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EU is a densely populated place where having multiple charging networks of incomparable plugs will be horrible. When you are not happy with decisions the gover

by mrtksn 4y ago

EU is a densely populated place where having multiple charging networks of incomparable plugs will be horrible. When you are not happy with decisions the governments make, it usually means that you should be involved in the process of making the decisions. Europeans don't trust that the industry will always come up with the best solutions for the user, Americans usually don't trust the government doing something well unless it's the military. Let's agree to disagree. I like that the car plugs are the same everywhere in EU and want it to stay that way and enjoy the Tesla plugs on a trip to USA.

ericmay 4y ago
> EU is a densely populated place where having multiple charging networks of incomparable plugs will be horrible. In the short term, yes. In the long term however competition between these different standards will cause consolidation and overall technology improvement. The next step will be regulating wireless charging so that all devices have to use/do the same thing, rinse-wash-repeat. > Europeans don't trust that the industry will always come up with the best solutions for the user, Americans usually don't trust the government doing something well unless it's the military. Let's agree to disagree. A better way to think about this is that both "groups" can learn from one another. For example you could say that Europeans should be suspicious about USB-C manufacturers and advocates effectively being granted a monopoly in the name of convenience. Americans should better trust that certainly in the case of infrastructure it makes sense to have a single standard "plug" for electric vehicles because we really need as many people driving them as possible in the most convenient way.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  We can copy the US if the cable freedom gives birth to superior cables on the long run. EU stuff is't written on stone, it changes as it needs to. I guess In Europe we kind of like the idea of being able to overthrow the people in power if they screw us too much. It's much more socially acceptable to burn cars and occupy streets and decapitate politicians than shooting CEO's when you are really not happy with the way things work. It feels like you have control over the stuff going on in your country.
  - ericd 4y ago
    You’re really ignoring the amount of inertia that a deployed fleet of cars creates. You can’t just change standards with the snap of a finger once there are 10M cars in the field with it, once that happens, you’re stuck with that standard for probably decades, as the downsides of changing it become much more acute than the potential upsides.
    - mrtksn 4y ago
      If the US comes up with the superior cables, EU will simply allow it be optional and the industry will retrofit as needed. Europe is very old, we are used to have old stuff laying around. Old building that definitely don't meet the modern requirements are everywhere. Besides, the states with Cable Freedom will also have all the obsolate cables when the industry finally comes up with the perfect cable.
      - paulmd 4y ago
        > Europe is very old, we are used to have old stuff laying around. So what's the problem with allowing lightning to exist, since as a standard it predated USB-C (and in fact was the impetus for the creation of the latter)? If we allow neighborhoods to keep their old power connectors without retrofit... why not allow lightning to continue to exist?
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        There's a difference between allowing old installations to continue existing and allowing mass manufacture of the old standard indefinitely. This legislation isn't going to touch anyone's old phones.
    - tinus_hn 4y ago
      All aside, it’s pretending ‘we’ as civilians have any kind of influence in what the EU does. In reality it’s just an opaque process ran by politicians where 99% of the electorate has no idea whatsoever how they got there or even what party they belong to.
- amluto 4y ago
  > In the long term however competition between these different standards will cause consolidation and overall technology improvement. If you think that’s a superior solution, then the regulation should actually support it: require that all EV charging connectors have a free published specification, disallow patents on them, and require that interoperability be permitted without cost or other penalty. (e.g. anyone should be able to implement both ends of the Tesla supercharging protocol such that Tesla’s chargers would charge a competing car at the same prices that they charge Tesla’s; similarly, a competing charger should be able to charge a Tesla.)
  - kiawe_fire 4y ago
    I was set to be all libertarian about this, but your suggestion is probably more level headed. There should be some common ground. Regulations that encourage innovation (perhaps even with timed financial incentives) while also ensuring that the best ideas are eventually freely adoptable across the board. Seems like, as with most issues, people take one extreme or the other, when a common sense middle ground could be found with proper planning and forethought.
