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

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351–360 of 653 posts

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

#351
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NACS standard still only supports single phase power. It was the electrician who installed my home charger that said it is why they weren't in Europe homes.

NACS supports either one or two phases for AC charging which would be used in most home chargers. A really high power charger would use DC with the AC/DC conversion happening before (and that could be from a three-phase source)

> NACS supports either one or two phases for AC charging which would be used in most home chargers.

Lots of european homes have 3-phase service. I have 3-phase 400V in my flat.

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

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ya, I think they even get status otherwise I’m not sure how electrify America’s app works in the first place.

I once charged at an L2 in Canada that involved a QR code, and then payment via a web form. In that case, a POS would make the setup too expensive compared to just putting power out there with a networked microcontroller.

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

#353
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every single EV car that is sold right now in North America except Tesla will need a retrofit. No, they won't need a new ECU because they are already CCS cars. They'll need a dumb adapter if they can't get a new inlet installed.

I expect a degree of intelligence to be important in the adapter. Specifically, unless the adapter is rated for the highest possible current and voltage that the physical form factor can support (1kV, 600A? Is there even a pre-ordained limit? Tesla reports that they’ve tested NACS up to quite impressive voltages and currents.), then the adapter needs to tell the car and/or charger to limit voltage and current. Otherw…

Isn't that negotiation already part of the CCS protocol? Otherwise 400v cars would be fried when they end up getting 800v from an L3 charger, or a Bolt would end up getting 300kW that it can't actually use

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

#354
post #19
post #5

Logical move. North American Charging Standard does not exist in Europe making car re-import much more difficult.

So there is actually a technical reason here. NACS isn't a thing in Europe because 3 Phase power is much more common in Europe. NACS does not support 3 Phase power, and as a result, is not that common in Europe.

The main reason is not technical, it's that the EU mandated CCS2 back in 2013. From then on, Tesla's plug became irrelevant, chargers must have CCS2.

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

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

It also brings that part of the charging experience to parity with gas, which is really simple for non-tech savvy switchers to understand.

The process for EV and gas refuelling is then identical:

Lift thingamabob -> tap card -> plug into car -> leave

Easy.

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

#356
post #279

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…

>Every single EV can plug into every charger. Nit picking, but there's a bunch of Nissan Chademo still around. Like my Leaf. I'm a bit perplexed that Nissan is still selling new Chademo cars here, since it's on the way out. I very rarely need DC charging though, and there's still lots of Chademo locations if I do. That aside, the Leaf is a wonderful car.

DalasEVRepair on YouTube is testing a Chinese CCS to CHAdeMO adapter. If that ever becomes a reliable product, then NACS to CHAdeMO would be an incremental change.

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

#357
post #224
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…

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?

It's a really big improvement, I don't want to mess around with some random app or some credit card reader. Having experienced it I'd never go back

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

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price of charging is already dominated by the marginal cost of electricity, in the same way the price of filling your gas tank is by the price of gas. That will only be more true as charging gets faster. So an advantage in fixed costs is unlikely to be much of a strategic benefit. If they can save 100k/stall, that's great. But that is only a few hundred million a year at that install rate.

> The price of charging is already dominated by the marginal cost of electricity No it isn't. Most level 3 chargers are 3x-4x the price of electricity.

How are you estimating demand charges?

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

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I travel a lot in my SUV in remote areas like between Reno and Vegas. As a gas driver I like the fact there's a gas station in remote areas and it takes me three minutes to fill my tank and go. When do we think as interested EV driver will my driving experience match my gas car diving experience and needs? Are we there yet?

I'm guessing 5-10 years. However in 30 years the opposite question will be the case - if you are driving a gas car you will have to plan ahead. As EVs take over gas stations will start to disappear.

Well maybe you hope ..have skin in this game... as nothing is for certain. Hybrids seems to becoming even more popular as well other car manufacturers are looking into hydrogen and other sources.

In five to ten years we'll see if indeed there are more EV chargers everywhere like there are currently gas stations. An infrastructure that's over a 100 years old.

I'm all for new tech but as a UX professional new tech needs to provide an even better experience which personally something like a key fob (can be RFID hacked, you lose the fob you have to get your car towed to dealer and pay additional / hundreds for a new key fob)is a terrible UX compared to just a metal key (can't be hacked.. can easily drive to dealer to have a metal key made).

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

#360
post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah I agree having a different app for each station sucks, but I don't really understand how plug-and-charge would solve this. For anything that does support plug-and-charge, don't you still need to register the payment method somewhere in advance? Unless we have some universal payment processor which all the charging networks agree to use I will still need register through an app or something when I encounter a new…

Tap & Pay still requires you to fiddle with a station and slows you down. If you are plugging in at home (which is our target market), the fewer interactions needed the better. Imagine every time you get home you need to take your wallet out, tap the machine, wait for some 3rd party api to talk to the charger in the dimly lit basement, and then and only then you can leave. This is like 30 seconds of your day wasted.

Plus, ultimately we want to make charging as cheap as possible and having to pay the $.30 interchange fee each time a user plugs in would add a ton of overhead to our cost model.

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