5 ms·

Also, the Tesla connector is just so much better than the CCS connectors in North America. It feels so seamless to get it connected to the car and feel like you

Also, the Tesla connector is just so much better than the CCS connectors in North America. It feels so seamless to get it connected to the car and feel like you have a solid connection.

panick21_ 4y ago
Tesla made a big mistake by not making its charger open standard and open source. They could potentially have set the standard, that would have been good for everybody.
- nicd 4y ago
  As a consumer, the Tesla charging network is a significant selling point over other electric vehicles. It's unclear to me that standardizing the charger would benefit their business position (although I agree it would benefit society!).
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Just because you have the same charger, doesn't mean that you allow other vehicles to charge at Tesla Superchargers. Those are 2 different questions.
kwhitefoot 4y ago
What does the connector have to do with it? All new Tesla chargers in Europe are CCS and I haven't heard of anyone having any problems with it.
- jp191919 4y ago
  Type1 CCS vs Type 2 CCS?
  - maherbeg 4y ago
    In North America, I believe it's the Type 1 connector.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  Many people I've seen use a Type 1 CCS connector seems to feel the need to wiggle it in/out as I watch on in horror... and I've struggled to decouple the CCS connector on multiple occasions (imagine a gas pump nozzle getting stuck and how frustrating that would be with no staff around). Though take this with a grain of salt, as I have no firsthand experience with other connector types.
  - Arrath 4y ago
    > (imagine a gas pump nozzle getting stuck and how frustrating that would be with no staff around) I ran into this! Some recent MY's of Dodge Ram trucks had a weird angle with their filler neck and the pump nozzle[1] would get well and truly stuck. I had a 2018 Ram 1500 provided by work, and quickly learned what local gas stations were decent and which ones I had to avoid, lest I spend a few minutes really reefing on the nozzle to get it to come loose, worrying i'll break something the whole time. [1]Vapor reclamation style pump nozzles, that is. Plain old straight nozzles were fine. See: https://www.classaction.org/media/kingston-v-fca-us-llc.pdf https://www.classaction.org/media/kingston-v-fca-us-llc.pdf "Specifically, Defendant’s defective fuel tank filler necks1 (the “Filler Neck Defect”) cause standard gas-station nozzles—which work perfectly well with other vehicles—to become lodged in the opening to Dodge Ram fuel tanks, forcing Dodge Ram owners to either physically wrench the gas nozzle free, contact their roadside assistance provider (if they have one) to have the nozzle dislodged, or even call their local fire department for help."
  - maherbeg 4y ago
    We just went through this process of it not connecting just perfectly enough, and then not being able to easily disconnect it afterwards.
- ajross 4y ago
  There's a difference between "not having problems with it" and "good product" though. I mean, in 2012 there were people claiming that there was nothing wrong with Micro-USB and that the Lightning connector was just silly and incompatible. They weren't "wrong" exactly, but... no, they were basically wrong. Apple provided a vastly better charging experience. But in the USB case, the industry recognized that fact and cloned the important features into the still-not-perfect-but-really-very-much-improved C plug. With CCS, everyone is still sitting around with their heads in the same hole they dug a decade ago when they rejected Tesla[1]. It's just a bad product and a bad standard. It just is. [1] And also CHAdeMO, itself superior to CCS. Really this was the real reason for CCS, it was an attempt by western auto manufacturers to preempt the threat they perceived from Nissan. As it happens the threat was more real than they knew, but they had the wrong villain in mind.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    CHAdeMO is not better to CCS in the slightest. Having two entirely different receptacles on a car is not better than having one with two extra pins at the bottom for the few times DCFC is necessary.
    - ajross 4y ago
      I don't see how that follows at all. In fact CCS is literally two unrelated connectors glued together. Plugging in a CCS car means that you have to manage to get both inserted simultaneously, which is worse than either in isolation, that seems true just by construction. Seriously, just go to youtube and find videos of people plugging in their cars. Watch them fumble with a CCS connector for 5+ seconds, using two hands, almost every time. Plugging in a Tesla is instant, and one-handed. CHAdeMO is in between. Obviously it would be better still if you could share the connectors for both purposes like Tesla does.
