Tesla’s charging stations left other manufacturers in the dust

https://hbr.org/2021/01/how-teslas-charging-stations-left-other-manufacturers-in-the-dust

by apress • 5 years ago

296 440 5 years ago

As a Tesla owner, I tried using a third-party charging station once just to see what it was like. I ended up leaving and going to the closest supercharger instead because of how laughably bad the experience was.

Tesla has done a phenomenal job making it easy and convenient to own and drive an EV. Other automakers are trying to catch up on range and acceleration, but if they really want to compete they need to consider the entire user experience.

mapmap• 5 years ago

What was bad about it?

djrogers4• 5 years ago

Not OP, but 3rd party chargers often:

1) require a new app to be installed 2) require you to create an account and add your credit card info 3) are broken 4) work, but charge slower than they should

cogman104• 5 years ago

Here's the tesla experience.

Pull into charge, plug in the car, start charging.

Here's the competition.

Pull into charge, plug in the car, Maybe swipe a credit if you are lucky and start charging. Likely, you need to install a 3rd party app first then you need to feed that app your CC information and then you need to tell that app a station number to activate. You better hope there's good internet because if there's not you might not be able to charge.

Further, for stations that do take a credit card or tap and pay. It's like 50/50 on whether or not it will actually go through. Usually it takes a crazy long time to actually validate the card number before charging (Like, I've waited 10 minutes before for a charge to start!).

jmpman2• 5 years ago

Many times the third party chargers are broken, or vandalized. Some have screens which are completely unreadable after a few years in the sun. They’re sited in inconvenient spots, such as mall parking lots, which have nothing open after 9pm.

That being said, the Tesla charging network is far from perfect. Check to see how many US National Parks you can practically visit with a Tesla. Carlsbad Caverns? Nope. North Rim of the Grand Canyon? Barely.

pornel2• 5 years ago

Chargers have the same quality and reliability as a free public WiFi. Often broken, slow, difficult to activate, and nobody cares.

The market is fragmented. Chargers are run by different companies. Very often you can't even use them, because they don't accept card payments, and expect you to have a membership, or at best use their custom shitty app.

mohaine3• 5 years ago

I have an acquaintance that had just bought his 4th Leaf (2019) and decided to drive it on a 400ish mile road trip to a conference. It took him over 10 hours. When he got to the next charger they

1) Often only had 1 high output charger. 2) The one they had was often either in use, or broken leading to very long charge times.

This combined with the less than stellar driver assist the would never get any better for the life of car made him almost instantly regret sticking with the leaf.

He owned it for about 2 months before trading it in on new Model 3.

stcredzero2• 5 years ago

When I went for my test drive of a Model 3, I noted that there was a Chevy Bolt being traded in for a Model 3.

worldsayshi9• 5 years ago

Is it not possible to charge a Leaf at a Tesla station? If so we have to have a drive towards standardisation fast. Or Tesla will have a monopoly.

DoingIsLearning• 5 years ago

To be fair there is about a 10k price difference between a model 3 and Leaf.

Not saying your points are untrue but for completeness you would expect less for a cheaper car. We can certainly point to the technology gap between the two being too wide but at the end of the day they are not at the same price point.

dasudasu• 5 years ago

A friend of mine sold his first generation Leaf and purchased a used Prius instead. He is an EV fanatic and that was his first car.

There is a private network of charging stations in our area. He has a few stories about them.

One time he arrives at a station that disconnects him after 5 seconds. He calls them. Customer service says it's functional and nothing is wrong with it. He asks them to look up the previous charges. They all disconnected after 5 seconds. Coincidence!

He goes to another broken station. He calls them. Apparently they're not aware of it being down right now, but tell him it's a recurrent problem with this one. Nothing else is done.

He breaks his own rules and takes his chances on a charging station without having enough charge to go to another one in case this one fails. Sure enough, it's broken. He call them. He has to get towed to the next station, and they will pay for it, but that doesn't include his own transport. He has to pay for a cab himself.

He gets to another non-functional charging station. He calls them. They tell him it's a compatibility issue with his car despite him having used the same ones for the past 5 years. There is nothing else they can do for him. He asks to speak to someone higher up and to pass on his complaint. He never hears back.

He wasn't even discouraged by the long recharge times. In the end, it's because he was tired of being late to appointments and having to worry about this crap all the time.

js2• 5 years ago

That's why we went with a Volt. It was the right compromise for us. Allows my wife to drive electric 90% of the time but still can go on road-trips w/o having to find a charging station. At the time we bought, Tesla stations were still few and far between for the types of road trips she would take anyway.

1234letshaveatw2• 5 years ago

Does your user experience rating take into account interoperability (or lack thereof of e.g superchargers) and service center and replacement part availability?

_ea1k9• 5 years ago

I'm going to guess it does and is graded against his own personal experience with other vehicles.

mynameisvlad2• 5 years ago

Why would a Tesla owner care about interoperability? The supercharger network is clearly a selling point for Tesla. Why do they need to allow access to other manufacturers? Why would they even want to do that?

