7 ms·

Elon has a long history of just announcing things without details or a plan, so until this is fleshed out I wouldn't get that excited. Thanks to EU regulations

Elon has a long history of just announcing things without details or a plan, so until this is fleshed out I wouldn't get that excited. Thanks to EU regulations, all the superchargers in europe have both the tesla and CCS combo connectors at each stall. Telsa can allow CCS cars to charge with nothing but software. They actually had a bug earlier this year that allowed non-tesla cars to charge for free for a weekend. In north america superchargers only have the telsa connector, which would mean either Tesla will need to offer an adaptor (which would likely have charge rate limits like their Chademo -> tesla adaptor) or add CCS to all their cabinets like they have done in europe (which will take a long time). I suspect this is an offshoot of Norway standing firm on not offering tesla any grants or tax breaks to expand their charging network unless the chargers are publicly available. It wouldn't surprise me this starts in norway and only expands as regulations force them to open up.

Robotbeat 5y ago
I don’t think it’d take a long time. They could just replace like one stall with CCS. The most time consuming parts like permitting and power installation on premises and stuff already is done. They could convert a decent portion of their network to have one stall with CCS in maybe a couple months. But the Tesla power adapter is superior. Smaller, cheaper, simpler, and more user friendly than the chonky CCS or Chademo plus in the US. (The European plug isn’t so bad.) If I could turn back the clock, I’d open up the Tesla plug and mandate all EV makers use it.
- Corrado 5y ago
  Tesla has always offered the charging network and patents for anyone to use. The other automakers chose to go another way, unfortunately. I guess it makes sense from their standpoint; you don't want your product tied to a competitor. But it does seem a bit short sighted on their part.
  - shmoe 5y ago
    I believe the issue always was they'd have to use Tesla's billing infrastructure as there are no screens etc on the superchargers. I hear you though.
    - mavhc 5y ago
      The standards based version of that is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Charge_Point_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Charge_Point_Protocol I've no idea if Tesla use something similar. Certificate built into the car.
      - shmoe 5y ago
        Nope.. and every other vendor is having issues implementing it. The ID.4 from VW is awaiting a software update to enable plug and charge. Tesla's is proprietary.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        theluketaylor 5y ago
        Ford Mustang Mach-e has plug and charge. Some users are having good luck with it, but quite a few are experiencing issues. It mostly works at EA locations.
        shmoe 5y ago
        Exactly.. it's not the "no-brainer" it should be at all yet... and it's been this way for quite some time.
        mavhc 5y ago
        Hardware people can't do software. Tesla is more of a software company than any other car maker, that's why they'll win.
  - theluketaylor 5y ago
    That was a trojan horse offer. Tesla required anyone accepting the deal to give up their right to ever sue tesla over any patent infringement of any kind. Any automaker's legal department that allowed their boss to sign that would have needed to be immediately fired.
    - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
      I specifically remember Elon stating that anyone could just use the technology without even informing Tesla, so I looked it up: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ca6c332f-2cc5-401b-b80d-36473d0754c7 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ca6c332f-2cc5... Indeed, there are no documents for executives to sign, but the patents aren't exactly fully free to use either: Tesla promised not to sue any company infringing on its patents as long as they're acting in "good faith," which obviously has a bunch of caveats (one being that you can't sue Tesla over any other patent related issues). The end result is the same: a decent idea ruined by the lawyers.
      - rsynnott 5y ago
        > a decent idea ruined by the lawyers. Or, more cynically, a publicity stunt, facilitated by lawyers. A lot of "look, you can use our patents!" things fall under this umbrella; they're devised in such a way that the company gets some publicity, but no-one can realistically use the patents.
    - derekp7 5y ago
      So it was essentially a cross-licensing deal that allowed other automakers to use Tesla charging tech (did this include other Tesla-owned patents?), but the others would effectively have to license their entire patent portfolio to Tesla (can't sue is not too far from a blanket license to use).
- rattray 5y ago
  Smart. Depending on the location they might be able to just add a new stall or two with ccs poets and call it a day, and migrate the rest of the stalls more gradually. And of course, use CCS-compatible stalls for all new builds, of which there will probably be a great many as the EV charging station land grab kicks off.
- amenghra 5y ago
  Countries should have anticipated things and standardized EV charging 10+ years ago. It's not only the plug size, it's also enabling me + my neighbors chargers to communicate so we can optimize load on the electric grid. Standardize amperage so that my experience as a user isn't variable. Etc.
  - rattray 5y ago
    If they'd have done that, we'd have missed out on 10+ years of improvements. Now seems like a fine time to standardize, especially since adaptors are feasible.
