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It's pretty shocking that all the charge networks are getting rug pulled because they couldn't figure out how to accept payment reliably. I wonder if Tesla has

by hedora 3y ago

It's pretty shocking that all the charge networks are getting rug pulled because they couldn't figure out how to accept payment reliably. I wonder if Tesla has figured that out for third-party automobiles yet. (I mean, I assume they have, but I assumed the other charge networks would be able to obtain working credit card readers, and that definitely didn't happen.)

tyingq 3y ago
"pretty shocking that all the charge networks are getting rug pulled because they couldn't figure out how to accept payment reliably." Is there a reference for this somewhere? I didn't know this was a problem.
- throwaway5959 3y ago
  It’s not. I drive a CCS car. The reason EA and EVGo are getting demolished is due to the comically limited number of chargers they install per station (four commonly vs dozens at Tesla stations) and the unreliability of the chargers themselves. I’ve never had a problem with payment.
  - xeromal 3y ago
    Nothing more frustrating than going to a full charger with a line and driving over to another place that's open just for it to charge your card but fail to initialize.
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    This is the big one for me, too. I've driven non-Tesla and Tesla EVs for years, and the big draw of the supercharger stations is that there's so many stalls that there's always one open. When I roadtrip with the CCS car, I get lucky when there's one of the four stalls available.
- willio58 3y ago
  I don't think the payment was the main issue, it's always been the overall reliability of the chargers not being great.
- hedora 3y ago
  Ford's press release cited a study where they had paid drivers go to random Blue Oval (their charge affiliate network) chargers and see whether they could charge or not. They said this was the main reason they were adopting the tesla standard. Anecdotally, 90% of the time I've been unable to charge at a Blue Oval certified network (I drive a BMW, but the list of networks is well-known), it has been a payment issue, not a CCS issue. Also, the Biden administration recognized that this was a problem, and built a payment availability SLA into the inflation reduction act.
floatrock 3y ago
The plug is more about combining DC and AC pins, payment is orthogonal. The difference between "NACS" and "Tesla" is that because Europe has mandated CCS, Tesla has made their connectors talk CCS because global simplicity. Yes, Tesla's will still have plug-to-pay, but that's on top of NACS, not part of NACS. NACS is just CCS with a different (smaller) handle. The Technology Connections guy made a good explainer about all this the other day, if you don't mind a slightly-get-off-my-lawn youtuber persona: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjny4u5THpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjny4u5THpU
- TMWNN 3y ago
  > The Technology Connections guy made a good explainer about all this the other day, if you don't mind a slightly-get-off-my-lawn youtuber persona: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjny4u5THpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjny4u5THpU That persona is part of TC's schtick, but the video itself was major cringe. TC does not like Tesla, and watching him forcibly eating crow + that persona that comes across as "I am right, even when I was very wrong" = 50 painful minutes.
amluto 3y ago
IMO the non-Tesla networks thoroughly misunderstood the market. People are willing to drive, specifically, to a Tesla charging station because they have the biggest network (and they’re fairly reliable, but anyone could achieve that). Other than that, there is no particular network effect, and drivers don’t want a network effect. Drivers want a charger at a convenient location that works, but there is no more inherent brand loyalty than there is with gas stations. So, to compete effectively, chargers should have deployed in useful locations and made charging convenient. Using gas station-style card readers would have worked fine, and they are a mature technology. No one needs to install an app or create an account to buy gas, and charging should have worked the same way.
- vel0city 3y ago
  Luckily all the CCS chargers I've charged at which were installed within the last year or so had regular credit card terminals which I could pay with phone tap to pay or EMV chipped cards.
  - hedora 3y ago
    The CCS chargers here all have those, but they don't work at Electrify America, evGo, ChargePoint or the smaller networks kiosks I've seen. The one counterexample was that I found an EA terminal with a working credit card reader, but it did not work reliably. For instance, you had to tap Visa, but insert chip for MC, and swipe Amex (I might have those constraints wrong), and if you did the wrong thing, the charge circuit computer state machine would get confused with the unexpected payment error, and put your car computer into a "busted charger" timeout mode. A re-attempt would cause most CC companies to issue a fraud lockout for that kiosk. Also, these issues were compounded by the CCS connector EA uses being a bit out of mechanical tolerance, so the machine has a sign saying to pull up during handshake to get the computers to talk. The same EA kiosks work reasonably well (> 90% success on first handshake) if you pay with the app.
    - vel0city 3y ago
      I just used one at an evgo station that worked with a chipped Visa card the other day. I had another time a few weeks ago with tap to pay Visa through Google Wallet. I've used chipped cards at Chargepoint work on many occasions. And I've never had a plug and charge session fail at EA.
somerandomqaguy 3y ago
They probably could figure it out. I don't think that was the point though, at least in Canada. It felt more like all of the chargers networks wanted to become something more like of Japan's prepaid IC card system for the trains. I think their dream was to have drivers buy into a reoccurring subscription for super charger access, and become big enough to be the One Charger Network to Rule Them All. Whether this new announcement changes anything for the Canadian charging networks, I don't know. Some of the operators had already entered into cross subscription agreements with each other to try and alleviate the pain points. Part of me thinks that they'll run to the federal government and ask for protection against Tesla's network if they view it as too great a threat, but they could also end up playing nice with with each other as well. Next few years is going to be interesting to watch either way.
pornel 3y ago
Good. All these unreliable fragmented networks that think they're precious enough to demand downloading a crappy app and registration deserve to go out of business. When my car needs 20 minutes to recharge, I hate spending 15 minutes fighting someone's dumb password policy just to start charging. In EU there's Ionity and Fastned that always work and always accept contactless payments.
WorldMaker 3y ago
So far as I read it, NACS chargers use the exact same "Plug-and-Charge" standards that CCS tried to adopt but for dumb (compatibility) reasons made "optional" (leading to a lot of buggy half-implementations). The fix seems to be that the NACS standard changes it from "optional" to "required" and with access to Tesla's Supercharger network in the US as a carrot that should mean a lot more well tested implementations among the other manufacturers than previously existed for CCS1.

