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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

#361

Post by ska »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #293
SoftTalker wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Regular petrol stations figured out pay at the pump decades ago. Why is this such a problem for EV charging?

Companies don't want want the hassle and expense of PCI compliance across their charger network. If it's just session auth shit going across the wire, they only need to worry about PCI compliance on the back end. By collecting lots of info about you, they get a lower processing rate because the transaction is lower risk vs a swipe/tap. They can save on transaction fees if they consolidate charging sessions; say you d…

Honestly, it may not matter if companies don't want it.

Consumers are going to demand it, and it may be necessary before EV's become ubiquitous, assuming they do. One thing that has helped their case in the US is that payments have historically been a pain in the ass anyway, compared to many other countries. That is changing though.

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

#362

Post by akouri »

why_at wrote: post #224
akouri wrote: 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?

Tap & Pay with a ccard 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.

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

#364

Post by al_borland »

yurishimo wrote: post #329
spaceywilly wrote: post #319

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…

So solving this problem would be as simple as mandating/regulating it? Sounds like a no-brainer to end this debate, standardize things, and allow the build out to happen in a quick and standard way across companies.

With all the EV goals that various countries are making, this seems like a foundational part of it. Consumers aren't going to buy into EVs in mass until charging in a solved problem.

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

#365

Post by Animats »

akouri wrote: 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 Tesla refuse to charge a car at their whim? Because, say, you were banned from Twitter/X? Too many fast charges this week? Covered the driver-facing camera?

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

#366

Post by bsder »

reportingsjr wrote: post #327
bluGill wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large number of standards are what one company did on their own and then made available to everybody via the likes of ANSI/ECMA/ISO. There are a number of reasons a company would want to do this.

This is basically how USB C became a thing. A group of engineers at Google created the connector design and then gave it to the USB standards body to use as the next gen.

Citation, please. More bluntly: I simply don't believe you.

Google has absolutely none of the expertise required to put such a connector together. It requires a very specific set of skills in chip design, signal integrity, and connector design which Google has none of.

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

#367

Post by akouri »

Caddickbrown wrote: post #263
akouri wrote: 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?

The patents for the NACS connector were open sourced. We are utilizing that for our charger hub/connector.

The communication and payment protocol is still proprietary.

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

#368

Post by _zoltan_ »

apexalpha wrote: post #190
keep_reading wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 was designed by VW I think, who handed it over to other car companies so there could be a universal connector. The reason it's bigger is because it supports 3-phase power, which NACS does not. 3-phase power is a big thing in Europe.

so much so that I have a 22kW 3 phase charger at home. (AC, type 2)

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

#369

Post by hedora »

akouri wrote: post #362
why_at wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Tap & Pay with a ccard 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…

This would be infinitely better than the current model, where you have to install a bullshit app, which doesn’t work over 20% of the time.

I’d happily pay $0.30 per charge session to just use standard NFC or chip payments.

Also, why in god’s name would I have authentication on my home charger?

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

#370

Post by akouri »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #221
sib wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how much margin that Tesla will be making on the charging. I don't think the financial details of these deals have been disclosed. Adding lots of revenue but with no margin doesn't really add value to Tesla. (Of course, to the extent they get funding from the government or other manufacturers to offset the capex required for building out more stations and chargers, that's great for Tesla & anyone.)

In states where they are registered as an energy provider? A lot. A 10-80% charge will net Tesla $20. Comparatively a gas station that refills a midsize car with a 20 gallon tank will only net $6.

I think you mean it will _gross_ Tesla $20. From my research, Tesla is (currently) not making much on energy delivered. That _will_ certainly change in the future though.
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