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Well yes it makes sense to criticize the government effectively subsidizing your competitors when they failed to innovate. This reduces the willingness of compa

Well yes it makes sense to criticize the government effectively subsidizing your competitors when they failed to innovate. This reduces the willingness of companies to innovate like Tesla did because they know they can sit on the haunches and wait for the government to bail them out with tax payer's money.

zzzeek 4y ago
other car manufacturers aren't actually building charging stations. they rightfully see this as a separate endeavor. Tesla's hard-binding of their cars with their chargers is simply anticompetitive. I would like the government to help correct this.
- mwint 4y ago
  Who the heck was going to build chargers in 2011-2016 if not Tesla? They had to do it for their product to be usable. It’s not like they tried to corner the market, there just wasn’t a market at all.
- mlindner 4y ago
  The CCS standard didn't exist when Tesla created their own charging connector, and there were many other connectors at the time. CCS is objectively worse than Tesla's standard in both form factor and ease of use. What the government is doing is anti-competitive, not Tesla.
  - matthewdgreen 4y ago
    If I've learned one thing in my life, it's that the friction caused by competing "standards" is always 1000% worse than any hypothetical pain you'll suffer from choosing the weaker one.
    - mlindner 4y ago
      In this case it's the government mandating the weaker one, through the lobbying of competitors trying to wreck the market leader. It's the _way_ that this happened that puts such a sour taste in my mouth personally.
      - matthewdgreen 4y ago
        Tesla had several years to open-source the NACS standard if they wanted to: that is, really open source it without attaching patent grant conditions. Instead they waited to do so until the very late date of November 2022 [1], which is many years after both Europe and the US settled on CCS1/2. The CCS standardization has been ongoing for over a decade. Even so: if Tesla had fully opened NACS even as late as five years ago there's some chance it could have become the dominant standard in North America. Tesla waiting until late 2022 to submit NACS as a standard isn't consistent with being "wrecked by competitors": it's more like a harmful troll. Now NACS is either going to be another dead legacy standard or (worse) North America will end up with two incompatible zombie standards for a long time, and many people (including Tesla owners like myself) will have to use annoying and unsafe adapters. [1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/opening-north-american-charging-standard https://www.tesla.com/blog/opening-north-american-charging-s...
        mlindner 4y ago
        Tesla submitted their charging standard as the standard for CCS. It was refused.
        matthewdgreen 4y ago
        Do you have a citation for this that gives the details and exact reasons for the refusal? I’ve searched pretty extensively and found nothing. I love my Tesla but I’ve learned to check primary sources when it comes to any claim made by Tesla or Elon Musk.
        vel0city 4y ago
        They've continued to push their patent pledge. If you want to use "NACS", you've got to turn over all your IP. This was true years ago, its true today. While they published some schematics on their website for the connector, there's still patents and other proprietary bits to actually communicate and get the charging infrastructure to work. Without that associated IP, the schematics are effectively useless. This isn't a huge deal for a company like Aptera, they're probably going to use a good bit of Tesla's IP in other situations for their EV and don't have large teams constantly cranking out IP. But companies like Ford, VW, Stallantis, etc., they've got like a combined billion dollars worth of IP they'd be turning over to all their competitors. A big win for Tesla and smaller companies like Aptera, but not necessarily a big win for the legacy companies to essentially write down all that IP value. If they had just asked for normal kind of licensing, I imagine there probably could have been more support for the connector years ago. But they put it behind the patent pledge to try and eliminate intellectual property rights in the automotive industry assuming it would be a juicy enough carrot for everyone to chase. Turns out, it wasn't.
