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Can you explain why you feel plug-and-charge is so important? I have used chargers with and without it and while it is slightly more convenient to just plug in

• jakewins 3y ago
  Have you done any road tripping in an EV? my experience of the app-based charging landscape has been complete horror; apps don’t work, chargers don’t start, payments don’t through.. Just last month was a new app at McDonalds in Sweden, that one asks me to, in the freezing cold, scan a dirty QR code sticker, which takes me to a website I’ve never heard of that wants me to manually enter credit card info, like a phishing attack smorgasbord. It’s the one thing I miss from a gas car: just let me fill up.
  • afavour 3y ago
    IMO that would be better solved by mandating tap and pay payment at EV charging spots. Integrating payments into the charging standard feels like a wild overcomplication by comparison.
    • AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      Not only that, how do you even propose to do it? If you just send the payment info via the charging plug, now you have to worry about the payment info being stored in the car and potentially stolen if the car has any security vulnerabilities, including in the charging port. If you use some kind of tokenization or similar then you're inserting third party payment processors into the system and they'll be wanting a cut. Just put a card reader on the charger and be done with it.
      • afavour 3y ago
        [flagged]
        • AnthonyMouse 3y ago
          This is something you add support for as an optional convenience feature because you can do it entirely in software, not something you require people to use. You still need a card reader on the charger. This is the fundamental problem with all of this stuff -- nobody wants your app. If you can't make it better than sticking a card in the machine, go away. If you can, prove it, by making it an alternative to sticking a card in the machine instead of the only option.
        • andrelaszlo 3y ago
          Can't read. Does it say USB-C? ;)
      • sonicanatidae 3y ago
        Wouldn't presence of the key address most of this? Sure, they can steal the car AND the key, but more often, it's the car alone.
      • tzs 3y ago
        Another reason for a card reader is that it easily handles the case of a borrowed EV. It is customary when borrowing someone's ICE car to pay for the gas used by returning the car with as much gas as it had when you borrowed it, or even with a full tank. I'd expect people will want to continue that custom when the car is an EV.
        • matt-attack 3y ago
          EVs could potentially handle that scenario even better than how it works with ICE cars. With ICE there’s always the error associated with how much gas was in the car to start as well as how much should you fill up when returning it. (Yes I know it’s customary to always just return a friend’s car filled to 100% regardless of the original tank state). Nonetheless with an EV you could just hit a button saying “friend has taken possession” or “loaner mode” similar to valet mode. Upon returning the car and disabling that mode the car could present you with an accurate dollar amount of exactly what to pay your friend.
    • highwaylights 3y ago
      It also brings that part of the charging experience to parity with gas, which is really simple for non-tech savvy switchers to understand. The process for EV and gas refuelling is then identical: Lift thingamabob -> tap card -> plug into car -> leave Easy.
    • Animats 3y ago
      The tap-and-pay RF people need to get their act together. The average number of tries needed to get a good read is > 1. For Veriphone units, > 2. Please make it clear where, exactly, the near-field antenna is. Behind the screen? Behind the logo that looks like WiFi? Somewhere inside a separate hockey-puck device? And indicate when the reader is active, too. Light up something. One place I visit regularly had a POS system which worked perfectly. They recently switched it out for a Clover unit with much lower read reliability and a worse customer-facing UI.
      • VBprogrammer 3y ago
        For what it's worth, contactless is ubiquitous in the UK – the experience is almost always seamless. The only exception being the odd reader with the antenna in a stupid place (these have gotten less common over time) or when your bank decides to force a pin check.
        • Affric 3y ago
          I want to echo this. When contactless is ubiquitous there are pretty much no problems.
          • xp84 3y ago
            I don’t know if I agree. It’s exceedingly rare now to find a place which doesn’t accept contactless in America, but we have these problems still. Besides dumb inconsistent terminals, the main thing holding it back is (A) customers don’t use it because they either don’t know it’s much faster than our garbage chip readers, or they have been burned by hunting for the right spot to tap. And (B) even the clerks don’t use it because until about this year there was a significant fraction of cards out there without NFC and who wants to hunt for the logo instead of just always shoving it in the (stupid slow) chip reader. There still might be plenty if you count debit cards which I never use but are very popular.
