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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

#531

Post by mark_story »

dchuk wrote: post #528
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…

I feel like stuff is pretty easy and solved for at gas stations for payment? Why wouldn’t I just pay at the “pump” (charger) exactly like we’ve all been doing for decades now? Payment done by the car automatically seems like a solution looking for a problem.

But you're thinking of it as an end customer. What if instead of a 'charging' station getting all the transaction fees the car manufacturers could haggle for some bps and work their way towards a controlling interest in this consortium.

Manufacturers want in because of all the potential $.

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

#532

Post by akouri »

alibarber wrote: post #445
akouri wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

It takes something like half of a second for my Apple Pay Amex/Visa to let me through the barrier in the London Underground, and the complexity they have to deal with for fare calculations is quite something too.

This is true. Apple Pay has been something we're keen on adding

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

#533

Post by LeafItAlone »

akouri wrote: post #530
dchuk wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like stuff is pretty easy and solved for at gas stations for payment? Why wouldn’t I just pay at the “pump” (charger) exactly like we’ve all been doing for decades now? Payment done by the car automatically seems like a solution looking for a problem.

Imagine if you had to pull out your credit card every time you wanted to charge your phone at night. This is how most EV drivers charge, so the paradigm for charging an EV is totally different than filling up at a pump. I got frustrated with dealing with all these charger manufacturer's lousy apps, and that's what led Starlight to focus on building a seamless plug-and-charge experience. No apps required, just plug it…

> Imagine if you had to pull out your credit card every time you wanted to charge your phone at night. This is how most EV drivers charge, so the paradigm for charging an EV is totally different than filling up at a pump.

I’m confused. I have limited expressive with EVs, but when I used a Supercharger, it seemed exactly like a typical gas station experience, other than payment and time spent. Why can’t the payment model be adapted? What am I missing?

Edit: I get it now. It’s aimed at residents, not visitors.

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

#534

Post by akouri »

autoexecbat wrote: post #476
akouri wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

disagree. see my comment above

disagree, explain yourself rather than citing (without even providing a link)

Tap & Pay (Apple Pay, etc) are a great backup option -- and Starlight will implement those, but the primary modality of payment should require no user input. That's what we are hoping to accomplish. It's especially important when you are plugging in every night. Fiddling with your wallet or phone (battery dead??) is just one extra step that ultimately is not necessary if we are to design a system at scale.

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

#535

Post by akouri »

Daneel_ wrote: post #454
akouri wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a bad idea. We are looking into this. One issue is that the vendors for these keyfobs are super fragmented -- even more so than Plug & Charge adoption.

At that point why not just accept tap-and-pay in addition to the car identifier over the plug? I feel like no matter what you’ll need to accept credit card payments in these sort of shared environments.

Our current plan is Plug & Charge (via ISO 15118 as well as a fallback to our NFC cable) and Tap to Pay as a backup in case you haven't set up a payment method on your vehicle.

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

#536

Post by ethagknight »

jakewins wrote: post #237
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?

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…

I mean... you can't just fill up. You have to scan a card, wait 5 seconds, enter your zip code, select the button for "grade". Credit card skimmers at gas stations are a big problem too.

You may have been used to that process so it seems more fluid, but Tesla charging is truly "plug and charge" at superchargers

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

#537

Post by ClumsyPilot »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #416
gambiting wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My story of charging in Germany one time a year ago: The charger requires an app, ok fine. Downloaded the app, had to setup the whole account with my address(UK address was allowed as my address), verify my email, verify my phone number(UK one was accepted), fine, done. Went to add my payment card - nope, the billing address has a pre-filled country field set to Germany, can't change it. It says ring this number in c…

I know it's not quite the problem you are talking about (which would be dealt with by making normal contactless / chip and pin readers a requirement) – but I'd love to see a legal requirement that when your charge point can't contact the piece of shit payment / authentication service the user gets to charge for free. That would soon see an uptick in the reliability of charge points...

thats the only correct eay of dealing with the issue. If you can't maintain infrastructure you failed at your job, why should someone be stranded or freeze to death because of your incompetence

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

#538

Post by wh0knows »

alibarber wrote: post #445
akouri wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

It takes something like half of a second for my Apple Pay Amex/Visa to let me through the barrier in the London Underground, and the complexity they have to deal with for fare calculations is quite something too.

The fare isn’t calculated on the spot though, a base amount is authorized and then only charged later. Not that the plug needs to figure that out immediately but it’s worth noting.

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

#539

Post by ClumsyPilot »

g_p wrote: post #436
akouri wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a bad idea. We are looking into this. One issue is that the vendors for these keyfobs are super fragmented -- even more so than Plug & Charge adoption.

Worth being aware that, as well as keyfobs being super fragmented, many are woefully insecure. Think "they just say their ID number when you put them in a reader field". That means you can trivially clone them. Not hugely exciting for access to a (common) hallway in a large building. If cloning someone else's fob gets you free car charging, the incentive is there to clone them. Also, not all buildings will use unique…

> That means you can trivially clone them.

i have cloned keyfobs for like 5 building at a local laundry. Never met a fob they couldn't clone

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

#540

Post by lvturner »

akouri wrote: post #529
xpe wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some feedback: I only barely realized "plug-and-charge" means something specific. [1] Generally speaking, I wouldn't expect people to know what you mean by the phrase. The problem is that people think they know because it sounds so obvious. The phrase comes across more like: "obviously, yeah, I plug it in and it charges". That understanding leaves vague the number of steps required between "plug" and "charge". [1] e.…

This is helpful. Generally the customers that land on our website are people who are researching which EV charging solution to install in their apartment complex, so I assumed that they already knew the term. But I guess it's helpful to spell it out.

further: EV user and have also have been involved (lightly) in some public(ish) EV Charging projects -- this is the first time I've come across the term "Plug And Charge" in reference to a protocol!

Upside: Every day is a school day and now I have something fun to read in to!

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