- kjksf 4y ago
  You both absolved car makers of their strategic incompetence and stretched the idea of "anti-competitive" beyond breaking point. I get why car makers don't want to do charging - it takes capital, it takes away focus and historically it's not what they do. But customers do not car what's easy of convenient for the business. Tesla saw the chicken and egg problem and solved. It was risky (especially for a company that, at the time, was loosing money) and costly but they saw the obvious truth: without wide spread, convenient network of chargers people will not buy EV cars. They also publicly declared that if any other car makers wants access, all they have to do is to chip in some of the cost. That was more than fair and consistent with their goal of accelerating transition to sustainable energy. They were not hoarding the superchargers, just looking for a fair deal. No car maker took them up on the offer, despite that being the right thing to do for their customers and to grow EV market overall. I don't see why competitors should now benefit from the hard work and billions of dollars that Tesla invested into their supercharger network. The feds are giving companies free money so it's fair that they require open access and it's the deal Tesla always thought would be fair, which is why they took it.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    > They also publicly declared that if any other car makers wants access, all they have to do is to chip in some of the cost. No, Tesla continues their patent licensing deal. If you agree to never sue Tesla or any other company which uses Tesla's IP for infringing on your IP, they'll agree to never sue you for using their IP. So say GM wants to use the Tesla connector on the Bolt. They have to agree to let Tesla use all of their IP. But not only that, they have to also agree to not sue any other company that also uses Tesla's IP if they infringe on GM's IP. So say Ford also uses the Tesla connector, and then copies many of GM's designs. GM cannot enforce any of their IP against Ford without being in violation of Tesla's licensing deal, which opens them up to getting sued by Tesla for having the Tesla connector. This isn't just the car makers though, this is anyone wanting to use Tesla's IP. So say Delta (a manufacturer of EV charging equipment) wants to offer Tesla connectors on their DC fast chargers. They have to follow the same thing, and allow Tesla to then copy any of their IP. But not just Tesla, they have to let Sema also copy any of their IP if Sema also starts to use Tesla connectors. Tesla's licensing deal was a Trojan horse trying to nullify intellectual property rights in the automotive industry, and pretty much none of the bigger players wanted to give up all their IP.
amanaplanacanal 4y ago
Tesla doesn't have to take the offer though. They are doing it voluntarily, then complaining about it.
- mlindner 4y ago
  Just because you're compiling with something doesn't mean you like to comply with it... I'm not sure what argument you're trying to make. The alternative is competitors being subsidized.
- mwint 4y ago
  Tesla knows that if they don’t take it voluntarily, the govt (well, big auto lobbyists) will switch from carrot to stick. That’s just how it works when someone writes a law and you know they have you in mind specifically.

