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The thing about how this is affects Tesla is "compared to what?" Compared to the historic status quo where there were no other chargers, and Tesla had exclusiv

The thing about how this is affects Tesla is "compared to what?" Compared to the historic status quo where there were no other chargers, and Tesla had exclusive access to a large-ish proprietary charging network, it looks like Tesla giving up their advantage, and seems bad. But the forward-looking status quo was going to be a gigantic network of CCS chargers that makes Tesla's proprietary network look small, with every other car maker using CCS. In that world, Tesla would have had to switch their cars over to CCS eventually and retrofit their existing chargers to CCS, and people who bought Teslas with the proprietary plug have a terrible UX of needing adapters everywhere. Compared to _that_ status quo, this is a huge win for Tesla (and one that back-foots every other carmaker, which -- if NACS does take off -- need to do their own migration to a new charging port and strand their existing customers with the adapter life, making their earliest adopters angry and frustrated). So yeah, this is a great move for Tesla, and GM and Ford in enabling it are total idiots. (Rivian is just going along with the semi-inevitable at this point.)

agloe_dreams 3y ago
Also one other detail: There's a hell of a lot more money in the car 'fuel' industry than the car making business. R&D costs are way lower, you don't need that many employees, and you can always charge these third party automakers more. Tesla is going to make bank off these adopters.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Most EVs charge at home most of the time, so there isn't that much money in the "fuel" industry, they are mostly needed for long distance trips (and so crowd up on holiday weekends), not daily driving.
  - logifail 3y ago
    > Most EVs charge at home most of the time Umm, there's a significant chunk of the world's population who will likely never be able to charge at home, because they live in apartments and park on-street. "EV owners who live in apartment buildings and park on the street will rely heavily on public chargers—in 2021, 42 percent of European EV owners living in cities had no access to home charging points." https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/europes-ev-opportunity-and-the-charging-infrastructure-needed-to-meet-it https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/...
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      On street parking is very much allowed only in some countries, the biggest one being the USA, but much of western Europe it is disallowed (or at least, you pay for it by the hour). Many countries require proof of parking spot before they will let you even buy a car. Even in that case, it isn't hard for cities to put out L2 charging pylons at each on-street parking space. They can just combine it with street light infrastructure or whatever (they would also be able to monetize street parking at that point, which is inevitable anyways).
      - davrosthedalek 3y ago
        At least in Germany, most city areas where people live are "Anwohnerparken", so people who live on the street are allowed to park on the street, nobody else.
      - Marsymars 3y ago
        > Even in that case, it isn't hard for cities to put out L2 charging pylons at each on-street parking space. How does this work for physical logistics? e.g. I’m a two-car household that can’t practically reduce to a single car, with a driveway that only fits one car. (That my partner uses.) I street park in front of my house, and there’s street/sidewalk/lawn. The only place I can think of to put a charging station is in my lawn with some kind of arch over the sidewalk to reach my car. Also becomes problematic as street parking spots aren’t reserved. (I could potentially remove a tree from my front yard and pave over it to provide another parking space, but that’s not a very appealing solution.)
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Are your electric lines all buried? I guess if they are that would make it much more difficult. Otherwise, you have poles or something to keep the lines in the air. I'm just amazed America has so much free parking still. People buy houses, even if they have garages, they use the garage as storage and park their car on the street. Having lived in other countries where that simply can't happen, its like this country practically gives away parking spaces for free.
