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Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi say they will use Tesla's EV charging plug

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Re: Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi say they will use Tesla's EV charging plug

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post #87

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TBH, the afdc data badly overstates the number of available locations. Not only do they include a lot of broken or otherwise inaccessible locations, but they include things like this: https://www.plugshare.com/location/1564 I think that currently holds the record for the slowest DCFC in the country. :)

> max 13A, 4kW Wow! You'd get a better charge from a standard 15A 110V AC plug.

No, you want to compare Watts, not Volts, as Watts measures power and Volts is just potential.

A 15A 110V outlet can supply 1500W continuous (1.5kW). A 4kW DC charger is almost three times higher power than this.

Re: Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi say they will use Tesla's EV charging plug

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I am the founder of Starlight Charging[1]. We are working on crazy-low-cost L2 chargers for multifamily apartments. Plug-and-charge is a sine-qua-non for us. One still major unsolved problem is the lack of agreement on a standard for payment/powerline communication from the EVSE to the vehicle. OCPP 2.0.1 and ISO 15118 is supposed to bring "Plug and Charge" capabilities -- this, in theory, would allow drivers to simp…

That’s where governmental regulation should kick in and require compatibility, so you aren’t forced to change charger because you either change car or power company. I expect EU to get there at some point.

> I expect EU to get there at some point.

IMHO, the EU should have done this yester-five-years-ago. It's absolutely baffling they haven't already, considering they're going to outlaw ICE cars in just 6 years time, yet we don't yet have friggin EV charging regulations in place to ensure it always just works for evryone.

I assume politicians are too busy with the inflation/CoL, wars, migration and how to win the upcoming elections in 2024, to worry that we'll be caught wither our pants down on the EV infrastructure side in a few years, because they've been asleep at the wheel.

Mark my words, come 2029, and everyone's gonna freak out, there will be outcry from the voters, and the ICE ban will be postponed for 5 more years so we can get charging infrastructure sorted.

Re: Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi say they will use Tesla's EV charging plug

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post #224

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Can you explain why you feel plug-and-charge is so important? I have used chargers with and without it and while it is slightly more convenient to just plug in and go, it doesn't feel like such a huge improvement that I absolutely need it. I agree that having a different app for every brand of charging station would be annoying, but what about just accepting a credit card the way we do with gas stations now?

Have you done any road tripping in an EV? my experience of the app-based charging landscape has been complete horror; apps don’t work, chargers don’t start, payments don’t through.. Just last month was a new app at McDonalds in Sweden, that one asks me to, in the freezing cold, scan a dirty QR code sticker, which takes me to a website I’ve never heard of that wants me to manually enter credit card info, like a phishi…

But why not just have contactless bank card payment?

Yeah it is a pain, I have an electric car, but only because they force you to use their broken apps. All they have to do is let you pay with a bank card and it'll be just as easy as buying petrol.

Re: Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi say they will use Tesla's EV charging plug

#344

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Skateboard makes even less sense for EVs than for ICEs. in an ICE you have a large engine and various axels that have to be in specific places. With an EV you have more room to move the motors around where they makes sense. While you need a lot of batteries, each cell is small, so you want to put things like seats in the car first and then add cells anywhere there is extra room.

Yeah some cars (like the polestar) have really shallow rear-seat legroom, which was a total showstopper. They could have move some of those batteries to the trunk/frunk

They could, but there is also a cost to separating the batteries. More cables, which means more resistance, which means inefficiency. Not to mention the extra design and manufacturing costs.

In practice, I don't think any company is meaningfully splitting up their battery pack to take advantage of "better" packaging logistics elsewhere in the frame/body. I know in this example, they could still likely be loosely attached in the same plane, but with less density under the cabin, but I think my point holds.