    - nybble41 4y ago
      > I was set to be all libertarian about this… Disallowing patents is the libertarian solution, though it would be up to the customers to demand published specifications and official support for interoperability.
      - dfox 4y ago
        The original intention of patent system was to encourage open publication of inventions. It even still works that way for some verticals. The issue is that it also produced a system that it is profitable to game and thus there are patent attorneys who get by by writing the patent in as vague terms as is possible to pass by patent reviewers, and in these kind of adversarial situations it is quite obvious that the private sector will win over the government bureaucrats.
- geysersam 4y ago
  > being granted a monopoly Anyone can produce USB-C chargers. That's not a monopoly. This will effectively enable competition on the charging market, since the big players can't bind their products to their own proprietary chargers anymore. Have you ever felt the Apple/Microsoft charger to be lacking in some way? Breaking easily, too long cords, too short, wrong color, too expensive? Congratulations now you can make and sell those better chargers. Before, this was not possible.
  - ericmay 4y ago
    Yes but all you’re really doing is encouraging everyone to stay locked in to a USB-C market. This isn’t enabling competition in the charging market, it’s eliminating or hamstringing competing markets. You won’t create a new charging apparatus because you’re legally required to use USB-C. "What if we created a charging cable that did X,Y,Z?" "That would be cool but we have to use USB-C" > Have you ever felt the Apple/Microsoft charger to be lacking in some way? Breaking easily, too long cords, too short, wrong color, too expensive? No not really. In fact I’ve found most third-party products to be godawful. Good luck not buying something fraudulent on Amazon.com. But also, I’m not really sure what you are talking about. Companies sell charging equipment and cords now anyway. Everything has trade-offs. I’m skeptical of the necessity of this regulation, especially given that the only holdout that anyone cares about is Apple and they’ve been adopting USB-C in all of their products over time. One benefit though will be manufacturers won’t include charging cables with new devices anymore. So that will further reduce waste. Wouldn’t be surprised to see lobbying behind the scenes from companies such as Apple to implement regulations like this so they can save money. I kind of like this as an investor because now you can save money by not including a cable (or maybe you still do and it’s just some cheap one for now) and then you go and up sell wireless chargers instead.
samatman 4y ago
I'm not a citizen of the EU, so your various centrally-planned interventions in the world economy affect me without any possibility of representation. It leaves me hoping your economy becomes much smaller so Asia can start ignoring it. Or reform I guess, the vote is yours, not mine.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  We all affect each other, a lot of American things have become de facto stands. Anyway, be careful what you wish because it might become real and you might find out that Asia is not the libertarian utopia.
  - oblio 4y ago
    If anything, Asia is generally more collectivist than Europe or the US.
- theplumber 4y ago
  Imagine different gasoline plugs...that would be stupid, isnt't it? Or different fuel formula for different car models or different AC sockets in the same house... Also I'm not sure why you hold Asia so dear. You may soon get some centrally planned standards from China in the EV market and not only(i.e online services such tiktok)
  - tacitusarc 4y ago
    I was unable to find any record of legislation forcing standardization of gas pump form factors. Also, in my experience different pumps operate at different rates. I think the fact that pumps tend to be quite similar is a result of their mechanical nature, where less precision is required.
    - heretogetout 4y ago
      Check this out: > (f) Every retailer and wholesale purchaser-consumer shall equip all gasoline pumps from which gasoline is dispensed into motor vehicles with a nozzle spout that meets all the following specifications: > (1) The outside diameter of the terminal end shall not be greater than 0.840 inches (2.134 centimeters). > (2) The terminal end shall have a straight section of at least 2.5 inches (6.34 centimeters). https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/80.22 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/80.22 Edit: fixed formatting
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mcv 4y ago
I can imagine that car charging is still too new and fast-moving to enforce a single standard, unlike phone charging, where it's just ridiculous to have 3 separate standards. On the other hand, you're absolutely right that it doesn't help anyone if your car is incompatible with half of the chargers out there. Are adapter cables an option, perhaps?
