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Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

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Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#241
post #112

I’m glad there finally seems to be a push to a better standard in North America. I’m really curious how this affects Teslas market share though going forward. Their supercharger network is why we continue with them despite countless other issues. It’s their biggest moat as far as I’m concerned. Now I have significantly more options, and my next car will not be a Tesla. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. Is the brand nam…

First of all, the mission of Tesla is to transition the world to sustainable energy. If you believe them, that should be enough. But, second of all, this also makes business sense. Everyone will have to use the Tesla app, where they can get targeted offers and become a kind of "Tesla Light" customers. People wonder why Tesla doesn't advertise. Well, with these deals, the need for advertising is a lot less than withou…

Not so sure I believe this strategy.

An app isn't going to make me buy a car or Tesla equipment. Aesthetics, utility, and cost are my main purchasing decision dimensions, and Tesla isn't winning those for me. I'm not buying something shaped like a prune that can't haul gear and equipment.

The ads on Uber and other delivery apps are irrelevant to my daily life. Uber claims advertising has generating $500M in ARR, but that's co-mingled with restaurants seeking placement on Uber Eats. Ads for movies and McDonalds on Uber is probably generating a small pittance of that sum.

Furthermore, lots of businesses will get into EV charging when it takes off. Existing gas stations, restaurants, and shopping will undoubtedly join when they believe the timing is right.

FWIW, I'm dreading having to buy an EV. Gasoline works better for my use cases. I don't have a place to charge at home, and I don't want to wait for on-demand fill ups.

I think the push to EVs has been a function of worldwide market and regulation, not necessarily consumer choice.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#242
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that the model 3 performance is still a convincing product, but cars like the Mustang Mach-E and BMW i4 are coming close. A few years ago there was no good option besides tesla, but in another couple years tesla will have fallen behind the competition

BMW in my circles has the reputation as being a brand you buy when you can afford to have a car in the shop most of the time. Most American brands have reputation as just being really poorly built and bad value props. Not sure how either of those two options overcomes that view.

>a brand you buy when you can afford to have a car in the shop most of the time

TBF, unless you are in a Niche market (off roading a land rover) - it's generally hard to buy a bad car today.

Is a Camry more reliable than a 3 series? Yes. But you're talking 4 9s vs 5 under warranty; being near a good dealership with good service is markedly more important than brand reputation. If my Audi/BMW/Volvo are in the shop for a week every other year and they easily give a loaner to cover, does it really matter? At that point, the cup holder being 5% better placed for convenient access matters more.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#243
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife drives a Tesla and I drive newish rental cars on a reasonably frequent basis. So I have a basis for comparison. They are definitely not being beaten by larger players. At least not at this stage. Their software is top notch compared to the mish-mash of home grown and Car Play on other vehicles. And the implementation of AutoSteer (free cut down version of self driving) is far superior to what I've seen in oth…

I’ve personally enjoyed auto steer on every car I’ve driven not a Tesla. Some let you keep your hands off the wheel, and none of them phantom break every couple hundred miles, which is the ultimate deal breaker.

> I’ve personally enjoyed auto steer on every car I’ve driven not a Tesla. Some let you keep your hands off the wheel, and none of them phantom break every couple hundred miles, which is the ultimate deal breaker.

I'm actually curious what systems you're using. I have very limited experience, I have a M3 and a 21 Corolla with Toyota's version.

My M3 has never once just given up on the lanes and stopped steering, but it's a very common occurrence on the Toyota. It just gives up and suddenly you're back to controlling it with no real rhyme or reason to it that I can find.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The long term future of Tesla is a battery manufacturer and a charging network. Those are the two things they are good at. The cars themselves are quickly being beaten out by the larger players.

Not a big fan of Tesla myself, but surely if they figure out self driving that’ll make their cars relevant for the forseeable future? On top of that they seem to be able to make cars cheaper and more quickly than most of the incumbents.

Musk absolutely underestimated the difficulty of full self driving. He's still doing it today. FSD is one of those techs that makes for awesome demos but it has thousands of edge cases that are hard to test for even with millions of vehicle miles recorded in their big AI datacenter.

The tell for me is Hyperloop. That is an optimal environment for FSD, a closed and contained track that has only identical vehicles on it, and yet they still use a human driver.

I only wonder how long it will take before Elon becomes disillusioned, maybe it will never happen. Maybe they'll pull a rabbit out of their hat and actually get it to work. I'm still skeptical.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't generalize "Europe" when you aren't sure. (Also goes for the GP.) I have three-phase power in an 80m² apartment, as that's standard in Denmark. I never saw three-phase power in a house or flat in Britain, but part of the terrible plumbing is 7-9kW electric showers. (Cheaper to install than a shower connected to hot water, landlord doesn't care about the price to run it.)

