Tesla belatedly tries to make their connector a North American standard

[Olle]

The reason competing stations are so big and clunky is that they often have the AC to DC conversion in the same cabinet, whereas Tesla separates that out into a separate cabinet.

True. Even considering the separate cabinets, Tesla stations look more cost efficient overall. 5 times cheaper acc to this Electric article on the topic.

Also, their cords are longer to accommodate different types of EVs, and they must have screens and card readers. Pretty sure the industry is rueing the lack of plug and charge from the get go, credit card reader maintenance must be a nightmare.

For sure. Not only are there screens, card readers and longer cables, the systems are clearly not thought through. It looks more like a bunch of components slapped together, hoping for the best.
:

Check out this FPL charger for example.

They included a pedestal in the design to get a convenient height, then realized that it was too low so added an extra concrete block. What's was the point of the pedestal then? Efficient design. Not.
The cables are not only long to accommodate different vehicles, but there is no cable management so they are more or less guaranteed to get run over. Talk about maintenance nightmare. Those flexible heavy duty cables are not cheap either.

These details are of course not the end of the world but what you immediately see on the surface of a poorly designed product or system is often the just tip of the iceberg.
Looking at this I get more and more convinced that these charging networks won't be able to compete profitably with Tesla as the SC network expands and offers charging to non Teslas.

 

[wws]

... Pretty sure the industry is rueing the lack of plug and charge from the get go, credit card reader maintenance must be a nightmare.

This is something I don't understand. Gas station pumps have had integrated credit card readers since the 1980s. I've rarely ever seen them broken. One would think the readers on EV chargers would be just as reliable by now. Same with screens that are readable in the sun.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Um, but there are two outlets that "can" accept 15a each (which would trip a 15a breaker or a 20a breaker)
But if you had two 9a devices and plugged them in a 15a breaker would trip for sure, but not a 20a breaker.
You can't tell by "looking" if it is OK to do so.

I don't really have a point to make except that the multitude of standards for common electrical devices we are all used to is fairly complex even compared to the mess of EV charging options. And I didn't even talk about all the USB charging variants (mini, micro, type C) and the other DC low voltage plugs for laptops, 6v, 9v, 12v etc barrel plugs, etc.

If it's a 20A socket, the breaker is 20A. It's just code.
If you don't know whether there's another device on the circuit you shouldn't charge a car.

The one you can't tell on are 40A/50A, since -50 sockets can be used on 40A breakers, and I think that's a part of the reason why Tesla dropped the UMC to 32A.

 

[stopcrazypp]

This is something I don't understand. Gas station pumps have had integrated credit card readers since the 1980s. I've rarely ever seen them broken. One would think the readers on EV chargers would be just as reliable by now. Same with screens that are readable in the sun.

I think that is because they are well maintained, not because they are that reliable. But for the charge networks, a station might not get maintenance in months, so you might find a stall broken for months. This is impossible for gas stations as they have many customers per day, so they can't afford to leave a pump down for months.

 

[dusty22]

True. Even considering the separate cabinets, Tesla stations look more cost efficient overall. 5 times cheaper acc to this Electric article on the topic.

For sure. Not only are there screens, card readers and longer cables, the systems are clearly not thought through. It looks more like a bunch of components slapped together, hoping for the best.
:View attachment 874827

Check out this FPL charger for example.

They included a pedestal in the design to get a convenient height, then realized that it was too low so added an extra concrete block. What's was the point of the pedestal then? Efficient design. Not.
The cables are not only long to accommodate different vehicles, but there is no cable management so they are more or less guaranteed to get run over. Talk about maintenance nightmare. Those flexible heavy duty cables are not cheap either.

These details are of course not the end of the world but what you immediately see on the surface of a poorly designed product or system is often the just tip of the iceberg.
Looking at this I get more and more convinced that these charging networks won't be able to compete profitably with Tesla as the SC network expands and offers charging to non Teslas.

Ejay87 posted this photo on another thread.

These are new Superchargers a few miles away from me. I was wondering why a ChargePoint charger has been installed along with them. None of the chargers at this location were operational as of a few days ago.

 

[thedanl]

I think that is because they are well maintained, not because they are that reliable. But for the charge networks, a station might not get maintenance in months, so you might find a stall broken for months. This is impossible for gas stations as they have many customers per day, so they can't afford to leave a pump down for months.

That makes a lot of sense. I'm curious, do you think that having a canopy that protects the electronics from the elements increases their reliability or is it mostly in higher investment in maintenance?

 

[Cosmacelf]

I think that is because they are well maintained, not because they are that reliable. But for the charge networks, a station might not get maintenance in months, so you might find a stall broken for months. This is impossible for gas stations as they have many customers per day, so they can't afford to leave a pump down for months.

Fast chargers also get many customers per day. It’s just bad management and bad/cheap/poorly designed hardware. Tesla keeps their stations largely operating.

