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In my opinion, the Supercharger port (and the junction box) is way more advanced, compact, and cheaper than a CCS port. The Tesla onboard charger is clever enou
by ody4242 8y ago
In my opinion, the Supercharger port (and the junction box) is way more advanced, compact, and cheaper than a CCS port. The Tesla onboard charger is clever enough to sense that it's connected to a DC charger, so they can use the same pins for AC and DC charging.
Otoh, the CCS is a bulky connector + the germans were clever enough to add the PLC protocol as well, to make it even more complex and expensive.
Don't get me wrong, I love standards, and I love, that the EU Model 3 can be charged essentially anywhere, but in my opinion, the Supercharger Type2 connector is better in every aspect, expect for it being proprietary.
- credit_guy 8y agoI remember Tesla saying they are letting anyone use their patents. Was that just some PR stunt?
- spiralx 8y agoPretty much, as it would require the other party to make their own patents available to Tesla, or at least not use them against them - and Tesla just doesn't have anything like the patent portfolio that other manufacturers have, so they would be getting pretty much all the advantage.
- natch 8y agoWho is getting then advantage is arguable depending on the specifics. Tesla is trying to give sustainability an advantage. It will not benefit from the gasoline tech patents of a traditional ICE manufacturer. This kind of patent sharing is pretty common and is done to advance the state of the art, not to grab PR.
- carlivar 8y agoSo, Betamax versus VHS?
- natch 8y agoIt’s not proprietary in the sense that the offer has been made for any car company to use the same connector technology (and even the supercharger network) royalty free. No car companies have taken Tesla up on this offer. The ones that expressed interest wanted Tesla to make needless changes... but part of the deal with Tesla offering the tech is that it has to be done in a way that does not burn extra engineering time for the Tesla team... so the requested changes would not fly.
- stefanfisk 8y agoWhere can one read more about which competitors expressen interest and why it fell through?
- steelframe 8y agoI suspect we can't.
- natch 8y agoI don’t know. Probably these were internal communications between the companies. Where I heard about it was Musk summarized the situation in one of his interviews, but I have no idea which one.