3 ms·

Being first is great if you are building a social network. But why would it matter when buying a car? Sure, Tesla showed that it was possible (and Nissan with t

by Xixi 6y ago

Being first is great if you are building a social network. But why would it matter when buying a car? Sure, Tesla showed that it was possible (and Nissan with the Leaf), but being affordable matters more than being first. In any case, infrastructure matters even more for EVs. I was in the market for an EV car in Japan, and ended up buying an ICE car, with the intent to switch in 5~10 years when the infrastructure catches up. I live in a brand new building and it's not even equipped for EVs! Crazy. The only EV owners I know have houses. I hope things will change thanks to the new Suga administration that seems somewhat more forward thinking than the Abe one in these matters... We will see.

fastball 6y ago
All of your points just seem to support Tesla. It's not that Tesla was first, it's that they are seriously ahead, and it takes a lot to catch up, and by the time others do, their market share will have been cannibalized. - Tesla battery production is overtaking the rest of the world combined. For electric cars you need batteries, and Tesla has them. Everyone else is at a minimum years behind in this regard. - Tesla's prices keep going down, while some of the most competitive electric cars being released besides Teslas (Porsche Taycan for instance) are more than the price point TSLA was at 10 years ago. - Tesla has the most extensive charging infrastructure of anyone, period.
- vel0city 6y ago
  Tesla might have one of the largest single charging network, but by default in the US they only support their own proprietary chargers. I see far more non-Tesla chargers around in my area. They're different brands, but they all use the same standardized plug. Just go to any site showing chargers in your area. Turn on just the Tesla and Supercharger plugs. Then turn on just the J1772 and CCS plugs. See which one looks to be the bigger network. https://www.plugshare.com/ https://www.plugshare.com/
  - fastball 6y ago
    Yes, but you can plug your Tesla into non-Tesla chargers if you buy an adapter. Doesn't work the other way around (and for many of those 3rd party networks they have the Tesla connector anyway AFAIK).
    - vel0city 6y ago
      True, Teslas these days come with a J1772 to Tesla AC adapter. IIRC they're not compatible with CCS but CCS chargers are more rare than J1772 at the moment. However I often see only J1772 plugs or only Tesla plugs around me. It's rare for places to have both options. Tesla was forced to make CCS compatible versions in Germany IIRC, so they could adopt the industry standard globally but instead choose to continue pushing vendor lock-in instead of open standards. Either way that doesn't change the fact Tesla might be the single biggest network of chargers out there, but they're not the most common chargers out there. The majority of chargers out there will not work on a Tesla without an adapter. If having the largest network of charging systems was really a long term play of theirs, you'd think they'd move to actually supporting the plugs which will probably be on ultimately the majority of cars on the road and take money from everyone instead of only customers of their cars. I question the long term importance of their charging network as more and more J1772/CCS cars get on the market and more J1772/CCS continue coming online. Imagine of Ford and Exxon had some exclusive pump and port agreement where Exxon stations could only sell gas to Ford cars but Ford gave adapters to allow Ford owners to fill anywhere, albeit with a bit more work. Sounds pretty dumb, right?
      - fastball 6y ago
        You seem to be attributing to an attempt at vendor lock-in what can be more easily attributed to the fact that these other "standards" were not common at all when Tesla started building their supercharger network, and once you have inertia it can be hard to stop. It's like people complaining that Apple doesn't use USB-C in their phones, forgetting that when Apple made the switch to Lightning, USB-C didn't exist.
        vel0city 6y ago
  - Zanni 6y ago
    Those J1772 stations are useless unless you've got hours to kill. They charge at under 20mph--usually 18mph, but sometimes 12mph. And, in my experience, fully half of them are broken at any given time. The supercharger network compares favorably against the CCS network.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  > Tesla's prices keep going down, while some of the most competitive electric cars being released besides Teslas (Porsche Taycan for instance) are more than the price point TSLA was at 10 years ago. The best-selling electric car in many European countries is the Renault Zoe now, and it sells for about half the price of the cheapest Tesla.

by Xixi 6y ago

fastball 6y ago

All of your points just seem to support Tesla. It's not that Tesla was first, it's that they are seriously ahead, and it takes a lot to catch up, and by the time others do, their market share will have been cannibalized. - Tesla battery production is overtaking the rest of the world combined. For electric cars you need batteries, and Tesla has them. Everyone else is at a minimum years behind in this regard. - Tesla's prices keep going down, while some of the most competitive electric cars being released besides Teslas (Porsche Taycan for instance) are more than the price point TSLA was at 10 years ago. - Tesla has the most extensive charging infrastructure of anyone, period.

vel0city 6y ago
Tesla might have one of the largest single charging network, but by default in the US they only support their own proprietary chargers. I see far more non-Tesla chargers around in my area. They're different brands, but they all use the same standardized plug. Just go to any site showing chargers in your area. Turn on just the Tesla and Supercharger plugs. Then turn on just the J1772 and CCS plugs. See which one looks to be the bigger network. https://www.plugshare.com/ https://www.plugshare.com/
- fastball 6y ago
  Yes, but you can plug your Tesla into non-Tesla chargers if you buy an adapter. Doesn't work the other way around (and for many of those 3rd party networks they have the Tesla connector anyway AFAIK).
  - vel0city 6y ago
    True, Teslas these days come with a J1772 to Tesla AC adapter. IIRC they're not compatible with CCS but CCS chargers are more rare than J1772 at the moment. However I often see only J1772 plugs or only Tesla plugs around me. It's rare for places to have both options. Tesla was forced to make CCS compatible versions in Germany IIRC, so they could adopt the industry standard globally but instead choose to continue pushing vendor lock-in instead of open standards. Either way that doesn't change the fact Tesla might be the single biggest network of chargers out there, but they're not the most common chargers out there. The majority of chargers out there will not work on a Tesla without an adapter. If having the largest network of charging systems was really a long term play of theirs, you'd think they'd move to actually supporting the plugs which will probably be on ultimately the majority of cars on the road and take money from everyone instead of only customers of their cars. I question the long term importance of their charging network as more and more J1772/CCS cars get on the market and more J1772/CCS continue coming online. Imagine of Ford and Exxon had some exclusive pump and port agreement where Exxon stations could only sell gas to Ford cars but Ford gave adapters to allow Ford owners to fill anywhere, albeit with a bit more work. Sounds pretty dumb, right?
    - fastball 6y ago
      You seem to be attributing to an attempt at vendor lock-in what can be more easily attributed to the fact that these other "standards" were not common at all when Tesla started building their supercharger network, and once you have inertia it can be hard to stop. It's like people complaining that Apple doesn't use USB-C in their phones, forgetting that when Apple made the switch to Lightning, USB-C didn't exist.
      - vel0city 6y ago
- Zanni 6y ago
  Those J1772 stations are useless unless you've got hours to kill. They charge at under 20mph--usually 18mph, but sometimes 12mph. And, in my experience, fully half of them are broken at any given time. The supercharger network compares favorably against the CCS network.
benhurmarcel 6y ago
> Tesla's prices keep going down, while some of the most competitive electric cars being released besides Teslas (Porsche Taycan for instance) are more than the price point TSLA was at 10 years ago. The best-selling electric car in many European countries is the Renault Zoe now, and it sells for about half the price of the cheapest Tesla.