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Seems like it’s happening without government intervention. It’s hard to imagine now that Ford, GM, and Tesla are on the same standard that the rest will not fol

Seems like it’s happening without government intervention. It’s hard to imagine now that Ford, GM, and Tesla are on the same standard that the rest will not follow suit.

perfectstorm 3y ago
Volkswagen owns Electrify America the only competitor at scale to Tesla's supercharging network. they uses CCS and VW is one of the largest car manufacturers in the world. i think they can stand on their own. time will tell though.
- mohaine 3y ago
  World status doesn’t mater as this is North America only. Volkswagen doesn’t have a chance and tbh, I doubt they care that much. They certainly didn’t care enough to make electrify America good.
- gibolt 3y ago
  They were forced to make EA as part of Dieselgate. If most vehicles is the U.S. are on NACS, they will be forced to switch by market forces alone.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  Go check out some car forums for folks that depend on EA (like Lucid). I've never had an issue with EA, but the general consensus seems to be that EA reliability is abysmal, with stations frequently being down (though reviews seem to be on an uptrend starting in 2023, so perhaps it was a pandemic related issue). As another commenter stated, though, Volkswagen was forced to create EA as part of their Dieselgate settlement, and their behavior in the past hasn't exactly instilled confidence that they see it as something worth investing in.
  - darth_avocado 3y ago
    EA is bad at best. Very unreliable network, especially the ones not near urban centers. Yeah you get reliable charging if you’re near big cities but once you’re out in the middle of nowhere, it can be terrifying. I’ve personally arrived at an EA charger to only find it not working and the next closest one was a 50 mile detour. Thankfully I plan liberally, but I’d be in a very bad spot if not. Someone I know, also had a locking problem where the charger wouldn’t detach. And I’ve seen news items relating to literal bricking of cars by using the chargers.
    - drewg123 3y ago
      Having to "plan liberally" is something that makes EVs much less usable on long trips. When road tripping, its fastest to arrive at a charger with a very low state of charge (way less than a 50mi buffer). When I road trip my Model X, I trust that the supercharger will work, and I target arrival at a 3-5% state of charge. This allows me to charge at the fastest part of the charging curve, and to depart when the charge rate starts to drop off. I have road tripped well over 10k miles in my Telsa over the last 5 years, and I've never seen an entire supercharger site offline (like happens with EA). I'm sure it must happen after natural disasters when grid power is cut, but its not the normal state of operations like it is with EA.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    EA is pretty bad. The fact that no one can decide what side the connector should be on also leads to chaos (cars splayed out everywhere around the chargers).
- meragrin_ 3y ago
  > Volkswagen owns Electrify America the only competitor at scale to Tesla's supercharging network. The only car manufacturer with a competitive charging network or only competitor period? ChargePoint seems better than Tesla my area. Most of the Tesla stations in this area require a hotel stay to charge.
  - iknowstuff 3y ago
    Those are not fast charging stations, they’re L2 destination chargers.
- iknowstuff 3y ago
  They can’t compete with Tesla’s manufacturing and operational prowess. Their stations are money pits.
sangnoir 3y ago
> Seems like it’s happening without government intervention The federal government has definitely "intervened" by incentivizing interoperability through a $7.5B carrot[1] for interoperable charging networks. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408329
- meragrin_ 3y ago
  So why is everyone fleeing the North American standards J1772/CCS1 in favor of Tesla's? What do these car companies stand to gain switching the charging port? They don't own charging networks.
  - sangnoir 3y ago
    Their agreements with Tesla are not public, so it's hard to tell what the benefits are. You say "everyone" is switching, but it's only American companies that have pledged to switch to NACS from CCS (so far), I don't think 3 for 3 is a coincidence. Also unlikely to be coincidental is the fact that Tesla "opened up" its charging patents/specs to competitors [1] in 2014 - but only signed its first partner in 2023, a few months after billions of federal dollars were made available for interoperable charging networks. 1. IIRC, they included a mutual non-aggression clause for patents, and if a 100-year-old company with plenty of patents like Ford, you may balk at that. I'm speculating that Tesla has been offering much more generous terms than the 2014 offer
    - iknowstuff 3y ago
      Those 4 represent like 80-90% of EVs in the US
      - sangnoir 3y ago
        > Those 4 represent like 80-90% of EVs in the US I don't doubt they'd like it to remain that way. Starving CCS charging networks of federal dollars that are be relied upon by Japanese, German and Korean manufacturers would be a win for US manufacturers; expanding a Tesla-moat into a US-manufacturer moat. Tesla gets federal dollars, control the standard and keeps its hungriest competitors at bay who most threaten its margins; Ford, GM and Rivian get access to a large network and protection from foreign competition by being invited into the fort. Cartel-like behaviour is notoriously self-emergent. Insidiously, this arrangement might even get the US government to look the other way if it is American car companies vs. everyone else despite the original assumption being that CCS networks would get most/all of the federal funds.
jeromegv 3y ago
There has been government intervention. https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-open-us-charging-network-rivals-75-bln-federal-program-white-house-2023-02-15/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-open-us-charging-ne...
- gibolt 3y ago
  The government is actually requiring CCS1 (currently) to get that funding. This may change as more dominoes fall as others adopt NACS. Considering that nearly all U.S. manufacturers are now switching off of CCS1, this requirement makes no sense since infrastructure is meant to last.
  - bisby 3y ago
    Are the chargers/ports on cars easy enough to swap out, or are we manufacturing ewaste? If I were to buy a car with CCS today, and then in 2024, NACS wins, and all cars going forward have NACS, and all charging stations change to NACS as a result... In the year 2030, can I get the port upgraded, are the changing stations obligated to support CCS indefinitely, is there an adapter I can just keep in my car for NACS->CCS that actually works (NACS->CCS is currently not an option... will it become an option?), or is my CCS car just unchargeable?
    - iknowstuff 3y ago
      They all speak the CCS protocol so it’s a matter of a simple passive adapter.
      - Nick87633 3y ago
        At some high level of charging speed, won't the adapter need active cooling and temperature monitoring?
        simondotau 3y ago
        I wouldn't imagine so; a short, rigid adapter could have very thick conductors which would have low resistance relative to flexible cable. And being a passive adapter, it would be easy to make very heat tolerant.