            • recursive 3y ago
              Sometimes I try to use the tap-to-pay. When I try, more often than not, I cannot get it to work, and then I use the chip anyway. So usually, I just use the chip to save time.
    • Sophira 3y ago
      Okay, hear me out here. What's stopping us from just having payments be out of band, like with petrol? Is being able to ask your car to make a long drive across long distances on its own actually something people want to do? Or is it a solution in search of a problem? (Disclaimer, I live in the UK and not the US. It's possible there are cultural reasons I've missed.)
    • henrikschroder 3y ago
      I saw that Norway is now mandating tap and pay at all new EV charging spots. I agree, that's the way to go. Charging an EV has to be just as easy as filling up a gas car. Pull up, tap you card, plug in. There's zero reason for having to fiddle with apps and memberships and qr codes and whatever else bullshit.
  • MostlyStable 3y ago
    I have done multiple 10+ hour (although no multi day) road trips in an ev. It was fine. I had problems exactly one time and i was able to just go to a different charger a mile away. All of the chargers I've used had apps, but they also allowed using a credit card, which seems like it would have solved your problem just as well. And that's already a solved problem, even if not every charging network uses it.
    • dzhiurgis 3y ago
      Now go abroad where charging app is not available in your country or requires local phone number to register, uses local language, or even wants local address or local payment method. Just give me website god damn it.
      • gambiting 3y ago
        My story of charging in Germany one time a year ago: The charger requires an app, ok fine. Downloaded the app, had to setup the whole account with my address(UK address was allowed as my address), verify my email, verify my phone number(UK one was accepted), fine, done. Went to add my payment card - nope, the billing address has a pre-filled country field set to Germany, can't change it. It says ring this number in case of any problems. I ring the number just to hear: "Sorry, our customer service operators are not available on Sunday. Call back on Monday after 9am". Imagine if filling up with petrol was such a lottery.
        • JAlexoid 3y ago
          German "Sunday is rest day" at it's best. If fuel stations are essential(as in allowed to be open on Sundays), then with the EVs becoming the norm so should be the support for these stations.
        • VBprogrammer 3y ago
          I know it's not quite the problem you are talking about (which would be dealt with by making normal contactless / chip and pin readers a requirement) – but I'd love to see a legal requirement that when your charge point can't contact the piece of shit payment / authentication service the user gets to charge for free. That would soon see an uptick in the reliability of charge points...
  • jdsully 3y ago
    Some chargers have tap&pay on the machine like a gas pump. No app needed.
    • yurishimo 3y ago
      This should be mandated by law.
      • akouri 3y ago
        disagree. see my comment above
        • autoexecbat 3y ago
          disagree, explain yourself rather than citing (without even providing a link)
          • akouri 3y ago
            Tap & Pay (Apple Pay, etc) are a great backup option -- and Starlight will implement those, but the primary modality of payment should require no user input. That's what we are hoping to accomplish. It's especially important when you are plugging in every night. Fiddling with your wallet or phone (battery dead??) is just one extra step that ultimately is not necessary if we are to design a system at scale.
            • mixmastamyk 3y ago
              This is a smaller use case—folks living in apartments without direct electricity connection. While the case exists and can be improved separately it shouldn't dictate requirements/costs to the rest of us. Think I'd try to solve that by having the customer register the car/payment once at the kiosk and then handle plug-and-charge-and-bill though your service. Then you don't need to wait for an external solution and can advertise convenience as your added value in the meantime.
  • ketralnis 3y ago
    I've done a fair amount of road tripping (~15k mi over 1.5yr) along the WA/OR/CA/NV corridors where Electrify America is dense enough to use solely, which is convenient since my car came with 2 years of free charging from them. Ignoring their pervasive station reliability problems, their app is pretty bad and only barely functions. * I've had to skip a perfectly functioning station because the app thought I was still charging from the previous time and wouldn't change its mind about it. * Their Carplay app has literally never worked for me, not once (usually it shows me still charging from a session >1wk ago even when the regular app doesn't, sometimes it doesn't boot, sometimes it shows me as not logged in. The main screen has never once rendered.). * One of their level 2 stations (which tend even less reliable) existed in the app on about 50% of refreshes. * The app requires a pretty solid signal to work at all since it seems to consult their API to query for stations near where you are and then you guess at which one it is ("is this the target one or the mall one? it's the target that's in the mall?") which is pretty silly when you're parked at the station so it's in range of your hands and eyes. * I eventually figured out that I can add the EA plan to my Apple Wallet and tap the phone instead of ever opening the app, but that seems to randomly select between the "free" plan (rather, included in the purchase price of my car) and the $10 balance that they make me maintain for god-knows-why when at California electricity prices no charge has ever been below $10. * The stations have credit card readers which I've never tried to use but almost always when I see somebody having trouble at a station it's because they're fighting with that thing. I assume EA's response would be "just use the app, it's so much better" That's all just one app, not a slew of them for every charging network in my area (which also includes at least evgo & chargepoint just to cover the big ones). The sooner this app bullshit can die the better.