> Please don't generalize "Europe" when you aren't sure. (Also goes for the GP.) I have three-phase power in an 80m² apartment, as that's standard in Denmark. Now now kids, play nicely. ;-) I think the underlying question we should really be asking here is not willy-waving over whether you have a three-phase supply or not, but rather how large your main fuse is (there's a euphemism for you !). I'm not familiar with D…

>TL;DR you're still not going to have a supercharger at home any time soon.

Yep, and even if you have 3 phases and a large main fuse, the issue remains when you sum all the power needed on a same street in a city.

And I apologize if I seemed to improperly generalize.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla Insurance is a kind of small moat. But I think Tesla is really banking on winning the automotive AI race. They currently don't seem to be winning, but that does appear to be their main gamble. If they can be the first to achieve level 4+ self-driving then they would definitely dominate regardless of charging infrastructure.

> Tesla Insurance is a kind of small moat. Only idiots buy black-box based car insurance (whether Tesla or any other). I mean, come on, insurance companies are already renowned for slippery policy wordings and the desire to get out of paying-out. Do you seriously think an insurance company having access to your driving data is really being done for your benefit ? I would be willing to bet its so that Mr Risk Adjustor…

> Do you seriously think an insurance company having access to your driving data is really being done for your benefit ?

Well yes, there's marginal value for both you and Tesla in excluding aggressive drivers from the program. Some company with worse telemetry eats the cost of the accidents from those drivers.

It's fine to argue that this is a privacy tradeoff you don't think should be legal but there's pretty obviously value to be had for both insurance and customer.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happy to consider a non-Tesla (mostly because I'd really prefer a more traditional gauge cluster and more physical controls), but have struggled to find anything that beats the price for performance of the Model 3 Performance. And yes, I realize I'm a niche buyer.

You're right that the model 3 performance is still a convincing product, but cars like the Mustang Mach-E and BMW i4 are coming close. A few years ago there was no good option besides tesla, but in another couple years tesla will have fallen behind the competition

> "A few years ago there was no good option besides tesla, but in another couple years tesla will have fallen behind the competition"

Much of the competition still struggles with software. Sure you can use Apple CarPlay or whatever for the basics, but as far as the full software suite goes, there isn't yet much that comes close to Tesla's performance, ease-of-use, UX, functionality, hardware integration, automatic over-the-air updates, etc...

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#248
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but keep in mind that if you can pump ten gallons of gas in a minute you're effectively drawing the equivalent of something like 20MW, so in the context of vehicle refueling it's not so crazy If 15 Teslas pass through a stretch of road per minute with full 100kWh battery packs, you could also describe that as 90MW of current, but it's also not really.

I always forget just how energy dense petroleum and its derivatives are..

When charging, the Tesla shows you a little miles per hour figure (how many miles of range you gain per hour of charging) and it can often reach 1000 or so on the super chargers I use frequently. It’s fun to calculate the miles per hour of gas (around 12,000).

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#249
post #112

I’m glad there finally seems to be a push to a better standard in North America. I’m really curious how this affects Teslas market share though going forward. Their supercharger network is why we continue with them despite countless other issues. It’s their biggest moat as far as I’m concerned. Now I have significantly more options, and my next car will not be a Tesla. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. Is the brand nam…

If you thinking about buying an EV between now and 2025 in North America, you need to be a very very big enthusiast of any other brand but not Tesla.

You have a non zero risk of your non tesla car turn into a pumpkin few years after a purchase.

Basically any non tesla EV sold in North America before 2025 will depend on a proper work of that adapter with a particular network. And I explore lots of them the other direction, they are all ugly and make your experience horrible. Compare to just plug and go grab a coffee, with find a converter, plug it, make sure it work, get to the tesla app, make sure that part works...

Your traveling will be a charade of opportunity to charge in a particular network.

On the opposite side of it, if you buy a new or a used Tesla made in 2015, it will still charge you 5 years away from now with no issues in basically any network in North America. Not only tesla.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The long term future of Tesla is a battery manufacturer and a charging network. Those are the two things they are good at. Agree 100%. At present, Tesla really feels like a bit of a "Jack of all trades, master of none" job. I'm certainly no Elon fanboi, but I will happily state that there are clearly a number of things they do well (certain core components and the charging network). But the cars themselves as a who…

> At present, Tesla really feels like a bit of a "Jack of all trades, master of none" job. That's an odd take. Model Y is the best selling vehicle in the world, and the second best selling vehicle in the US after the Ford F-150. It outsells the Corolla, Camry, Rav4, Civic, etc. Look at Mercedes, BMW and Audi sales, they've been plummeting because everyone is buying a Tesla instead. They're also the leading battery st…

> They're also the leading battery storage company and their battery storage business has been growing like crazy.

Do you have a source on this? I assumed Tesla outsourced most of their batteries from CATL, Panasonic, and LG.

https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/2023060514-catl-drops-despi...

CATL seems to be ahead of everyone.

https://thedriven.io/2023/04/21/worlds-largest-battery-maker...

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