Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 653 posts

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

#551

Post by fomine3 »

superjan wrote: post #283
l72 wrote: post #250

While this sounds good, why are we so focused on charging stations? It seems to me, it would make much more sense to have a series of batteries that can quickly be removed, and have battery exchanges. Then, if you need a charge, you pull over to a battery exchange, swap out batteries in a few seconds, and go on your way. I have seen this in China with electric scooters, and it seems like it could scale well for cars…

why is this downvoted? It is a legitimate question. You can comment if you have a counterargument.

Even if battery swap is a practical solution, fast charging is still needed. Obviously every fast chargers in rural area can't be replaced into battery swap station, too much stock costs. For fast chargers replacement in city, there's no enough space.

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

#552

Post by clouddrover »

amluto wrote: post #516
clouddrover wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I expect a degree of intelligence to be important in the adapter. No, that's done by the car. The adapter just changes the shape of the plug. The car controls the charge curve.

> The car controls the charge curve. Exactly. If a car uses an 800V battery and can charge at 500A, and the charger can supply 500A at 800V, and the adapter is only rated for 150A, something needs to tell the car not to draw more than 150A. Similarly, an adapter rated at 400V that is used with an 800V car needs to tell the car or charger not to charge at 800V (which may mean not charging at all).

All parts of the charging chain have temperature sensors (charger, cable, plug, adapter, inlet, battery). If they overheat they'll derate.

If your car can pull 500 amps then you should get an adapter rated for 500 amps. Here's an example:

https://a2zevshop.com/products/nacs-ccs1

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

#553

Post by fomine3 »

shkkmo wrote: post #547
fomine3 wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm in such situation, I never buy BEV unless charger is installed at my parking. Without home parking charging, it's pure downgrade from gas experience. It will be eventually installed if govt really care about BEV.

> Without home parking charging, it's pure downgrade from gas experience. That may be your perspective, however I have family members who owned a plugin hybrid, had no at home charging capabilities, and found the experience superior. I suspect this is a use case that will become more prevelant at the regulatory incentives begin ramping up.

Did Your family have PHEV (not BEV) without charger? It just work as a great hybrid car with overkill battery capacity, so it works.

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

#554

Post by aaronmdjones »

baloki wrote: post #466
g_p wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would paying for an EV charge work like this? Would you select an amount of credit in currency (presumably via buttons on the charger?) then tap-to-pay for that amount? (I believe there are some limitations on tap-to-pay transactions to prevent a merchant presenting the transaction with a different value after actually tapping the card.) I think a lot of "pay at pump" fuel stations require a full insertion of the…

They generally pre-auth for either £20 or £40 and then update the amount post-transaction. In terms of PIN check, the card is just declined with an appropriate error message because you can’t insert it and the next time you use a contactless machine it asks for the card to be inserted and a PIN entered. For petrol (gas) pumps in the UK it generally auths either £1 or £99.

I only have experience with Shell, Morrisons, and Tesco pay-at-pump stations. In all of those, you have to physically insert your card and type in your PIN; contactless does not exist.

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

#555

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Retric wrote: post #474
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Cars don’t need to have credit card details onboard. Hypothetical standard: Charger lets car open a low bandwidth internet connection. Car uses it (or cellular) to open an encrypted channel to a 3rd part service (Tesla/Visa/whatever) saying it’s VIN, password, and the charger’s ID. Charger gets payment from 3rd party. PS: I would rather chargers just had working credit card readers, but individual chargers don’t do m…

You're getting at the root of the problem here, which is that Visa doesn't actually support anything like that and "whatever" is going to add another grubby middle man to the transaction, which is the thing that most needs to be prevented.

You're fundamentally trying to transfer your money to the operator of the charger, but they aren't standing around to give cash to, so you want something digital. Alright, so your bank should do this -- you authorize your car's private key to make withdrawals from your bank account at charging points and we're all set. Except that banks suck at this sort of thing, which is why we have the credit/debit network to create some kind of standard. Except the standard is credit cards, not public key cryptography.

You wanted to give your money to the charging point operator but instead you have to give it to your bank to give it to Visa to give it to the charging point operator. Now we're going to add "Tesla/whatever" to the chain? This needs to stop. You stick with the card reader until you figure out how to get banks, using some kind of standard, to support the public/private key thing and we can remove a middle man instead of adding one.

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

#556

Post by hnburnsy »

hnburnsy wrote: post #312
apexalpha wrote: post #135

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…

Serious question is every EU charger outlet billed in a common way, like with cash, an app, debit/credit card, in car screen, with a payment screen, or preconfigured to bill seamlessly? Seems like the billing issues at non Tesla chargers in the US were a large part of the issues..

Thanks all who replied!

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

#557

Post by bravoetch »

lvturner wrote: post #540
akouri wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

The phrase seems like it's charge as in billing, not charge as in electricity. Not sure if that is intentional or a happy pun. Anyone that has only experienced Tesla may even assume that superchargers are what everyone else experiences too. Just plug it in and get charged... and billed.

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

#558

Post by hnburnsy »

moogly wrote: post #478
hnburnsy wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question is every EU charger outlet billed in a common way, like with cash, an app, debit/credit card, in car screen, with a payment screen, or preconfigured to bill seamlessly? Seems like the billing issues at non Tesla chargers in the US were a large part of the issues..

A law was passed earlier this year that means mandatory card/contactless payment, and prices clearly shown (as opposed being hidden in an app). Unclear exactly when it will be enacted though.

Thanks, what do the unbanked do in the EU? Some local cities have banned cashless stores, wonder if this will apply to EV chargers which seem to be unmanned.

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

#559

Post by [deleted] »

ProfessorZoom wrote: post #477
jakewins wrote: post #237

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…

You have this problem because they’re not Tesla. Thats why everyone is adopting NACS and Tesla superchargers

[deleted]

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

#560

Post by sundvor »

stetrain wrote: post #169
conjecTech wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People also made the argument that the exclusivity of the Tesla supercharger network was a positive for Tesla. It's hard for both to be true. I think the reality is that uncertainty about charging away from home pushed a lot of people towards Tesla who might otherwise have considered a different make/model. With that gone, a moat vanished. That being said, competition in the US EV market is still weak. Maybe the adde…

I think the difference is that over time Tesla has streamlined mass production, installation, and reliable operation of their chargers. They are averaging 1.5 charging stations installed per day over the last year in North America. Each of those stations has at least 8 chargers, some of them have 24, 40, or more. They have moved to pre-fab construction where a row of 8 chargers are all installed in a concrete slab th…

Cries in Australia numbers.. There are 79 sites in total (recent list1), and a different source gave me 1958 for USA (October 2023).

With US population ~14x that of Aus (~350m vs ~25.5m), the ratio of chargers in the US is over double ours, plus your build output is way higher too.

We share that the non-Tesla chargers are largely useless.

1) https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/growth-of-supercharg...

Post reply on HN