      - vel0city 4y ago
        CHAdeMO does not handle AC charging, at all. So for a car with a CHAdeMO connector, I'll need some kind of AC charger for my home. In ths US, this AC charging, Level 2, is handled by J1772. So for a car in the US with CHAdeMO, I'll have a J1772 plug, and then this whole other CHAdeMO connector which is again the same size as the J1772 connector. Or, I just add two pins at the bottom of the J1772 plug, and call it CCS. And yeah, maybe it would have been better for it to be like the Tesla connector and have the same pins used for HVDC and AC power. But in a large family of makers using the plug it seems pretty risky reusing pins for HVDC and high amperage AC systems. Tesla can manage it because for Tesla only Tesla makes Tesla, but in a much larger network who knows what might happen.
- jackmott42 4y ago
  The CCS connector is "fine", the Tesla one is just better. It is way smaller where the CCS is a big chungus and unwieldy, and the tesla one you just stick it in, where the CCS you kinda have to work to get it to "click" and you can think its connected when it isn't.
  - marsokod 4y ago
    That's not actually CCS, but the Type 1 connector part. In Europe we have Type 2 + CCS combo and there is no such latch at the top: we just stick it in and it start charging. The latch is directly in the car.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Actually a lot of people have problems with it. They break much easier, they are very hard to handle for old people or people with disabilities. They get stuck easier and so on. They are just badly designed. Tesla should have made its solution open for adoption so a real competing standard could have existed.
  - chrisjc 4y ago
    Did Tesla keep their connector from becoming a standard or used by other manufactures and services? I understand that they would want to initially restrict their charging network to just Teslas, but that could be enforced through the software/service. Surely it would be in Tesla's interest to allow Tesla owners to have the greatest flexibility as well as potentially opening things up to others in the future? (I know there is an optional adapter for Tesla owners to use to connect to non-Tesla chargers, but it always nicer/better/more-convenient to not have to use adapters) Perhaps they were worried about the quality and safety of others producing a subpar equivalent/variant that might have led to incidents that tarnish Tesla's name and reputation? Similar to a few years back when there was a lot of controversy around USB-C chargers and how some deviate from the standard and could potentially damage your phone/device. I know a few years ago Tesla "opened" up a lot of patents other auto-manufactures could use for "free". I'd be surprised if there wasn't anything related to charging (including connectors) included in these "open" patents?
    - vel0city 4y ago
      You only got access to Tesla's "free" patents if you also made all of your patents "free" to Tesla and all other companies using Tesla's patents. Its kind of like the GPL, but imagine if the license was if you included GPL code in just one codebase you had to open source every bit of code your company had ever made.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      Tesla as far as I know didn't publish a definition of the standard and the protocol. Without that I don't know how other manufactures would adopt it. A comprehensive approach would have been to create a standard for the charger, plus open source implementation of both the car and the charger software, including the software for automated payment. Also libraries for phones abs to integrate (or for others to integrate with the Tesla app). Establish a conference for charger testing, these exist for the CCS standard. Maybe even a certification program. They could have made home charger and the destination charger just work with any cars. And then made deals with specific auto makers for access to Superchargers. Or have program where they allow access at extra cost. > Perhaps they were worried about the quality and safety of others producing a subpar equivalent/variant that might have led to incidents that tarnish Tesla's name and reputation? Maybe. If you want my opinion. Its simply not how Musk thinks, thinking in terms of Open Standards and Open Source or even Partnerships just isn't an Musk thing Musk does. And everybody else is to busy doing what Musk wants to do. I think it one of the biggest weaknesses in Musk Maintaining a standard, having open software and partners and so on, is management effort Tesla just isn't interested in it seems to me.