  - jdminhbg 3y ago
    Sure, although Tesla is in this market as well, with solar panels, battery packs, and wall chargers.
- hinkley 3y ago
  The latest rounds of gas convenience stores have gotten more square footage than earlier generations. I suspect they are anticipating indoor seating for charging customers at some point. I’ve also started seeing joint ventures where it’s a proper coffee stand or in one case I can think of an A&W root beer. Gas stations tend to be physically separated from pastimes (what Burger King owner wants diesel fumes in their store?), and someone at least is hedging their bets that won’t always be the case. I don’t know if they’ll see the fruits but their kids absolutely will.
  - WaitWaitWha 3y ago
    That is a very astute observation! Thank you. I have wondered why more and more convenience stores are getting into not just quick, pick-up snacks, but full blown fast-food style sit down environment. Recently when I drove around in the USA, I saw Sheetz, Wawa, Royal Farms, Rutter's, and High's. These are substantially larger with lots of amenities compared to the standard gas stations. Nothing compared to Buc-ee's, but still getting up there.
    - earthboundkid 3y ago
      > Recently when I drove around in the USA, I saw Sheetz, Wawa, Royal Farms, Rutter's, and High's. So you drove from Philly to Pittsburgh?
    - chris222 3y ago
      Sheetz, Wawa and Royal Farms all already have Tesla chargers. Wawa has a location in Virginia with no gas pumps but Tesla chargers. So yes they are already planning for this future.
    - evanelias 3y ago
      Not sure about the others, but at least for Wawa and Royal Farms: many locations have offered fast-food style options for a very long time, like 25+ years, maybe more. Wawa has always been known for quality. I remember years back when there was a romaine lettuce shortage, they put up deeply apologetic signs about how they're temporarily substituting iceberg lettuce in their sandwiches. Meanwhile Royal Farms is known for their fried chicken. Although, the one near my college in Baltimore was more known for being a frequent target of robberies :/ On a road trip, I recently ate at a Sheetz in central PA that had Electrify America chargers. Good food selection, similar to Wawa. Not the best overall experience though -- an unhinged lunatic flipped out at me for leaving a single unused napkin on my table (which lacked a napkin dispenser, and the place had no recycling can). I avoided that charging location for my return trip...
hinkley 3y ago
My friend who is not an EV driver got stuck with an EV rental (Bolt) for a semi-rural trip and boy was that a ton of drama. I’ve been thinking hard about an EV myself and now I’m looking at PHEVs instead. I’ve gotten a crash course in EV charging around here and it’s not good. Level 2 chargers are not for spontaneous trips and level 1 chargers are fucking pointless. It estimated two and a half days to charge from 40-80% at my house. My house was wired for level 2 charging by the previous owners but the plug is 220 3 prong rather than the NEMA 14-50 plug that seems to be de rigeur lately. At least I could probably get an electrician to fix that cheap. If anything the non CCS chargers are made by idiots.
- jp191919 3y ago
  A Bolt is about the worst EV someone could use for a road trip.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Oh it was terrible even by proxy. It would drop estimated range at about 2 miles per mile. Took all day to get between two metropolitan areas. Spent several hours at a level 2 to ensure they didn’t get stuck in the woods with crap cell coverage.
  - evanelias 3y ago
    Eh, it's not great but it's totally doable as long as it isn't winter. My understanding is that a Nissan Leaf is much much worse than a Bolt for road trips... I just did an NYC to Cleveland trip in my Bolt EUV, along a route with only a few DC charging locations, and never once had to wait for an available charger -- even on Memorial Day. That said, if you need to use the heater, then yeah it's not viable for a road trip. No heat pump, so major battery drain. The other key to a Bolt road trip is to avoid speeding too much. There's an absolutely tremendous difference in range when going 65 mph vs 80 mph.
    - outworlder 3y ago
