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

631–640 of 653 posts

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

#631

Post by mixmastamyk »

akouri wrote: post #534
autoexecbat wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a smaller use case—folks living in apartments without direct electricity connection. While the case exists and can be improved separately it shouldn't dictate requirements/costs to the rest of us.

Think I'd try to solve that by having the customer register the car/payment once at the kiosk and then handle plug-and-charge-and-bill though your service. Then you don't need to wait for an external solution and can advertise convenience as your added value in the meantime.

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

#632

Post by pests »

arghwhat wrote: post #170
phkahler wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. The real win here is for the public. The "standard" charging plug and cables weigh a LOT, so much that my elderly mother probably couldn't use one. The "standard" also mandates the use of PowerLine Communication chips even though the signal is not over the high power conductor. We are all better off just biting the bullet now and changing everything over to the Tesla plug.

Cable weight corresponds to charging power rating and choice of materials, not plug choice. A combined CCS2 plug is chunkier and might be a bit heavier, but not compared to, say, using a fuel pump.

How? Once you add thermal management and active cooling to be cable.weigjr is no longer coupled to power delivery.

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

#633

Post by brnt »

rconti wrote: post #619
brnt wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really can't believe how the idea of giving random companies access to electronics, which is what installing an app means, ever got normalised, even among techies. I guess people also do give out tons of personal details just because some form asks them. It goes against any and all security advice even regular people are now given. I guess it's true: the brosephs ook over... So having an electric car requires an sm…

I don't disagree with your principles; I was definitely on your side of the issue ~25 years ago and I suppose I still am, intellectually. I never changed my mind, it just wasn't important enough to me to put the substantial effort into. (which is, I suppose, what "they" are counting on). More power to you for investing the effort rather than just taking the path of least resistance.

Many things and services now 'require' an app, but I never do and in practice that doesn't seem much of an issue. It's just sad to hear it won't be possible to sidestep if I ever do own (or rent) an electric car, which ofc I fully expect. I already caved by having a phone with Google Play services enabled for a few banking apps. But I figure I can have some trust in them, since they are my bank.

A friend of mine has a card with which he can charge at certain places, but definitely not all (so he has some anxiety over that, in new places you never can be sure it actually works). Is such a card an option at those places that 'require' and app?

And what's even the reason for this? Those unmanned fossil fuel stations debit your card with some largish amount before you can take fuel. Why would things need to be more complex than that when charging electrons?

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

#634

Post by Ajedi32 »

g_p wrote: post #460
VBprogrammer wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, contactless is ubiquitous in the UK – the experience is almost always seamless. The only exception being the odd reader with the antenna in a stupid place (these have gotten less common over time) or when your bank decides to force a pin check.

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…

I'm not sure how it works at the protocol level, but I've been using contactless payments at gas stations here in the US for years now. You just tap to pay before you start pumping, then after you're finished you get charged for the amount of fuel dispensed.

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

#635

Post by sangnoir »

grecy wrote: post #610
sangnoir wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The billions in federal government subsidies (funded by the Inflation Reduction Act) will more than make up for any potential licensing fees. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla is paying other manufactures to switch; we may never know as the agreements are confidential.

Please link to an article that documents a single subsidy that Tesla got from the government.

I said will which means it's in the future.

The IRA EV grants can be found here: https://www.atlasevhub.com/materials/the-inflation-reduction... and if you think Tesla is not going to apply (amd receive) most of the $7 billion for infrastructure, I don't know what to tell you (I'm willing take the other side of your bet in this though). Earlier this year, most in the industry assumed CCS networks would get the money because the law was written with a requirement for interoperability (3 or more makes).

Time line of events:

2014: Tesla opens up its charger patents

[Crickets]

2022H2: IRA signed with billions available to fund interoperable charging networks (i.e. CCS at tine of signing)

2022 November: Tesla renames standard to NACS.

2023: Tesla signs agreements with other manufacturers to use it's network.

Do you suppose it was a coincidence that Tesla's standardization and agreements came within months of billions of federal money being put in the table? Billions that would have gone to an competing charging networks/competing standards?

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

#636

Post by [deleted] »

keep_reading wrote: post #184
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…

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.

[deleted]

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

#637

Post by kalleboo »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #549
evilfred wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would Tesla be involved? NACS is an open standard

Will every car that implements a standard be able to use the Tesla Superchargers at full speed? Or would the charger decide if it trusts the car first?

Tesla wants government subsidies to build superchargers, that's the reason they pushed for NACS to become a standard (the subsidies require the chargers use a standard - right now they're doing the Magic Dock but that's an ugly hack they probably want to avoid). The rules for those subsidies will require they don't play games with who can use them.

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

#638

Post by sangnoir »

grecy wrote: post #629
tristan957 wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The federal government is currently running a program where they will give you a $7500 tax break for buying a qualifying electric vehicle. Tesla, being the go-to for electric vehicles at the moment, is obviously a large beneficiary of this, even going so far as to adjust the pricing on one of its vehicles to meet the program's requirements.

Tesla are getting exactly $0 of this money (it goes to the customer). Also, every other automaker can make cars that qualify. In fact, many already do! Also note Tesla do not make a single PEHV, so in fact plenty of automakers make vehicles that qualify and Tesla doesn't. Here's the lists: EVs: https://electrek.co/2023/11/07/which-electric-vehicles-still... PEHVs: https://electrek.co/2023/11/07/which-electric-vehicle…

> Tesla are getting exactly $0 of this money (it goes to the customer).

You're technically correct, when limiting to first order effects of the rebate. It would be equally technically correct to state farmers don't get any money from SNAP (it goes to the customer!), and yet SNAP is "surprisingly" (to pendants) included in the Farm bill.

Your assertion that Tesla doesn't get any money from subsides is radical because it suggests that either subsidies don't work, or the do work with none value making it's way to the upstream industry the government explicitly set out to support with subsidies. Either one of these positions need supporting evidence.

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

#639

Post by kalleboo »

dkbrk wrote: post #322
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…

Tesla already tried that, years and years ago. They built a fully automated battery swapping station for the Model S, as a test of concept, and nobody used it. So the program was abandoned as a complete failure, and now Tesla's newer models no longer have the capability. In fact, Tesla's Head of Design and VP of vehicle engineering discussed this very topic just a few days ago in Jay Leno's video on the Cybertruck [0…

> nobody used it

Nobody could use it. It was by invite-only. EV bloggers contacted them to ask if they could try it and were stonewalled. They only reason they built it was to get subsidies from a CARB program for cars that supported battery swap so they could technically say the Model S supported battery swap.

(now personally I don't think battery swap is ever going to be a solution for consumer cars [maybe for stuff like taxis or buses] but the Tesla effort did not appear to be done in good faith - I don't think they ever believed in it even when they were building it)

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

#640

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

kalleboo wrote: post #637
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will every car that implements a standard be able to use the Tesla Superchargers at full speed? Or would the charger decide if it trusts the car first?

Tesla wants government subsidies to build superchargers, that's the reason they pushed for NACS to become a standard (the subsidies require the chargers use a standard - right now they're doing the Magic Dock but that's an ugly hack they probably want to avoid). The rules for those subsidies will require they don't play games with who can use them.

Tesla says they can get NACS to do 1MW. If Tesla can engineer a car that can handle that, would they really be obligated to run that to any crazy hackjob that asks for it? I expect there some to be some minimum standard every car can use, then a shorter list of approved models that can handle more.
Post reply on HN