- _ea1k 4y ago
  Yes. Tesla has a simple passthrough adapter for CCS1. Other adapters are also possible.
  - nybble41 4y ago
    Some adapters are more problematic than others. For example if the charger and the vehicle both expect the other side to initiate the charging process and withhold power until some voltage is detected then the adapter may need its own independent power supply to jump-start the charging process. Locks are another problem—some combinations would require the adapter to provide powered locking mechanisms for both sides. None of this makes an adapter impossible, but it could be too expensive or unwieldy to be a practical solution.
    - _ea1k 4y ago
      That's definitely true. I've used the Tesla chademo adapter and it was a beast. Its heavy, awkward, and the latching mechanism is difficult to fully engage. The Tesla passive solution to the locking mechanism on their CCS1 passive adapter is as brilliant as it is simple. Just a little springloaded bar that locks the cable onto the adapter if and only if the adapter is inserted into the car. Then the car uses its regular adapter. This works well with CCS1 locking. The other end of the spectrum are things like the setec adapter or the evhub adapter. Both of those don't have vehicle side locking with CCS1, which is a violation and a potential hazard.
  - dreamcompiler 4y ago
    I presume you're talking about the J1772/CCS1 adapter that comes for free with every Tesla. This adapter is occasionally handy but it does not allow fast ("super") DC charging. It's strictly a Level 2 AC adapter, which means it takes a few hours to charge your car fully. The CCS adapter that allows you to supercharge a Tesla at non-Tesla DC superchargers is not (yet) available in the US [0]. Tesla does make them and you can buy them in South Korea, but not in the US. [0] Except for a dodgy Chinese gizmo which I won't link to because it's reputed not to work reliably.
marssaxman 4y ago
> When you are not happy with decisions the governments make, it usually means that you should be involved in the process of making the decisions. Most of us are not billionaires.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  You don't need to be. "We can't do anything about anything because the system is run by the billionaires and unless you are one, you have no power" narrative is not only false but also harmful.
  - marssaxman 4y ago
    Please pardon my inadvertent US-centrism! If you live in a country with a functioning democracy, of course it would make sense to participate. Here in the US, average citizens have little to no influence on policy: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
    - least 4y ago
      This isn't the case in the US, either. How much influence do you think one person in the US, one of hundreds of millions of people, should normally have? Your power to influence policy is obviously going to dilute the further up the chain of government you go. You could involve yourself in local politics where the population of people is much smaller (and consequentially, your influence is much larger), or you could try to become a representative yourself. National politics in the US is certainly perverse, though it's probably just your US-centrism at work again if you think it's exceptional in this regard.
      - marssaxman 4y ago
        > This isn't the case in the US, either. I was paraphrasing Gilens and Page, from the linked research article. In their words, they found that "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence". If there has been subsequent research which contradicts their findings, I would be happy to read it.
HPsquared 4y ago
Being densely-populated makes it easier to have a range of different plugs, since there will be a range of alternatives, and you'll be able to find the right one for you nearby. Consider the opposite of a sparsely-populated region, where the next charging point may be 50 miles away. In that case, having a random hodge-podge of competing connectors could have actual consequences. In practice though, there is not much of an effect either way. All parties have an interest in interoperability: car owners would have adapter to hand if this was a common problem, and charging stations would make themselves available to as many paying customers as possible.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  When you have 24 official languages in 27 countries with no physical borders it doesn't end up having an even distribution of plugs but clusters of different types. There are no large wastelands of cheap land where every network can have a station, it's usually one station on each side of the road every 50km on the highways. In cities, a lot of things are retrofitted into medieval city structure so there's not much free space for all your charging needs. As a result, this will create artificial limits on where people can travel. EU is that much into standardisation because we want to remove these artificial limits created through the thousands years of history.
