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Non-Tesla EVs aren’t working due to a lack of compelling options, IMO. I think there should be decent demand for: A reasonably priced EV sedan. An EV family
by amluto 3y ago
Non-Tesla EVs aren’t working due to a lack of compelling options, IMO. I think there should be decent demand for:
A reasonably priced EV sedan.
An EV family car — 7 seats, not too large. A minivan or a wagon would work.
A small utility vehicle. Telo is on to something IMO.
Finally, there’s a huge elephant in the room: NACS. J1772 lost. It’s the living dead. Selling a new EV right now with only a J1772 (or J1772+CCS) jack is like selling a very expensive phone with only a 3G radio a couple years ago. No one who is paying attention would want to own it and be stuck with it. If I were running the show at any of these companies, I would switch production to NACS ASAP. I don’t care if it would take a loss, or if a major change is awkward in the middle of a model year. Throw in an adapter so the cars can charge from J1772 as well (Tesla makes these). Heck, have both jacks. But I think that essentially every single J1772 car that rolls off the production line right now is a mistake, and every would-be customer who reads some FAQ about how there will probably be an adapter available to charge today’s brand-new car from NACS in “Spring 2024” would quite reasonably say no.
- jitl 3y agoYeah, I totally agree. I’ve been looking at electric cars and a bunch look kinda good but none are “tesla without the tesla bullshit”. The NACS plug announcement means I’m very happy to wait since it’ll make future cars one iota more Tesla by default. Plus it’s just so much better than the old standard.
- richij 3y agoAccelerating the switch to NACS on the car side won't work. The unspoken part of "automakers standardize on NACS" is the update to the Superchargers themselves. The signaling is basically CCS, not the legacy Tesla protocol.
- amluto 3y agoGreat. Then ship cars with CCS and a (not quite ready for supercharging) NACS port. A programmable PHY that’s adequate to speak the protocol should not be especially complicated, especially if it’s essentially the same thing as the CCS part. We’re talking about maybe $50 for the jack, a few dollars for muxes, and some relays. Sure, this would add maybe $100-$200 in BOM cost during the transition period. But I think that’s better than failing to produce credible cars at all. And then the cars could be sold as “already compatible with Tesla level 2 chargers and ready for Tesla-compatible supercharging with an OTA upgrade”, which is a lot better than “not compatible, and we’ll probably have an adapter available next year for an unknown price.” (The adapter will surely cost more than the added parts for an extra jack. An external adapter would need to make all the protocols work and may also need a relay to switch between AC and DC modes.)