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Isn't the "charging network" a thing that shouldn't be vendor locked? Imagine if every petrol pump was tied to specific makes of cars? Any current vendor lock

Isn't the "charging network" a thing that shouldn't be vendor locked? Imagine if every petrol pump was tied to specific makes of cars? Any current vendor lock-in of charging is surely at risk at being legislated away, by insisting that EV charging is done through a standard port like refueling petrol/diesel vehicles. If governments were serious about electric vehicles as a way of improving air quality they would legislate that already.

jrbuhl 7y ago
Tesla payed a lot of money (billions) to build the super charger network. Money no government or other company seems to want to spend. Legislating away vendor lock-in would just cause companies to be even more averse to capital investment in recharging infrastructure.
- WBrad 7y ago
  Elon has received billions from the US government across his companies. It'd be a slap in the face to the entire US population for Tesla to have a 100% proprietary charging network when we helped get the company going.
  - _ph_ 7y ago
    Did he? What kind of government money did Tesla get? I am not aware of any specific money paid to Tesla, only general benefits for electric cars, which were paid to the buyers, not Tesla. Not like GM, which got billions in a government-bailout, which they used to build their charging network /s.
  - xedeon 7y ago
    You mean the $451.8M Department of Energy loan they used to buy the old NUMMI Toyata plant? Yeah.... They paid that off nine years early with interest. Try again. https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-repays-department-energy-loan-nine-years-early https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-repays-department-energy-lo... Meanwhile, why don't we talk about the GM bailout money? If you can cite a source for the "billions" you mentioned, that would be great to read, since I must've missed that one.
    - jsight 7y ago
      I'm pretty sure that Tesla managed to get at least 400,000 cars sold in the US before fully phasing out of the tax credit. That's between 1.5 billion and 2.5 billion, depending upon how you estimate it. EDIT: Also, this amounts to fewer than 50,000 cars in revenue. Sales restrictions in various states have probably cost them more in sales than they gained in tax benefits.
      - xedeon 7y ago
        I'm not sure you understand how the BEV tax credit works. First of all, it's the customer that gets the refund NOT Tesla. Second, the buyer has to owe enough in liabilities to be even be eligible for it.
        jsight 7y ago
        I absolutely do understand that. But there are economic principles at play here too. A $7,500 rebate is effectively a lower price without costing the manufacturer anything. While it is true that the buy has to meet the $7,500 threshold for that to work (which is not insignificant) for much of the lifespan of rebate availability, the cars were averaging >60k. Hopefully most people buying cars in that price range have incomes that make $7,500 in tax rebates possible. By the time that the prices had dropped to 50k, the rebates where closer to $3,700. How many were sold at each range and what percentage of the rebate was accessible? Hard to say... thus the range of possible subsidies. Either way, though, this was effectively a big help to the business.
        davidgould 7y ago
        It is now a hindrance as every other EV maker (except soon GM) gets the subsidy to compete against Tesla which no longer does.
        jsight 7y ago
        Yeah, definitely... and it looks like Ford might actually enter the phaseout next, making it purely a subsidy for foreign automakers.