- afiori 4y ago
  If the solution would be to use a lot of random adapters then we should simply standardize from the start. If 35% of ICE had square gas sockets and we had to keep around square-to-circle adapters the situation would not be better. An EV charging port is handful of metal rods with a handle.
potatochup 4y ago
Random anecdote: I once got stuck at a friends place in Denmark with my Tesla, because the mobile connector wouldn't work. Turns out despite the voltage and socket being the same, the grounding can vary between countries and the connector wouldn't let me charge (this was back in 2016, I'm not sure if newer mobile connectors are better in that regard)
- bonzini 4y ago
  Is that because some places have 230V and neutral, while others have -115V and +115V (yes like in the US but in Europe)? There's a single neighborhood in Rome where that happens and car chargers don't work. The "solution" is to request a three-phase 400V connection: the utility company can't deny it and it must be 220V to neutral.
  - afiori 4y ago
    I would like to live in the alternative reality were all AC is three-phase AC; probably it would be uselessly more expensive for normal domestic stuff but it would be quite cooler.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
chmod600 4y ago
"When you are not happy with decisions the governments make, it usually means that you should be involved in the process of making the decisions." Democracy is a very blunt tool. Very important when needed, but not good for fine tuning on any reasonable timescale.
- worik 4y ago
  Democracy is not elections. Democracy is the freedom and right of involvement for the stakeholders (among other things) > Democracy is a very blunt tool. Very important when needed, but not good for fine tuning on any reasonable time scale. Very good for fine tuning at human time scales.
  - chmod600 4y ago
    Let's say I invent a better connector tomorrow. Nobody other than me really knows if it's better or not. The only way for me to convince people is to get it out there in the market so people can try it. How does that work by voting or any other democratic activity? Others will be unconvinced that it's really better, for the same reason people are skeptical of startup ideas until they become mainstream. So nobody will want to update the standard. So I couldn't release it in the market to prove that it's better, because that would be "lock-in". And the idea would die.
    - stale2002 4y ago
      No, I do not believe that a multi trillion dollar company would spend billions of dollars making a major change to their devices, without having any idea of if it will be better or not. Whatever internal research that these companies made, to make them want to change their multi billion dollar market like this, they can go public with it first.
    - zaarn 4y ago
      If you're designing such a connector, I'm sure you'll have the car manufacturers on board immediately. After all, your connector is better. Not only a tiny bit better, it's much better. The EU will obviously be happy to include your better connector, provided that old cars can use it too via an adapter and new cars can use old connectors via an adapter. Then they can without issue transition to the new connector without wasting everyone's time and money.
ciupicri 4y ago
- krzyk 4y ago
  What's wrong with "charger thing"? I was waiting for that for years. And GDPR? Really?
  - ciupicri 4y ago
    It's not anyone's business what kind of phone I buy. If chargers pollute so much, just tax them and be done with it. I'll add to kukx's reason the fact that I can't access some websites anymore because who wants to spend time with bureaucracy so that the website is 100% compliant with GDPR?
- kukx 4y ago
  Agree 100%. The cookie law is the most visible failure of these regulations. I feel like they should pay me from their own pockets each time I have to click the cookie banner. And by their own pockets I mean the money they got from other sources than taxpayers money. Of course someone will argue that the intentions were good. Often they are! But it does not make it much better.
  - mrtksn 4y ago
    What failure? Now everyone knows they are tracked and it's an actual issue. Besides, the websites could have chosen not to have that cookie window.
    - Karunamon 4y ago
      Most people are more bothered by the annoyance then some nebulous, intangible “tracking“ that will likely never have a visible effect on their lives. Outside of high tech places like HackerNews, mention the tracking and you’ll get a shrug, mention the cookie banners and you’ll get a “yeah I hate that crap“
lttlrck 4y ago
Industry already converged on charging cables though, just Apple is left and they've been moving away from lightning for some time... this legislation is a waste of time.
DeusExMachina 4y ago
I am "European", whatever that word means, and I definitely don't trust the government to do something well. It happens sometimes that some governments in some countries do some specific thing well. That's definitely not a general rule.

