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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

#71

Post by Tuna-Fish »

piinbinary wrote: post #34

I wonder if Tesla is repositioning from being a Ford to being an Exxon

I don't think the business case for that closes.

EVs are still overwhelmingly charged overnight at home. As they percolate to lower price points, that will change somewhat, but ultimately the total spend on charging stations is just too low to be much more than a distraction for a company the size of Tesla. The reason they built the supercharger network was that it was needed to sell cars, and now that they have it they might as well make money with it. I doubt it's much more than that.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#72

Post by abakker »

jancsika wrote: post #55

Would love to hear fast how charging stations will scale in a way that beats the current price and speed of filling up a car with gasoline. I mean, even in a small town with, say, three gas stations, there are peak times when all the spots are taken. Average fueling time is probably a few minutes. How to switch that to an all-electric system? + build a significantly higher number of fast electric charges than there a…

as an EV owner, I suspect the answer is: home charging. Most people with EVs can start their day with a full charge, every day, so maybe the answer is that the gas station model will be relevant to many fewer people - e.g. people who have to drive more than their range every day, people with no plugs at home, etc).

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#73

Post by simondotau »

piinbinary wrote: post #34

I wonder if Tesla is repositioning from being a Ford to being an Exxon

Despite being one of its most visible operations, the supercharger network is an utterly minuscule part of Tesla's overall business. It's unlikely to ever represent much more than 1% of Tesla's profit.

There's never going to be big money in vehicle charging because the vast majority of charging occurs at the owner's premises, and there's no technical impediment stopping the remainder from being a highly competitive industry.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#74

Post by shmoe »

amluto wrote: post #60
outlace wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if there are any studies on this but the perception amongst EV users that I'm aware of is that NACS is a very reliable system (low rate of charging stall breakdowns) compared to CCS chargers that seem to break down quite frequently. However, it is unclear if this is due to the technology difference between CCS and NACS or if it's just due to the poor implementation of CCS charger infrastructure.

I think it’s incentives. If Tesla chargers break and stay broken, then Tesla owners get mad. (And Tesla chargers seem to break or malfunction with some regularity — they’re not indestructible. But they get fixed, and there are always more than one or two chargers at a site.) The third party chargers don’t seem to act like they have a reputation to uphold. Also, I’m not convinced they’re even really motivated to have…

Like you said, the law of numbers.. if a Tesla stall is out theres usually 7 others to choose from. Any other network may have one or no alternatives (they're all broken sometimes).

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#75

Post by asynchronous »

jancsika wrote: post #55

Would love to hear fast how charging stations will scale in a way that beats the current price and speed of filling up a car with gasoline. I mean, even in a small town with, say, three gas stations, there are peak times when all the spots are taken. Average fueling time is probably a few minutes. How to switch that to an all-electric system? + build a significantly higher number of fast electric charges than there a…

> they are higher than current gas prices

I am not aware of any electric charging station on the planet that costs more than gas does in the same area.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#76

Post by shmoe »

belval wrote: post #36
echelon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is NACS superior to CCS in any way apart from install base? I was under the impression NACS was inferior.

I've used both and while from a technical standpoint CCS might be superior (I have no idea), in practice NACS is sleeker and feels less clunky. Is that a good reason to adopt a standard that isn't open? Probably not. Does the average customer cares and will it have an impact on their day to day? Probably not. EDIT: Seems like NACS is open after all so I don't really understand why we would bother with CCS.

its called NACS because they opened it up.. didn't really have much of a name before.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#77

Post by bryanlarsen »

harshaw wrote: post #56

Is there any technical reason you can't build an adapter from NACS to CCS1? We have adapters for Tesla destination chargers (NACS without fast charging??) to J1772 and they work just fine.

According to the press release, they will be building those adapters and they will be available in 2024.

Pre ~2020 North American Tesla's can't speak the CCS protocol and need a $200 upgrade to speak it. Presumably many of the Superchargers don't either. I imagine the delay is to upgrade the Superchargers to speak the CCS protocol so that a dumb adapter may be used rather than having to build an expensive smart adapter that can do protocol conversion.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#78

Post by conk »

pathartl wrote: post #22

I'm not an EV user, so I need some clarification. Is NACS actually a better connector? Or is it just more abundant at the moment? Technology Connections did a deep dive on CCS and it seems like it's a more flexible connector with a truly open standard. The argument for NACS I've seen is that it's a little sleeker (does this really matter all that much?) and it's already on Tesla's supercharger network.

CCS current spec/design can deliver up to 350kW (although few if any cars can take advantage of that today).

NACS claims it can provide up to 1MW (1000A @ 1000V). I think it will be a while before we see cars able to charge anywhere near this, but there is a trend right now of big EV pickups with massive batteries. Higher power chargers means faster charge times.

The only downside I see with NACS is you can’t level 2 charge using 3-phase power. This isn’t really an issue in North America because it’s super rare to see 3 phase power at someone’s home. In most of Europe homes do have 3-phase power and large loads like an EV are required to use it. This is one reason why Tesla uses CCS2 in Europe. The NACS connect doesn’t have the space for a 3rd power pin.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#79

Post by sputter_token »

Tagbert wrote: post #37
kozziollek wrote: post #26

Offtopic: could people that write news titles please learn how to capitalize words? Or can we make sure that at AI will know it, when most of news are written by it? Took me 3 tries to parse the title. "Rivian Joins Forces" - is that name of an organization? - "with Tesla"... nope, that doesn't make sense. "Rivan Joins forces" (somebody to do something), syntax error got "with". "Rivan joins forces with Tesla" - yay!…

In titles, almost all words are capitalized (except for small word like articles of speech).

I think "with" should be capitalized but "for" should not. I believe AP style guide says that propositions that are four or more letters should be capitalized.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#80

Post by rblatz »

echelon wrote: post #24
bpodgursky wrote: post #17

At this point, the rate at which automakers NACS support is a good proxy for corporate malaise. Everyone sees the writing on the wall for CCS, and if an automaker takes another couple months to announce a migration it simply means the executive leadership has no clue what they are doing with regards to EVs.

Is NACS superior to CCS in any way apart from install base? I was under the impression NACS was inferior.

The form factor is significantly smaller, which means it’s easier to use. But more importantly the charging connector has no moving parts. A common failure on CCS chargers is that the locking pin breaks and the charger will no longer stay firmly attached to the vehicle causing charging issues. On the NACS adapter the locking pin is on the vehicle.

Charging infrastructure sees significantly more duty cycles than an individual car so it makes sense to move the wear part to the vehicle.

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