotic]

It would be nice if they would use the income from others charging at a higher cost to lower the price that Tesla Owners pay. Or even make it free for Tesla Owners.
This would encourage other EV owners to buy Teslas when it came time to trade in or sell their existing EVs
Sort of like a gas station owner who also owns the Honda dealership in town saying it's $4 a gallon for all cars except Honda's which only have to pay $1 a gallon.

 

[Maxpilot]

Elon should license the Tesla connector to OEM's to install in their vehicles to use the Tesla SC "standard" or no go. Right now Rivian and Lucid could retrofit their cars to the Tesla SC connector pretty easy. Rivian and Lucid would have to help build out the Tesla SC network (and any other OEM that wants to join the Tesla SC network).

 

[Earl]

Elon should license the Tesla connector to OEM's to install in their vehicles to use the Tesla SC "standard" or no go. Right now Rivian and Lucid could retrofit their cars to the Tesla SC connector pretty easy. Rivian and Lucid would have to help build out the Tesla SC network (and any other OEM that wants to join the Tesla SC network).

Tesla has offered this since the beginning. The OEM's, instead of taking Tesla up on it, fabricated stories about how "Tesla is desperately looking for someone to rescue their Supercharger network" as they laughed about how Tesla was going to go out of business.
Remember, the OEMs all agree on 2 things: They'd rather keep making ICE cars that they understand and, they hate Tesla.

 

[Gixx1300R]

The Infrastructure bill have 7.5 billion for EV charging. There is no one better than Tesla to get EV charging up and running on a massive scale.

 

[e of pi]

The Infrastructure bill have 7.5 billion for EV charging. There is no one better than Tesla to get EV charging up and running on a massive scale.

That amount is probably a pretty good reason for Tesla to be adding CCS, much like happened in Scandinavia. That's about 3x what Tesla's spent to date on Supercharging, and about 5-6x what Electrify America has spent. I believe there's been mention of if funding about 500k stations, though I think some of those will be L2. Still, making some assumptions, if this passes it seems likely that the government is about to split up and pass around enough money to roughly double or triple the number of DCFC charging stalls, not award it all to a single firm. However, it's also unlikely they'll pay for any stations which don't offer CCS as an option for connecting to them (and TBH, I'm not sure even just an adapter would be enough for that). Opening up the network over the next few years to have a shot at part of $7.5b seems to make a lot of sense--especially when the alternative is all of it being split between EA, EVGo, Chargepoint and so on instead.

 

[srs5694]

That amount is probably a pretty good reason for Tesla to be adding CCS, much like happened in Scandinavia. That's about 3x what Tesla's spent to date on Supercharging, and about 5-6x what Electrify America has spent. I believe there's been mention of if funding about 500k stations

I've lost the link, but I read this morning that the compromise that's currently under discussion cuts that value in half. The logic in the rest of your post remains sound, though -- if the US government will be funding DC fast charging stations but requiring that they support CCS, it may well be in Tesla's interest to begin supporting CCS in order to get some of that money, at least at new stations.

 

[e of pi]

I've lost the link, but I read this morning that the compromise that's currently under discussion cuts that value in half. The logic in the rest of your post remains sound, though -- if the US government will be funding DC fast charging stations but requiring that they support CCS, it may well be in Tesla's interest to begin supporting CCS in order to get some of that money, at least at new stations.

The $7.5b is the halved amount: Tweaked Infrastructure Plan Keeps Funds For Biden’s EV Chargers, Trains, Clean Buses
The original was $15b: FACT SHEET: Biden Administration Advances Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure | The White House

 

[LoudMusic]

Tesla could simply sell an adapter for $750 and tack on a 50% surcharge for electricity. That would minimize usage for most people, and it would likely not cause much disruption for us owners.

If not, what would be difficult is that the capacity will have to increase substantially. There are still many locations in remote locations that only have four or six version 2 stalls. Most of us won't want to wait while other cars are charging at lower rates while we pass time in line.

Older cars have had their Supercharging speeds reduced, and this reduction is exacerbated in cooler weather. Until two years ago, an average charge time to go from 15% to 65-70% on an S85 was about 30 minutes, give or take (no sharing.) The SOC+kW equaled about 120. Today, this has been nerfed to 110 in optimum weather; cooler weather or a cold battery results in 95-100. So, the 15%-70% charge takes about 40+ minutes with a warm battery in summer; nearly an hour in cold weather.

If other vehicles cannot sustain even the crippled rates of classic S85s, their charge times will be even longer.

Clearly an adapter will be required, and it can be tagged/IDed for easy billing the same as a Tesla brand car.

I'm not sure that additional or increased charging fees are necessary. Just requiring people to drop nearly a thousand dollars and carry around an extra goofy adapter should be enough

The tricky part is that the Supercharger parking stalls are arranged specifically for Tesla car charge ports. Not all EVs will fit in there particularly well, and some drivers will very likely park in some awkward way which obstructs multiple stalls.

Should be interesting to see how this pans out.

 

[Matias]

Tesla is giving away its competitive edge with opening SCs to other cars.

I personally think that SC network is Tesla’s biggest benefit compared to other electric cars

 

[e of pi]

Tesla is giving away its competitive edge with opening SCs to other cars.