by mrtksn 4y ago

ericmay 4y ago

> EU is a densely populated place where having multiple charging networks of incomparable plugs will be horrible. In the short term, yes. In the long term however competition between these different standards will cause consolidation and overall technology improvement. The next step will be regulating wireless charging so that all devices have to use/do the same thing, rinse-wash-repeat. > Europeans don't trust that the industry will always come up with the best solutions for the user, Americans usually don't trust the government doing something well unless it's the military. Let's agree to disagree. A better way to think about this is that both "groups" can learn from one another. For example you could say that Europeans should be suspicious about USB-C manufacturers and advocates effectively being granted a monopoly in the name of convenience. Americans should better trust that certainly in the case of infrastructure it makes sense to have a single standard "plug" for electric vehicles because we really need as many people driving them as possible in the most convenient way.

mrtksn 4y ago
We can copy the US if the cable freedom gives birth to superior cables on the long run. EU stuff is't written on stone, it changes as it needs to. I guess In Europe we kind of like the idea of being able to overthrow the people in power if they screw us too much. It's much more socially acceptable to burn cars and occupy streets and decapitate politicians than shooting CEO's when you are really not happy with the way things work. It feels like you have control over the stuff going on in your country.
- ericd 4y ago
  You’re really ignoring the amount of inertia that a deployed fleet of cars creates. You can’t just change standards with the snap of a finger once there are 10M cars in the field with it, once that happens, you’re stuck with that standard for probably decades, as the downsides of changing it become much more acute than the potential upsides.
  - mrtksn 4y ago
    If the US comes up with the superior cables, EU will simply allow it be optional and the industry will retrofit as needed. Europe is very old, we are used to have old stuff laying around. Old building that definitely don't meet the modern requirements are everywhere. Besides, the states with Cable Freedom will also have all the obsolate cables when the industry finally comes up with the perfect cable.
    - paulmd 4y ago
      > Europe is very old, we are used to have old stuff laying around. So what's the problem with allowing lightning to exist, since as a standard it predated USB-C (and in fact was the impetus for the creation of the latter)? If we allow neighborhoods to keep their old power connectors without retrofit... why not allow lightning to continue to exist?
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        There's a difference between allowing old installations to continue existing and allowing mass manufacture of the old standard indefinitely. This legislation isn't going to touch anyone's old phones.
  - tinus_hn 4y ago
    All aside, it’s pretending ‘we’ as civilians have any kind of influence in what the EU does. In reality it’s just an opaque process ran by politicians where 99% of the electorate has no idea whatsoever how they got there or even what party they belong to.
amluto 4y ago
> In the long term however competition between these different standards will cause consolidation and overall technology improvement. If you think that’s a superior solution, then the regulation should actually support it: require that all EV charging connectors have a free published specification, disallow patents on them, and require that interoperability be permitted without cost or other penalty. (e.g. anyone should be able to implement both ends of the Tesla supercharging protocol such that Tesla’s chargers would charge a competing car at the same prices that they charge Tesla’s; similarly, a competing charger should be able to charge a Tesla.)
- kiawe_fire 4y ago
  I was set to be all libertarian about this, but your suggestion is probably more level headed. There should be some common ground. Regulations that encourage innovation (perhaps even with timed financial incentives) while also ensuring that the best ideas are eventually freely adoptable across the board. Seems like, as with most issues, people take one extreme or the other, when a common sense middle ground could be found with proper planning and forethought.
  - nybble41 4y ago
    > I was set to be all libertarian about this… Disallowing patents is the libertarian solution, though it would be up to the customers to demand published specifications and official support for interoperability.
    - dfox 4y ago
      The original intention of patent system was to encourage open publication of inventions. It even still works that way for some verticals. The issue is that it also produced a system that it is profitable to game and thus there are patent attorneys who get by by writing the patent in as vague terms as is possible to pass by patent reviewers, and in these kind of adversarial situations it is quite obvious that the private sector will win over the government bureaucrats.
geysersam 4y ago
> being granted a monopoly Anyone can produce USB-C chargers. That's not a monopoly. This will effectively enable competition on the charging market, since the big players can't bind their products to their own proprietary chargers anymore. Have you ever felt the Apple/Microsoft charger to be lacking in some way? Breaking easily, too long cords, too short, wrong color, too expensive? Congratulations now you can make and sell those better chargers. Before, this was not possible.
- ericmay 4y ago
  Yes but all you’re really doing is encouraging everyone to stay locked in to a USB-C market. This isn’t enabling competition in the charging market, it’s eliminating or hamstringing competing markets. You won’t create a new charging apparatus because you’re legally required to use USB-C. "What if we created a charging cable that did X,Y,Z?" "That would be cool but we have to use USB-C" > Have you ever felt the Apple/Microsoft charger to be lacking in some way? Breaking easily, too long cords, too short, wrong color, too expensive? No not really. In fact I’ve found most third-party products to be godawful. Good luck not buying something fraudulent on Amazon.com. But also, I’m not really sure what you are talking about. Companies sell charging equipment and cords now anyway. Everything has trade-offs. I’m skeptical of the necessity of this regulation, especially given that the only holdout that anyone cares about is Apple and they’ve been adopting USB-C in all of their products over time. One benefit though will be manufacturers won’t include charging cables with new devices anymore. So that will further reduce waste. Wouldn’t be surprised to see lobbying behind the scenes from companies such as Apple to implement regulations like this so they can save money. I kind of like this as an investor because now you can save money by not including a cable (or maybe you still do and it’s just some cheap one for now) and then you go and up sell wireless chargers instead.

