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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

#151

Post by clouddrover »

tzs wrote: post #138
ethanbond wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why wouldn't someone (really, anyone ) be just as equipped to build out NACS stations? Each new manufacturer switching over to NACS means the really big companies (bp, Shell) who already have tons of physical land and infrastructure, will be more incentivized to serve NACS, doesn't it?

I'm not sure that the current locations that companies like BP and Shell have for gas stations would work for EV charging station. According to what I've read most gas stations make very little profit if any on gas sales. It is the things they sell in the accompanying convenience store where they make their money. An average ICE "charging" at a gas station adds mileage around 15x faster than the fastest charging EV a…

> I'm not sure that the current locations that companies like BP and Shell have for gas stations would work for EV charging station.

North America is behind on EV infrastructure. The current fighting over which plug to use will delay it by some more years. In Europe there are many fuel station style charging locations. For example:

- Shell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR2M5W6saAk

- Circle K: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TVohXHjLro

- GridServe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoN4WCpuxHY

- BP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1PZJtnuiIU

> 15x faster than the fastest charging EV at a Supercharger

Shell's new station has 400 kW CCS chargers, but the problem is on the battery side more than the charger side. EVs can't make full use of the charger's available power across the whole charge curve. Better, fast charging batteries are needed.

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

#152

Post by matthewdgreen »

vel0city wrote: post #144
matthewdgreen wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. What I'm describing is essentially Apple Pay, just not limited to mobile phones and an NFC interface. If the payment card industry had looked a decade forward and developed something like Apple Pay for IoT devices, then you could enter a credit card to your car and it would make the payment directly over the charging cable. They didn't do this, and as a result we have to use NFC, magstripes, proprietary wire pr…

Europe uses the same CCS payment exchange protocol for EV charging payment communication as the US.

Yes. But this isn’t a general payment protocol that the payment industry developed to facilitate convenient payment applications. It’s an application-specific protocol that had to be developed at enormous cost for the specific application of charging and only really happened because EU regulators pushed very hard on charging companies and manufacturers to realize it. The US gets to benefit from it (if we’re lucky) because Europe did the work, although it’s not supported by Tesla and many of the smaller charging services don’t support it.

My point is that a IoT payment protocol should have been a part of the EMV standard, the same one that lets me use my credit card while overseas. We shouldn’t have to rely on such a huge government-backed effort specific to every specific business sector where a device might need to pay for a service.

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

#153

Post by matthewdgreen »

vel0city wrote: post #145
matthewdgreen wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of innovation in payment technologies is a huge barrier. It should be entirely feasible to "set up a payment card" within a secure computing system like a car's computer (perhaps using an inexpensive commodity secure enclave processor), and then securely pay for charging services over an arbitrary wire protocol like NACS/CCS without the need to make an account for each provider . Apple and Google each manage…

> and doesn't exist in the US. It does exist and I've used it many times. Its the exact same protocol.

Yes I just learned it’s supported by EA. But not by some of the other charging services.

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

#154

Post by clouddrover »

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…

> The Supercharger network is one of their remaining competitive advantages.

Not really. Tesla chargers are slow and low voltage compared to other charger manufacturers. Other charging networks are deploying 400 kW chargers. Like FastNed has deployed 400 kW chargers from EVBox and Alpitronic:

- https://fastnedcharging.com/hq/fastned-and-evbox-join-forces...

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4ZWN_-a2j4

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

#155

Post by maxerickson »

_2z1p wrote: post #80
gizmo888 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First - Tesla had to open charging to other manufacturers to receive additional governmental subsidies. Second - Tesla will get addition 7 plus billions grants to add additional charging infrastructure. Third - Tesla will add at least another 10 to 20 billion in charging revenue with at least 30 percent profit to the bottom line. Forth - Once all the other manufacturers signs on, they can offer other services… IMHO

Plus if their standard takes hold they don’t end up being the next BetaMax of history.

It's definitely a case where network effects are good for everybody. Like you can travel across say lower Michigan on the Supercharger network right now, but there's ~2 planned stop routes from the Mackinac Bridge to Detroit, it's tenuous, not some huge lead.

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

#156

Post by hospadar »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #74
amluto wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the non-Tesla networks thoroughly misunderstood the market. People are willing to drive, specifically, to a Tesla charging station because they have the biggest network (and they’re fairly reliable, but anyone could achieve that). Other than that, there is no particular network effect, and drivers don’t want a network effect . Drivers want a charger at a convenient location that works, but there is no more inhere…

The lack of innovation in payment technologies is a huge barrier. It should be entirely feasible to "set up a payment card" within a secure computing system like a car's computer (perhaps using an inexpensive commodity secure enclave processor), and then securely pay for charging services over an arbitrary wire protocol like NACS/CCS without the need to make an account for each provider . Apple and Google each manage…

If only there were some kind of ... card ... that asserted you had ... credit...

we could call it a "credit card"

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

#157

Post by clouddrover »

pkulak wrote: post #116
rootusrootus wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ma…

All well and good to say, but every other company that has tried to charge EVs has utterly failed, and it's been over a decade now. Once customers can move freely between all the networks, the ones with bad reliability will disappear. Right now that's every network not Tesla. Like you said, the margins are tight. EA can't just lower their prices. And even if they could, who's gonna take a chance on a shitty network d…

> but every other company that has tried to charge EVs has utterly failed

You need a broader perspective. Europe is a bigger EV market than North America is at present. European charging networks that are going strong, offer faster charging than Tesla, and are growing include Fastned, Circle K, EnBW, Ionity, Shell, BP, etc.

They've had the benefit of Europe standardizing on CCS type 2 Combo. When everyone can build to the same standard it drives investment and development.

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

#158

Post by bonestamp2 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #108
bonestamp2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure, but they also get to remain the leader and not have to change all of their cars and chargers, so it's a convenient way to make some surplus revenue. The next closest company in terms of charging infrastructure is VW and they're nowhere near Telsa.

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

#159

Post by rasz »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #137
WorldMaker wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus Aptera and Rivian, if you want to include the smaller American companies.

Aptera is so cool. Love that they’re based out of San Diego and do a lot of work in house.

and still no product

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

#160

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

brewdad wrote: post #79
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those 2M EV chargers only need to be Level 2. It makes MUCH more sense to use J1772 by default in those 2M chargers, since every EV other than Tesla currently uses that standard, and Tesla can easily use an adapter. So CCS hasn't "lost". In fact, it's likely to remain a standard. In fact, there are some 5,200 CCS charging station locations in the US, compared to only about 1,800 Supercharger stations. [1] A s…

How many of those CCS stations are actually up and running properly? I can't stand Musk and Tesla and haven't yet made the jump into EVs but I plan to soon and everything I've seen online suggests Telsa chargers just work while EA and other CCS brands are extremely hit and miss.

I've done a long distance road trip, and the CCS stations have occasional failed chargers, but every single one was available to charge my car.

Think of it this way: The Supercharger network has to be reliable, because there's only one station every ~100 miles or so. The CCS network can afford to be a bit less reliable because it's more redundant. And even then, the "less reliable" typically means that one out of four available chargers in a location is out of service, not that the location itself is unusable.

And there are apps that lets you see the status of chargers at a location, so you can check in advance whether a particular location is working. If a location seems to be in poor repair, you can always plan around it.

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