I mean, this whole article is about how Tesla invested in a charging infrastructure that is leaps and bounds above all competitors. The whole point is that Tesla decided that was a requirement before scaling up production and it is a key reason why people choose their EVs over the competition.

_ea1k9• 5 years ago

To be fair, now (8 years after the first superchargers), Electrify America supports plug and charge. Because of this, the experience with the Mach-E is really close to that of supercharging.

There's still a gap, but its much smaller now and EA is even ahead in some areas.

hnburnsy2• 5 years ago

See my other post in this thread specifically about the Mustang and Electrify America. Looks like they have a way to go.

rconti2• 5 years ago

How does EA station status work? Do the latest EVs have a way of pulling realtime availability data from the network, or do you have to use a phone app? (Or is it not possible at all?)

IMO, more important than catching up to Tesla's headstart in total number of chargers, is just to have reliable station information before you arrive. This doesn't have to work on every network-- just enough of them to trust the system. I won't say it's trivial, but it should be fairly easy to work towards. Each network needs to have a way of exposing charger status, and the vehicles need the software to query them. Again, they don't need to support every single possible charger vendor, but the more the better.

The user won't (usually) care if they are unaware of a few chargers they could have used, but they want data on the ones they plan to use, and they want that data to be accurate.

fiftyfifty2• 5 years ago

I'm really shocked that other manufacturers haven't invested in more infrastructure. Toyota and Honda pushed hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for years, they could have easily accelerated adoption of the tech by investing in refueling infrastructure. Now all that money they invested in fuel cell cars looks to be wasted as they both are playing catchup with battery electric vehicles, mostly because of Tesla.

toomuchtodo6• 5 years ago

Legacy automakers never thought they were going to have to build and sell EVs at scale until Tesla forced their hand (and also demonstrated to governments that it was time to schedule new combustion vehicle sales bans), hence why they didn't invest in their own charging networks (which cost Tesla over half a billion dollars and counting [1] [2]).

[1] https://supercharge.info/changes [2] https://supercharge.info/map

Animats• 5 years ago

Toyota and Honda pushed hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for years

Toyota wanted someone else to pay for the infrastructure.

California has 27 hydrogen stations up today.[1] There's not much interest in building more.

[1] https://m.cafcp.org/

starfallg2• 5 years ago

In the UK, there are several different networks now and they offer a good enough experience. Polar Network (now BP Pulse) has many more locations than Tesla, and their rapid chargers are located in convenient locations, such as restaurants and hotels or on a side street in the city center. Cost-wise, the rapid charger price is just 60% of the Tesla Supercharger per kwh.

mprev2• 5 years ago

My experience has been different.

Electric Highway (Ecotricity) has a high rate of broken chargers. When you find one, they seem to charge a minimum fee of £12 regardless of how much you use.

Most chargers are slow. Either 7kw or 11kw is common; 20kw is considered rapid in some places.

The fragmentation of networks means you need at least four crap apps just to get around and then you’ll probably need to install a new app if you’re going somewhere new.

What you call convenient locations are a mixed blessing. Spaces for chargers are often ICEd in my experience because they’re in busy car parks.

I just want to pull up, plug in, and tap my credit card. The charge networks seem to go out of their way to make using the service painful.

cronix2• 5 years ago

One thing I like about Nio is they are using swappable batteries[1] that can be swapped out in about 3-5 minutes, which is comparable, or likely faster, than filling (from empty) at a gas station depending on tank size. It also leaves Nio in charge of keeping the batteries up to date so your car won't lose value over time like a 10 year old car with degraded batteries that won't hold as much of a charge and take longer and longer to charge over time as the battery degrades and cost a heck of a lot to swap out. It costs about $16k[2] to get a Model 3 battery replaced. Nio is able to sell cars for about $10k cheaper by using swappable batteries. Batteries as a Service.

[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a33670482/nio-swappable-ba...

Edit, added link: [2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/enthusiasts/it-costs-nearly-...

Jonanin• 5 years ago

This is a pretty neat idea, but it seems insanely expensive for the network operator. Not only would having a large inventory of spare batteries be very capital intensive, but the swapping stations themselves look complex and expensive too. I wonder if Nio even has the capital required to do this at a large enough scale.

secabeen5• 5 years ago

It's going to be very interesting to see what kinds and levels of fraud they experience with those batteries. Generally, companies don't lend or rent assets valued at $15k+ to individuals without a lot of legal and contractual protections (see your average rental car contract.) Were I them, I would worry a lot about battery wear-and-tear, undeclared damage, and even internal component substitution.

ericmay• 5 years ago

I like the swappable batteries, but I think they are impractical as a comparison to Tesla SuperChargers.

First, it's a logistics problem. Tesla has like 20,000 SuperChargers. If I'm driving on a road trip, I need to stop at a SuperCharger and there's let's say a dozen spots. In some locations those spots are full, others might be half empty and so forth. How will NIO supply the hardware to do these battery swaps? Will there be a dozen battery swap stations spread out similar to the SuperCharger network? Who will deliver the batteries? How many do you need? What happens if you show up and NIO ran out of batteries to swap? Will this actually be cheaper than the SuperCharger network for me?