samatman 4y ago

I'm not a citizen of the EU, so your various centrally-planned interventions in the world economy affect me without any possibility of representation. It leaves me hoping your economy becomes much smaller so Asia can start ignoring it. Or reform I guess, the vote is yours, not mine.

mrtksn 4y ago
We all affect each other, a lot of American things have become de facto stands. Anyway, be careful what you wish because it might become real and you might find out that Asia is not the libertarian utopia.
- oblio 4y ago
  If anything, Asia is generally more collectivist than Europe or the US.
theplumber 4y ago
Imagine different gasoline plugs...that would be stupid, isnt't it? Or different fuel formula for different car models or different AC sockets in the same house... Also I'm not sure why you hold Asia so dear. You may soon get some centrally planned standards from China in the EV market and not only(i.e online services such tiktok)
- tacitusarc 4y ago
  I was unable to find any record of legislation forcing standardization of gas pump form factors. Also, in my experience different pumps operate at different rates. I think the fact that pumps tend to be quite similar is a result of their mechanical nature, where less precision is required.
  - heretogetout 4y ago
    Check this out: > (f) Every retailer and wholesale purchaser-consumer shall equip all gasoline pumps from which gasoline is dispensed into motor vehicles with a nozzle spout that meets all the following specifications: > (1) The outside diameter of the terminal end shall not be greater than 0.840 inches (2.134 centimeters). > (2) The terminal end shall have a straight section of at least 2.5 inches (6.34 centimeters). https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/80.22 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/80.22 Edit: fixed formatting

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mcv 4y ago

I can imagine that car charging is still too new and fast-moving to enforce a single standard, unlike phone charging, where it's just ridiculous to have 3 separate standards. On the other hand, you're absolutely right that it doesn't help anyone if your car is incompatible with half of the chargers out there. Are adapter cables an option, perhaps?

