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Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

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Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems like it’s happening without government intervention The federal government has definitely "intervened" by incentivizing interoperability through a $7.5B carrot[1] for interoperable charging networks. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408329

So why is everyone fleeing the North American standards J1772/CCS1 in favor of Tesla's? What do these car companies stand to gain switching the charging port? They don't own charging networks.

1. The Tesla charger is _better_ in essentially every measurable and subjective way.

2. They want to sell cars, and cars with the Tesla connector have access to Tesla superchargers without a dongle.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where you go, how fast, with who.. Where you go can not be inferred from the charging sessions. You can kinda infer the speed, by looking at the state of charger between two sessions. You can't infer with whom you're travelling. Honestly, people always overinflate the usefulness of "data".

Ford will track your entire drive, how you used your car, even the radio station that was playing. All of this data is uploaded when you take your car in for servicing if you do not have a connected car. OnStar recently (2-3 years ago now?) started feeding 100gbps of telematics data on every single GM car back to GM in an effort to determine better pricing on used cars. Data includes every sensor change on the car an…

Eh, and so what? My phone carrier has most of this info. Google has most of this info (in addition to my emails).

Ford is in for rude awakening if they think that this data is going to seriously help them.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#573
post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where you go, how fast, with who.. Where you go can not be inferred from the charging sessions. You can kinda infer the speed, by looking at the state of charger between two sessions. You can't infer with whom you're travelling. Honestly, people always overinflate the usefulness of "data".

>You can't infer with whom you're travelling. https://www.torquenews.com/11826/tesla-installs-video-camera...

I'm talking about data from the charging network.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like that a single private company is in charge of this standard, but I think this sort of thing is pretty common and necessary when two companies integrate technologies. For example, look at how USB C compatibility worked at first. There was a standard, but there were still lots of problems. In practice, implementers may not correctly understand certain parts of the standard, may not grasp the importance of…

Yeah but Google doesn't need to certify Anker or whoever to make a charger and there's no on-going agreement to make this charging brick work with my phone. Anker can't just later decide to not work with Samsung devices and suddenly not work. They all just speak USB-PD and it works. Tesla chargers shouldn't care if the car is a Tesla or Rivian or GM or VW or whatever, if it plugs in and it speaks CCS it should charge…

maybe google should've, i remember it was basically "buyer beware" with cables. there was this benson something guy who was testing cables and found that a bunch of them would blow up your phone, until he literally had his test equipment blown up by a bad cable. compared to the usb-c situation, apple mfi is a godsend.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#575
post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is semantics. Firstly because this difference is largely because Tesla chooses to not deploy it as level 3 in some tiny highly-mapped market with sensors (LIDAR) and software that don't scale (MB's level 3 breaks at the first change in roads like construction). Secondly because Tesla is 90%+ of the way to building level 3 driving in 99% of places. MB is 99% of the way to level 3 driving in 0.1% of places and it…

It's not semantics at all. They're both currently focused on solving very different problems under the broad category of "driving automation". While MBs approach has obvious coverage limitations, the advantage to that approach is that the solution is a more clearly scoped problem with a more obvious answer: expand the coverage. Tesla's approach doesn't have nearly as clear of a path to advancement. They need technolo…

> clearly scoped problem with a more obvious answer: expand the coverage

That's the problem, though. The scope is always changing. Roads change, barriers get put up, roads are closed, potholes form, detours signs go up. As soon as any of this happens, the extremely accuracy mapping that systems like MB rely on stops working. This has been proven when this sort of tech caused literally a dozen self-driving cars to just randomly stop and block a single intersection a year ago.

> Tesla's approach doesn't have nearly as clear of a path to advancement.

The path is very clear and they're doing it.

> They need technology that doesn't yet exist to get there.

This isn't really the case. Self driving can be done with cameras and sufficiently advanced software alone. The software isn't 100% there yet, which is why they're still requiring human supervision. But the technology is definitely there.

> Some have posed some serious concerns about whether Tesla's feature-first maturity-second approach is an engineering dead end and will ever be able to mature to the point of being able to operate unsupervised

Sure, possibly, but MB's approach is by far the more certain dead-end due to my first point.

> Time will tell, but I suspect we'll see Tesla adopt some of the same strategies that other automakers are taking before this race is over.

I doubt it. The other automakers are using dated methods that have been attempted for decades. Tesla is the first to go balls-out on camera-only automation.