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      That’s true. The standard 10 years ago was the Chademo plug. Have any of you ever used it? It is HUGE. It’s like lifting up and plugging in an entire vacuum cleaner into the front of your car. The unveiling of Tesla’s supercharger plug 9 years ago was a game changer, and no one has yet equaled it.
      - giobox 5y ago
        It's true it was the standard on early Japanese electric stuff (the Leaf mainly), but it's a bit of an exaggeration to say Chademo was some kind of industry standard 10 years ago. Chademo itself is a creation of Japanese auto-makers plus Panasonic/TEPCO. The J1772 as well as of course Tesla's connector have been far, far more common sights in North America over the last 10 years. Western auto-makers have almost completely ignored Chademo altogether. CCS is a bit larger a connector but not meaningfully so and is just as capable as the Tesla connector feature wise really - can support 350kw DC fast charging and automated payments etc. I'd be pretty happy if Tesla switched the cars over to a standard design like they've done on the Euro cars, assuming reasonable adapters were offered to existing owners.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    No advantage to customers to optimize load to the grid unless customers pay less. But we can barely get smart meters rolled out, and the backlash (in social media and mainstream media) against real-time electricity prices was fierce. Annoying to me that so many seemed to completely dismiss the value of real-time electricity prices after the Texas snowstorm, including a lot of people who now talk about the need to decarbonize quickly and make sacrifices in the West.
- theluketaylor 5y ago
  Making one stall CCS wouldn't be that hard, but without details we have no idea what this will look like or the scope of what Tesla intends to do. This could easily be EU only. I love my model 3 sr+, but am under no illusions about the company failings. Elon shoots his mouth off on twitter all the time and it wouldn't surprise me at all this is the first any tesla staff have heard of this plan, which would mean no one has any idea what this looks like in practice.
- kraig 5y ago
  Is it superior? I have seen people on YouTube wrapping the connectors in wet rags in order to cool it down enough to charge at maximum watts. I've never used one, our Audi is CCS but we have never had to resort to any antics even in 110f weather.
Reason077 5y ago
> ”Thanks to EU regulations, all the superchargers in europe have both the tesla and CCS combo connectors at each stall.” In fact, the newer “V3” Superchargers only have CCS connectors.
- martin_bech 5y ago
  And the “Tesla Connector” is not the Tesla connector in Europe, but Type 2 connection modified. Fully compatible with Type 2 charging.
  - olex 5y ago
    It's compatible one way - the cars (MS/MX) use a Type2 connector for AC charging (conforming to the widely spread standard) and DC charging ("DC-Mid" "standard", what's used on old V1/V2 Superchargers). This allows the cars to use Type2 to charge on any AC charger. But the DC-Mid solution is not found on any other EV, so while the connector is mechanically standardized, no other car except Teslas can charge on non-CCS-retrofitted Superchargers. Thankfully, there are only very few of those left in all of Europe - exactly one in Germany (Wiesbaden), iirc 2-3 more elsewhere, all others are either CCS-retrofitted or CCS-only V3s.
    - rektide 5y ago
      Wandering off topic (what an epic start, TIL, thanks Norway!), but I gotta say it feels very weird to me having AC charging be the standard. It feels a lot more elegant to me to put a lot of the complexity on the charging station rather than in the vehicle. And if you have, for example, a solar powered charge station, now your charge station needs a big inverter to make AC, which the car then goes about turning back into DC.
      - martin_bech 5y ago
        But you can easily do DC charging now. CCS is made for DC charging, but can fallback to Type 2 AC. All EVs in Europe are CCS
matsemann 5y ago
> Elon has a long history of just announcing things without details or a plan, so until this is fleshed out I wouldn't get that excited. It's been known in Norway for a little while, since Tesla applied for some grants or something only available for publicly usable chargers. So it's not just something promised, it's been acted upon already Edit: https://electrek.co/2021/06/24/tesla-confirms-plan-open-supercharger-network-other-automakers-next-year/ https://electrek.co/2021/06/24/tesla-confirms-plan-open-supe...
- theluketaylor 5y ago
  For sure, but their hand was forced in Norway (well done) and european superchargers already have CCS plugs. Is this coming EU wide? World-wide? If world, how will tesla handle ~10,000 north american supercharger cabinets not having CCS plugs? How will they handle the many California and EU regs that public chargers must display the amount of power dispensed and the price since superchargers don't have screens? The devil is in the details of both scope and execution, so until tesla clarifies the specifics I'm going to believe this is Norway only and Elon was angling for some good press without having to actually do anything tesla was already committed to doing.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  Electrek is interpreting a local subsidy agreement as though it were national law. Tesla can comply with this requirement simply by inviting a third party to provide chargers for non-Tesla vehicles on the site. They already have this at the Nebbenes site. See https://www.rb.no/nyheter/elbil/bil/apnet-verdens-storste-ladestasjon/s/5-43-350212 https://www.rb.no/nyheter/elbil/bil/apnet-verdens-storste-la... (you can use Google Translate just like Electrek did). If this article is representative of Electrek's journalism I think everyone should take their articles with several pinches of salt.
beervirus 5y ago
Funding secured.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Robotbeat 5y ago