_ea1k 4y ago
Yes. Tesla has a simple passthrough adapter for CCS1. Other adapters are also possible.
- nybble41 4y ago
  Some adapters are more problematic than others. For example if the charger and the vehicle both expect the other side to initiate the charging process and withhold power until some voltage is detected then the adapter may need its own independent power supply to jump-start the charging process. Locks are another problem—some combinations would require the adapter to provide powered locking mechanisms for both sides. None of this makes an adapter impossible, but it could be too expensive or unwieldy to be a practical solution.
  - _ea1k 4y ago
    That's definitely true. I've used the Tesla chademo adapter and it was a beast. Its heavy, awkward, and the latching mechanism is difficult to fully engage. The Tesla passive solution to the locking mechanism on their CCS1 passive adapter is as brilliant as it is simple. Just a little springloaded bar that locks the cable onto the adapter if and only if the adapter is inserted into the car. Then the car uses its regular adapter. This works well with CCS1 locking. The other end of the spectrum are things like the setec adapter or the evhub adapter. Both of those don't have vehicle side locking with CCS1, which is a violation and a potential hazard.
- dreamcompiler 4y ago
  I presume you're talking about the J1772/CCS1 adapter that comes for free with every Tesla. This adapter is occasionally handy but it does not allow fast ("super") DC charging. It's strictly a Level 2 AC adapter, which means it takes a few hours to charge your car fully. The CCS adapter that allows you to supercharge a Tesla at non-Tesla DC superchargers is not (yet) available in the US [0]. Tesla does make them and you can buy them in South Korea, but not in the US. [0] Except for a dodgy Chinese gizmo which I won't link to because it's reputed not to work reliably.

marssaxman 4y ago

> When you are not happy with decisions the governments make, it usually means that you should be involved in the process of making the decisions. Most of us are not billionaires.

mrtksn 4y ago
You don't need to be. "We can't do anything about anything because the system is run by the billionaires and unless you are one, you have no power" narrative is not only false but also harmful.
- marssaxman 4y ago
  Please pardon my inadvertent US-centrism! If you live in a country with a functioning democracy, of course it would make sense to participate. Here in the US, average citizens have little to no influence on policy: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
  - least 4y ago
    This isn't the case in the US, either. How much influence do you think one person in the US, one of hundreds of millions of people, should normally have? Your power to influence policy is obviously going to dilute the further up the chain of government you go. You could involve yourself in local politics where the population of people is much smaller (and consequentially, your influence is much larger), or you could try to become a representative yourself. National politics in the US is certainly perverse, though it's probably just your US-centrism at work again if you think it's exceptional in this regard.
    - marssaxman 4y ago
      > This isn't the case in the US, either. I was paraphrasing Gilens and Page, from the linked research article. In their words, they found that "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence". If there has been subsequent research which contradicts their findings, I would be happy to read it.

HPsquared 4y ago

Being densely-populated makes it easier to have a range of different plugs, since there will be a range of alternatives, and you'll be able to find the right one for you nearby. Consider the opposite of a sparsely-populated region, where the next charging point may be 50 miles away. In that case, having a random hodge-podge of competing connectors could have actual consequences. In practice though, there is not much of an effect either way. All parties have an interest in interoperability: car owners would have adapter to hand if this was a common problem, and charging stations would make themselves available to as many paying customers as possible.

mrtksn 4y ago
When you have 24 official languages in 27 countries with no physical borders it doesn't end up having an even distribution of plugs but clusters of different types. There are no large wastelands of cheap land where every network can have a station, it's usually one station on each side of the road every 50km on the highways. In cities, a lot of things are retrofitted into medieval city structure so there's not much free space for all your charging needs. As a result, this will create artificial limits on where people can travel. EU is that much into standardisation because we want to remove these artificial limits created through the thousands years of history.
afiori 4y ago
If the solution would be to use a lot of random adapters then we should simply standardize from the start. If 35% of ICE had square gas sockets and we had to keep around square-to-circle adapters the situation would not be better. An EV charging port is handful of metal rods with a handle.

