581–590 of 653 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
RV charging has much smaller installations than gas. Instead of gas stations, the most common SV charging will eventually be thick poles on the footpath so you can charge wherever you park, or small one or two bay charging facilities at various businesses. That's the sort of charging infrastructure you want and seamless payment solutions is an enabling tech.
What's RV and SV charging?
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The transactions are of higher value than many public transport tickets, and those are already common — either as normal purchases from a ticket machine, or with the special transaction type used when the payment card is touched to the reader on the ticket barrier. Following a recent trip I had a bunch of ~1€ transactions from buying single bus/metro tickets from machines.
Visa charges a 5-10 cent fixed fee plus a percentage for those 1 Euro transactions. Presumably public transport just eats those costs, but in a commodity business like electricity I imagine it’s a noticeable chunk of the profit margin.
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In europe the connections are a lot lower amperage, around here for example 35 ampere per phase. But having 3 phases is pretty normal and the standard in any new house, which means 3 phases can let you charge at 22kW with a few Ampere left, while with 1 phase you can only charge at 7 KW. That does make it useful to charge it in a few hours in the afternoon, instead of having to wiat the night.
In which European country is triphasic power for houses becoming normal?
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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 :)
> You need... I submit a counterexample of the huge network of Tesla superchargers that can do the job quite well with the NACS connector. maximum power output of 600 kW and a maximum current of 615A at 1,000V https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/1269/tesla-v4-supercharger... The practical limits are based on the cars and their batteries, not the charge port.
You're referring to DC fast charging. For AC charging the NACS is limited to single phase. This is a charge port thing, not the car or battery.
Which doesn't matter much in the US, but it does in Europe.
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I don’t know if I agree. It’s exceedingly rare now to find a place which doesn’t accept contactless in America, but we have these problems still. Besides dumb inconsistent terminals, the main thing holding it back is (A) customers don’t use it because they either don’t know it’s much faster than our garbage chip readers, or they have been burned by hunting for the right spot to tap. And (B) even the clerks don’t use…
> It’s exceedingly rare now to find a place which doesn’t accept contactless in America... Lowe's and Home Depot? Walmart, still? Companies still hoping to silo people into their own apps or antiquated payment method, which might give them a slight cc processing fee reduction that boosts their margins... at the cost of being a usability nightmare for anyone who doesn't shop there frequently. I expect that frequent sh…
The only time I'm confused is when there's an unusual card reader, usually a low-budget all-in-one type with a touchscreen, as it's not always clear where the NFC reader is. This is maybe 1-2% of transactions.
Every so often a machine makes the "dur dur" noise and I have to use the chip and my PIN. I'm not sure if this is every Nth transaction, or after spending ¤X. Either way, it's to avoid a lot of contactless payments being made if the card is stolen. (And maybe this is irrelevant in the USA, without PINs?)
"8 out of 10 card payments now contactless in the Nordics" [2]. 54% in the whole EU [3], only 34% in the USA [4].
[1] https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-articles/1153...
[2] https://www.nets.eu/Media-and-press/news/Pages/8-out-of-10-c...
[3] https://data.ecb.europa.eu/blog/blog-posts/contactless-payme...
[4] https://ktvz.com/stacker-money/2023/08/01/american-consumers...
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…
Even something as simple as charging control via control-pilot/proximity signals is already problematic with some vehicles.
Maybe because I'm an engineer and not a business guy, I do not understand why not implement the bare minimum that works and leave advanced cases for later.
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…
Plug in
See cost per kWh on the display
Tap contactless card
Charging starts. Status shown on screen.
Optional QR code to a website to monitor charge status
Exactly the same method as buying gas. No need for apps or accounts or anything.
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Supercharging, yeah. But you (or rather "everyone") won't constantly be supercharging. You'll mostly do it at home or at your office. 7kW :)
Places where you don't need a fast charge? Overnight at home. From arrival to lunch at work. After lunch to quitting time. And even those times assume you drive more than 50 miles/day, which most folks don't. What was the problem again?
> What was the problem again
Why would I want to wait for more than I have to? e.g. I forgot to charge during the night and need to go on a trip in a few hours. Now I need to find a fasts charger and pay for it instead of charging at home, why exactly?
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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..
There is no mandated billing method, but the ability to pay without registering an account is mandated. Additionally every charger has a unique id with a QR code. Usually you either just plug it in (first party charger) or just scan the QR code with your favorite charging app which will handles the billing (third party charger).
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…
Huh? If anything this disproves your point. Industrial players quickly (all things considered) converged on a superior format. I usually agree with you on standardizing stuff like this but this isn't an example of top down standardization leading to better outcomes. Not necessarily worse, but not better either.