I don’t think it’d take a long time. They could just replace like one stall with CCS. The most time consuming parts like permitting and power installation on premises and stuff already is done. They could convert a decent portion of their network to have one stall with CCS in maybe a couple months. But the Tesla power adapter is superior. Smaller, cheaper, simpler, and more user friendly than the chonky CCS or Chademo plus in the US. (The European plug isn’t so bad.) If I could turn back the clock, I’d open up the Tesla plug and mandate all EV makers use it.

Corrado 5y ago
Tesla has always offered the charging network and patents for anyone to use. The other automakers chose to go another way, unfortunately. I guess it makes sense from their standpoint; you don't want your product tied to a competitor. But it does seem a bit short sighted on their part.
- shmoe 5y ago
  I believe the issue always was they'd have to use Tesla's billing infrastructure as there are no screens etc on the superchargers. I hear you though.
  - mavhc 5y ago
    The standards based version of that is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Charge_Point_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Charge_Point_Protocol I've no idea if Tesla use something similar. Certificate built into the car.
    - shmoe 5y ago
      Nope.. and every other vendor is having issues implementing it. The ID.4 from VW is awaiting a software update to enable plug and charge. Tesla's is proprietary.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - theluketaylor 5y ago
        Ford Mustang Mach-e has plug and charge. Some users are having good luck with it, but quite a few are experiencing issues. It mostly works at EA locations.
        shmoe 5y ago
        Exactly.. it's not the "no-brainer" it should be at all yet... and it's been this way for quite some time.
        mavhc 5y ago
        Hardware people can't do software. Tesla is more of a software company than any other car maker, that's why they'll win.
- theluketaylor 5y ago
  That was a trojan horse offer. Tesla required anyone accepting the deal to give up their right to ever sue tesla over any patent infringement of any kind. Any automaker's legal department that allowed their boss to sign that would have needed to be immediately fired.
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
    I specifically remember Elon stating that anyone could just use the technology without even informing Tesla, so I looked it up: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ca6c332f-2cc5-401b-b80d-36473d0754c7 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ca6c332f-2cc5... Indeed, there are no documents for executives to sign, but the patents aren't exactly fully free to use either: Tesla promised not to sue any company infringing on its patents as long as they're acting in "good faith," which obviously has a bunch of caveats (one being that you can't sue Tesla over any other patent related issues). The end result is the same: a decent idea ruined by the lawyers.
    - rsynnott 5y ago
      > a decent idea ruined by the lawyers. Or, more cynically, a publicity stunt, facilitated by lawyers. A lot of "look, you can use our patents!" things fall under this umbrella; they're devised in such a way that the company gets some publicity, but no-one can realistically use the patents.
  - derekp7 5y ago
    So it was essentially a cross-licensing deal that allowed other automakers to use Tesla charging tech (did this include other Tesla-owned patents?), but the others would effectively have to license their entire patent portfolio to Tesla (can't sue is not too far from a blanket license to use).
rattray 5y ago
Smart. Depending on the location they might be able to just add a new stall or two with ccs poets and call it a day, and migrate the rest of the stalls more gradually. And of course, use CCS-compatible stalls for all new builds, of which there will probably be a great many as the EV charging station land grab kicks off.
amenghra 5y ago
Countries should have anticipated things and standardized EV charging 10+ years ago. It's not only the plug size, it's also enabling me + my neighbors chargers to communicate so we can optimize load on the electric grid. Standardize amperage so that my experience as a user isn't variable. Etc.
- rattray 5y ago
  If they'd have done that, we'd have missed out on 10+ years of improvements. Now seems like a fine time to standardize, especially since adaptors are feasible.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    That’s true. The standard 10 years ago was the Chademo plug. Have any of you ever used it? It is HUGE. It’s like lifting up and plugging in an entire vacuum cleaner into the front of your car. The unveiling of Tesla’s supercharger plug 9 years ago was a game changer, and no one has yet equaled it.
    - giobox 5y ago
      It's true it was the standard on early Japanese electric stuff (the Leaf mainly), but it's a bit of an exaggeration to say Chademo was some kind of industry standard 10 years ago. Chademo itself is a creation of Japanese auto-makers plus Panasonic/TEPCO. The J1772 as well as of course Tesla's connector have been far, far more common sights in North America over the last 10 years. Western auto-makers have almost completely ignored Chademo altogether. CCS is a bit larger a connector but not meaningfully so and is just as capable as the Tesla connector feature wise really - can support 350kw DC fast charging and automated payments etc. I'd be pretty happy if Tesla switched the cars over to a standard design like they've done on the Euro cars, assuming reasonable adapters were offered to existing owners.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  No advantage to customers to optimize load to the grid unless customers pay less. But we can barely get smart meters rolled out, and the backlash (in social media and mainstream media) against real-time electricity prices was fierce. Annoying to me that so many seemed to completely dismiss the value of real-time electricity prices after the Texas snowstorm, including a lot of people who now talk about the need to decarbonize quickly and make sacrifices in the West.
theluketaylor 5y ago
Making one stall CCS wouldn't be that hard, but without details we have no idea what this will look like or the scope of what Tesla intends to do. This could easily be EU only. I love my model 3 sr+, but am under no illusions about the company failings. Elon shoots his mouth off on twitter all the time and it wouldn't surprise me at all this is the first any tesla staff have heard of this plan, which would mean no one has any idea what this looks like in practice.
kraig 5y ago
Is it superior? I have seen people on YouTube wrapping the connectors in wet rags in order to cool it down enough to charge at maximum watts. I've never used one, our Audi is CCS but we have never had to resort to any antics even in 110f weather.