I think it makes more sense to swap the batteries out from a manufacturing standpoint, but much less so for road trips. You can see NIO already shifting away from this with increased range.

If you could just swap out the batteries why even bother working on range (NIO touting 600km+ cars IIRC)? I guess that could further limit how many swap stations you need (they could be more spread out), but the problem is you end up spreading them just a long main routes. I need a SuperCharger/battery swap location in places like Marquette, Michigan or Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

And as a Tesla owner and road trip driver... I really don't mind waiting like 20 minutes for the battery to charge. It encourages me to take breaks I otherwise wouldn't have taken which are probably more healthy. Destination charging or a SuperCharger within a 20 minute drive of my destination are more of concerns for me now that I own an EV, but it just means the trip has to be planned out a little more.

I like NIO's ambitions and like the battery as a service prospect, but much more for hey I want to swap out my old battery for a new one to extend the life of my car.

bryanlarsen• 5 years ago

Tesla tried that too (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY), but they only built one swap station and they decommissioned it a couple of years later. They claimed lack of demand and doubled down on supercharging instead.

A company named Better Place got a ton of VC funding to set up a battery swapping service for electric cars, and flamed out spectacularly.

Perhaps NIO can succeed where Tesla and Better Place failed, but I'm doubtful. OTOH, Shanghai is probably a great place to start.

ogre_codes9• 5 years ago

Tesla is going the opposite route and integrating their battery into the vehicle more to save weight and increase capacity.

samch2• 5 years ago

To add to this, there is even more going on behind the scenes in the Tesla Supercharging scenario that makes it so incredible effective. A lot of it has to do with charger use optimization. As sales of Teslas outpace growth of the Supercharger network, optimization of the chargers is increasingly important. Much like Apple, the fact that Tesla has fully integrated the entire ecosystem (car, mobile app, Supercharger, payments) means that they can also optimize the end-to-end process. For starters, the in-car display shows where the nearest Superchargers are and automatically plans your trip to incorporate them. After a recent update, you can now see the real-time number of open spaces. When the Tesla has its next navigation destination as a Supercharger, the car will automatically begin conditioning the battery pack (heating it, I believe) to allow the battery chemistry to more readily accept the pending influx of current. While the car is charging, the owner has constant visibility and notification of progress via the mobile app. This helps the owner plan to be back at the charger when the process has completed. Finally, Tesla has implemented monetary penalties for leaving a charged Tesla in charging spot after a certain grace period.

I suppose that what I’m trying to illustrate here is that the overall level of optimization of the charging experience might just remain unique to Tesla, enabling them to scale their user base more efficiently than competitive, non-integrated solutions.

caf7• 5 years ago

An update last year supposedly means that Teslas will also precondition the battery when a third-party DC fast charger is the destination, but I've never seen this work in my country (maybe it works in the US?).

dingaling• 5 years ago

Tesla has done a phenomenal job making it easy and convenient to own and drive an EV.

As they say, your mileage may vary.

There are a total of three (3) Tesla charger stations in all of Ireland. That's one location per 2.3 million people.

For any locals wondering: Ballacolla, Birdhill, Castlebellingham.

war1025• 5 years ago

I just looked and near me (Iowa) the nearest charging stations are over an hour away. It looks like they are located near the major truck stops going through the state. That makes sense I guess, but you don't pass those places unless you are traveling long distance.

I see a fair number of Teslas around town, but I have to imagine they all just charge at home. I know of a single charging station in the area and it supports either one or two cars from what I remember.

GuB-42• 5 years ago

It is not that Tesla is good, it is that their competitors are terrible.

I knew that Tesla is all integrated, you don't even realize you are paying. But I naively expected competition to work like a gas station: insert your credit card to start charging, or, if there is a counter, you can also go there and pay cash.

But no, it doesn't work like that. There are competing standards, you have to download apps and all of that nonsense.

And why should automakers deal with charging stations? Automakers have to come up with a standard plug, and it looks like we are almost there with CCS2. Now it is up to the charging stations to provide a better experience. Gas cars and electric appliances do it right, why does it have to be worse for electric cars?

qubitcoder• 5 years ago

Indeed. This is illustrated vividly here: https://youtu.be/hA_B7qPyUDA?t=1120

Two people engage in a "charging race" to see who can charge the most in 15 minutes. The contenders, a Tesla Model Y and the 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E.

The non-Tesla experience is almost comically sad.

trhway• 5 years ago

The non-Tesla experience is almost comically sad.

Right now, after watching that video, went to the Ford site to order Mach-E (not really order, mainly to get config and price). Fail. Right on the first step there - on attempt to choose a dealer (minor point here is why i have to choose one now?) - webpage produces "Internal Error" and couldn't proceed further. The traditional car makers just don't get it. That is why Tesla is a $T company.

itsoktocry2• 5 years ago

trying to catch up on range

There are a couple cars in the price range of the Model 3 that have better range, combined with the fact Tesla is known to exaggerate the range of their vehicles.

m4633• 5 years ago

I had a leaf (24kwh battery).

It was very inexpensive ~ $7500 @ 4 years old. Part was the subsidies that brought the new price down, part was fear about the batteries. You can't buy many cars with ~ all the options after 4 years for 1/4 of list price.