MB's approach will work when cars literally drive on rails.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#576

I am an EV user. My connection is not Tesla compatible. I wish the government would prod manufacturers to create a common connection for all EVs the same way there is a common gas intake for all gas powered vehicles.

What charge port do you have that isn't Tesla compatible with an adapter?

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#577

I am an EV user. My connection is not Tesla compatible. I wish the government would prod manufacturers to create a common connection for all EVs the same way there is a common gas intake for all gas powered vehicles.

>I wish the government would prod manufacturers to create a common connection That is exactly why this is happening. Tesla is expanding their network and opening it to more manufacturers in pursuit of a $7.5bn federal funding program.[0] >the new rules, issued after nearly eight months of debate...seeks to give consumers unfettered access to a growing coast-to-coast network of EV charging stations, including Tesla's…

But to be clear, that's not what this news is about. This news is about Tesla's push to get other companies to sign onto their previously-proprietary, still-Tesla-controlled "NACS" standard, en route to pushing the government to change the rules to allow NACS-only chargers and remove the CCS restriction.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But will the CCS be as fast at charging ? It seems like Tesla could control a lot with their proprietary connector if it has a faster charge rate.

The fastest chargers today are CCS.

It's a wash, basically.

The fastest CCS chargers are ~360KW, and Tesla Supercharger V4 will apparently support 350KW within a year.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cars themselves are quickly being beaten out by the larger players Based on what exactly? Tesla cars are wildly popular in their segments. They have elite efficiency, high margin, they lead in costumer loyalty and costumer satisfaction ratings. Model Y is literally the most sold car in the world. What actual evidence are you basing these claims on? Tesla is making a huge amount of money because of vertical inte…

Keep in mind it was extremely common on HN to proclaim Tesla was going to go bankrupt, that the Model S would never be manufactured at any scale, that the Model 3 would fail and would also never be manufactured at great scale. Sure Tesla has plenty of flaws and always have, and yet they remain ahead of the competition in what's going to be a multi-trillion dollar market (EVs) segment. Tesla's primary business problem…

> Tesla's primary business problem is that they only have one killer product, the Model 3

Their killer product is the Model Y.

> meaning they're too easy to cripple if sales fall out from under that one thing

Common car platforms like Civic or F150 stay pretty can stay pretty consistant for decades.

And Tesla is actively working on other things.

Also remember, they make money from car service, that will increase over the years. They also do grid storage both large and small and that business is already big and growing fast.

They have other products already developed, like the Semi. And are currently building a factory for a 'Model 2' in Mexico.

> They massively screwed up on the truck

I would disagree. People now just assert that Cybertruck is bad. But the reason they went with that are still valid and it still has a lot of preorders and a lot of interest. In the long run that architecture could save them lots of money and be very profitable.

> Elon's ego on Cybertruck cost them hundreds of billions of dollars in sales

That's just an opinion. And if the really need to they could just design a normal truck and put it on the Cybertruck platform. They would cost a few billion but it wouldn't be that bad.

> it will go down as one of the dumbest business mistakes in recorded history

Or it will go down as one of the best. You clearly don't like the vehicle, but its numbers in terms of interest, people searching for it, preorders and so on are very good.

Remember when nobody was gone follow threw on their Model 3 preorders?

> But if Tesla knew what they were doing

Growing 50% over almost 20 decades and being one of the most profitable car companies in the world while still growing fast for the next couple years but they are apparently idiots.

> they would have bought a large chunk of Ford while the valuations were at peak mismatch

That's a terrible idea for so many reason. That like Compaq buying DEC.

> electrified Ford's truck lineup in a long-term partnership, and yielded epic scale profit from it for decades to come.

They can have epic sales profit without Ford. They can make something called the E150 and make it look like the F150 and sell just as well without taking on all the legacy.

I remember when everybody said 'Tesla should just let a contract manufacture build their cars' and that just as bad an idea.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But will the CCS be as fast at charging ? It seems like Tesla could control a lot with their proprietary connector if it has a faster charge rate.

The connector is open. Obviously the producer of the charging station can always determine the charge rate regardless of the connector, which is why most EA stations sit out there in a half broken state limited to 120kW.

I would be happy to have that. Most of the time it is 50 to 90kW at the 2 EA stations I use in Texas
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