Seems like it’s happening without government intervention. It’s hard to imagine now that Ford, GM, and Tesla are on the same standard that the rest will not follow suit.

perfectstorm 3y ago

Volkswagen owns Electrify America the only competitor at scale to Tesla's supercharging network. they uses CCS and VW is one of the largest car manufacturers in the world. i think they can stand on their own. time will tell though.

mohaine 3y ago
World status doesn’t mater as this is North America only. Volkswagen doesn’t have a chance and tbh, I doubt they care that much. They certainly didn’t care enough to make electrify America good.
gibolt 3y ago
They were forced to make EA as part of Dieselgate. If most vehicles is the U.S. are on NACS, they will be forced to switch by market forces alone.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Go check out some car forums for folks that depend on EA (like Lucid). I've never had an issue with EA, but the general consensus seems to be that EA reliability is abysmal, with stations frequently being down (though reviews seem to be on an uptrend starting in 2023, so perhaps it was a pandemic related issue). As another commenter stated, though, Volkswagen was forced to create EA as part of their Dieselgate settlement, and their behavior in the past hasn't exactly instilled confidence that they see it as something worth investing in.
- darth_avocado 3y ago
  EA is bad at best. Very unreliable network, especially the ones not near urban centers. Yeah you get reliable charging if you’re near big cities but once you’re out in the middle of nowhere, it can be terrifying. I’ve personally arrived at an EA charger to only find it not working and the next closest one was a 50 mile detour. Thankfully I plan liberally, but I’d be in a very bad spot if not. Someone I know, also had a locking problem where the charger wouldn’t detach. And I’ve seen news items relating to literal bricking of cars by using the chargers.
  - drewg123 3y ago
    Having to "plan liberally" is something that makes EVs much less usable on long trips. When road tripping, its fastest to arrive at a charger with a very low state of charge (way less than a 50mi buffer). When I road trip my Model X, I trust that the supercharger will work, and I target arrival at a 3-5% state of charge. This allows me to charge at the fastest part of the charging curve, and to depart when the charge rate starts to drop off. I have road tripped well over 10k miles in my Telsa over the last 5 years, and I've never seen an entire supercharger site offline (like happens with EA). I'm sure it must happen after natural disasters when grid power is cut, but its not the normal state of operations like it is with EA.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  EA is pretty bad. The fact that no one can decide what side the connector should be on also leads to chaos (cars splayed out everywhere around the chargers).
meragrin_ 3y ago
> Volkswagen owns Electrify America the only competitor at scale to Tesla's supercharging network. The only car manufacturer with a competitive charging network or only competitor period? ChargePoint seems better than Tesla my area. Most of the Tesla stations in this area require a hotel stay to charge.
- iknowstuff 3y ago
  Those are not fast charging stations, they’re L2 destination chargers.
iknowstuff 3y ago
They can’t compete with Tesla’s manufacturing and operational prowess. Their stations are money pits.