It was charged at home and mostly just used around town. It was perfect for ~ 25 miles of daily driving.

I did take it on longer journeys and charge on the way, but think 30 miles from home, not 200 miles. It took careful planning and a little faith in "plan B"

I had to get accounts with 3 charging providers:

- chargepoint - their model seems to be they sell the chargers and run them for the property owner. Many companies run private chargers for their employees this way. They do mostly L2 chargers at malls, restaurants, etc. THey don't have many fast L3 chargers on their network. They are very well run and their chargers are reliable.

- evgo - they own the chargers and install them. They usually put 2 fast L3 chargers + a row of slower ~6kw L2 chargers at places like whole foods and walmart. They are very reliable, and good for trips. Sometimes you will have to wait for someone to finish charging.

- blink - frankly, they suck. I haven't had much problem with their slower L2 chargers, but finding an L3 charger was like playing fallout scrounging bombed out infrastructure. Seriously, their chargers were always broken and undependable. They're owned by the property owners but somehow never fixed.

I haven't used my accounts in 2 years, and things might have changed. I know there are a few more entrants now.

Telsa meanwhile makes travel like a "normal car" possible via LOTS of overlapping details:

- large batteries - travel radius is larger

- charging station location - usually within radius

- charging station sizing - most stations have a LOT of chargers

- fast charging - you travel more and sit less, also less contention for chargers

- navigation - nav system will plan your route for you, including charging

Note that there is also a "secondary" tesla network of slow(er) chargers that doesn't get mentioned much. Hotels and other places have installed these "destination chargers" that tesla has provided for free. Slower usually means 6kw, but I've heard some do higher rates like 18kw.

Rafert2• 5 years ago

Counterpoint: I use the Circuit Electrique network (owned by Hydro Quebec) and their infrastructure has been great. Level 2 curbside chargers are found throughout the city and they app works fine. There's a few super chargers outside Montreal but nothing worth driving out of the way for.

While digging in to how their network is built, I found out it seem their infrastructure is from AddEnergie, a Quebec company that's also the provider for the eCharge (New Brunswick) and the BC Hydro EV. They have their own consumer brand for home chargers and public charging network across Canada called FLO. They seem to be growing fast (closed their series C last year), their product seems to be pretty good, so it doesn't have to be all terrible.

websites22• 5 years ago

And the app works fine

The Tesla standard is so high that if your customers have to use app, you've already failed.

innagadadavida• 5 years ago

Here is what I liked about Tesla chargers: 1. The short cable is good as it keeps careless people from entangling and making a cable mess. 2. Compared to the chademo plug, the Tesla plug is light and small and is less likely to get damaged if dropped accidentally. 3. When you press the button on the plug, the car charging port opens automatically. Also the charging port closes automatically when unplugged. 4. If port is broken, most Tesla owners have the etiquette to signal this to the next user by keeping the plug out. What would be better is to show this status like a light (visibly from 20ft at night). 5. They show chargers right in the car display map and tell you how many are free to use no need for another app.

These are all nice small touches. The biggest mess the EV folks have made is having 5 different types of poorly designed chargers and plugs and current capacity. Having one type of plug and making them all fast will go a long way to better EV adoption. The oil companies have done much better and this is a shame.

natch2• 5 years ago

I have made a point of trying other networks and they definitely don't hold a candle to the Supercharger network ease of use, simplicity, speed, coverage, etc.

There are some really choice UI travesties on display in some of the non-Tesla chargers.

* Buttons that appear on screen and pulsate enticingly, but even though it's a touch screen, you discover later that you were supposed to press the corresponding hardware button below the screen, not the button shown on the screen, but there's no instruction to that effect.

* Laggy buttons that seem to not respond, then react later and draw a new button in the same place, with a different action, just as your finger comes down and taps intending to try again with the button that just disappeared.

* The UI leads you through an entire flow (Electrify America) on the hardware, and then at the end it says "please unplug and start over then plug in again" where other stations are "please plug in first and then start on the UI".

* Or you have an account already with a linked credit card and you swipe your phone, and the station shows on the screen that it recognizes your account, and you go through the entire flow and it says at the end: "Sorry, this station can only be enabled through the app." Please use the app to start the charging. Dude, I just swiped my phone and it has the app right here and the screen told me to proceed on the charger station screen.

To be fair, once you get through this rigamarole a couple times and learn the quirks, most people can use the system, and these third party chargers have sometimes been really useful. But yeah one is thankful to have more options than just those bad ones.

By contrast, Tesla charging is you take the plug off the holder and plug it in. Done.

Still it's nice to have the other chargers around. Like free slow charging at Target… if I spend 30 minutes there, I get 12 miles or so, sure, I'll take it.

When choosing an EV you should look at the Venn diagram of what chargers will be available to you, and choose one that has the best options… Tesla is firmly on top in such a comparison, with essentially a superset of almost all charger types and locations open for use. Would love to see them start selling a Tesla CCS adapter too but that would be almost an embarrassment of options.

gonehome9• 5 years ago

What’s wild to me is that the legacy car companies watched tesla do this over a ten year period and basically did nothing except mock them during that time.

