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>With this pilot, some stations are now accessible to Non-Tesla EV drivers in selected countries via the Tesla app Why should it be necessary to install softwa

• meragrin_ 5y ago
  > Why should it be necessary to install software in order to fuel a vehicle? What benefit exists for the consumer? As far as gas pumps and chargers, less chance of the interface being vandalized? In Tesla's case, I would imagine it is more an easy adaptation to current infrastructure without major changes to the chargers themselves.
• davedx 5y ago
  It's not necessary for regular charging poles, but you do need some way to identify yourself. Using an app is a bit more environmentally friendly than mailing out loads of plastic cards. Personally I don't know why chargepoles don't just support chip and pin, at least in Europe - almost all parking places here do now.
  • kzrdude 5y ago
    Why identify yourself? Isn't it enough to use a payment system?
    • barelysapient 5y ago
      Probably because Tesla isn't into retail point of sale and would rather reuse existing app based infrastructure.
      • natch 5y ago
        Also important to note Tesla drivers don’t need to use the app for charging. Although it does have helpful features if they do, like being able to check on the charge remotely. The described experience of selecting a charger, pressing start charging / stop charging etc. is only for non-Teslas because they don’t have the integration.
        • vel0city 5y ago
          > is only for non-Teslas because they don’t have the integration. Several non-Tesla models support a standardized protocol to negotiate billing information in the charging handshake. Its a matter of once again Tesla using a proprietary system instead of adopting industry standards.
          • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
            > Its a matter of once again Tesla using a proprietary system instead of adopting industry standards. Ah, you mean there is already an industry standard around this? That's great, but could you tell us what it is (surely the standard that Tesla isn't following has a name or something)?
            • vel0city 5y ago
              The standard is the easy to remember ISO 15118. Not all EVs support it yet, and for sure many charging stations don't implement it, but there is an international signaling standard to communicate this data which theoretically everyone can implement and participate in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15118 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15118
              • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
                Thanks. It looks like 4 or 5 vehicles support it starting in 2021. Hopefully Tesla will join them someday.
    • hadrien01 5y ago
      Ionity chargers (a majority of fast chargers in Europe) are made by a consortium of European car manufacturers, and they strongly nudge you to use their subscriptions (either sold directly or trough the manufacturers). If you try to pay directly, the experience is miserable, most certainly on purpose.
      • InTheArena 5y ago
        Non-tesla chargers in the US are also awful - different payment models, broken chargers, etc.
      • kzrdude 5y ago
        That's embarrassing. Another benefit to fossil fuels then. If they don't up their game lawmakers might even catch notice and step in?
    • davedx 5y ago
      How would that work? Tesla would need to install card readers at every supercharger stall?
      • iqanq 5y ago
        Is this ironic? Even mcdonalds self-serve kiosks have a card reader each.
        • fonix 5y ago
          That's fine that MCD does that but Tesla already has 30k+ stations around the USA with no reader. A retrofit to include that wouldn't be cheap OR fast and it would introduce another point of failure.
          • Handytinge 5y ago
            You know McDonalds had tens of thousands of locations before they had self service kiosks, right? They had to "retrofit" them in too.
      • ajford 5y ago
        You mean like every pay-at-the-pump gas stall has for something like a decade? I hate this app payment system for chargers. I spent something like 30 minutes once trying to get the ChargePoint app to play nice with my phone (didn't want to install on my Motorola phone) then once I finally got it loaded it took another 15 minutes to get my card added and turn on the charger. Then it finally told me the charger wasn't working after it tried to activate the charge cycle. I eventually gave up and found a hotel 10 minutes away that happened to have a free charge stall. Took the front desk a box of fresh donuts and asked them if I could spend 30 minutes in their lobby so I could get enough charge to make it home in my Nissan Leaf. Luckily they were nice enough to let me use it and I eventually made it home.
      • kzrdude 5y ago
        They could go with NFC only (swipe card or phone), that's at least one app-less and standardized payment system.
    • spicybright 5y ago
      Self serve gas pumps solved this >60 years ago. No advantage (except for Tesla's) to collect more data.
      • kzrdude 5y ago
        Avoiding card fees is a legitimate thing, I admit
        • HWR_14 5y ago
          How are they getting paid without fees? Don't you pay via card thru the app? Or do they pay 30% to Apple and Google (unlikely)
• awestroke 5y ago
  Because in this case it's 100x faster to start charging via the app, and there are no card readers at Tesla's superchargers anyway - how else would you pay?
  • hadrien01 5y ago
    So in the end you have one card for all chargers... except Tesla's. In Europe most charging infrastructure can be accessed through most subscriptions, even those from competitors.
    • theshrike79 5y ago
      ...At a roaming price, which can be up to 500% of the real price. No-one uses that roaming crap unless they just bought a new car and either don't know better or have some kind of brand-specific deal for a limited time.
    • zepto 5y ago
      Why do you justify that conclusion? There is no reason Tesla couldn’t participate is such a subscription. The app is just because there is no card reader at the charger.
      • natch 5y ago
        And because the non Tesla car doesn’t identify the car (and thus indirectly the payment account) to the charger as a Tesla automatically does.