by hedora 3y ago

tyingq 3y ago

"pretty shocking that all the charge networks are getting rug pulled because they couldn't figure out how to accept payment reliably." Is there a reference for this somewhere? I didn't know this was a problem.

throwaway5959 3y ago
It’s not. I drive a CCS car. The reason EA and EVGo are getting demolished is due to the comically limited number of chargers they install per station (four commonly vs dozens at Tesla stations) and the unreliability of the chargers themselves. I’ve never had a problem with payment.
- xeromal 3y ago
  Nothing more frustrating than going to a full charger with a line and driving over to another place that's open just for it to charge your card but fail to initialize.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  This is the big one for me, too. I've driven non-Tesla and Tesla EVs for years, and the big draw of the supercharger stations is that there's so many stalls that there's always one open. When I roadtrip with the CCS car, I get lucky when there's one of the four stalls available.
willio58 3y ago
I don't think the payment was the main issue, it's always been the overall reliability of the chargers not being great.
hedora 3y ago
Ford's press release cited a study where they had paid drivers go to random Blue Oval (their charge affiliate network) chargers and see whether they could charge or not. They said this was the main reason they were adopting the tesla standard. Anecdotally, 90% of the time I've been unable to charge at a Blue Oval certified network (I drive a BMW, but the list of networks is well-known), it has been a payment issue, not a CCS issue. Also, the Biden administration recognized that this was a problem, and built a payment availability SLA into the inflation reduction act.

floatrock 3y ago

The plug is more about combining DC and AC pins, payment is orthogonal. The difference between "NACS" and "Tesla" is that because Europe has mandated CCS, Tesla has made their connectors talk CCS because global simplicity. Yes, Tesla's will still have plug-to-pay, but that's on top of NACS, not part of NACS. NACS is just CCS with a different (smaller) handle. The Technology Connections guy made a good explainer about all this the other day, if you don't mind a slightly-get-off-my-lawn youtuber persona: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjny4u5THpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjny4u5THpU

