4 ms·

Others have responded to the trunk thing, but I will comment about the "non-standard" charging connector. There was no standard available at the time that Tesla

by jsight 7y ago

Others have responded to the trunk thing, but I will comment about the "non-standard" charging connector. There was no standard available at the time that Tesla started deploying thousands of high-KW chargers. It is hard to blame them for choosing their own. Even now, there are only certain regions where the other networks have advantages over Tesla's (coincidentally, the part of the US I'm in is one of those regions). Tesla is currently promising to support other viable networks in the future, presumably by adapters. At the very least, Chademo is expected for the model 3 in the near future, but hopefully CCS as well. Obviously they already support CCS in Europe. Also, keep in mind that GM is a pretty traditional manufacturer and doesn't even give you a CCS charger without paying for an additional DC fast charging option. Tesla isn't perfect, cars aren't perfect, but Tesla's are as good as they get in EVs right now.

kevin_b_er 7y ago
I'm looking forward to a unified standard, but the charger landscape is a confusing mess. There's type 1 and 2 AC charging, US vs Europe. Each of those has a DC charger version with DC charge pins added below the connector. At least these are mostly a form factor issue. Japan's manufactures have been pushing chademo, which has 2 versions itself and uses a completely different signalling protocol. China has yet another standard, with different signalling, but they're working with chademo to try to unify it in a new version. Then Tesla has theirs. At least Tesla is starting to unify around having adapters for the competing standards, though the adapters aren't cheap. I admit, I do like the CCS system if I were a car manufacturer. You make a larger socket and you can support both AC and DC sources in one connector. Alas, it has the two different connector type standards. But it is still all a mess if you're a car maker.
- jsight 7y ago
  Yeah, its a horrible mess, and I think that is a big part of why Tesla's choice was the right one for them, at least at the time. At least Europe has started to standardize on a reasonable variant of CCS (type 2?) and Tesla is starting to just put these on the car with an adapter for the other types (including Tesla's own proprietary one). That makes a lot of sense to me and that standard seems pretty good. I still don't know why the US hasn't done the same thing. Instead the CCS adapters here are huge and clunky, and there are no adapters for Teslas at all. The stations here get an occasional Bolt charging at well below the capability of the charger and that is about it.

by jsight 7y ago

kevin_b_er 7y ago

I'm looking forward to a unified standard, but the charger landscape is a confusing mess. There's type 1 and 2 AC charging, US vs Europe. Each of those has a DC charger version with DC charge pins added below the connector. At least these are mostly a form factor issue. Japan's manufactures have been pushing chademo, which has 2 versions itself and uses a completely different signalling protocol. China has yet another standard, with different signalling, but they're working with chademo to try to unify it in a new version. Then Tesla has theirs. At least Tesla is starting to unify around having adapters for the competing standards, though the adapters aren't cheap. I admit, I do like the CCS system if I were a car manufacturer. You make a larger socket and you can support both AC and DC sources in one connector. Alas, it has the two different connector type standards. But it is still all a mess if you're a car maker.

jsight 7y ago
Yeah, its a horrible mess, and I think that is a big part of why Tesla's choice was the right one for them, at least at the time. At least Europe has started to standardize on a reasonable variant of CCS (type 2?) and Tesla is starting to just put these on the car with an adapter for the other types (including Tesla's own proprietary one). That makes a lot of sense to me and that standard seems pretty good. I still don't know why the US hasn't done the same thing. Instead the CCS adapters here are huge and clunky, and there are no adapters for Teslas at all. The stations here get an occasional Bolt charging at well below the capability of the charger and that is about it.