Re: Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi say they will use Tesla's EV charging plug

#345
post #195

I am the founder of Starlight Charging[1]. We are working on crazy-low-cost L2 chargers for multifamily apartments. Plug-and-charge is a sine-qua-non for us. One still major unsolved problem is the lack of agreement on a standard for payment/powerline communication from the EVSE to the vehicle. OCPP 2.0.1 and ISO 15118 is supposed to bring "Plug and Charge" capabilities -- this, in theory, would allow drivers to simp…

Did Tesla not release all of their patents a few years back? Can people not just… use the stuff?

It came with a lot of strings attached. For instance, in order to use Tesla patents a company cannot attack Tesla for any intellectual property matter. Also, Tesla still makes use of trade secrets and its design patents are not released.

Which is the reason why about no one took on the offer, it is a legal minefield for not that much value. NACS became a thing only after they truly released the standard.

Re: Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi say they will use Tesla's EV charging plug

#346

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Yeah that just seems like a poor decision on the part of these charger owners. I feel like there’s an opportunity for a company called “EZCharge - we take credit cards”. People will seek it out when looking for a charging station because they know they won’t need to download a BS app. Or maybe another solution would be like WeChat Pay in China, something that’s so ubiquitous that all stores just have a QR code you sc…

There is no way to communicate when you are charged up that way, maybe via an SMS that you add with your phone number. Also, you have to communicate your charging preference somehow. It’s not like pumping gas, you rarely want it to stop at 100%, although the charging standard might at least be able to control that from the car.

True I see what you mean, but that would seem to be an easy function to build into the car’s charging controller. I’m not sure how it works today but I would imagine most cars have a “stop charging at x%” function already without depending on the charger for that.

Re: Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi say they will use Tesla's EV charging plug

#347

I understand the ridicule that the EU gets sometimes, and especially so when trying to regulate stuff like AI where it seems the EU wants to regulate more than to create start ups etc... But this is one thing the EU just nailed the hammer into the wood immediatly, and rightly so. I can't even remember the time it was. Maybe 2013? 2014? They just set a standard and everyone, even Tesla, adopted it. Every single EV can…

CCS2 is terrible, I'd hate to be forced to use that giant bulky connector and cable. The EU got it wrong. Design by committee always sucks.

It is a horrible, heavy connector.

Re: Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi say they will use Tesla's EV charging plug

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post #242

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Just go try them both. CCS2 Has separate AC and DC conductors, and the plug is huge owing to having 2 pair of charging pins and backward compatibility. They are more awkward and heavier than a fuel pump, and significantly heavier than the Tesla plugs. It's terrible.

NACS is fundamentally incompatible for 3-phase power. You need a live, a neutral, a ground, and two extra wires for each extra phase. I’ll take my chunky connector with 22kW over your sleek one with 7kW :)

Super chargers can charge a Tesla up to 250kw

Re: Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi say they will use Tesla's EV charging plug

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO that would be better solved by mandating tap and pay payment at EV charging spots. Integrating payments into the charging standard feels like a wild overcomplication by comparison.

Not only that, how do you even propose to do it? If you just send the payment info via the charging plug, now you have to worry about the payment info being stored in the car and potentially stolen if the car has any security vulnerabilities, including in the charging port. If you use some kind of tokenization or similar then you're inserting third party payment processors into the system and they'll be wanting a cut…

Wouldn't presence of the key address most of this?

Sure, they can steal the car AND the key, but more often, it's the car alone.

Re: Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi say they will use Tesla's EV charging plug

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I may ask what seems like an obvious question… why can’t they just use credit card terminals like gas stations have been using for many decades?

They could, and many do, but the difference is that those types of interfaces are mandated/regulated while EV charging is not. Guess what's slightly cheaper when amortized across tens of thousands of customers in the products lifetime? Not to mention the amount of data that could be mined from those customers by having yet another app on their phone with bullshit location permissions "for the best user experience." E…

IIRC the federal infrastructure bill required chargers to accept via CC reader or plug and charge. So I'm sure we will be seeing more chargers with it shortly.
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