Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs • Hacker News Board

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#101

Post by steveBK123 » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #70

jancsika wrote: post #55

Would love to hear fast how charging stations will scale in a way that beats the current price and speed of filling up a car with gasoline. I mean, even in a small town with, say, three gas stations, there are peak times when all the spots are taken. Average fueling time is probably a few minutes. How to switch that to an all-electric system? + build a significantly higher number of fast electric charges than there a…

I have no data, but I suspect we underestimate the impact of at-home charging. Essentially, all vehicles parked at a residence start every day with a full charge. This eliminates most of the demand on fast-charge stations for around-town use. Granted, they still consume power that the grid has to supply, so pricing may change, but I suspect gas station traffic will go way down, in aggregate, as EV adoption climbs. On…

Yup, I have had an EV for 5 years and I now fast charge on the road only about 2x/year. If you can charge at home, work, or both.. you will likely end up in a similar position.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#102

Post by bkmrkr » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 2:46 PM UTC

jancsika wrote: post #55

Would love to hear fast how charging stations will scale in a way that beats the current price and speed of filling up a car with gasoline. I mean, even in a small town with, say, three gas stations, there are peak times when all the spots are taken. Average fueling time is probably a few minutes. How to switch that to an all-electric system? + build a significantly higher number of fast electric charges than there a…

I have a Tesla ~10k miles and have not used supercharger yet because I just plug the car in at home once a week.

If you estimate total pump time.

IE 35 minutes on supercharger vs 10 minutes on gas (including time to drive to station) but take into account number of times you need to actually charge up the car at a super charger. IE once every 2 months vs 3x per month, you will see that you actually spend less total time in a charger station vs gas pump.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#103

Post by 1970-01-01 » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 2:46 PM UTC

jancsika wrote: post #55

Would love to hear fast how charging stations will scale in a way that beats the current price and speed of filling up a car with gasoline. I mean, even in a small town with, say, three gas stations, there are peak times when all the spots are taken. Average fueling time is probably a few minutes. How to switch that to an all-electric system? + build a significantly higher number of fast electric charges than there a…

Battery tech is expected to improve to the point of 1000km in 20 minutes. This means 5 minutes will give you about 100 miles. The larger problem is how we will safely scale grid generation to meet the demand.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#104

Post by dangus » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 2:46 PM UTC

abakker wrote: post #72

jancsika wrote: post #55

Would love to hear fast how charging stations will scale in a way that beats the current price and speed of filling up a car with gasoline. I mean, even in a small town with, say, three gas stations, there are peak times when all the spots are taken. Average fueling time is probably a few minutes. How to switch that to an all-electric system? + build a significantly higher number of fast electric charges than there a…

as an EV owner, I suspect the answer is: home charging. Most people with EVs can start their day with a full charge, every day, so maybe the answer is that the gas station model will be relevant to many fewer people - e.g. people who have to drive more than their range every day, people with no plugs at home, etc).

For distance travel: yes, interstate rest stops will have a lot of chargers, many more than the number of gas pumps at those stations today.

I am not sure why there’s an assumption that crowded stalls are an indicator that the whole idea of EV vehicles is going to collapse.

In reality, it’s an indicator that many more new stalls are going to be built.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#105

Post by enragedcacti » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 2:46 PM UTC

asynchronous wrote: post #75

jancsika wrote: post #55

Would love to hear fast how charging stations will scale in a way that beats the current price and speed of filling up a car with gasoline. I mean, even in a small town with, say, three gas stations, there are peak times when all the spots are taken. Average fueling time is probably a few minutes. How to switch that to an all-electric system? + build a significantly higher number of fast electric charges than there a…

> they are higher than current gas prices I am not aware of any electric charging station on the planet that costs more than gas does in the same area.

It's true in most of the US right now depending on how efficient either vehicle is. I can't check supercharger rates but EA pricing is mostly the same across the country:

EA membership pricing: $0.36/kWh

California gas prices: $4.86/gal

($4.86/gallon)/(x mpg)=$0.36/1kwh *(29kwh/100mi)

x=46.6 mpg to break even with the Chevy Bolt's efficiency in the worst case scenario for gas in the US.

A Prius and many other hybrid passenger cars easily beat that with mpg to spare.

The Nat'l average gas price of $3.58 means your car only has to beat 34.3 mpg for fuel to be cheaper than EA membership pricing or 25.7 mpg to beat guest pricing of $0.48.

If we use 24kwh/100mi for the most efficient production EV in the US at California prices the break even is 56.2 mpg, lower than the combined EPA of the most efficient hybrid (Ioniq Blue, 58 mpg).