Even now the legacy companies are held up by few EV models, bad range, bad software, bad dealership experience, and bad charging networks.

Tesla may be overvalued, but I have little faith the existing companies will survive this transition.

It feels like they’re all RIM when the iPhone launched, mocking it and then suddenly talking about how the competition is getting a little heated.

If Apple also gets in its even more hopeless for legacy companies.

It’s also wild none of them took Tesla up on the offer to use their superchargers - I think it would have been worth nearly any price.

helsinkiandrew• 5 years ago

To be fair, there's always been a lot of niche 'technologies' in vehicle propulsion - hydrogen, fuel cells, LPG, that may or may not have been the future. It's taken a leap in battery technology and worries about climate change at the same time to make EV's the 'right choice'.

It's very hard for large companies to change direction (car companies have a 100 years of momentum behind them). They tend to do so by buying niche players - small car and technology companies that have proven (or nearly proven) themselves.

I don't think Tesla is going to be bought up but I wouldn't discount the legacy car and oil companies from surviving. If gas station companies start installing charging stations at every one of their stations the market may look very different.

cstejerean• 5 years ago

Probably for the same reason BlackBerry (then RIM) and Microsoft mocked Apple when they announced the iPhone.

Something along the lines of hard to get someone to understand something when their livelihood depends on not understanding it.

Daho0n• 5 years ago

Bad dealership experience? That is funny as Tesla is rated as one of the worst in dealership experience in all the lists I have seen in Scandinavia. In a list of 23 manufacturers Tesla is number 22 and 23 in dealership and repair in Denmark for example right below FIAT.

Apple is working with Hyundai AFAIK.

mbirth2• 5 years ago

I don't know how it is outside Europe, but in Europe car manufacturers have to obey a CO2 per kilometre limit which is calculated over their whole range of cars on offer.

Only until recently, classic manufacturers didn't actually want to sell EVs. They only built them to get down their fleet-overall-CO2-value so they can also build another SUV (which are selling like hot cakes and have a huge margin of profit compared to EVs due to tried and tested technology) and still adhere to the limit.

Now the first "legacy" manufacturers slowly start to make "proper" EVs for somewhat normal prices. However, they rely on power companies to build (compatible) charging stations. And those power companies are very reluctant because they're waiting for more EV customers to hit the streets before building more charging points. Add to that different standards (CCS, CHAdeMO) and nobody feeling responsible to quickly repair broken stations and we have the current situation.

Something that shouldn't be forgotten: Tesla early on asked other car manufacturers if they wanted "in" on their charging network. But they all refused. (Might change slowly, though. [1])

[1] https://www.electrive.com/2020/12/22/tesla-superchargers-alr...

Shivetya• 5 years ago

Legacy companies, like GM and Ford, were and are playing the ZEV/Carbon Credit game. As in, produce enough to grab some headlines but only produce what you need to offset your emissions; hence even Ford plays this game with a 50k limit on Mach E production.

They were quite will to wait for government to build out the charging network or have others do so. Heck I am still surprised Tesla's system hasn't been forced open. Both New York and California have had politicians float that idea before by different means; one requiring all stations to accept credit cards and the other jacking up electricity rates for stations not support all brands.

Still think it may be in Tesla's best interest to eventually sell off their charging network. As a Tesla owner it really getting to the point state side that buying one may be a negative as the only connector they offer is their own; they really should put one on both sides of each type or offer that.

PicassoCTs• 5 years ago

BMW salesman tried to talk my boss out of a EV, stating they had "none" available to test drive and those were not the future anyway. They use their own inability to supply a good charging infrastructure as argument against EVs here. ("Reichweitenangst")

They are to tangled in their supplier systems, to many jobs life and die with legacy vehicles. The truth is, they can build a EV, but they cant sell EVs, supply and maintain their company structure while doing so. Which boils down to- they cant.

legulere• 5 years ago

Even now the legacy companies are held up by few EV models, bad range, bad software, bad dealership experience, and bad charging networks.

I’m not so sure. At least from a European perspective it looks like traditional car makers have caught up and even overtaken Tesla in the low price segment (VW eUp)

ulfw• 5 years ago

Because frankly it shouldn't be a car manufacturers job to build charging networks and stations.

We should have ONE standard for ALL cars. Can you imagine going to Shell only with your Buick? Your next car is a Hyundai... sorry mate... this one only gets gas from bp. How about a Mercedes... oh that one only gets gas at dealerships. But if you have a BMW Chevron will be the place to fill you up!

It's preposterous and I hate Tesla for establishing this mess by building their own (technically advanced!) charging network.

segmondy• 5 years ago

I highly recommend you read "Innovator's dilemma" and this won't be that shocking to you.

samch2• 5 years ago

For legacy ICE car companies, there is an additional headwind with which they must battle: their dealer network is far less incentivized to sell electric vehicles due to the lower long-term revenues based on service and maintenance. Dealers have a say in what is promoted and sold. If they have two otherwise equivalent models, one ICE and one electric, they are far more incentivized to sell the ICE version to lock in those lucrative service plans at time of sale. So, traditional auto manufactures not only have to catch up in charging infrastructure, they also have to figure out how to change the dealer incentive model to help move units.