Also, the Tesla connector is just so much better than the CCS connectors in North America. It feels so seamless to get it connected to the car and feel like you have a solid connection.

panick21_ 4y ago

Tesla made a big mistake by not making its charger open standard and open source. They could potentially have set the standard, that would have been good for everybody.

nicd 4y ago
As a consumer, the Tesla charging network is a significant selling point over other electric vehicles. It's unclear to me that standardizing the charger would benefit their business position (although I agree it would benefit society!).
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Just because you have the same charger, doesn't mean that you allow other vehicles to charge at Tesla Superchargers. Those are 2 different questions.

kwhitefoot 4y ago

What does the connector have to do with it? All new Tesla chargers in Europe are CCS and I haven't heard of anyone having any problems with it.

jp191919 4y ago
Type1 CCS vs Type 2 CCS?
- maherbeg 4y ago
  In North America, I believe it's the Type 1 connector.
micromacrofoot 4y ago
Many people I've seen use a Type 1 CCS connector seems to feel the need to wiggle it in/out as I watch on in horror... and I've struggled to decouple the CCS connector on multiple occasions (imagine a gas pump nozzle getting stuck and how frustrating that would be with no staff around). Though take this with a grain of salt, as I have no firsthand experience with other connector types.
- Arrath 4y ago
  > (imagine a gas pump nozzle getting stuck and how frustrating that would be with no staff around) I ran into this! Some recent MY's of Dodge Ram trucks had a weird angle with their filler neck and the pump nozzle[1] would get well and truly stuck. I had a 2018 Ram 1500 provided by work, and quickly learned what local gas stations were decent and which ones I had to avoid, lest I spend a few minutes really reefing on the nozzle to get it to come loose, worrying i'll break something the whole time. [1]Vapor reclamation style pump nozzles, that is. Plain old straight nozzles were fine. See: https://www.classaction.org/media/kingston-v-fca-us-llc.pdf https://www.classaction.org/media/kingston-v-fca-us-llc.pdf "Specifically, Defendant’s defective fuel tank filler necks1 (the “Filler Neck Defect”) cause standard gas-station nozzles—which work perfectly well with other vehicles—to become lodged in the opening to Dodge Ram fuel tanks, forcing Dodge Ram owners to either physically wrench the gas nozzle free, contact their roadside assistance provider (if they have one) to have the nozzle dislodged, or even call their local fire department for help."
- maherbeg 4y ago
  We just went through this process of it not connecting just perfectly enough, and then not being able to easily disconnect it afterwards.
ajross 4y ago
There's a difference between "not having problems with it" and "good product" though. I mean, in 2012 there were people claiming that there was nothing wrong with Micro-USB and that the Lightning connector was just silly and incompatible. They weren't "wrong" exactly, but... no, they were basically wrong. Apple provided a vastly better charging experience. But in the USB case, the industry recognized that fact and cloned the important features into the still-not-perfect-but-really-very-much-improved C plug. With CCS, everyone is still sitting around with their heads in the same hole they dug a decade ago when they rejected Tesla[1]. It's just a bad product and a bad standard. It just is. [1] And also CHAdeMO, itself superior to CCS. Really this was the real reason for CCS, it was an attempt by western auto manufacturers to preempt the threat they perceived from Nissan. As it happens the threat was more real than they knew, but they had the wrong villain in mind.
- vel0city 4y ago
  CHAdeMO is not better to CCS in the slightest. Having two entirely different receptacles on a car is not better than having one with two extra pins at the bottom for the few times DCFC is necessary.
  - ajross 4y ago
    I don't see how that follows at all. In fact CCS is literally two unrelated connectors glued together. Plugging in a CCS car means that you have to manage to get both inserted simultaneously, which is worse than either in isolation, that seems true just by construction. Seriously, just go to youtube and find videos of people plugging in their cars. Watch them fumble with a CCS connector for 5+ seconds, using two hands, almost every time. Plugging in a Tesla is instant, and one-handed. CHAdeMO is in between. Obviously it would be better still if you could share the connectors for both purposes like Tesla does.