    • progman32 3y ago
      Every time I use the app I have to force quit it at least once to get it to stop doing whatever backend query it's doing. Doesn't help that their chargers are barely compatible with my car (2014 i3) so the charging fails to start about half the time. The machine itself rejects the charge in about ten seconds so no big deal, but the app isn't built to handle this case and takes multiple minutes to realize something is wrong. So my charging cycle is to initiate via app, plug in, see a failed charge, force quit the app, find the station again, and repeat probably twice. Probably isn't this bad with newer cars, but I love my car otherwise. Made sure to get the one with the extra scooter engine in the back, so I can just drive around on gas if it comes down to it.
  • why_at 3y ago
    Yeah I agree having a different app for each station sucks, but I don't really understand how plug-and-charge would solve this. For anything that does support plug-and-charge, don't you still need to register the payment method somewhere in advance? Unless we have some universal payment processor which all the charging networks agree to use I will still need register through an app or something when I encounter a new brand of charger on a road trip. It seems like the real solution is a law which requires the stations to accept a more universal payment system like credit cards. I think there is already a law like this in California IIRC.
    • ldarby 3y ago
      > It seems like the real solution is a law which requires the stations to accept a more universal payment system like credit cards. No shit, Sherlock? In the UK a lot of fuel pumps have credit/debit card readers built in, and if not cards are accepted everywhere for payment already. But yes electric charging companies here are still wierd about accepting such standardised payments, and we did just introduce a new law about it [0] promising "most" but not all chargers will accept cards. [0] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-laws-to-make-charging-an-electric-vehicle-easier-and-quicker https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-laws-to-make-charging...
    • akouri 3y ago
      Tap & Pay still requires you to fiddle with a station and slows you down. If you are plugging in at home (which is our target market), the fewer interactions needed the better. Imagine every time you get home you need to take your wallet out, tap the machine, wait for some 3rd party api to talk to the charger in the dimly lit basement, and then and only then you can leave. This is like 30 seconds of your day wasted. Plus, ultimately we want to make charging as cheap as possible and having to pay the $.30 interchange fee each time a user plugs in would add a ton of overhead to our cost model.
      • namdnay 3y ago
        Surely the interchange fee can be negotiated for volume? Or even mandated by law. When I tap my credit card to buy a 1$ bus ticket I doubt the interchange is keeping 30 cents?
  • greenthrow 3y ago
    GP is talking about L2 charging for multi family homes. Not DCFC. But I agree, DCFC need to all accept credit cards like gas pumps. Fortunately NEVI funding requires it.
  • spaceywilly 3y ago
    If I may ask what seems like an obvious question… why can’t they just use credit card terminals like gas stations have been using for many decades?
    • yurishimo 3y ago
      They could, and many do, but the difference is that those types of interfaces are mandated/regulated while EV charging is not. Guess what's slightly cheaper when amortized across tens of thousands of customers in the products lifetime? Not to mention the amount of data that could be mined from those customers by having yet another app on their phone with bullshit location permissions "for the best user experience." Every gas pump has looked/functioned largely the same since the widespread adoption of cashless payments around the world. Until governments mandate a standard payment interface, I think it's more likely that companies will continue to find ways to mine data from consumers through shitty apps. Oh, and that's not even to mention the companies that include some amount of "free charging" credits with the purchase of the vehicle. Not only is that cost baked into the cost of the car, you're also disincentivized from using the network at all because of how crappy it is. /tinfoilhat
      • spaceywilly 3y ago
        Yeah that just seems like a poor decision on the part of these charger owners. I feel like there’s an opportunity for a company called “EZCharge - we take credit cards”. People will seek it out when looking for a charging station because they know they won’t need to download a BS app. Or maybe another solution would be like WeChat Pay in China, something that’s so ubiquitous that all stores just have a QR code you scan to pay for anything nowadays. I’m surprised nothing like that has taken off in the US, it’s crazy convenient.