zzzeek 4y ago

other car manufacturers aren't actually building charging stations. they rightfully see this as a separate endeavor. Tesla's hard-binding of their cars with their chargers is simply anticompetitive. I would like the government to help correct this.

mwint 4y ago
Who the heck was going to build chargers in 2011-2016 if not Tesla? They had to do it for their product to be usable. It’s not like they tried to corner the market, there just wasn’t a market at all.
mlindner 4y ago
The CCS standard didn't exist when Tesla created their own charging connector, and there were many other connectors at the time. CCS is objectively worse than Tesla's standard in both form factor and ease of use. What the government is doing is anti-competitive, not Tesla.
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  If I've learned one thing in my life, it's that the friction caused by competing "standards" is always 1000% worse than any hypothetical pain you'll suffer from choosing the weaker one.
  - mlindner 4y ago
    In this case it's the government mandating the weaker one, through the lobbying of competitors trying to wreck the market leader. It's the _way_ that this happened that puts such a sour taste in my mouth personally.
    - matthewdgreen 4y ago
      Tesla had several years to open-source the NACS standard if they wanted to: that is, really open source it without attaching patent grant conditions. Instead they waited to do so until the very late date of November 2022 [1], which is many years after both Europe and the US settled on CCS1/2. The CCS standardization has been ongoing for over a decade. Even so: if Tesla had fully opened NACS even as late as five years ago there's some chance it could have become the dominant standard in North America. Tesla waiting until late 2022 to submit NACS as a standard isn't consistent with being "wrecked by competitors": it's more like a harmful troll. Now NACS is either going to be another dead legacy standard or (worse) North America will end up with two incompatible zombie standards for a long time, and many people (including Tesla owners like myself) will have to use annoying and unsafe adapters. [1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/opening-north-american-charging-standard https://www.tesla.com/blog/opening-north-american-charging-s...
      - mlindner 4y ago
        Tesla submitted their charging standard as the standard for CCS. It was refused.
        matthewdgreen 4y ago
        Do you have a citation for this that gives the details and exact reasons for the refusal? I’ve searched pretty extensively and found nothing. I love my Tesla but I’ve learned to check primary sources when it comes to any claim made by Tesla or Elon Musk.
        vel0city 4y ago
        They've continued to push their patent pledge. If you want to use "NACS", you've got to turn over all your IP. This was true years ago, its true today. While they published some schematics on their website for the connector, there's still patents and other proprietary bits to actually communicate and get the charging infrastructure to work. Without that associated IP, the schematics are effectively useless. This isn't a huge deal for a company like Aptera, they're probably going to use a good bit of Tesla's IP in other situations for their EV and don't have large teams constantly cranking out IP. But companies like Ford, VW, Stallantis, etc., they've got like a combined billion dollars worth of IP they'd be turning over to all their competitors. A big win for Tesla and smaller companies like Aptera, but not necessarily a big win for the legacy companies to essentially write down all that IP value. If they had just asked for normal kind of licensing, I imagine there probably could have been more support for the connector years ago. But they put it behind the patent pledge to try and eliminate intellectual property rights in the automotive industry assuming it would be a juicy enough carrot for everyone to chase. Turns out, it wasn't.
kjksf 4y ago
You both absolved car makers of their strategic incompetence and stretched the idea of "anti-competitive" beyond breaking point. I get why car makers don't want to do charging - it takes capital, it takes away focus and historically it's not what they do. But customers do not car what's easy of convenient for the business. Tesla saw the chicken and egg problem and solved. It was risky (especially for a company that, at the time, was loosing money) and costly but they saw the obvious truth: without wide spread, convenient network of chargers people will not buy EV cars. They also publicly declared that if any other car makers wants access, all they have to do is to chip in some of the cost. That was more than fair and consistent with their goal of accelerating transition to sustainable energy. They were not hoarding the superchargers, just looking for a fair deal. No car maker took them up on the offer, despite that being the right thing to do for their customers and to grow EV market overall. I don't see why competitors should now benefit from the hard work and billions of dollars that Tesla invested into their supercharger network. The feds are giving companies free money so it's fair that they require open access and it's the deal Tesla always thought would be fair, which is why they took it.
- vel0city 4y ago
  > They also publicly declared that if any other car makers wants access, all they have to do is to chip in some of the cost. No, Tesla continues their patent licensing deal. If you agree to never sue Tesla or any other company which uses Tesla's IP for infringing on your IP, they'll agree to never sue you for using their IP. So say GM wants to use the Tesla connector on the Bolt. They have to agree to let Tesla use all of their IP. But not only that, they have to also agree to not sue any other company that also uses Tesla's IP if they infringe on GM's IP. So say Ford also uses the Tesla connector, and then copies many of GM's designs. GM cannot enforce any of their IP against Ford without being in violation of Tesla's licensing deal, which opens them up to getting sued by Tesla for having the Tesla connector. This isn't just the car makers though, this is anyone wanting to use Tesla's IP. So say Delta (a manufacturer of EV charging equipment) wants to offer Tesla connectors on their DC fast chargers. They have to follow the same thing, and allow Tesla to then copy any of their IP. But not just Tesla, they have to let Sema also copy any of their IP if Sema also starts to use Tesla connectors. Tesla's licensing deal was a Trojan horse trying to nullify intellectual property rights in the automotive industry, and pretty much none of the bigger players wanted to give up all their IP.

amanaplanacanal 4y ago

Tesla doesn't have to take the offer though. They are doing it voluntarily, then complaining about it.

mlindner 4y ago
Just because you're compiling with something doesn't mean you like to comply with it... I'm not sure what argument you're trying to make. The alternative is competitors being subsidized.
mwint 4y ago
Tesla knows that if they don’t take it voluntarily, the govt (well, big auto lobbyists) will switch from carrot to stick. That’s just how it works when someone writes a law and you know they have you in mind specifically.