Melting_Harps• 5 years ago

As a Tesla owner, I tried using a third-party charging station once just to see what it was like. I ended up leaving and going to the closest supercharger instead because of how laughably bad the experience was.

This really is a night and day difference for people who don't have a charging port at home/work or have to use their cars for long distances. It makes the experience that better, as opposed to having to go to the mall or a shopping center, some of who actually offer free charging in some cases near wholefoods and other upscale shops, and rely on old charging systems that keep you there for hours instead of the 30 min top up you can get on a P95D that is rather convenient on the coasts.

I already put my deposit for a Cybertruck but I want to my mom to get a Tesla too so we will be driving to the next SpaceX launch in Vandenburg next month with a FSD and see what she thinks and finally moves away from ICE.

I was always a proponent of EV vehicles but what really did me it for me was how quick Tesla rolled out its Supercharging network, that was such an undervalued component in their overall valuation.

Having worked in the autos Industry it dawned on me somewhere between 2015 or so that Tesla isn't as much a car company as it is a power company and that their MVP were cars but would gradually transition more and more toward infrastructure for power generations stations, Chamath made the same observation around the same time and echoed his view earlier this year about it, too.

_0w8t• 5 years ago

In Norway one and halve year ago I did 1000km round trip in eGolf. The trip was over mountains and I needed to charge quite a few times.

It was not possible to pay with a credit card directly without installing an app. All charging stations offered sms payments but the rate was 20-25% higher than paying with an app. So by the end of the trip I ended up with 4 different apps. Even after installing the app and entering credit card details the experience was bad. One has to enter the charger code which at one place was 4 digits even when there were only 2 chargers. Then sometimes charging required 2-3 attempts to press the start button in the phone. At one time I could not start charging in the phone and called the support. They rebooted the charger, but it still did not help. Eventually they claimed incompatibility with my phone and started charging themselves.

6 months ago I did 750km trip in a rented Tesla. Charging just worked with no need for phone or entering anything and I just received the final bill from the renting company with all the details.

antihero• 5 years ago

I'm not even a driver so I am a bit clueless. Are EV stations seriously not standardised? i.e. Is it the conventional equivalent of going to any petrol station and having to find a fuel pump that isn't leaded/unleaded/diesel but is more like trying to find the one that matches to your brand of car? This seems absurd.

secabeen5• 5 years ago

They are mostly standardized, but the UX still sucks. Tesla takes care of all the billing on their backend, based on vehicle VIN transmitted through the cable. All the other vendors have to collect a credit card or identify the user somehow, which is not as simple as it could be.

not2b• 5 years ago

I'm confused. When I gas up my Prius I pay with a credit card. It isn't hard. What's the problem with needing a credit card to pay at a charging station? Requiring an app is stupid, but inserting the card takes a few seconds.

The other problems (limited locations and hours, broken charging stations) are real ones, but I don't think this is.

rootusrootus4• 5 years ago

based on vehicle VIN transmitted through the cable

I thought Tesla used the car's wireless connection to handle authorization and billing?

gameswithgo4• 5 years ago

there are standards for the plugs and adapters so you can charge any given brand of car at most brands of chargers.

spiznnx• 5 years ago

They are standardized, as far as the high power electronics go.

But imagine having to install the "Chevron" app to pay to fuel up at Chevron, no big billboards with the price visible from the street (and prices wildly varying from free to $6/gal), some gas stations billing by minute instead of by gallons, half of the stations hidden in a dense parking lot/structure or "for retail customers only" and 1/10 pumps in the US being out of order.

mFixman• 5 years ago

So the only thing that makes a Tesla charging station different from the rest is that they appear in the map of the Tesla app? That sounds reasonable, but I don't understand how it can be a "killer feature or Tesla" when Ford could just show them in their electric cars.

pornel2• 5 years ago

They're as standard as USB: there are a few different flavors of cables, and wildly different speeds.

mohaine3• 5 years ago

They are standardized, but the standard (at least in the US) was less than advanced so if you wanted things like a data connection between the charger and the car you had to roll your own. Without this you can't do things like:

1) Have 2 cars share capacity. The car will decide how much wattage to draw so you have to limit each car to supply/number_of_chargers so that you don't over draw your supply. With data connection you have them share the available wattage, allowing cars to pull what is currently available, often this is more than supply/number_of_chargers as charger will empty or underdrawing due to charge state.

2) Auto bill. Tesla chargers have NO interface other than the plug. You literally just plug it in.

This has changed now but Telsas have been pretty common for a long time here.

xeromal3• 5 years ago

I think the thing I hate the most about 3rd party chargers is how many charger per the minute rather than kilowatt. Their shitty charger can put out half the rated throughput but they still make the same money

_ea1k9• 5 years ago

That is largely a function of state rules that make it hard to charge $/KWh without falling under a different (and often onerous) set of regulations. It doesn't have to be super expensive this way, though. Both Tesla and Electrify America offer decent per minute rates here.