- oblio 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure gas station networks weren't built with public money. And other companies are investing in charger networks: https://ionity.eu/ https://ionity.eu/ or https://www.electrifyamerica.com/index https://www.electrifyamerica.com/index At least in the EU I'm 99% sure that the EU will mandate (if it hasn't already) a standard charging interface. Don't know about the US, it's a bit like the Wild West in this regard...
  - _ph_ 7y ago
    The EU has a standard charging interface, Type 2 (AC) and CCS (DC). The Model 3 has both and most superchargers in Europe got retrofitted with CCS-Plugs. Cars of other manufacturers currently still cannot use it however.
  - ssheth 7y ago
    Ionity just came out with a _500%_ increase in cost of charging starting in February. https://electrek.co/2020/01/17/ionity-increases-electric-vehicle-charging-prices-500-percent-january-31/ https://electrek.co/2020/01/17/ionity-increases-electric-veh... Tesla charges about €0.33/kWh at most in Europe whereas Ionity will be charging €0.79/kWh .. which will make EV charging even more expensive than gas at that point. This type of crazy price structures are why none of the EV charging networks can get enough traction / users to actually be profitable and build even more stations.
  - davidgould 7y ago
    Electrify America is mainly funded by VW as part of the Diesel-gate settlement. So not entirely voluntarily.
xedeon 7y ago
Tesla has consistently said the Supercharger Network is open for any manufacturer to adapt. " "Tesla is aware of these problems. CEO Elon Musk first floated the idea of sharing its Supercharger network in 2015, but with only a few hundred Superchargers operating at the time, the proposals did not gain any momentum." "Tesla’s chief technology officer JB Straubel has strongly suggested that plans are now underway. He said to Electrek: ‘For things like Supercharger, we are actively talking to other carmakers and we are trying to figure out a structure to work with them.’" From: https://autovistagroup.com/news-and-insights/tesla-points-opening-its-supercharger-network-other-carmakers https://autovistagroup.com/news-and-insights/tesla-points-op... But instead of doing that, other manufacturers designed much inferior alternatives that are a UI/Customer experience nightmare to use. Tesla Supercharger: 1. You pull up. 2. get out of the car. 3. Plug-in the cable and charge. It's that simple and intuitive. You get billed from your Tesla account. Because the transaction is tied to your VIN. Other EV/High Speed charging: 1. You pull up. 2. Get out of the car. 3. Figure out how to use the menu. 4. Grab your wallet to either pay via card or RFID. 5. Pay and cross your finger it works. 5. Finally you can charge.
- Spivak 7y ago
  I feel like you're painting the second option as bad when it's exactly the same flow as buying gas. Nothing about paying for electricity needs an account and more than buying gas does. I agree that Tesla's system is pretty slick but the alternative isn't bad.
  - jsight 7y ago
    When your stops are 15-20 minutes instead of 5, every small reduction is even more critical.
  - NickM 7y ago
    In theory yeah it shouldn't be that bad. In practice there are many different third-party charge providers, and they all have their own RFID cards you have to order in advance after setting up accounts and adding payment methods and whatnot. Or if you don't have the special RFID card that matches the station you want to charge at, you might be able to download an app and set up an account on your phone, but a lot of charging station apps are buggy and hard to use. Many of these third-party charging stations are also unreliable, or only have one or two plugs which may be occupied when you show up. In practice the whole third-party charging ecosystem is just a mess and the Supercharger network has none of these problems.

