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Volvo Cars Adopts Tesla's NACS Port in the United States, Canada and Mexico

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Re: Volvo Cars Adopts Tesla's NACS Port in the United States, Canada and Mexico

#101

Post by rootusrootus »

pkulak wrote: post #88
avalys wrote: post #22

I think this is great but I continue to wonder about Tesla's plan here. The Supercharger network is one of their remaining competitive advantages. Other manufacturers were behind for years on efficiency, range, etc. but are now catching up - and other manufacturers are far better at making an actual _car_ than Tesla. Build quality, quality control, durability, comfort, noise, etc. Unless Tesla is so confident that th…

Seems like a choice between continuing to compete in one market, or competing in the same market while also absolutely dominating another.

Which market is the one they will dominate? Supporting NACS is not a hurdle, and there are already quite a lot of non-Tesla DC fast chargers in existence. Some of them have already announced they'll add NACS plugs themselves. There's no magic to building another charging station, and if everyone supports plug-and-charge (or hell, just reliable credit card processing), it'll be a super competitive market with tight margins.

Re: Volvo Cars Adopts Tesla's NACS Port in the United States, Canada and Mexico

#102

Post by rootusrootus »

avalys wrote: post #22

I think this is great but I continue to wonder about Tesla's plan here. The Supercharger network is one of their remaining competitive advantages. Other manufacturers were behind for years on efficiency, range, etc. but are now catching up - and other manufacturers are far better at making an actual _car_ than Tesla. Build quality, quality control, durability, comfort, noise, etc. Unless Tesla is so confident that th…

I think this is their way of saying the current profit margins aren't going to persist. It is exceedingly difficult to make a fast charging business with the kind of profit margin they currently rake in on new car sales, so giving up the single biggest reason people buy a Tesla is a statement unto itself.

Re: Volvo Cars Adopts Tesla's NACS Port in the United States, Canada and Mexico

#103

Post by rootusrootus »

rtkwe wrote: post #34
avalys wrote: post #22

I think this is great but I continue to wonder about Tesla's plan here. The Supercharger network is one of their remaining competitive advantages. Other manufacturers were behind for years on efficiency, range, etc. but are now catching up - and other manufacturers are far better at making an actual _car_ than Tesla. Build quality, quality control, durability, comfort, noise, etc. Unless Tesla is so confident that th…

This lets them bring in tons of money from owners of other manufacturer's cars using their chargers. It also means they don't get forced into CCS in NA which was the probable alternative path to convincing other manufacturers to use their NACS hardware.

The supercharger network is just a drop in the bucket compared to what they make from selling new cars. And there will be quite a lot of competition for fast chargers, there's no moat at all there. It's an interesting business decision.

Re: Volvo Cars Adopts Tesla's NACS Port in the United States, Canada and Mexico

#104

Post by pornel »

hedora wrote: post #17

It's pretty shocking that all the charge networks are getting rug pulled because they couldn't figure out how to accept payment reliably. I wonder if Tesla has figured that out for third-party automobiles yet. (I mean, I assume they have, but I assumed the other charge networks would be able to obtain working credit card readers, and that definitely didn't happen.)

Good.

All these unreliable fragmented networks that think they're precious enough to demand downloading a crappy app and registration deserve to go out of business.

When my car needs 20 minutes to recharge, I hate spending 15 minutes fighting someone's dumb password policy just to start charging.

In EU there's Ionity and Fastned that always work and always accept contactless payments.

Re: Volvo Cars Adopts Tesla's NACS Port in the United States, Canada and Mexico

#105

Post by starik36 »

croes wrote: post #47
starik36 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> other manufacturers are far better at making an actual car Are they really "far better"? My wife's Tesla hasn't had any issues in the last 3 years. The build quality is great. Every time I have a chance to take the Tesla over my Kia, I do it because it's so much more pleasant to drive it. Over the years I've had many cars. I am struggling to think of one better than the current Tesla that we have.

Are the cars on the same price level?

After the rebates (here in Southern California), Tesla Model 3 is actually cheaper.

Re: Volvo Cars Adopts Tesla's NACS Port in the United States, Canada and Mexico

#106

Post by WorldMaker »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #29
avalys wrote: post #22

I think this is great but I continue to wonder about Tesla's plan here. The Supercharger network is one of their remaining competitive advantages. Other manufacturers were behind for years on efficiency, range, etc. but are now catching up - and other manufacturers are far better at making an actual _car_ than Tesla. Build quality, quality control, durability, comfort, noise, etc. Unless Tesla is so confident that th…

Their business plan is that they know they won't make every EV that is sold, but they will make money by charging many more than they sell. The list of Manufacturers on board at this time: Ford, GM, Rivian, Volvo (and presumably Polstar). Hyundai and Stellantis are considering it. If they join, and it'd be silly not to at this point, that's about half the car market right there. Now it's just up to the German and Jap…

Also, SAE (the Society of Automotive Engineers) just announced that they are formally adopting NACS as the standard moving forward for North America.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/27/23775208/tesla-nacs-elect...