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28%244.86%2Fgallon%29%...*

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#106

Post by londons_explore » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 2:46 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #87

Is Tesla planning to update Supercharger stations to accommodate non-Tesla vehicles. Charge plug notwithstanding, the placement of Supercharger stands is usually for the left-rear charge port on all current Teslas. The stand location and cable length is a problem for vehicles with different designs. Demonstrated here (particularly the F-150 Lightning)... https://youtu.be/W-oaVLRH-js?t=519

I hope that part of the standard is that all vehicles shall have a charge plug on either front/right or back/left corners.

Making the cable longer makes the experience worse for everyone - it makes the cable heavier (harder to use), more expensive (which will end up in power prices), easier to damage (as it is dragged across the floor or driven over), more electrical losses in the cable (again, higher prices).

There are plenty of other things we have standardized for similar reasons - for example, imagine if different banks had credit cards that were different sizes so wouldn't fit in your wallet.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#107

Post by panick21_ » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 2:46 PM UTC

pornel wrote: post #88

zodo123 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say that’s the case for Stellantis (Dodge etc), but I suspect the big European automakers will be slower to get onboard due to the greater investment in CCS in the EU. It’ll require a bigger mental shift, as their leadership may not have as strong a grasp on the North American situation, and will probably have a greater bias toward “standards”. (Yes I realize we’re talking about CCS1 vs CCS2, but it doesn’t pract…

Nah, Stellantis is just bad. Their EV tech is poor. They have no dedicated EV platform, and they struggle to make profit on EVs. They're not invested in CCS at all — they're still hoping EVs are a fad.

Stellantis has dedicated EVs in Europe. That largely why Stellantis was created in the first place. So FCA would not be totally lost on EVs. The PSA group does have EVs.

But you are correct, they are not much invested in CCS in the US. Unlike say Volkswagen.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#108

Post by dreamcompiler » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #70

jancsika wrote: post #55

Would love to hear fast how charging stations will scale in a way that beats the current price and speed of filling up a car with gasoline. I mean, even in a small town with, say, three gas stations, there are peak times when all the spots are taken. Average fueling time is probably a few minutes. How to switch that to an all-electric system? + build a significantly higher number of fast electric charges than there a…

I have no data, but I suspect we underestimate the impact of at-home charging. Essentially, all vehicles parked at a residence start every day with a full charge. This eliminates most of the demand on fast-charge stations for around-town use. Granted, they still consume power that the grid has to supply, so pricing may change, but I suspect gas station traffic will go way down, in aggregate, as EV adoption climbs. On…

Oh they've definitely noticed.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/05/16/texas-e...

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#109

Post by vel0city » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

KallDrexx wrote: post #84

vel0city wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many brands of DCFC around me. EA obviously, EVGo, blink, 7Eleven, Road Ranger, Francis, and Volta. There's a few other travel centers on the routes I take which have their own branded chargers as well The earlier non-Tesla charging stations definitely had a rough start as there was practically zero market at all for them. The economics will change as more EVs are on the road. I do agree most early EV owner…

Since EvGO and Chargepoint seem to be public companies, I looked up their financial statements. It's not pretty. They are all bleeding money and that's with machines that people complain are down a lot. Chargepoint is in a slightly better spot because their Level 2 chargers seem to be somewhat better in the profitability department, but still losing tons of money. And that's not really surprising. If you look around…

> we assume $0.16/kwh electricity (residential rate here)

EIA average for industrial electricity is ~$0.14/kWh. I know around here its not uncommon for industrial users to pay all the way down to ~$0.07/kWh, there's a good bit of difference depending on how far up the line the industrial user owns which varies the delivery cost a good bit.

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...

I definitely agree these early days in DCFC is mostly a brand mindshare and land grab play for a lot of these companies, I'm guessing they're trying to already be in the ground in all the places for when/if the market for DCFC really swings to higher demand.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#110

Post by wlesieutre » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

conk wrote: post #78

pathartl wrote: post #22

I'm not an EV user, so I need some clarification. Is NACS actually a better connector? Or is it just more abundant at the moment? Technology Connections did a deep dive on CCS and it seems like it's a more flexible connector with a truly open standard. The argument for NACS I've seen is that it's a little sleeker (does this really matter all that much?) and it's already on Tesla's supercharger network.

CCS current spec/design can deliver up to 350kW (although few if any cars can take advantage of that today). NACS claims it can provide up to 1MW (1000A @ 1000V). I think it will be a while before we see cars able to charge anywhere near this, but there is a trend right now of big EV pickups with massive batteries. Higher power chargers means faster charge times. The only downside I see with NACS is you can’t level 2…

CCS1 already doesn't support 3-phase power, so it's not like switching from CCS1 to NACS in the US is losing anything there.

It wouldn't work as-is for Europe because of that, but they're so far into CCS2 adoption that they wouldn't consider it regardless.