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

281–290 of 292 posts

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#281

Post by caycep »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #200
rootusrootus wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Tesla fans are so enamored with Elon that there isn’t really going to be anything that changes their mind. The vast majority of people I’ve talked to who said they won’t buy a Tesla because of him are not EV owners at all. Just democrats.

Once you get past the passionate technologist crowd, and there have been signs the initial buyer pool for Tesla was already stagnating a bit in 2023, who are the next natural candidates for buyers? The mass market is 1/3 right wing, 1/3 left wing, 1/3 centrist roughly. The 1/3 right wing are the pickup truck buyers. Like a rock ... Strong as I can be. The 1/3 left wing is now pretty much a no. The 1/3 centrist is pro…

Have they already lost in battery tech to CATL?

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#282

Post by caycep »

rossjudson wrote: post #263
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd drop Tesla from that argument. No, not that the SC network is bad. Their CEO alienated 50% of their customer base with politics. This is going to be one of the most interesting case studies in brand management and advertising history. But you are probably correct. I think making the infrastructure act funding contingent on reliability metrics is pretty key. You know, if the money doesn't get yanked by the adminis…

When I look at my Tesla, I see the hard work of hundreds (or thousands) of engineers, tasked with doing something new and complicated. They're collective trailblazers, and they know they're making the product that best it can be, given the constraints. You look and you see one person.

how many of those engineers are still at Tesla? their churn rate is known to be pretty high...

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#283

Post by NotSammyHagar »

_ea1k wrote: post #122
PaulWaldman wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've come to notice that there is no incentive for 3rd party ev-chargers to be dependable. I don't know, how often would you stop at a gas station if their pumps weren't reliable? Many 3rd party chargers are selling electricity at a mark-up.

That's true, but there's also another weird counteracting effect. Lets say you have 4 chargers offering a full 350 kw each. If they get used at full power for ~15 minutes in the month, the demand charge for the month might be ~$10k (probably will be higher, tbh). This will be true even if the stations themselves see ~15% utilization. But break two of them? Yeah, there might be an occasional line, but your fee drops t…

The stations have all kinds of strategies for avoiding these max demand charges. They can slow down the charge rate to save money for them, but there are lots of places that have local battery storage to reduce the max demand charge likelihood.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#284

Post by NotSammyHagar »

jonplackett wrote: post #234
m463 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've come to notice that there is no incentive for 3rd party ev-chargers to be dependable. Telsa and rivian have a vested interest in keeping the chargers working. Their sales depend on the chargers working. Even a little bad press is a multiplier against sales. They also have significant engineering effort throughout the charging ecosystem, from the batteries, on-board infrastructure, standards, mapping, strategic c…

Why is it so hard to keep an electric charger running? Is it just because it’s so much power that there’s weird components in there? At face value, plugs are in general pretty solid! Like how many times in your life has a plug in your house just stopped working.

no - poor design, lack of organization to fix them were issues.

But a key issue seems to be that EA went crazy and made their chargers out of lots of different components in a panic to get started, analogous to the PC world where there are huge numbers of different parts configurations, and even if you have only 6 major charger models, your fix it tech probably doesn't have parts of all 6. It seems obvious this was a bad strategy, but they wanted to get their chargers working as fast as possible. Instead they created a permanent bad quality reputation that may never be fixed for EA.

But it's not just EA, other companies seemed to have no plan for fixing their chargers when they break.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#285

Post by NotSammyHagar »

mattmaroon wrote: post #266
ac29 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gross margins on EV chargers are likely pretty good as you say. But is there any evidence that these networks actually turn a net profit? These charging stations are very expensive to install and require ongoing maintenance/repairs. The only charging network I know that is publicly traded is Chargepoint, and they have never turned a profit. In fact, their losses have increased as revenue has gone up. But, they ar…

I think the answer has to be yes. They can easily pull in a few grand a month from the electricity. They generally exist rent-free. They don’t cost that much to install. Maintenance doesn’t seem to be even half the issue for Tesla that it is for the rest but they could also just care more. I suspect it’s both.

tesla has a factory that makes their chargers and equipment. They have standardized chargers, mass production can lead to refining the design, fixing common pain points. Most other companies seem to have taken the pc organ bank strategy where they made it out of almost careless combination of available parts - EA is the poster child.