 

[israndy]

Operating Fast Chargers have many customers a day, the Green Lots charger near me fell into disrepair and the owner (the municipal power company) contacted them to do a repair, sadly Shell bought Green Lots and my MP company hasn't heard back from them since. It's been half a year or more. They are voting at the next board meeting to just dump the contract and contract with a new provider. No customers for a very long time, people are forgetting it ever existed.

 

[israndy]

I was wondering why a ChargePoint charger has been installed along with them.

Some municipalities or the mall management will have regulations or strong opinions about not providing power to only one car manufacturer. Tesla has installed free J1772 chargers are many local Superchargers so that non-Teslas can also charge. Typically a condition asked of Tesla to install the Supercharger. This power is paid for by the mall or whoever owns the lot. Since not everyone LIKES paying for a flood of power to local mooches another solution is ChargePoint. You pay to install them and then the power is paid for by the customer. It would be odd if those stations are set to free vend, as you could just put a Tesla destination charger there for much less money.

 

[bradtem]

Speaking of which, if Tesla is selling supercharging to non Teslas, everybody's prices will start to converge.

That's not at all clear. As I pointed out in another thread, drivers care surprisingly little about price, and prices range from free to over 60 cents/kWh (or more when there are session fees etc.) People care more about location, speed, ease of use and other factors than price, it's quite unlike gasoline where people will spend $2 driving across town to save $1 on a fill-up.

Parking lots don't converge on price because location is everything. People want a charger that is near something they already wanted to do for 30-40 minutes, like eat, shop, tourist or best of all, sleep. I don't think the clunkiness of the connector is a big deal (though it is something) but plug and play and most of all, reliability are a big deal. One "unable to charge because chargers or billing system not working" will turn you off a station or network real fast.

 

[TunaBug]

I think that is because they are well maintained, not because they are that reliable. But for the charge networks, a station might not get maintenance in months, so you might find a stall broken for months. This is impossible for gas stations as they have many customers per day, so they can't afford to leave a pump down for months.

I have not thought to ask any on-site people at service stations, but they do have on site people. They may very well have spare credit card readers in a closet with swapping considered to be expected maintenance? As somebody else mentioned, there is more commonly a canopy over them, which certainly can't hurt.

 

[bradtem]

That makes a lot of sense. I'm curious, do you think that having a canopy that protects the electronics from the elements increases their reliability or is it mostly in higher investment in maintenance?

I have frequently encountered down gas pumps, and broken card readers. But most gas stations have many pumps, and they usually have a free pump to move to, and if they don't have a free pump, there is almost never a long line.

Gas stations are businesses though they make more from the store than the gas, but it is still a business. EV charging is not a business, not yet. So nothing to incentivize quick repair. Tesla builds big stations, I have frequently encountered one with a broken stall, but there are 7 to 31 others, so it's not usually a problem and if there is a line, the broken stall makes the line only a little slower. When there are only 2, a broken one is a deal-breaker.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Fast chargers also get many customers per day. It’s just bad management and bad/cheap/poorly designed hardware. Tesla keeps their stations largely operating.

In busy areas maybe, but I see a fair share of deserted charge stations and it's trivial to find stations on plugshare with stalls down for weeks or months.

Broken card machines are not non-existent at gas stations either (I've seen them personally), but they seem to get fixed within days.

 

[Ezmendriz]

Bottom line, we need an standard. Tesla is trying to force theirs since they are more than the rest, if they offer to open to other manufacturers is hard to pass. I live in VA Ford owners envy the Tesla SCs. Technically, tesla implementation does the same and is more compact. But the is irrelevant. The issue for other manufacturers is the unreliability of charging networks.

 

[ZenRockGarden]

True. Even considering the separate cabinets, Tesla stations look more cost efficient overall. 5 times cheaper acc to this Electric article on the topic.

For sure. Not only are there screens, card readers and longer cables, the systems are clearly not thought through. It looks more like a bunch of components slapped together, hoping for the best.
:View attachment 874827

Check out this FPL charger for example.

They included a pedestal in the design to get a convenient height, then realized that it was too low so added an extra concrete block. What's was the point of the pedestal then? Efficient design. Not.
The cables are not only long to accommodate different vehicles, but there is no cable management so they are more or less guaranteed to get run over. Talk about maintenance nightmare. Those flexible heavy duty cables are not cheap either.

These details are of course not the end of the world but what you immediately see on the surface of a poorly designed product or system is often the just tip of the iceberg.
Looking at this I get more and more convinced that these charging networks won't be able to compete profitably with Tesla as the SC network expands and offers charging to non Teslas.

That pic is giving me "Hi, I'm a Mac" "And I'm a PC" 1990's vibes

 

[ZenRockGarden]

Bottom line, we need an standard. Tesla is trying to force theirs since they are more than the rest, if they offer to open to other manufacturers is hard to pass. I live in VA Ford owners envy the Tesla SCs. Technically, tesla implementation does the same and is more compact. But the is irrelevant. The issue for other manufacturers is the unreliability of charging networks.

Open sourcing the superior standard and using it doesn't seem irrelevant at all.