Reason077 5y ago

> ”Thanks to EU regulations, all the superchargers in europe have both the tesla and CCS combo connectors at each stall.” In fact, the newer “V3” Superchargers only have CCS connectors.

martin_bech 5y ago
And the “Tesla Connector” is not the Tesla connector in Europe, but Type 2 connection modified. Fully compatible with Type 2 charging.
- olex 5y ago
  It's compatible one way - the cars (MS/MX) use a Type2 connector for AC charging (conforming to the widely spread standard) and DC charging ("DC-Mid" "standard", what's used on old V1/V2 Superchargers). This allows the cars to use Type2 to charge on any AC charger. But the DC-Mid solution is not found on any other EV, so while the connector is mechanically standardized, no other car except Teslas can charge on non-CCS-retrofitted Superchargers. Thankfully, there are only very few of those left in all of Europe - exactly one in Germany (Wiesbaden), iirc 2-3 more elsewhere, all others are either CCS-retrofitted or CCS-only V3s.
  - rektide 5y ago
    Wandering off topic (what an epic start, TIL, thanks Norway!), but I gotta say it feels very weird to me having AC charging be the standard. It feels a lot more elegant to me to put a lot of the complexity on the charging station rather than in the vehicle. And if you have, for example, a solar powered charge station, now your charge station needs a big inverter to make AC, which the car then goes about turning back into DC.
    - martin_bech 5y ago
      But you can easily do DC charging now. CCS is made for DC charging, but can fallback to Type 2 AC. All EVs in Europe are CCS

matsemann 5y ago

> Elon has a long history of just announcing things without details or a plan, so until this is fleshed out I wouldn't get that excited. It's been known in Norway for a little while, since Tesla applied for some grants or something only available for publicly usable chargers. So it's not just something promised, it's been acted upon already Edit: https://electrek.co/2021/06/24/tesla-confirms-plan-open-supercharger-network-other-automakers-next-year/ https://electrek.co/2021/06/24/tesla-confirms-plan-open-supe...

theluketaylor 5y ago
For sure, but their hand was forced in Norway (well done) and european superchargers already have CCS plugs. Is this coming EU wide? World-wide? If world, how will tesla handle ~10,000 north american supercharger cabinets not having CCS plugs? How will they handle the many California and EU regs that public chargers must display the amount of power dispensed and the price since superchargers don't have screens? The devil is in the details of both scope and execution, so until tesla clarifies the specifics I'm going to believe this is Norway only and Elon was angling for some good press without having to actually do anything tesla was already committed to doing.
kwhitefoot 5y ago
Electrek is interpreting a local subsidy agreement as though it were national law. Tesla can comply with this requirement simply by inviting a third party to provide chargers for non-Tesla vehicles on the site. They already have this at the Nebbenes site. See https://www.rb.no/nyheter/elbil/bil/apnet-verdens-storste-ladestasjon/s/5-43-350212 https://www.rb.no/nyheter/elbil/bil/apnet-verdens-storste-la... (you can use Google Translate just like Electrek did). If this article is representative of Electrek's journalism I think everyone should take their articles with several pinches of salt.

beervirus 5y ago

Funding secured.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]