        • seanmcdirmid 3y ago
          There is no way to communicate when you are charged up that way, maybe via an SMS that you add with your phone number. Also, you have to communicate your charging preference somehow. It’s not like pumping gas, you rarely want it to stop at 100%, although the charging standard might at least be able to control that from the car.
  • ClassyJacket 3y ago
    But why not just have contactless bank card payment? Yeah it is a pain, I have an electric car, but only because they force you to use their broken apps. All they have to do is let you pay with a bank card and it'll be just as easy as buying petrol.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • brnt 3y ago
    So, I haven't got the money for an electric car... One just can't use the payment card at a bog standard self service payment terminal? I had assumed that, but apparently no? You seriously visit random websites and enter CC details?
    • hcal 3y ago
      Right, many or most don't have credit card terminals. You plug in, load an app, find you station, select a port number, tell it to start and hope it works. It doesn't sound that bad, but the chargers janky, the apps are janky and it takes a long time often with multiple attempts.
      • brnt 3y ago
        Installing random apps sounds janky as hell. I only install vetted apps from F droid. I wouldn't give a charging station access to my phone.
        • rconti 3y ago
          It is janky as hell, but it sounds like EV owners are making their lives more difficult in just slightly different ways from how you're making your life more difficult :)
          • brnt 3y ago
            I really can't believe how the idea of giving random companies access to electronics, which is what installing an app means, ever got normalised, even among techies. I guess people also do give out tons of personal details just because some form asks them. It goes against any and all security advice even regular people are now given. I guess it's true: the brosephs ook over... So having an electric car requires an smartphone, one on which you can install random software, where you want to install random software, and have internet (cause I suppose there's no WiFi at those bornes) and you have a CC (also not true for many). Good to know that this isn't for me.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • akouri 3y ago
    This is exactly it. My dad almost missed some of my sister's wedding fiddling with the same type of crappy UX on a no-name charger.
  • ProfessorZoom 3y ago
    You have this problem because they’re not Tesla. Thats why everyone is adopting NACS and Tesla superchargers
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • bloggie 3y ago
    That is entirely the fault of that charging network for implementing a user-unfriendly and unfamiliar interface. How is grandma, who can't even manage a QR code, expected to switch to EVs like that. That company should fail because their business is bad.
  • ethagknight 3y ago
    I mean... you can't just fill up. You have to scan a card, wait 5 seconds, enter your zip code, select the button for "grade". Credit card skimmers at gas stations are a big problem too. You may have been used to that process so it seems more fluid, but Tesla charging is truly "plug and charge" at superchargers
  • somedude895 3y ago
    That's nothing in comparison to what we get in Switzerland. I went to a public parking garage yesterday that advertised ev charging spots. I get there and there's just an nfc module. I had to look for and google some logo on the station only to find out that to charge with that provider you need to order a physical badge and pay 50 bucks upfront. That sort of crap is why I don't rely on anything other than Superchargers. And I won't for a long time even after they do get their act together. It's just too much risk.
• solatic 3y ago
  Recharging electric vehicles is not like refilling gas-powered cars. You will intentionally drive a gas vehicle down to 20%, even 10% tank left before going out of your way to a gas station, maybe once a week on average. But with electric cars, you should intentionally be plugging in to recharge as frequently as possible, at least once a day, as you are penalized (with longer recharge times) the longer you go between recharges. Imagine needing to negotiate a credit card with your wall outlet before recharging your phone every night, and you'll get an idea why people would hate needing to pull out their credit card for every EV charge.
  • dylan604 3y ago
    You must not have had a dad that harped on you about letting your tank get below 50%. If I let mine get down to 10%, my dad would have taken my keys away. There are many reasons people give for this that do not involve zombies and go bags
    • fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
      Your car is rear-wheel-drive and the extra weight you are carrying around in the fuel tank helps your acceleration in the snow?