    - vel0city 4y ago
      CHAdeMO does not handle AC charging, at all. So for a car with a CHAdeMO connector, I'll need some kind of AC charger for my home. In ths US, this AC charging, Level 2, is handled by J1772. So for a car in the US with CHAdeMO, I'll have a J1772 plug, and then this whole other CHAdeMO connector which is again the same size as the J1772 connector. Or, I just add two pins at the bottom of the J1772 plug, and call it CCS. And yeah, maybe it would have been better for it to be like the Tesla connector and have the same pins used for HVDC and AC power. But in a large family of makers using the plug it seems pretty risky reusing pins for HVDC and high amperage AC systems. Tesla can manage it because for Tesla only Tesla makes Tesla, but in a much larger network who knows what might happen.
jackmott42 4y ago
The CCS connector is "fine", the Tesla one is just better. It is way smaller where the CCS is a big chungus and unwieldy, and the tesla one you just stick it in, where the CCS you kinda have to work to get it to "click" and you can think its connected when it isn't.
- marsokod 4y ago
  That's not actually CCS, but the Type 1 connector part. In Europe we have Type 2 + CCS combo and there is no such latch at the top: we just stick it in and it start charging. The latch is directly in the car.
panick21_ 4y ago
Actually a lot of people have problems with it. They break much easier, they are very hard to handle for old people or people with disabilities. They get stuck easier and so on. They are just badly designed. Tesla should have made its solution open for adoption so a real competing standard could have existed.
- chrisjc 4y ago
  Did Tesla keep their connector from becoming a standard or used by other manufactures and services? I understand that they would want to initially restrict their charging network to just Teslas, but that could be enforced through the software/service. Surely it would be in Tesla's interest to allow Tesla owners to have the greatest flexibility as well as potentially opening things up to others in the future? (I know there is an optional adapter for Tesla owners to use to connect to non-Tesla chargers, but it always nicer/better/more-convenient to not have to use adapters) Perhaps they were worried about the quality and safety of others producing a subpar equivalent/variant that might have led to incidents that tarnish Tesla's name and reputation? Similar to a few years back when there was a lot of controversy around USB-C chargers and how some deviate from the standard and could potentially damage your phone/device. I know a few years ago Tesla "opened" up a lot of patents other auto-manufactures could use for "free". I'd be surprised if there wasn't anything related to charging (including connectors) included in these "open" patents?
  - vel0city 4y ago
    You only got access to Tesla's "free" patents if you also made all of your patents "free" to Tesla and all other companies using Tesla's patents. Its kind of like the GPL, but imagine if the license was if you included GPL code in just one codebase you had to open source every bit of code your company had ever made.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Tesla as far as I know didn't publish a definition of the standard and the protocol. Without that I don't know how other manufactures would adopt it. A comprehensive approach would have been to create a standard for the charger, plus open source implementation of both the car and the charger software, including the software for automated payment. Also libraries for phones abs to integrate (or for others to integrate with the Tesla app). Establish a conference for charger testing, these exist for the CCS standard. Maybe even a certification program. They could have made home charger and the destination charger just work with any cars. And then made deals with specific auto makers for access to Superchargers. Or have program where they allow access at extra cost. > Perhaps they were worried about the quality and safety of others producing a subpar equivalent/variant that might have led to incidents that tarnish Tesla's name and reputation? Maybe. If you want my opinion. Its simply not how Musk thinks, thinking in terms of Open Standards and Open Source or even Partnerships just isn't an Musk thing Musk does. And everybody else is to busy doing what Musk wants to do. I think it one of the biggest weaknesses in Musk Maintaining a standard, having open software and partners and so on, is management effort Tesla just isn't interested in it seems to me.