sangnoir 3y ago

> Seems like it’s happening without government intervention The federal government has definitely "intervened" by incentivizing interoperability through a $7.5B carrot[1] for interoperable charging networks. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408329

meragrin_ 3y ago
So why is everyone fleeing the North American standards J1772/CCS1 in favor of Tesla's? What do these car companies stand to gain switching the charging port? They don't own charging networks.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  Their agreements with Tesla are not public, so it's hard to tell what the benefits are. You say "everyone" is switching, but it's only American companies that have pledged to switch to NACS from CCS (so far), I don't think 3 for 3 is a coincidence. Also unlikely to be coincidental is the fact that Tesla "opened up" its charging patents/specs to competitors [1] in 2014 - but only signed its first partner in 2023, a few months after billions of federal dollars were made available for interoperable charging networks. 1. IIRC, they included a mutual non-aggression clause for patents, and if a 100-year-old company with plenty of patents like Ford, you may balk at that. I'm speculating that Tesla has been offering much more generous terms than the 2014 offer
  - iknowstuff 3y ago
    Those 4 represent like 80-90% of EVs in the US
    - sangnoir 3y ago
      > Those 4 represent like 80-90% of EVs in the US I don't doubt they'd like it to remain that way. Starving CCS charging networks of federal dollars that are be relied upon by Japanese, German and Korean manufacturers would be a win for US manufacturers; expanding a Tesla-moat into a US-manufacturer moat. Tesla gets federal dollars, control the standard and keeps its hungriest competitors at bay who most threaten its margins; Ford, GM and Rivian get access to a large network and protection from foreign competition by being invited into the fort. Cartel-like behaviour is notoriously self-emergent. Insidiously, this arrangement might even get the US government to look the other way if it is American car companies vs. everyone else despite the original assumption being that CCS networks would get most/all of the federal funds.

jeromegv 3y ago

There has been government intervention. https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-open-us-charging-network-rivals-75-bln-federal-program-white-house-2023-02-15/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-open-us-charging-ne...

gibolt 3y ago
The government is actually requiring CCS1 (currently) to get that funding. This may change as more dominoes fall as others adopt NACS. Considering that nearly all U.S. manufacturers are now switching off of CCS1, this requirement makes no sense since infrastructure is meant to last.
- bisby 3y ago
  Are the chargers/ports on cars easy enough to swap out, or are we manufacturing ewaste? If I were to buy a car with CCS today, and then in 2024, NACS wins, and all cars going forward have NACS, and all charging stations change to NACS as a result... In the year 2030, can I get the port upgraded, are the changing stations obligated to support CCS indefinitely, is there an adapter I can just keep in my car for NACS->CCS that actually works (NACS->CCS is currently not an option... will it become an option?), or is my CCS car just unchargeable?
  - iknowstuff 3y ago
    They all speak the CCS protocol so it’s a matter of a simple passive adapter.
    - Nick87633 3y ago
      At some high level of charging speed, won't the adapter need active cooling and temperature monitoring?
      - simondotau 3y ago
        I wouldn't imagine so; a short, rigid adapter could have very thick conductors which would have low resistance relative to flexible cable. And being a passive adapter, it would be easy to make very heat tolerant.