      > My understanding is that a Nissan Leaf is much much worse than a Bolt for road trips... As a Nissan Leaf owner, yes. Because of CHADeMO (that is going to be a big problem in a few years, as existing stations fail and don't get replaced) and because of the passively cooled battery pack. I can do one DC fast charging no problem without much change in battery temps (CA weather). 2 or 3 in the same day? Might get toasty. That said, all EVs have issues during winter(Tesla included, their EPA ranges are way overstated). It's just that, for a Tesla, it's easier to find a supercharger. The consumption difference due to speed affects all cars, no matter their drivetrain. For ICE, that burns a hole in your pocket as it causes you to stop at gas stations more often.
solarkraft 3y ago
> In that world, Tesla would have had to switch their cars over to CCS eventually and retrofit their existing chargers to CCS, and people who bought Teslas with the proprietary plug have a terrible UX of needing adapters everywhere. They've switched to CCS in Europe and as far as I can tell it's going just fine for them. Not sure what would motivate them to pull this risky move besides an insane love for their customers' UX (which ... I doubt).
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Tesla also does GB/T in China, as required by the Chinese government.
- shmoe 3y ago
  Because they were mandated to and CCS-2 is actually superior to CCS-1. NACS is superior to CCS-1 by far.
marsokod 3y ago
> In that world, Tesla would have had to switch their cars over to CCS eventually and retrofit their existing chargers to CCS, and people who bought Teslas with the proprietary plug have a terrible UX of needing adapters everywhere. It should be noted that in any case Tesla will have to support CCS, though in its CCS2 version. It is the de facto standard in Europe and is in the process of making their chargers in Europe fully compatible since the M3 comes with CCS2 by default here. And it is unlikely to change any time soon, CHAdeMO is dying here and all the other networks are using CCS2 (which seems to be much better than CCS1 if I trust the complaints about CCS1 I read on HN).
- vidarh 3y ago
  In fact Type 2 or Combo2 (CCS2) is an EU requirement for the charging stations so while you can offer alternatives, all new charging stations must offer of those two. Directive 2014/94/EU: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32014L0094&from=en#d1e32-20-1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...
  - marsokod 3y ago
    Yes. CCS2 has not technically won yet as being the default port for all EVs in Europe, but any other option would have to have significant advantages over CCS2 to win, features that a potential CCS3 version would not be able to support.
JoshTko 3y ago
Assuming Ford and GM are not inept and their adoption of NACS is driven by necessity rather than choice. This implies a significant lead by Tesla in charging technology. Essentially like Android adopting lightning connectors. Huge, long term positive impact to Tesla as market leader.
Lramseyer 3y ago
I think this alternate future of a gigantic CCS network is a really long ways off. Have you ever tried to use non-Tesla DC fast charging? It's a mess! There aren't a lot of stalls, one of them is usually broken, and the payment processing is a mess! I thought people were exaggerating until I experienced it first hand. While I think they will eventually get their act together, I don't think it's unreasonable to claim that the terrible DC fast charging experience is a huge deterrent to non-tesla EV buyers right now. This ultimately creates a chicken and egg problem that results in such slow progress in the EV charging world (outside of Tesla.) It's why Tesla's US EV market share is around 60%. I actually think this is great for Tesla in other ways in the nearer term. With other automakers switching to NACS, this removes a huge concern for would be non-Tesla EV buyers. Now you may think this would erode Tesla's market share, but I think it will convert far more ICE customers than Tesla customers. The net effect is a faster EV adoption, faster cultural acceptance of EVs, and more people considering Tesla in the near-mid term. I fail to see how this negatively affects Ford, GM, and Rivian. They can retrofit the charge port relatively cheaply or deal with an adapter. Yes, it affects resale value of early customers. But that's how it goes with new technology, and buyers are naive to think otherwise. Besides, when compared to their ICE counterparts, they're probably still coming out ahead on maintenance.

