Tesla making HUGE mistake with Superchargers

[RTPEV]

After 130 years, the car manufacturers still haven't standardized on GAS port locations...

The Tesla location (drivers side rear) seems best from a human factors point of view. When you open the door and step out, which location is easiest to access? Obviously drivers side. But front or rear? Rear means you don't have to walk around the door.

See this is the problem. It's basically a religious debate. Everyone is going to have a different opinion on what is "best". In my opinion, driver's side rear is the WORST location, but obviously you feel that it's the best. And we haven't even considered what makes sense and not for vehicle designers and how they have to route wiring to the on board charger/battery.

So I'll say it again: we'll just have to accept the fact that charge ports are going to be in different places on different cars and design our charging sites to accommodate them, whether that means longer cables or island style sites. As @Big Earl accurately pointed out, this results in lower density, but so be it. Is a lower density site not better than one in which people block two stalls with their vehicle because their charge port is in the "wrong" place? What does that do to the density of a pull/back-in site?

 

[MP3Mike]

So I'll say it again: we'll just have to accept the fact that charge ports are going to be in different places on different cars and design our charging sites to accommodate them,

It is rumored that they NACS adoption agreement OEMs have signed had ~40 conditions that they have to meet to get access to the Supercharger network. My guess is one of those conditions is that the NACS charge port location has to be in the left rear or right front. (Of course, not every OEM has signed on, at least not yet.)

Putting a charge port in both locations would be great, especially for trucks, but when asked about that on the Cybertruck Franz said that it costs too much in both dollars and weight. (Not to mention complexity.)

 

[TunaBug]

Easy. I have two EVs, a two car garage with a single door.

Thanks. That I didn't consider two cars in a garage is, I guess, a dead giveaway that the wife and I don't both park in our garage. Now that you've pointed it out, somewhere in front seems obvious. Personally I think there's an advantage passenger side, as I wrote above.

 

[CyberGus]

Wireless FTW!

 

[TunaBug]

It is rumored that they NACS adoption agreement OEMs have signed had ~40 conditions that they have to meet to get access to the Supercharger network. My guess is one of those conditions is that the NACS charge port location has to be in the left rear or right front. (Of course, not every OEM has signed on, at least not yet.)

It seems unreasonable to me to have such a requirement on NACS. That doesn't mean it isn't happening. But if you had written "Supercharger access agreement..." then I think that would be completely reasonable.

In other words, I think that if NACS wants to appear like an open standard it ought to be permissive about how it's used. Who cares if somebody puts the connector on the bottom center of the car, or on top of a 50 foot mast? You just can't use it at a Supercharger site. Just like a "No shoes, no service" sign at a restaurant: I've got nothing against going barefoot, but I'm supportive of a business deciding to uphold standards for the clientele, too.

 

[MP3Mike]

It seems unreasonable to me to have such a requirement on NACS. That doesn't mean it isn't happening. But if you had written "Supercharger access agreement..." then I think that would be completely reasonable.

In other words, I think that if NACS wants to appear like an open standard it ought to be permissive about how it's used.

You are correct. NACS is, at least soon will be, an open standard and anybody can use it and put the charge port anywhere they want without signing an agreement with Tesla. But that doesn't get them access to the Supercharger network. A number of OEMs made an agreement with Tesla to adopt NACS as their standard and get access to the V3 Superchargers.

 

[wws]

Why would I walk around the door? My door is closed when I plug in/unplug....

I was thinking mostly in terms of Supercharging and DC Fast Charging in general - where one quite often gets out of the car, plugs in the SC cable, and gets back into the car. The same situation happens with ICE cars at gas stations. I own four cars with ICE - two fill on the drivers side rear and two fill on the passenger side rear. Drivers side rear is more convenient.

At home, it doesn't make as big a difference. Cables are long, and no one is going to sit in the car waiting for charging to finish. Though with the Tesla, depending on the Start Time setting, one might want to re-enter the car and tell it to start charging immediately - rather than wait. Walking around an open door (or closing/re-opening) would be annoying. In my case, this is a common case.