TMWNN 3y ago
> The Technology Connections guy made a good explainer about all this the other day, if you don't mind a slightly-get-off-my-lawn youtuber persona: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjny4u5THpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjny4u5THpU That persona is part of TC's schtick, but the video itself was major cringe. TC does not like Tesla, and watching him forcibly eating crow + that persona that comes across as "I am right, even when I was very wrong" = 50 painful minutes.

amluto 3y ago

IMO the non-Tesla networks thoroughly misunderstood the market. People are willing to drive, specifically, to a Tesla charging station because they have the biggest network (and they’re fairly reliable, but anyone could achieve that). Other than that, there is no particular network effect, and drivers don’t want a network effect. Drivers want a charger at a convenient location that works, but there is no more inherent brand loyalty than there is with gas stations. So, to compete effectively, chargers should have deployed in useful locations and made charging convenient. Using gas station-style card readers would have worked fine, and they are a mature technology. No one needs to install an app or create an account to buy gas, and charging should have worked the same way.

vel0city 3y ago
Luckily all the CCS chargers I've charged at which were installed within the last year or so had regular credit card terminals which I could pay with phone tap to pay or EMV chipped cards.
- hedora 3y ago
  The CCS chargers here all have those, but they don't work at Electrify America, evGo, ChargePoint or the smaller networks kiosks I've seen. The one counterexample was that I found an EA terminal with a working credit card reader, but it did not work reliably. For instance, you had to tap Visa, but insert chip for MC, and swipe Amex (I might have those constraints wrong), and if you did the wrong thing, the charge circuit computer state machine would get confused with the unexpected payment error, and put your car computer into a "busted charger" timeout mode. A re-attempt would cause most CC companies to issue a fraud lockout for that kiosk. Also, these issues were compounded by the CCS connector EA uses being a bit out of mechanical tolerance, so the machine has a sign saying to pull up during handshake to get the computers to talk. The same EA kiosks work reasonably well (> 90% success on first handshake) if you pay with the app.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    I just used one at an evgo station that worked with a chipped Visa card the other day. I had another time a few weeks ago with tap to pay Visa through Google Wallet. I've used chipped cards at Chargepoint work on many occasions. And I've never had a plug and charge session fail at EA.

somerandomqaguy 3y ago

They probably could figure it out. I don't think that was the point though, at least in Canada. It felt more like all of the chargers networks wanted to become something more like of Japan's prepaid IC card system for the trains. I think their dream was to have drivers buy into a reoccurring subscription for super charger access, and become big enough to be the One Charger Network to Rule Them All. Whether this new announcement changes anything for the Canadian charging networks, I don't know. Some of the operators had already entered into cross subscription agreements with each other to try and alleviate the pain points. Part of me thinks that they'll run to the federal government and ask for protection against Tesla's network if they view it as too great a threat, but they could also end up playing nice with with each other as well. Next few years is going to be interesting to watch either way.

pornel 3y ago

Good. All these unreliable fragmented networks that think they're precious enough to demand downloading a crappy app and registration deserve to go out of business. When my car needs 20 minutes to recharge, I hate spending 15 minutes fighting someone's dumb password policy just to start charging. In EU there's Ionity and Fastned that always work and always accept contactless payments.

WorldMaker 3y ago

So far as I read it, NACS chargers use the exact same "Plug-and-Charge" standards that CCS tried to adopt but for dumb (compatibility) reasons made "optional" (leading to a lot of buggy half-implementations). The fix seems to be that the NACS standard changes it from "optional" to "required" and with access to Tesla's Supercharger network in the US as a carrot that should mean a lot more well tested implementations among the other manufacturers than previously existed for CCS1.