agloe_dreams 3y ago

Also one other detail: There's a hell of a lot more money in the car 'fuel' industry than the car making business. R&D costs are way lower, you don't need that many employees, and you can always charge these third party automakers more. Tesla is going to make bank off these adopters.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Most EVs charge at home most of the time, so there isn't that much money in the "fuel" industry, they are mostly needed for long distance trips (and so crowd up on holiday weekends), not daily driving.
- logifail 3y ago
  > Most EVs charge at home most of the time Umm, there's a significant chunk of the world's population who will likely never be able to charge at home, because they live in apartments and park on-street. "EV owners who live in apartment buildings and park on the street will rely heavily on public chargers—in 2021, 42 percent of European EV owners living in cities had no access to home charging points." https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/europes-ev-opportunity-and-the-charging-infrastructure-needed-to-meet-it https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/...
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    On street parking is very much allowed only in some countries, the biggest one being the USA, but much of western Europe it is disallowed (or at least, you pay for it by the hour). Many countries require proof of parking spot before they will let you even buy a car. Even in that case, it isn't hard for cities to put out L2 charging pylons at each on-street parking space. They can just combine it with street light infrastructure or whatever (they would also be able to monetize street parking at that point, which is inevitable anyways).
    - davrosthedalek 3y ago
      At least in Germany, most city areas where people live are "Anwohnerparken", so people who live on the street are allowed to park on the street, nobody else.
    - Marsymars 3y ago
      > Even in that case, it isn't hard for cities to put out L2 charging pylons at each on-street parking space. How does this work for physical logistics? e.g. I’m a two-car household that can’t practically reduce to a single car, with a driveway that only fits one car. (That my partner uses.) I street park in front of my house, and there’s street/sidewalk/lawn. The only place I can think of to put a charging station is in my lawn with some kind of arch over the sidewalk to reach my car. Also becomes problematic as street parking spots aren’t reserved. (I could potentially remove a tree from my front yard and pave over it to provide another parking space, but that’s not a very appealing solution.)
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Are your electric lines all buried? I guess if they are that would make it much more difficult. Otherwise, you have poles or something to keep the lines in the air. I'm just amazed America has so much free parking still. People buy houses, even if they have garages, they use the garage as storage and park their car on the street. Having lived in other countries where that simply can't happen, its like this country practically gives away parking spaces for free.
- jdminhbg 3y ago
  Sure, although Tesla is in this market as well, with solar panels, battery packs, and wall chargers.
hinkley 3y ago
The latest rounds of gas convenience stores have gotten more square footage than earlier generations. I suspect they are anticipating indoor seating for charging customers at some point. I’ve also started seeing joint ventures where it’s a proper coffee stand or in one case I can think of an A&W root beer. Gas stations tend to be physically separated from pastimes (what Burger King owner wants diesel fumes in their store?), and someone at least is hedging their bets that won’t always be the case. I don’t know if they’ll see the fruits but their kids absolutely will.
- WaitWaitWha 3y ago
  That is a very astute observation! Thank you. I have wondered why more and more convenience stores are getting into not just quick, pick-up snacks, but full blown fast-food style sit down environment. Recently when I drove around in the USA, I saw Sheetz, Wawa, Royal Farms, Rutter's, and High's. These are substantially larger with lots of amenities compared to the standard gas stations. Nothing compared to Buc-ee's, but still getting up there.
  - earthboundkid 3y ago
    > Recently when I drove around in the USA, I saw Sheetz, Wawa, Royal Farms, Rutter's, and High's. So you drove from Philly to Pittsburgh?
  - chris222 3y ago
    Sheetz, Wawa and Royal Farms all already have Tesla chargers. Wawa has a location in Virginia with no gas pumps but Tesla chargers. So yes they are already planning for this future.
  - evanelias 3y ago
    Not sure about the others, but at least for Wawa and Royal Farms: many locations have offered fast-food style options for a very long time, like 25+ years, maybe more. Wawa has always been known for quality. I remember years back when there was a romaine lettuce shortage, they put up deeply apologetic signs about how they're temporarily substituting iceberg lettuce in their sandwiches. Meanwhile Royal Farms is known for their fried chicken. Although, the one near my college in Baltimore was more known for being a frequent target of robberies :/ On a road trip, I recently ate at a Sheetz in central PA that had Electrify America chargers. Good food selection, similar to Wawa. Not the best overall experience though -- an unhinged lunatic flipped out at me for leaving a single unused napkin on my table (which lacked a napkin dispenser, and the place had no recycling can). I avoided that charging location for my return trip...

hinkley 3y ago

My friend who is not an EV driver got stuck with an EV rental (Bolt) for a semi-rural trip and boy was that a ton of drama. I’ve been thinking hard about an EV myself and now I’m looking at PHEVs instead. I’ve gotten a crash course in EV charging around here and it’s not good. Level 2 chargers are not for spontaneous trips and level 1 chargers are fucking pointless. It estimated two and a half days to charge from 40-80% at my house. My house was wired for level 2 charging by the previous owners but the plug is 220 3 prong rather than the NEMA 14-50 plug that seems to be de rigeur lately. At least I could probably get an electrician to fix that cheap. If anything the non CCS chargers are made by idiots.