• deleted 5y ago
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• FractalParadigm 5y ago
  I'd wager it's the same reason they're getting rid of parking pay booths and parking meters - it's a hell of a lot cheaper for people to install your app and pay through that, than installing traditional payment options. Why would you pay for the debit/credit terminal, then the monthly fee to connect it to the internet? If people want to use your service so badly they'll install your app.
  • haspok 5y ago
    You mean of course it is simpler and cheaper for the provider, not for "people" (the users). For actual users nothing beats the simplicity of paying via contactless card (or mobile) payment solution. Right now I have probably over a dozen apps installed just for paying for various services like parking (of course, each city/country has its own), it is _madness_, and I'm not even using anything special. I hate this passionately and would actually pay for simplicity!
    • fastball 5y ago
      I disagree. It's easier for me to have my payment method attached to an account and that account to be automatically debited whenever I connect my car.
    • pm90 5y ago
      It’s sorta also creates a situation where you need to have a smartphone with a decent specs to access basic services like parking and fuel. Whereas earlier it was any legal tender. I wonder if a lawsuit could be brought against companies that restrict how they accept payment for services. It would seem like something like cashless stores would be illegal if cash is legal tender.
      • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        The constitution only specified that cash can be used to settle debts or pay taxes. Stores can (and many do) refuse cash.
      • KptMarchewa 5y ago
• deleted 5y ago
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• ajross 5y ago
  > Why should it be necessary to install software in order to fuel a vehicle? What benefit exists for the consumer? In this particular case, it's because Tesla superchargers aren't point of sale terminals. They don't have a display or any means of interacting with the user beyond grabbing the plug connector and sticking it into a car. That's a feature, not a bug. People who haven't actually supercharged a Tesla imagine this service to be like pulling into a gas station, and it's really not.
• natch 5y ago
  It’s only necessary if your car isn’t designed to identify itself automatically to the Tesla network. Tesla drivers don’t need to go through the app to charge. They just plug in. You can also charge elsewhere such as at home. Most public charging stations I’ve seen (I’m in the US) do not have credit card readers and therefore require either a car that identifies itself, or an app.
• gwbas1c 5y ago
  > Why should it be necessary to install software in order to fuel a vehicle? What benefit exists for the consumer? It's a pilot. But, IMO, we should require ordinary credit/debit card access to high-speed chargers. Every time I use a Supercharger, I spend around $10 bucks, so there's no need to work around credit card fees.
  • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    POS terminals aren’t cheap, so by require you mean regulation and consumers will bear the costs? > Every time I use a Supercharger, I spend around $10 bucks, so there's no need to work around credit card fees. They could always take the Starbucks app approach here and require periodic loading of money to your account, which then only incurs the fee occasionally.
    • foepys 5y ago
      > POS terminals You can get portable card readers for like $50. Everything including the postage stamps for regulatory approval will be more expensive.
      • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        > You can get portable card readers for like $50. Yes, but we aren't talking about portable readers, we are talking about commercial grade ones that will need their own displays and can stand up to weather and various beatings like gas station POS. So let's add a few zeros to that. But maybe I misunderstood you and you meant that all the users should get portable card readers for their phones so they can use EV charging with their credit cards?
  • ip26 5y ago
    The original brilliance behind Superchargers is how simple the hardware is. Essentially just a 400V cable. The internet-connected car does most of the work. A payment terminal at superchargers is entirely new hardware (overhead) to install (& fail).
• sigio 5y ago
  Simple... tesla's negotiate automatically between car and chargepoint. This doesn't work for non-tesla's, so you need the app to call into a backend system to unlock/activate a charger (and keep track of who needs to pay)
• ff317 5y ago
  Well, one part of the charging problem they're trying to solve is getting cars in and out of slots quickly to increase overall capacity. For the existing Tesla owners in the US, there's virtually zero auth/payment overhead: they already have Tesla accounts and it identifies the car, so you just drive up and plug in and get billed. They also charge idle fees ($0.50/min if there are open slots, $1/min if the whole station is full) for occupying slots unproductively. I imagine they could have added some kind of reliable payment-card reader, maybe. But then you're dealing with a whole other level of things like people trying 3 different cards until they get one to work and burning time, possible fraud, skimming, etc. You also have new hardware and failure modes in the charger itself (the reader, the screen, the buttons, etc), whereas right now they're featureless, just a tall plastic thing with a charge cable on it, and it's charging to a known card pre-registered in the account. It seems a reasonable tradeoff (at least in the US, to me, at this point in the industry's evolution) to stick with the system they've got for simplicity and speed, and ask for a Tesla app install. The only other open charging network I've tried in the US (Chargepoint) also needs an app install and account.
• josephcsible 5y ago
  > Why should it be necessary to install software in order to fuel a vehicle? You're right, it shouldn't be necessary. It should be as easy to Supercharge any EV as it is a Tesla. There's a standard called Plug & Charge that makes exactly that possible, but most EVs don't support it yet, so the app is the temporary solution until they do.
• Tagbert 5y ago
  Hopefully, those Tesla chargers are supporting the Plug & Charge standard that lets different EVs change on various networks without needing separate accounts and apps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15118 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15118