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

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#351

Post by _ea1k » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #214

erikstarck wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The margins were inflated during the pandemic, though. Musk even called their prices "embarrassingly expensive". https://www.carscoops.com/2022/07/teslas-prices-are-embarras...

Tesla’s gross margins were much higher in 2011 than 2022. But yea, this is why I said it’s hard to separate how much of this was Tesla specific vs industry wide. However, the need to cut prices despite high inflation was unusual in the car industry and suggests a Tesla specific issue.

It is easy to explain when you consider that 2 car models are representing ~1.7M cars this year.

Their strategy is a little nutty and has basically required them to underprice their vehicles.

Any other mfg would cut back production to maintain margins.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#352

Post by _ea1k » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #83

pornel wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The physical shape of Tesla/NACS is way better: it's more compact, and easier to plug in. The CCS connector OTOH is a lazy retrofit of a design-by-committee plug. The wire protocol of CCS is a bit overengineered, but it's a standard, and it's a sunk cost (all cars, including current Teslas, are already compatible with it). So physical NACS + CCS protocol seems like the best of both. It's also worth pointing out that…

Not all Tesla's can speak CCS. Older Teslas need a $400 retrofit to be able to use the Tesla CCS1 adapter. https://shop.tesla.com/en_ca/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter

Yeah, only ~80% of Teslas in the US support it without modification.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#353

Post by huijzer » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 5:38 PM UTC

dagmx wrote: post #112

I’m glad there finally seems to be a push to a better standard in North America. I’m really curious how this affects Teslas market share though going forward. Their supercharger network is why we continue with them despite countless other issues. It’s their biggest moat as far as I’m concerned. Now I have significantly more options, and my next car will not be a Tesla. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. Is the brand nam…

Out of curiosity, what do you dislike about your Tesla?

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#354

Post by two_handfuls » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

logifail wrote: post #310

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most EVs charge at home most of the time, so there isn't that much money in the "fuel" industry, they are mostly needed for long distance trips (and so crowd up on holiday weekends), not daily driving.

> Most EVs charge at home most of the time Umm, there's a significant chunk of the world's population who will likely never be able to charge at home, because they live in apartments and park on-street. "EV owners who live in apartment buildings and park on the street will rely heavily on public chargers—in 2021, 42 percent of European EV owners living in cities had no access to home charging points." https://www.mck…

True but these people mostly don’t go to superchargers, they go to slower & cheaper chargers near their apartment or work.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#355

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

_ea1k wrote: post #351

Retric wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla’s gross margins were much higher in 2011 than 2022. But yea, this is why I said it’s hard to separate how much of this was Tesla specific vs industry wide. However, the need to cut prices despite high inflation was unusual in the car industry and suggests a Tesla specific issue.

It is easy to explain when you consider that 2 car models are representing ~1.7M cars this year. Their strategy is a little nutty and has basically required them to underprice their vehicles. Any other mfg would cut back production to maintain margins.

Most non-Tesla auto manufacturers are taking a loss on their new EVs ATM as they try to optimize supply and recoup R&D costs.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#356

Post by jandrese » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 5:40 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #274

93po wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or that they have, by far, the best products at given prices.

JD Power has Rivian, MINI and Kia scoring higher than any Tesla model.[1] Polestar, Ford VW, Audi and Hyundai are in the same ballpark for ratings. Several of those manufacturers have cars in the 30K range, well below the prices Tesla is starting at. That moat seems pretty small these days. [1] https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2023-us-elec...

JD Power is also a marketing arm for the auto industry. Their numbers have been a joke since at least the 80s. "#1 in initial quality" is such a laughable claim yet car companies pay JD Power to award it every year.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#357

Post by _ea1k » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 5:40 PM UTC

sebazzz wrote: post #146

wlesieutre wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To clarify: 3-phase power is irrelevant when it comes to CCS. The point of the Combined Charging System is the "combined". It is the signalling pins in the upper part of the Mennekes or J1772 connector and the large DC connectors in the bottom part. For slow charging, 3-phase power is relevant (the IEC Type 2 / Mennekes connector in this case).

He was saying that CCS1 in the US uses J1772 which does not support 3-phase power.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#358

Post by Timon3 » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 5:41 PM UTC

DFHippie wrote: post #167

Brometheus wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. They should just use the German way. Nomens are big and other Words are small.

I've never understood the point of this. This capitalization standard carries no information. How many nouns in German can also be other parts of speech? It is easy to learn, but how useful is it?

Many nouns have forms shared by corresponding adjectives and verbs. Some words are overloaded in other ways (e.g. pronouns and nouns). It actually happens quite often and I'd say it helps clear up confusion.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#359

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 5:41 PM UTC

solarkraft wrote: post #348

mkozlows wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about how this is affects Tesla is "compared to what?" Compared to the historic status quo where there were no other chargers, and Tesla had exclusive access to a large-ish proprietary charging network, it looks like Tesla giving up their advantage, and seems bad. But the forward-looking status quo was going to be a gigantic network of CCS chargers that makes Tesla's proprietary network look small, with eve…

> In that world, Tesla would have had to switch their cars over to CCS eventually and retrofit their existing chargers to CCS, and people who bought Teslas with the proprietary plug have a terrible UX of needing adapters everywhere. They've switched to CCS in Europe and as far as I can tell it's going just fine for them. Not sure what would motivate them to pull this risky move besides an insane love for their custom…

Tesla also does GB/T in China, as required by the Chinese government.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#360

Post by speed_spread » Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 5:42 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #341

I view this as very RIM/Blackberry like, only Tesla has learned from history. Eventually the competitor charging networks were going to be "good enough" - Tesla had the option of working with Ford or GM, or letting them dump their combined resources into a competitor (and every other MFG). Sure in the short-term this will make them more vulnerable to competition, but if your only moat was the charging network you wer…

BES was possibly a more significant part of RIM's than the charger infrastructure is to Tesla. Opening the charger infrastructure is just them defining their moat, really. Tesla will still sell cars but more importantly they'll keep collecting usage data that they'll resell to the highest bidder.