jp191919 3y ago
A Bolt is about the worst EV someone could use for a road trip.
- hinkley 3y ago
  Oh it was terrible even by proxy. It would drop estimated range at about 2 miles per mile. Took all day to get between two metropolitan areas. Spent several hours at a level 2 to ensure they didn’t get stuck in the woods with crap cell coverage.
- evanelias 3y ago
  Eh, it's not great but it's totally doable as long as it isn't winter. My understanding is that a Nissan Leaf is much much worse than a Bolt for road trips... I just did an NYC to Cleveland trip in my Bolt EUV, along a route with only a few DC charging locations, and never once had to wait for an available charger -- even on Memorial Day. That said, if you need to use the heater, then yeah it's not viable for a road trip. No heat pump, so major battery drain. The other key to a Bolt road trip is to avoid speeding too much. There's an absolutely tremendous difference in range when going 65 mph vs 80 mph.
  - outworlder 3y ago
    > My understanding is that a Nissan Leaf is much much worse than a Bolt for road trips... As a Nissan Leaf owner, yes. Because of CHADeMO (that is going to be a big problem in a few years, as existing stations fail and don't get replaced) and because of the passively cooled battery pack. I can do one DC fast charging no problem without much change in battery temps (CA weather). 2 or 3 in the same day? Might get toasty. That said, all EVs have issues during winter(Tesla included, their EPA ranges are way overstated). It's just that, for a Tesla, it's easier to find a supercharger. The consumption difference due to speed affects all cars, no matter their drivetrain. For ICE, that burns a hole in your pocket as it causes you to stop at gas stations more often.

solarkraft 3y ago

> In that world, Tesla would have had to switch their cars over to CCS eventually and retrofit their existing chargers to CCS, and people who bought Teslas with the proprietary plug have a terrible UX of needing adapters everywhere. They've switched to CCS in Europe and as far as I can tell it's going just fine for them. Not sure what would motivate them to pull this risky move besides an insane love for their customers' UX (which ... I doubt).

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Tesla also does GB/T in China, as required by the Chinese government.
shmoe 3y ago
Because they were mandated to and CCS-2 is actually superior to CCS-1. NACS is superior to CCS-1 by far.

marsokod 3y ago

> In that world, Tesla would have had to switch their cars over to CCS eventually and retrofit their existing chargers to CCS, and people who bought Teslas with the proprietary plug have a terrible UX of needing adapters everywhere. It should be noted that in any case Tesla will have to support CCS, though in its CCS2 version. It is the de facto standard in Europe and is in the process of making their chargers in Europe fully compatible since the M3 comes with CCS2 by default here. And it is unlikely to change any time soon, CHAdeMO is dying here and all the other networks are using CCS2 (which seems to be much better than CCS1 if I trust the complaints about CCS1 I read on HN).

vidarh 3y ago
In fact Type 2 or Combo2 (CCS2) is an EU requirement for the charging stations so while you can offer alternatives, all new charging stations must offer of those two. Directive 2014/94/EU: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32014L0094&from=en#d1e32-20-1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...
- marsokod 3y ago
  Yes. CCS2 has not technically won yet as being the default port for all EVs in Europe, but any other option would have to have significant advantages over CCS2 to win, features that a potential CCS3 version would not be able to support.

JoshTko 3y ago

Assuming Ford and GM are not inept and their adoption of NACS is driven by necessity rather than choice. This implies a significant lead by Tesla in charging technology. Essentially like Android adopting lightning connectors. Huge, long term positive impact to Tesla as market leader.

Lramseyer 3y ago

I think this alternate future of a gigantic CCS network is a really long ways off. Have you ever tried to use non-Tesla DC fast charging? It's a mess! There aren't a lot of stalls, one of them is usually broken, and the payment processing is a mess! I thought people were exaggerating until I experienced it first hand. While I think they will eventually get their act together, I don't think it's unreasonable to claim that the terrible DC fast charging experience is a huge deterrent to non-tesla EV buyers right now. This ultimately creates a chicken and egg problem that results in such slow progress in the EV charging world (outside of Tesla.) It's why Tesla's US EV market share is around 60%. I actually think this is great for Tesla in other ways in the nearer term. With other automakers switching to NACS, this removes a huge concern for would be non-Tesla EV buyers. Now you may think this would erode Tesla's market share, but I think it will convert far more ICE customers than Tesla customers. The net effect is a faster EV adoption, faster cultural acceptance of EVs, and more people considering Tesla in the near-mid term. I fail to see how this negatively affects Ford, GM, and Rivian. They can retrofit the charge port relatively cheaply or deal with an adapter. Yes, it affects resale value of early customers. But that's how it goes with new technology, and buyers are naive to think otherwise. Besides, when compared to their ICE counterparts, they're probably still coming out ahead on maintenance.