EVGo here is over twice as expensive and tends to underperform on charge rate, depending on the state of charge. Or at least I hope it improves at higher charge levels... I think it is amperage limited like CHAdeMO.

vegardx• 5 years ago

You can't effectively do that since the spot price per kilowatt-hour changes drastically from every minute. The per minute pricing reflects that, so you don't have to worry about fluctuating prices. It also add a "tax" for "hogging" the chargers, as the rate of which you're able to charge drops significantly after some time.

You're probably being gauged compared to the true cost per kilowatt-hour, but that just mean there's room for more competition.

theshrike7919• 5 years ago

Per-minute charging prevents people with crappy cars (PHEV, older EV) from hogging HVDC charging locations. They'll do it once, see the bill and never do it again.

Basically if your PHEV can only take in like 15kW from a charger it's not cost-effective to charge from a HVDC charger that costs 80 cents a minute. But if your car can get 300kW from the same charger, it becomes useful again.

_ea1k9• 5 years ago

There are standards, but like all standards there are multiple to choose from and at least one major non-standard. In the US, the big ones are Tesla, CCS, and CHAdeMO, in roughly that order of popularity. Its a bit like Diesel vs E85 vs premium vs plus vs regular, except with the added mix of having one branded version.

Tesla's is largely the result of getting this stuff figured out back in 2012. Back then, standardization wasn't really an option.

u678u• 5 years ago

Its like Apple. All the connectors are the same, except Tesla which has its own standard. You can get adapters though.

robotresearcher• 5 years ago

'can get adapters'

An adapter to the generic standard (ChargePoint, etc) was included with my Model 3.

rootusrootus4• 5 years ago

Standardized, but with several standards up until CCS1 became the defacto choice for every new car [other than Tesla]. But the stations seem to be only reluctantly installed; so they come in small groups, poorly maintained, crappy interface, and in many cases brutally expensive. Some of that is because of local regulations on who can sell power by the kWh, so the charging companies had to use per-minute billing.

It's coming around, but it's rough around the edges. I have a Tesla and a Bolt, and supercharging is definitely superior. But we haven't really had any trouble with DC fast charging the Bolt, either, like some folks have.

In either case we only DC fast charge once every few months, 99% of the time we plug in at home with our own L2 outlet.

ridaj2• 5 years ago

They're more or less standardized. There's different networks and plug systems but there's some federation of maps and you can pay with credit card at most.

Compared with Tesla, in the US there's just way less chargers of two kinds for other EV owners: fast chargers (which are mostly useful as long-ish pit stops for long road trips), and destination chargers (things you can plug in overnight at your hotel or wherever it is you're sleeping.

There's plenty of slow chargers (so called level 2) in downtown areas but those barely give you a courtesy charge. You'd have to stay plugged in overnight to get any meaningful range out of those, but they tend not to be located where you sleep.

Add to that the fact that whatever stations there are tend to be unreliable, and taking even a 200 mile road trip carries its lot of unwelcome surprises.

My understanding is that in Europe Tesla is on a path to join the other cars' standard because the situation is reverse. My hope is that in the US long term as well, they will be forced to join forces (realizing that I might as well hope for Apple to join the USB charger bandwagon for their phones)

maxerickson• 5 years ago

Tesla currently advertises having more than 20,000 Supercharger stations (across 2000 locations). I think that is the global number.

That represents a substantial lead, and as others are commenting, they combine it with a nice user experience. I don't see how it will be particularly durable though, there isn't really a bottleneck for deployments of other charge stations, just not a lot of investment in it. Fixing the experience is harder, but gas stations provide a hint that other parties will at least get it down to swiping a card.

arcticfox• 5 years ago

For a detailed breakdown of superchargers, see https://supercharge.info/charts

The Supercharger network is why I bought a Tesla, and it's one of the few reasons I think Tesla might truly be able to put a lot of distance between themselves and rivals. They are building it at a good clip, and were doing it well even prior to the enormous amount of capital they now have access to.

rootusrootus4• 5 years ago

In both locations as well as total number of charging plugs, the non-Tesla networks have either already caught up, or surpassed Tesla. And their growth rate is higher.

I do like Tesla's plug a lot better though. Plugging in our Bolt sometimes feels like wrangling with USB-A, it's finicky to get lined up when it's dark & rainy. Tesla plug is much simpler. I wish the world could have standardized on that instead of the ginormous CCS1. Oh well.

PaulWaldman• 5 years ago

Is there a reason the current gas stations, that aren't integrated with refineries, aren't making the investment for charging stations?

I don't know if this is true or not, but my understanding is that of their revenue, they make a disproportionate amount of the their profits from convenience stores. Keeping vehicles plugged in for extended periods of time would also make EV owners more likely to venture into the store to buy a drink or snack.

einarfd• 5 years ago

The Norwegian branch of Circle K seems to be interested, and they have put up a charging points at some of their locations.

I've never tried the charging point at Circle K though, they might be usable or they might not, at least they look like they are looked after and not physical broken.