      • dylan604 3y ago
        no, i had a small truck, so we'd just throw extra ballast in the back to help with that
      • NewJazz 3y ago
        Driving with a near empty tank is more likely to cause corrosion.
        • dylan604 3y ago
          this isn't technically correct. the low levels are not causing the corrosion. it's the contaminants that float in the fuel is the issue. when the tank has plenty of fuel, those floaters are not near the fuel pump. as the levels lower, the contaminants become more concentrated and are more likely to interact with the pump. at least, that's how it was described to me. by described, of course i mean harped on at every opportunity the parental unit could berate about lack of proper care for the car blah blah blah
• enragedcacti 3y ago
  For apartments I think it makes a lot of sense. Having to do a couple transactions every road trip is one thing, but having to complete a transaction just to top off every night the way a homeowner would sounds really annoying.
  • _ea1k 3y ago
    The flip side to that is that you'd only have to setup the app once at your home. If the charging activation is as smooth as chargepoint, it wouldn't be bad at all.
  • spaceywilly 3y ago
    It would be easy to support both options. Many gas stations have their own app payment system.
  • HenryBemis 3y ago
    I am thinking of buildings where they got 100+ parking spots, and one can install a charging station for his/her/their car. THAT station needs some 'lock' (software or hardware). Otherwise what stops someone else to abuse my parking spot's 'e-pump', when I drive to work and the spot will be unoccupied for the next 10h? So some hoop-jumping should also be required.
  • namdnay 3y ago
    For apartments it would make more sense to have it read the same key fob you use to open the gates or whatever. Then just add it on your monthly building bill
    • akouri 3y ago
      Not a bad idea. We are looking into this. One issue is that the vendors for these keyfobs are super fragmented -- even more so than Plug & Charge adoption.
      • g_p 3y ago
        Worth being aware that, as well as keyfobs being super fragmented, many are woefully insecure. Think "they just say their ID number when you put them in a reader field". That means you can trivially clone them. Not hugely exciting for access to a (common) hallway in a large building. If cloning someone else's fob gets you free car charging, the incentive is there to clone them. Also, not all buildings will use unique fobs per "unit" (and you'd likely need to support per-resident/tenant fob uniqueness... And something for guests!) -- sometimes it's a single hardcoded value for the whole block or door zone that the fob opens... You can, of course, build something proper using NFC (and a smartcard running a smartcard applet), which is effectively like your own custom mini "chip and PIN" EMV system -- you would have to design and implement the wire protocol to authenticate the card etc etc, and all the security design around that, but it could be done. That would at least let you have something more than simply shouting your tag ID number into the air like a super basic NFC tag (or RFID keyfob).
• _ea1k 3y ago
  With an L2 at an apartment, you might be plugging in daily. It'd be nice to keep the steps as minimal as possible. Having said that, something like an NFC card + QR code support would be good enough, IMO. The main thing would be to keep the app as simple and fast as possible.
  • dylan604 3y ago
    QR sticker manipulation is too easy of a vector for me to take anything seriously when it comes to "just scan the code, enter card data, and carry on" is just too easy to fake. it's even easier than credit card skimmers. I like QR codes and their convenience for non-critical things like marketing. For things that are direct payment links it is just too unsecure for my comfort
    • _ea1k 3y ago
      That's a fair point. TBH, a combination of GPS (or just smart defaulting) and entering a short code would work pretty easily as well. They could also put the QR on a small screen to make it harder to fake. A little epaper display wouldn't add much to the cost.
      • dylan604 3y ago
        also, who plugs in daily? do you fuel your ICE car daily? other than professional drivers, i'm doubting this is the normal routine for normal drivers. the irrational idea that EVs need to be plugged in at any and every opportunity is something that should be rationalized away. <referring to your point earlier> i don't own an EV, so maybe my preconceived ideas of only charging when necessary may be what needs updating??? however, regular battery maintenance routines suggests daily charging might not be the best for the battery.