I personally think that SC network is Tesla’s biggest benefit compared to other electric cars

If there are going to be 20, 30, or even 40k new DCFC stalls built with federal money, not to mention state, local, or corporate investments, then the benefit of having an extra 3,000 or 6,000 stalls today evaporates pretty quickly. Better to open up, add CCS at stations, and get a share of the billions--and it's better for consumers and the industry as a whole.

 

[Earl]

Supercharger parking stalls are arranged specifically for Tesla car charge ports

This speaks well for the use of adapters with CCS plugs to go into specific cars, into which the Tesla Supercharger connector can plug. They can be built with a cable that is the right length to get from the standard Supercharger connector to the CCS port on each particular car model without the need to carry too many feet of that huge charging hose.
One of the big maintenance issues I've seen with CHAdeMO stations is that there is a huge length of cable that must be hauled around. In addition to being inconvenient, this puts a huge strain where the cable meets the connector, causing it to fail. Additionally, that big cable needs to get even bigger and more ungainly if one needs to support more than 50 kW.

 

[texas_star_TM3]

easiest for Tesla would be that any new SC build using federal $ subsidies will have a CCS / Tesla cable... kinda what EVGo does.
Tesla doesn't need to open up SCs build and paid for without federal $ .... just new ones going forward.

 

[HyperionMark]

As much as I love the idea (as a shareholder) of more revenue through this, I agree that it opens up a whole can of worms.
Example: Two of the better selling non-Tesla EVs are the Mustang Mach E and the Bolt. Both have the charge port right in front of the driver side door. That means you either pull in front first and take the charger that is meant for the adjacent stall, or you back in and need a very long and clunky adapter. Obviously, neither situation is great.

 

[Earl]

As much as I love the idea (as a shareholder) of more revenue through this, I agree that it opens up a whole can of worms.
Example: Two of the better selling non-Tesla EVs are the Mustang Mach E and the Bolt. Both have the charge port right in front of the driver side door. That means you either pull in front first and take the charger that is meant for the adjacent stall, or you back in and need a very long and clunky adapter. Obviously, neither situation is great.

And thus we see the good and bad things about standards and open-standards.
Unfortunately, the main goals of CCS originally were:
- to save money if the car companies actually had to make EVs by allowing it to share the J-1772 holes and wiring tracks through the vehicle.
- to ensure there wouldn't be any road-trip capable EVs by limiting the charging speed to 50 kW (this wasn't successful)
- ensure approval was too late to help Tesla

That its connector was bulky and ugly didn't matter to them since, with no plans to ever provide any infrastructure, that was someone else's problem. Besides, they hoped none would ever be released anyway.

As an open-standard developed by a committee of competitors, they couldn't agree on where the charge ports should be on the vehicle so they wound up requiring massively long cables.

And, of course, the infernal Europeans had to make their standard different just because that's what they have always done - and to impede hard working competitors from their market in order to preserve their 30 hour work weeks and 40 day paid vacations.

 

[TomServo]

I haven’t seen any mention of other manufactures contributing $$$ to help pay for construction, operations and maintenance of the Super Charger network. Shouldn’t this be part of the plan?

 

[TunaBug]

I haven’t seen any mention of other manufactures contributing $$$ to help pay for construction, operations and maintenance of the Super Charger network. Shouldn’t this be part of the plan?

Why? Does Honda subsidize my local Costco gas pump?

 

[texas_star_TM3]

it's about Tesla's access to $billions in green subsidies for charging infrastructure coming in Germany/ US etc. The feds won't pay for SC installation if only Tesla's can charge there (which is fair). It would be dumb for Tesla to say no to billions in free charging infrastructure money only to see EA tripling their chargers and potentially overtake SCs and take away a key selling point for Teslas.

I haven’t seen any mention of other manufactures contributing $$$ to help pay for construction, operations and maintenance of the Super Charger network. Shouldn’t this be part of the plan?

 

[TunaBug]

it's about Tesla's access to $billions in green subsidies for charging infrastructure coming in Germany/ US etc. The feds won't pay for SC installation if only Tesla's can charge there (which is fair). It would be dumb for Tesla to say no to billions in free charging infrastructure money only to see EA tripling their chargers and potentially overtake SCs and take away a key selling point for Teslas.

I think that's probably Tesla's motivation.

If Tesla requires other manufacturers to pay so that their cars can access the SuperCharger network that would probably give those companies some sort of seat at the SuperCharger table, too. I can't imagine Tesla would want that. Better to have the ability to control protocols as they want, chop off access to some cars that they think misbehave, etc.

 

[miimura]

If Tesla wants to get gubmint money for charging sites, they probably need to make significant changes.
1. They need to accommodate different charge port locations
2. They need to support CCS connectors
3. They need to provide displays to show the price and amount of "fuel" delivered. This regulation is already coming into effect in California in 2023 for newly installed DC chargers.

 

[RDoc]

It will be interesting to see how this EV charging network develops. It would be very easy to spend the money and not have much at the end that actually increases EV adoption.

• Are they going to build 100 KW or larger units, or mostly 50 KW?
• Are they going to locate the chargers based on local and/or travel needs or are they going to focus on areas with few or no chargers irrespective of use?
• Are they going to require local community input and approval, environmental impact statements, etc.?
• Are the installations going to have to be done by unionized labor?
• Will the procurement be through normal government processes or streamlined?