I'm sure careful people tried to make a plan but they all ended up being such a dumpster fire of failures and low quality with no visible plan to fix them it's hard to understand.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#286

Post by NotSammyHagar »

caycep wrote: post #281
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you get past the passionate technologist crowd, and there have been signs the initial buyer pool for Tesla was already stagnating a bit in 2023, who are the next natural candidates for buyers? The mass market is 1/3 right wing, 1/3 left wing, 1/3 centrist roughly. The 1/3 right wing are the pickup truck buyers. Like a rock ... Strong as I can be. The 1/3 left wing is now pretty much a no. The 1/3 centrist is pro…

Have they already lost in battery tech to CATL?

Tesla was using CATL batteries in part. Tesla uses different batteries in diff cars, also some come from China, some other places.

Tesla said they'd have amazing new 4680 batteries but that didn't really succeed, a reason why the ct has lower range than planned is the new higher density batteries didn't arrive.

Tesla has one advantage left, they can make their cars at mass quantities and make a profit. Most of the western auto companies can't do that, unless they charge very high prices.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#287

Post by wlesieutre »

Schiendelman wrote: post #168
wlesieutre wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of that, thanks. It's more a note for any apartment dwellers thinking "I see Tesla chargers all over town, I could buy a 2025 Equinox (or whatever) with NACS and swing through the one on next to my office when I need to. If it's a v3 or v4 that's true, if it's an older station it's still only for Teslas. So if you buy a new EV thinking "I know where the nearest Tesla chargers are" you could be in for some d…

Anyone buying an EV learns this in like five minutes before they buy, honestly.

I think you're overestimating normal car buyers, as EVs continue to shift from early adopter novelties into the mass market. People will see a charger and expect to be able to pull up and charge there, like they've been doing with gas stations for decades.

SAE is thankfully working on universal plug and charge standards which will be a huge help for the other problem - the mess of different apps for each charging network. Because just providing a credit card reader like every gas pump ever was too hard.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sae-industry-techno...

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#288

Post by natch »

Aloha wrote: post #277
natch wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teslas have plenty of physical buttons. You've been lied to.

I looked at a model 3 at the time I was shopping for my Chrysler 300, and saw with my own eyes. So unless my eyes are lying, no, I dont think I have been.

They are multi function, so just looking won’t quite get you there. There are some surprises there your eyes won’t see.

Like any good UI, the basic uses are easy to get, but there are other features there to be discovered in each button. It’s really well done.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#289

Post by peutetre »

natch wrote: post #272
peutetre wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I'm not interested in setting up an account for every charging network I use.

You don’t have to charge. Just drive a gas car and pay with cash.

Just pay contactless. It's easy. No idiot apps, no extra accounts.

Re: Rivian is opening its charging network to other EVs

#290

Post by mattmaroon »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #285
mattmaroon wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the answer has to be yes. They can easily pull in a few grand a month from the electricity. They generally exist rent-free. They don’t cost that much to install. Maintenance doesn’t seem to be even half the issue for Tesla that it is for the rest but they could also just care more. I suspect it’s both.

tesla has a factory that makes their chargers and equipment. They have standardized chargers, mass production can lead to refining the design, fixing common pain points. Most other companies seem to have taken the pc organ bank strategy where they made it out of almost careless combination of available parts - EA is the poster child. I'm sure careful people tried to make a plan but they all ended up being such a dump…

Yeah, I assume their chargers are better engineered than the competition. And also that since they've got a national footprint they're better able to respond when one goes down. They DO go down, I've seen it, but with EA it seems there's always at least one inoperable in any bank of them.

You'd think now that Tesla is under 50% of EV sales here (and under 20% globally) that this problem will be solved soon, but I really don't know.

Post reply on HN