Why did Tesla wait until now to open up its charging connector standard? | TMC Podcast Clip

Tesla recently opened up their charging connector standard to be used by other manufacturers. Why did they wait until now? Is it too late, or could it become the dominant standard at some point?



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This is a clip from Tesla Motors Club Podcast #26. The full podcast video is available here on YouTube.

 

[Tam]

It's still a mess. The blog says "and up to 1 MW DC charging in one slim package"

Tesla just unveiled the Tesla Semi that uses its standard but with a rectangular plug/port rather than the rounded plug/port in the blog.

So is Tesla standard up to 1 MW DC with a rounded plug/port or a rectangular one?

 

[sleepydoc]

Really good question - the Tesla connector is superior in virtually all aspects. The problem Is CCS has become (or is well on its way to becoming) the de facto standard and switching over will be very difficult. I really wish Tesla would have opened up its standard earlier.

 

[Watts_Up]

I would be curious to know how car manufacturers
connect the CCS wires inside the car from the recetacle to the inverters?
- Does they have a separate conduit for the DC and the AC wires?
- Or does they use the same conduit for the DC and AC wires, like Tesla does?

 

[Dan_Foster]

All plugs except Tesla plug are amazingly stupid. This guarantees the Tesla plug will not become the standard, as it absolutely deserves to be.

 

[brancky3]

All plugs except Tesla plug are amazingly stupid. This guarantees the Tesla plug will not become the standard, as it absolutely deserves to be.

I agree that the Tesla plug is superior, but nobody trusts Elon enough to let his plug become the standard only for him to pull an uno reverse and cut support to it or something stupid like that. CCS is already the standard and there wouldn't be a good enough incentive for everyone else to change that.

 

[Watts_Up]

I agree that the Tesla plug is superior, but nobody trusts Elon enough to let his plug become the standard only for him to pull an uno reverse and cut support to it or something stupid like that. CCS is already the standard and there wouldn't be a good enough incentive for everyone else to change that.

What very stupid are those two additional DC pins making the plug very cumbersome.

 

[honoraryorange]

They offered it to the other manufacturers, but they all thought they'd beat Tesla and refused to work together.

In the past, Tesla has offered to allow other companies to use various Tesla-patented technology, but doing so meant companies had to abide by Tesla’s “Patent Pledge.”

Under the terms of that agreement, companies that wanted to use any Tesla technology had to agree not to sue Tesla for any sort of patent infringement or to help any other company to do so, essentially making Tesla’s offer of patent sharing a two-way street.

 

[Tam]

I agree that the Tesla plug is superior, but nobody trusts Elon enough to let his plug become the standard only for him to pull an uno reverse and cut support to it or something stupid like that. CCS is already the standard and there wouldn't be a good enough incentive for everyone else to change that.

Ukraine at the mercy of Starlink is an example:

Ukrainian officials reportedly say there have been 'catastrophic' Starlink outages in recent weeks

A coordinator for Starlink donations said SpaceX may have been preventing Russia from using the technology and didn't know the regions had been freed.

www.businessinsider.com

People needs to have trust in a product not controlled only by one individual who could change his mind so quickly: the on then off then on again Twitter deal, the support for Ukraine then support for Russian occupation proposal, radar on then off then maybe on again...

 

[Dan_Foster]

I agree that the Tesla plug is superior, but nobody trusts Elon enough to let his plug become the standard only for him to pull an uno reverse and cut support to it or something stupid like that. CCS is already the standard and there wouldn't be a good enough incentive for everyone else to change that.

That’s a fantastic point. Elon is an erratic, impulsive, juvenile liar—a huge liability for the company which his board of yes-men enables. Because of his constant bs, Tesla’s horrible customer support, and the contemptible stalkless controls, I’ll never buy another Tesla.

But the Tesla Supercharger network and their plugs absolutely rock! Every other charging network is garbage by comparison. The lack of cohesive, reliable charging outside of Tesla is so frustrating!