potatochup 4y ago

Random anecdote: I once got stuck at a friends place in Denmark with my Tesla, because the mobile connector wouldn't work. Turns out despite the voltage and socket being the same, the grounding can vary between countries and the connector wouldn't let me charge (this was back in 2016, I'm not sure if newer mobile connectors are better in that regard)

bonzini 4y ago
Is that because some places have 230V and neutral, while others have -115V and +115V (yes like in the US but in Europe)? There's a single neighborhood in Rome where that happens and car chargers don't work. The "solution" is to request a three-phase 400V connection: the utility company can't deny it and it must be 220V to neutral.
- afiori 4y ago
  I would like to live in the alternative reality were all AC is three-phase AC; probably it would be uselessly more expensive for normal domestic stuff but it would be quite cooler.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

chmod600 4y ago

"When you are not happy with decisions the governments make, it usually means that you should be involved in the process of making the decisions." Democracy is a very blunt tool. Very important when needed, but not good for fine tuning on any reasonable timescale.

worik 4y ago
Democracy is not elections. Democracy is the freedom and right of involvement for the stakeholders (among other things) > Democracy is a very blunt tool. Very important when needed, but not good for fine tuning on any reasonable time scale. Very good for fine tuning at human time scales.
- chmod600 4y ago
  Let's say I invent a better connector tomorrow. Nobody other than me really knows if it's better or not. The only way for me to convince people is to get it out there in the market so people can try it. How does that work by voting or any other democratic activity? Others will be unconvinced that it's really better, for the same reason people are skeptical of startup ideas until they become mainstream. So nobody will want to update the standard. So I couldn't release it in the market to prove that it's better, because that would be "lock-in". And the idea would die.
  - stale2002 4y ago
    No, I do not believe that a multi trillion dollar company would spend billions of dollars making a major change to their devices, without having any idea of if it will be better or not. Whatever internal research that these companies made, to make them want to change their multi billion dollar market like this, they can go public with it first.
  - zaarn 4y ago
    If you're designing such a connector, I'm sure you'll have the car manufacturers on board immediately. After all, your connector is better. Not only a tiny bit better, it's much better. The EU will obviously be happy to include your better connector, provided that old cars can use it too via an adapter and new cars can use old connectors via an adapter. Then they can without issue transition to the new connector without wasting everyone's time and money.

ciupicri 4y ago

krzyk 4y ago
What's wrong with "charger thing"? I was waiting for that for years. And GDPR? Really?
- ciupicri 4y ago
  It's not anyone's business what kind of phone I buy. If chargers pollute so much, just tax them and be done with it. I'll add to kukx's reason the fact that I can't access some websites anymore because who wants to spend time with bureaucracy so that the website is 100% compliant with GDPR?
kukx 4y ago
Agree 100%. The cookie law is the most visible failure of these regulations. I feel like they should pay me from their own pockets each time I have to click the cookie banner. And by their own pockets I mean the money they got from other sources than taxpayers money. Of course someone will argue that the intentions were good. Often they are! But it does not make it much better.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  What failure? Now everyone knows they are tracked and it's an actual issue. Besides, the websites could have chosen not to have that cookie window.
  - Karunamon 4y ago
    Most people are more bothered by the annoyance then some nebulous, intangible “tracking“ that will likely never have a visible effect on their lives. Outside of high tech places like HackerNews, mention the tracking and you’ll get a shrug, mention the cookie banners and you’ll get a “yeah I hate that crap“

lttlrck 4y ago

Industry already converged on charging cables though, just Apple is left and they've been moving away from lightning for some time... this legislation is a waste of time.

DeusExMachina 4y ago

I am "European", whatever that word means, and I definitely don't trust the government to do something well. It happens sometimes that some governments in some countries do some specific thing well. That's definitely not a general rule.