Yes, Tesla is doing this to get access to government subsidy funds. They tried it the opposite way (offer CCS charging at Tesla stations) and that didn't seem to get traction. This is the other way to do it - open the already-wide-footprint Tesla connector standard to public use and now every existing Tesla charging station is "public" and can both serve those people and get public funds.

I'm not a huge fan of letting the teeming masses into the Tesla charging network, but I will agree those stations are by far the best, so if we build enough of them to meet the demand it would be a superior experience for all.

 

[Rocky_H]

Bottom line, we need an standard. Tesla is trying to force theirs since they are more than the rest, if they offer to open to other manufacturers is hard to pass. I live in VA Ford owners envy the Tesla SCs. Technically, tesla implementation does the same and is more compact. But the is irrelevant. The issue for other manufacturers is the unreliability of charging networks.

Let's modify this part:

"if they offer to open to other manufacturers [it would have been] hard to pass [in the past]."

This could have had effectiveness and relevance if Tesla had done it a long time ago, like 8-9 years ago. But it is far too late now, and that ship has sailed. And the reason why is the very thing you mentioned. This isn't so much about the charging network companies. It's about the car manufacturers. They would have needed to design this in their generation of EVs that have been coming to market and selling now in the last few years. It's too late now--they picked CCS because that was the publicly available standard. Tesla plug wasn't available.

Changing charging cables in mid-stream is a small investment and some companies are already doing some of that. Changing cars' ports in mid-stream is a much more expensive investment and one they will not be willing to do.

 

[bradtem]

Don't know if the ship has sailed. Aptera plans to use the Tesla connector, though that vehicle may never ship, but once they get somebody to use it, almost anybody they can now say, "this is a standard" and suddenly all the rules on subsidies for charging stations as long as they support a standard connector will apply to them. Maybe even before. Unless the law says "must have CCS" or "must have J1772" then they are in good shape, and how do you justify that law when the majority of cars use "NACS."

If I were an automaker entering the EV market, and Tesla would do a reasonable deal to allow my NACS cars to use tesla SC, then I would be very inclined to put NACS on my car rather than J1772 and CCS. And my customers could buy a $100 adapter for CCS and a $50 for J1772. And the $200 TMC which is the best buy in a portable EVSE on the market, and the $400 TWC is one of the best buys in a smart wifi enabled home EVSE too.

Why wouldn't an up and comer like Aptera do this? Being able to use Tesla SC and CCS and Tesla destination and J1772 is such a huge advantage compared to just CCS and J1772 which is the alternative. At the slight cost having to pull out adapters at a few stations.

All of us Tesla buyers happily took that path.

Now, even if you're Ford or BMW, other than out of spite, if you are coming out with a new car in the USA and you can put NACS on it, and offer your drivers Tesla SC as well as all the others, why wouldn't you? Why be loyal to CCS? I can promise, customers would much rather buy one with NACS -- if it includes supercharger access ability -- than one with CCS. Even if they already put a J1772 EVSE in their garage for their previous Ford. The main issue is they need to modestly redesign the car to have a charge port on the rear left corner. They could even leave the CCS where it is now if they really wanted to. As I wrote, the big reason not to do this is just fear of Tesla, and giving them too much power over power.

 

[Ezmendriz]

The problem is the other charging networks. It is difficult to sell a car where is difficult to do a road trip in certain regions of the nation. You do not have that problem if is a Tesla. Right now teslas can charge in any network. (Provided you buy the appropiate adapters). Just compare the availability reliability and speed of Tesla SCs. I agree that is a attempt for government money with minimum investment. But I still see the value for other manufacturers due to how bad the others charging are at the moment. BTW 8-9 years ago they were laughing at the vision of creating a charging network. They were expecting Tesla to fail.

 

[henderrj]

Let's modify this part:

"if they offer to open to other manufacturers [it would have been] hard to pass [in the past]."

This could have had effectiveness and relevance if Tesla had done it a long time ago, like 8-9 years ago. But it is far too late now, and that ship has sailed. And the reason why is the very thing you mentioned. This isn't so much about the charging network companies. It's about the car manufacturers. They would have needed to design this in their generation of EVs that have been coming to market and selling now in the last few years. It's too late now--they picked CCS because that was the publicly available standard. Tesla plug wasn't available.

Changing charging cables in mid-stream is a small investment and some companies are already doing some of that. Changing cars' ports in mid-stream is a much more expensive investment and one they will not be willing to do.

I disagree, but didn't want to just hit a thumbs down.

We are actually still very early in EV adoption. Maybe 3% in new car sales. And if people do keep cars for 10 to 15 years, maybe 1% percent total automotive population.

When computer networking had reached about 30% business penitration Novell had more than 50% of the installs. "Everyone" was saying Game over. But Intel's SMB protocol was superior and, after a bunch of small companies, Microsoft eventually picked it up. No more Netware.

Tesla is not small. And it will only take 1 other big company to pick it up and CCS will fade away in North America.

Toyota, for instance, has next to nothing going. They might jump on it. Stellantis is a real possibility for our market. Nissan just left Chademo behind. The cost to change to the Tesla port is comparatively low.

I think there's a real chance this will go. It'll be fun to watch over the next couple years.