jrbuhl 7y ago

Tesla payed a lot of money (billions) to build the super charger network. Money no government or other company seems to want to spend. Legislating away vendor lock-in would just cause companies to be even more averse to capital investment in recharging infrastructure.

WBrad 7y ago
Elon has received billions from the US government across his companies. It'd be a slap in the face to the entire US population for Tesla to have a 100% proprietary charging network when we helped get the company going.
- _ph_ 7y ago
  Did he? What kind of government money did Tesla get? I am not aware of any specific money paid to Tesla, only general benefits for electric cars, which were paid to the buyers, not Tesla. Not like GM, which got billions in a government-bailout, which they used to build their charging network /s.
- xedeon 7y ago
  You mean the $451.8M Department of Energy loan they used to buy the old NUMMI Toyata plant? Yeah.... They paid that off nine years early with interest. Try again. https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-repays-department-energy-loan-nine-years-early https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-repays-department-energy-lo... Meanwhile, why don't we talk about the GM bailout money? If you can cite a source for the "billions" you mentioned, that would be great to read, since I must've missed that one.
  - jsight 7y ago
    I'm pretty sure that Tesla managed to get at least 400,000 cars sold in the US before fully phasing out of the tax credit. That's between 1.5 billion and 2.5 billion, depending upon how you estimate it. EDIT: Also, this amounts to fewer than 50,000 cars in revenue. Sales restrictions in various states have probably cost them more in sales than they gained in tax benefits.
    - xedeon 7y ago
      I'm not sure you understand how the BEV tax credit works. First of all, it's the customer that gets the refund NOT Tesla. Second, the buyer has to owe enough in liabilities to be even be eligible for it.
      - jsight 7y ago
        I absolutely do understand that. But there are economic principles at play here too. A $7,500 rebate is effectively a lower price without costing the manufacturer anything. While it is true that the buy has to meet the $7,500 threshold for that to work (which is not insignificant) for much of the lifespan of rebate availability, the cars were averaging >60k. Hopefully most people buying cars in that price range have incomes that make $7,500 in tax rebates possible. By the time that the prices had dropped to 50k, the rebates where closer to $3,700. How many were sold at each range and what percentage of the rebate was accessible? Hard to say... thus the range of possible subsidies. Either way, though, this was effectively a big help to the business.
        davidgould 7y ago
        It is now a hindrance as every other EV maker (except soon GM) gets the subsidy to compete against Tesla which no longer does.
        jsight 7y ago
        Yeah, definitely... and it looks like Ford might actually enter the phaseout next, making it purely a subsidy for foreign automakers.
oblio 7y ago
I'm pretty sure gas station networks weren't built with public money. And other companies are investing in charger networks: https://ionity.eu/ https://ionity.eu/ or https://www.electrifyamerica.com/index https://www.electrifyamerica.com/index At least in the EU I'm 99% sure that the EU will mandate (if it hasn't already) a standard charging interface. Don't know about the US, it's a bit like the Wild West in this regard...
- _ph_ 7y ago
  The EU has a standard charging interface, Type 2 (AC) and CCS (DC). The Model 3 has both and most superchargers in Europe got retrofitted with CCS-Plugs. Cars of other manufacturers currently still cannot use it however.
- ssheth 7y ago
  Ionity just came out with a _500%_ increase in cost of charging starting in February. https://electrek.co/2020/01/17/ionity-increases-electric-vehicle-charging-prices-500-percent-january-31/ https://electrek.co/2020/01/17/ionity-increases-electric-veh... Tesla charges about €0.33/kWh at most in Europe whereas Ionity will be charging €0.79/kWh .. which will make EV charging even more expensive than gas at that point. This type of crazy price structures are why none of the EV charging networks can get enough traction / users to actually be profitable and build even more stations.
- davidgould 7y ago
  Electrify America is mainly funded by VW as part of the Diesel-gate settlement. So not entirely voluntarily.

xedeon 7y ago

Tesla has consistently said the Supercharger Network is open for any manufacturer to adapt. " "Tesla is aware of these problems. CEO Elon Musk first floated the idea of sharing its Supercharger network in 2015, but with only a few hundred Superchargers operating at the time, the proposals did not gain any momentum." "Tesla’s chief technology officer JB Straubel has strongly suggested that plans are now underway. He said to Electrek: ‘For things like Supercharger, we are actively talking to other carmakers and we are trying to figure out a structure to work with them.’" From: https://autovistagroup.com/news-and-insights/tesla-points-opening-its-supercharger-network-other-carmakers https://autovistagroup.com/news-and-insights/tesla-points-op... But instead of doing that, other manufacturers designed much inferior alternatives that are a UI/Customer experience nightmare to use. Tesla Supercharger: 1. You pull up. 2. get out of the car. 3. Plug-in the cable and charge. It's that simple and intuitive. You get billed from your Tesla account. Because the transaction is tied to your VIN. Other EV/High Speed charging: 1. You pull up. 2. Get out of the car. 3. Figure out how to use the menu. 4. Grab your wallet to either pay via card or RFID. 5. Pay and cross your finger it works. 5. Finally you can charge.

Spivak 7y ago
I feel like you're painting the second option as bad when it's exactly the same flow as buying gas. Nothing about paying for electricity needs an account and more than buying gas does. I agree that Tesla's system is pretty slick but the alternative isn't bad.
- jsight 7y ago
  When your stops are 15-20 minutes instead of 5, every small reduction is even more critical.
- NickM 7y ago
  In theory yeah it shouldn't be that bad. In practice there are many different third-party charge providers, and they all have their own RFID cards you have to order in advance after setting up accounts and adding payment methods and whatnot. Or if you don't have the special RFID card that matches the station you want to charge at, you might be able to download an app and set up an account on your phone, but a lot of charging station apps are buggy and hard to use. Many of these third-party charging stations are also unreliable, or only have one or two plugs which may be occupied when you show up. In practice the whole third-party charging ecosystem is just a mess and the Supercharger network has none of these problems.