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I think it’s incentives. If Tesla chargers break and stay broken, then Tesla owners get mad. (And Tesla chargers seem to break or malfunction with some regular

by amluto 3y ago

I think it’s incentives. If Tesla chargers break and stay broken, then Tesla owners get mad. (And Tesla chargers seem to break or malfunction with some regularity — they’re not indestructible. But they get fixed, and there are always more than one or two chargers at a site.) The third party chargers don’t seem to act like they have a reputation to uphold. Also, I’m not convinced they’re even really motivated to have people use their stations.

shmoe 3y ago
Like you said, the law of numbers.. if a Tesla stall is out theres usually 7 others to choose from. Any other network may have one or no alternatives (they're all broken sometimes).
- Robotbeat 3y ago
  Right, and Tesla is speedy to fix broken ones usually. And an occasional bad charger isn’t a huge deal (I talked to an electrician who was servicing one of them). Gas stations regularly have non-working pumps, and I suspect those are more expensive to fix. The Tesla approach is really another level for charging compared to everyone else. And even the mobile chargers & Level 2 destination chargers are better.
  - shmoe 3y ago
    Yup, this is a huge win for electrification all around. The future is bright(er).
panick21_ 3y ago
> The third party chargers don’t seem to act like they have a reputation to uphold. Also, I’m not convinced they’re even really motivated to have people use their stations. They do care but technology is unforgiving. Tesla is many iterations into improving their station reliability, they are vertically integrated and their station are very simple. The production volume is far, far higher leading to improve quality. The competitors like EA, in their effort to scale simply have 3-4 different providers put into the same box. Different hardware, different software and so on. And then also a NextGen version from all these providers. Their stations are much more complex, with screens and so on. So the failure rate is far higher and repair is much more difficult. I think you are underestimate the challenge of how difficult it is to role out such an infrastructure and maintain it specially when you are just a service provider, not an actual engineering company. Tesla just made it look easy and everybody expect that any other company could do the same, but they can't.
- amluto 3y ago
  > Their stations are much more complex, with screens and so on. So the failure rate is far higher and repair is much more difficult. Gas stations are far more complex, and they manage just fine, with substantially higher utilization (cycles per day) and abuse than level 3 chargers. Tesla spent the money to do this, and they pulled it off. Go them.

by amluto 3y ago

shmoe 3y ago

Like you said, the law of numbers.. if a Tesla stall is out theres usually 7 others to choose from. Any other network may have one or no alternatives (they're all broken sometimes).

Robotbeat 3y ago
Right, and Tesla is speedy to fix broken ones usually. And an occasional bad charger isn’t a huge deal (I talked to an electrician who was servicing one of them). Gas stations regularly have non-working pumps, and I suspect those are more expensive to fix. The Tesla approach is really another level for charging compared to everyone else. And even the mobile chargers & Level 2 destination chargers are better.
- shmoe 3y ago
  Yup, this is a huge win for electrification all around. The future is bright(er).

panick21_ 3y ago

> The third party chargers don’t seem to act like they have a reputation to uphold. Also, I’m not convinced they’re even really motivated to have people use their stations. They do care but technology is unforgiving. Tesla is many iterations into improving their station reliability, they are vertically integrated and their station are very simple. The production volume is far, far higher leading to improve quality. The competitors like EA, in their effort to scale simply have 3-4 different providers put into the same box. Different hardware, different software and so on. And then also a NextGen version from all these providers. Their stations are much more complex, with screens and so on. So the failure rate is far higher and repair is much more difficult. I think you are underestimate the challenge of how difficult it is to role out such an infrastructure and maintain it specially when you are just a service provider, not an actual engineering company. Tesla just made it look easy and everybody expect that any other company could do the same, but they can't.

amluto 3y ago
> Their stations are much more complex, with screens and so on. So the failure rate is far higher and repair is much more difficult. Gas stations are far more complex, and they manage just fine, with substantially higher utilization (cycles per day) and abuse than level 3 chargers. Tesla spent the money to do this, and they pulled it off. Go them.