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

Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 292 posts

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#51

Post by VyseofArcadia »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #19
izacus wrote: post #18

How did we get from a situation where you could just pay with cash/card for fuel to having monopolized single-brand car fueling stations?

When it started taking 30 minutes to "fill up" your car. High speed chargers can cost >$200k installed. A gas pump costs about $25k installed. If the average person spends 4 minutes at a pump, that comes out to: The time value of a slot at a super charger can be >$5 for each charge. The time value of a slot at a gas pump is ~$0.07 per fill up. The economics of a charging business are awful. High CapEx, few cars, not…

> The time value of a slot at a gas pump is ~$0.07 per fill up

I think charging stations have an asset that you have neglected to consider: a captive audience.

Yeah, there will always be people who plug in their car and then scroll for half an hour. But there are also people who would be interested in grabbing a bite to eat, walking around, spending money on something dumb, etc. Having a charging station be a place that you can spend money on human amenities in addition to charging improves the economics.

But instead our charging stations are like, three plugs in the back of a hotel parking lot.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#52

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #51
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it started taking 30 minutes to "fill up" your car. High speed chargers can cost >$200k installed. A gas pump costs about $25k installed. If the average person spends 4 minutes at a pump, that comes out to: The time value of a slot at a super charger can be >$5 for each charge. The time value of a slot at a gas pump is ~$0.07 per fill up. The economics of a charging business are awful. High CapEx, few cars, not…

> The time value of a slot at a gas pump is ~$0.07 per fill up I think charging stations have an asset that you have neglected to consider: a captive audience. Yeah, there will always be people who plug in their car and then scroll for half an hour. But there are also people who would be interested in grabbing a bite to eat, walking around, spending money on something dumb, etc. Having a charging station be a place t…

> But instead our charging stations are like, three plugs in the back of a hotel parking lot.

It's almost as if there's an economic reason for that.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#53

Post by user3939382 »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #46
qwerpy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a cybertruck owner who likes to drive deep into national parks, I'm optimistic about this. Tesla covers the big highways really well with their superchargers, but where they fall short are those adventure/outdoors destinations. E.g. the north cascades loop in WA state. You can find the occasional level 2 charger but they are painfully slow and aren't maintained well. Prior to the CT, Tesla didn't have "adventure-c…

[flagged]

Is it any of your business?

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#55

Post by Kirby64 »

dpierce9 wrote: post #48
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it started taking 30 minutes to "fill up" your car. High speed chargers can cost >$200k installed. A gas pump costs about $25k installed. If the average person spends 4 minutes at a pump, that comes out to: The time value of a slot at a super charger can be >$5 for each charge. The time value of a slot at a gas pump is ~$0.07 per fill up. The economics of a charging business are awful. High CapEx, few cars, not…

This doesn’t seem right to me. Is this 200k per dispenser? The dispenser is really just a fancy switch and a plug in a kiosk. If you are talking about the central transformer/switching systems, then yes that makes sense. But you can add a lot of dispensers to that. A pump is only 25k to install if you don’t include the infrastructure to support the pump (tank, canopy, fire suppression, filters, etc).all that costs mo…

DCFCs are much more than a “fancy switch”. It’s a circuit capable of converting 3-phase high voltage AC into variable high voltage DC at 150-350kW. The power electronics are very, very expensive. As far as I’m aware, the large transformer you see usually hidden somewhere nearby is not the primary cost (although it is expensive, especially for very high wattage ones).

And yes, it’s 200k per dispenser including the infrastructure. It doesn’t scale as well as you think it does. I think Tesla has been quoted as around 50k per dispenser including infra though, so some of it is just poor efficiency in costs by other mfgs.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#56

Post by Kirby64 »

Suppafly wrote: post #41
xnx wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They take up 2 spots: https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/comments/1f0wt4v/okay_is_the...

Apparently that's the recommended way from Tesla to do it, per that thread. Do they not make extension cords you can use with the charger cables so you charge from other angles?

No, they don’t. Extension cables for something that is dumping 250kW would be dangerous, or outrageously expensive and bulky.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#58

Post by kraftman »

MrHamburger wrote: post #44
toast0 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think that given the chargers are so expensive, they'd want to make them easy to pay to use. I have a PHEV, so using a charger out and about is silly, but I've only managed to use one pay charger, and it was a lot harder than a gas pump. Even the free ones are hard to use. With the PHEV, the charged amounts are rather low, so I understand the desire to push stored value accounts, but really there should have…

Charging via application brings unnecessary friction and severely degrades UX. Another UX offenders are QR codes on charging stalls and locking charging cables unless you will find that correct QR code so you can unlock your charging cable. Not that one, that will unlock charging cable in the stall next to you. For FFS why do I need to search for QR codes at a first place... I can imagine a simple solution - take a c…

You can do this in france. Tap once to open the hatch for the port, tap when you're done to pay for what you've used.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#60

Post by IncreasePosts »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #46
qwerpy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a cybertruck owner who likes to drive deep into national parks, I'm optimistic about this. Tesla covers the big highways really well with their superchargers, but where they fall short are those adventure/outdoors destinations. E.g. the north cascades loop in WA state. You can find the occasional level 2 charger but they are painfully slow and aren't maintained well. Prior to the CT, Tesla didn't have "adventure-c…

[flagged]

Why are so many of your comments just commenting on the comment patterns of others?
Post reply on HN