Re: Volvo Cars Adopts Tesla's NACS Port in the United States, Canada and Mexico

#107

Post by rootusrootus »

kcb wrote: post #60
sxg wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plan seems very clear to me. They developed a better charger that helped kickstart the market and gave them a competitive advantage. In the future, differentiating on a charger becomes a disadvantage as the EV market gets larger and Tesla owns a smaller percentage, meaning most charging stations will not be compatible with Teslas. The inflection point between the charger being a competitive advantage/disadvantage…

All Teslas sold today are compatible with CCS chargers.

Software compatible. Still have to spend $175 for the physical adapter, it does not come with the car. No charger, in fact, comes with a Tesla these days. I did buy the adapter, of course, because though I may not ever use it I like having the option.

Re: Volvo Cars Adopts Tesla's NACS Port in the United States, Canada and Mexico

#108

Post by rootusrootus »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #29
avalys wrote: post #22

I think this is great but I continue to wonder about Tesla's plan here. The Supercharger network is one of their remaining competitive advantages. Other manufacturers were behind for years on efficiency, range, etc. but are now catching up - and other manufacturers are far better at making an actual _car_ than Tesla. Build quality, quality control, durability, comfort, noise, etc. Unless Tesla is so confident that th…

Their business plan is that they know they won't make every EV that is sold, but they will make money by charging many more than they sell. The list of Manufacturers on board at this time: Ford, GM, Rivian, Volvo (and presumably Polstar). Hyundai and Stellantis are considering it. If they join, and it'd be silly not to at this point, that's about half the car market right there. Now it's just up to the German and Jap…

> Their business plan is that they know they won't make every EV that is sold, but they will make money by charging many more than they sell.

That's such a tough market, though. They make thousands of dollars per car they sell. Fast chargers are for road trips, which means most EV owners don't rely on them day-to-day. Making the same thousands of dollars of profit from fast charging is no small task. And given it has to be made over the long haul, it's even harder to get the same value.

Combine that with the fact that there are already lots of non-Tesla fast chargers and there will be ever more going forward, and I think this business decision looks risky. I can only interpret it as a statement on what they think is going to happen to their new car profit margin.

Re: Volvo Cars Adopts Tesla's NACS Port in the United States, Canada and Mexico

#109

Post by WorldMaker »

hedora wrote: post #17

It's pretty shocking that all the charge networks are getting rug pulled because they couldn't figure out how to accept payment reliably. I wonder if Tesla has figured that out for third-party automobiles yet. (I mean, I assume they have, but I assumed the other charge networks would be able to obtain working credit card readers, and that definitely didn't happen.)

So far as I read it, NACS chargers use the exact same "Plug-and-Charge" standards that CCS tried to adopt but for dumb (compatibility) reasons made "optional" (leading to a lot of buggy half-implementations). The fix seems to be that the NACS standard changes it from "optional" to "required" and with access to Tesla's Supercharger network in the US as a carrot that should mean a lot more well tested implementations among the other manufacturers than previously existed for CCS1.

Re: Volvo Cars Adopts Tesla's NACS Port in the United States, Canada and Mexico

#110

Post by daedalus_j »

mbushey wrote: post #96
b0sk wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that’s not the experience most of the drivers desire

Nor is it the experience anyone with a Tesla experiences. Nothing else comes close to Tesla in build quality (My wife's Subi Forrester is a flaming POS in comparison) or driving experience. Every other car company makes vehicles to make money, and fail on target after warranty (or in the case of Ford during warranty costing Ford billions in warranty costs). Tesla seems to "break" capitalism, they make their cars to l…

I'm intrigued by this. I own a 2017 forester and it is rock solid. I, my family, many friends, have all owned Subarus extensively, and build-quality/fit-and-finish have never been an issue, including on some quite old vehicles.

I would very much /like/ to own a Tesla, but I hear so many bad things about loose panels, road noise, touchscreen interface, problem getting repairs, and even that the Subaru's adaptive cruise control is better than the Tesla. It's hard to justify moving away from a brand which has been absolutely reliable though.

So I'm very interested in hearing that your experience is that the Tesla has actually been better. If you don't mind: which Tesla model/year do you have experience with? I'd be interesting in determining if they're getting better, or started out great and perhaps getting worse.

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