        • _ea1k 3y ago
          I'd guess that most EV owners with home charging do plug in daily, but also limit charge based on the type of pack. For most of us, that means ~80% as a daily limit, if not less. In practice, I don't think EV owners are seeing a meaningful difference between repeatedly doing charges from 70 to 80% vs periodically doing bigger charges (eg, 20-80%). So why not have a full-enough pack every morning? It is one of the big conveniences of an EV. Obviously this will be different if they don't have home charging or have a less than convenient setup.
• SoftTalker 3y ago
  Yep. Regular petrol stations figured out pay at the pump decades ago. Why is this such a problem for EV charging?
  • quickthrowman 3y ago
    That’s a easyn one. The charger manufacturers (ChargePoint, etc) want to rake a percentage of the charging revenue for themselves, so they force you to route payment processing through them.
  • KennyBlanken 3y ago
    Companies don't want want the hassle and expense of PCI compliance across their charger network. If it's just session auth shit going across the wire, they only need to worry about PCI compliance on the back end. By collecting lots of info about you, they get a lower processing rate because the transaction is lower risk vs a swipe/tap. They can save on transaction fees if they consolidate charging sessions; say you do 2-3 charging sessions in one day. They want all the personal data they can collect on you constantly if you have the app installed, and to spam you with marketing notifications. They want resistance to using a different charging network. Charger Company A's charger is $1/minute and Charger Company B's charger is $1.10, and they're on the same block? Obviously you're going to go to the cheaper one if you can just swipe your credit card. If you have to download an app (using your mobile data, and it might be quite slow), register an account, etc - then you not going to bother with the cheaper station.
    • JAlexoid 3y ago
      This is before EV charging becomes a commodity or a public utility... Though public utilities are typically even worse, than the current landscape of charging apps :(
    • ska 3y ago
      Honestly, it may not matter if companies don't want it. Consumers are going to demand it, and it may be necessary before EV's become ubiquitous, assuming they do. One thing that has helped their case in the US is that payments have historically been a pain in the ass anyway, compared to many other countries. That is changing though.
• hehhehaha 3y ago
  I think the credit card thing would require the chargers to be monitored in a way.
• autoexecbat 3y ago
  It's a really big improvement, I don't want to mess around with some random app or some credit card reader. Having experienced it I'd never go back
• akouri 3y ago
  Tap & Pay with a ccard still requires you to fiddle with a station and slows you down. If you are plugging in at home (which is our target market), the fewer interactions needed the better. Imagine every time you get home you need to take your wallet out, tap the machine, wait for some 3rd party api to talk to the charger in the dimly lit basement, and then and only then you can leave. This is like 30 seconds of your day wasted. Plus, ultimately we want to make charging as cheap as possible and having to pay the $.30 interchange fee each time a user plugs in would add a ton of overhead to our cost model.
  • hedora 3y ago
    This would be infinitely better than the current model, where you have to install a bullshit app, which doesn’t work over 20% of the time. I’d happily pay $0.30 per charge session to just use standard NFC or chip payments. Also, why in god’s name would I have authentication on my home charger?
    • akouri 3y ago
      > Also, why in god’s name would I have authentication on my home charger? Not everyone in the US lives in a single family home
      • hedora 3y ago
        But if you have a dedicated spot, then the problem is still solved.
    • VBprogrammer 3y ago
      Surely this could be dealt with by accepting a "membership card" over NFC. I'm sure my dad has a token for the parking barriers at his place of work which can also take direct card payments. As an added bonus, when you have family or friends visiting they can pay to charge as normal (at presumably a slightly less attractive rate).
      • hedora 3y ago
• CarVac 3y ago
  For routine home charging, you don't want to require a credit card transaction.
• AmericanChopper 3y ago
  Because according to the parent commenter, any company that doesn’t let them take control of their payments is a walled garden. I mean, how is their startup going to make any money if these charging companies don’t give it to them?
• andrejk 3y ago
  This road trip video does a good job showing the papercuts and more significant issues that make a non-Tesla road trip painful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92w5doU68D8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92w5doU68D8
• moralestapia 3y ago
  Lol, why would one want more friction on a particular activity?
• shreezus 3y ago
  There really additional friction dealing with payments, cards, buttons etc. Personally when I park, I just want to stick the charging plug into my car and walk away and not think about it, the same way I do with my phone every night.
• browningstreet 3y ago
  The plug and charge solution will seem an iteration or two more advanced than others. And it serves as a customer delight.