But after trying some of the other brand of chargers, I've largely given up on using any non Tesla fast charger. I will use non Tesla ones in a pinch. But if I do, my expectation is worse user experience, slower charging and more expensive, which does seem like somewhat of a bad deal.

DFHippie• 5 years ago

Low margin business without the capital to invest?

hocuspocus• 5 years ago

The infrastructure for fast charging is expensive and the ROI isn't obvious, EVs being charged at home/work most of the time.

colordrops• 5 years ago

I thought they are associated with oil companies. E.g. Texaco and Chevron are definitely oil companies.

hvjackson2• 5 years ago

I'm not sure the "gas station on every corner" model is going to transition to the EV world. First of all many people will do the bulk of their charging at home, so paying for a charge will be mostly limited to long distance road trips, etc. It's not something you necessarily need to do at all during your regular commute or running errands around town.

Second, even with a fast DC charger it still takes 20-60 minutes to get a useful amount of charge. That's a lot longer than you need to run into a convenient store to buy a coffee or whatever. It makes more sense to put these chargers where people will naturally be parked longer: office buildings, restaurants, highway service plazas, etc.

Artlav5• 5 years ago

Hm, the US tend to have "home" defined as a stand along house with a garage/land plot, which makes it possible to have a charger at home.

In most of the world city people live in flats/apartments, where you can't really do that.

So i don't see how you can avoid "gas station on every corner" model.

gok• 5 years ago

Gas stations are not really a good place for charging.

The cool thing about charging stations is that you can put them almost anywhere there's already some parking. They don't need huge underground tanks, or space for tanker trunks to make deliveries, or even really a lot of space for cars to maneuver around. On the other hand, for road trips they do need to be a place you'd want to spend 30 minutes or so, which means you want better shopping and entertainment than the average gas station store can offer. So some place like a mall or big box store is going to be a better place than a gas station.

ogre_codes9• 5 years ago

Gas stations suck. They are usually dirty and smell like petrol.

Aside from the overall grossness of gas stations, they are generally poorly laid out for long term parking. Gas stations need lots of room for cars to get in and out of stalls quickly and usually only have a few spaces for short term parking in front of the convenience store portion of the station.

Adding charging centers to roadside restaurants and shopping centers makes a ton more sense because the longer charging time is highly compatible with having a place where there are interesting things to do or rest and eat.

f154hfds• 5 years ago

A local gas station chain to me - Sheetz - has been building out Tesla charging stations for a while.

https://csnews.com/sheetz-powers-its-electric-vehicle-chargi...

zaroth• 5 years ago

Yes, generally you want the chargers to be somewhere where you can go spend 30 minutes doing something else. So you put them near grocery stores, or coffee shops, or a mall.

Gas stations are typically not located within walking distance of any kind of retail. They are set off a ways because they are nasty, smelly business. No one hangs out at a gas station, you run into the convenience store for maybe 60 seconds, and hate it every second you're there.

I would assume gas stations also have a fairly low electrical draw, so not likely to be located near transmission lines. Versus a mall or major retail outlet probably already has decent transmission capacity to make adding an additional few MWs for charging a lot easier.

lastofthemojito• 5 years ago

Fueling up an ICE car takes just a couple of minutes, so typically a customer would dash into the convenience store, and get something that requires zero preparation time (packaged food, bottled drinks, etc) and leave.

Battery charging times are getting faster, but if you're stopping to charge an EV, I think you're there for at least 20 minutes, bare minimum. Plenty of time to have someone make you a latte, or a burrito, heck maybe get a quick massage. It's probably too soon to know which sorts of services will best complement electric charging stations, but I think there's a good chance it'll end up looking somewhat different from the typical current gas station convenience store, even once EVs are more mainstream.

rootusrootus4• 5 years ago

So far, in my anecdotal experience, fast food is a pretty good match for supercharging. E.g plug in, run across the parking lot to the McDonalds and everyone uses the restrooms, maybe grabs a snack, whatever. Walk back out to the car, and leave.

theshrike7919• 5 years ago

McDonalds is making a push in HVDC charging in scandinavia.

Located near major highways, 350kW HVDC charger and fast-food. It's a perfect match. Go through the drive-through lane, order your food, park at the charger and they bring you the food in the car.

notJim2• 5 years ago

My idea for a charging business would be an upscale coffee shop/fast casual restaurant. Like gas stations, you'd make most of your money selling food/drinks. Could it work?

clouddrover5• 5 years ago

Is there a reason the current gas stations, that aren't integrated with refineries, aren't making the investment for charging stations?

They are. For example:

- Petro-Canada has a trans-Canada CCS charging network: https://www.petro-canada.ca/en/personal/fuel/canadas-electri...

- BP is investing in CCS charging: https://network.bppulse.co.uk/

- Shell is investing in CCS charging: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/features/how-shell-reinve...

- A an example of a small operator (don't know if he's been successful): https://www.npr.org/2019/10/26/773446805/gas-station-convert...

- Circle K: https://new.abb.com/news/detail/17193/circle-k-strengthens-e...

aynyc3• 5 years ago

One thing I don't understand is why car makers are having hard time building charging network. They already have one, it's called dealerships! Give dealerships incentive to build charging stations for their EV cars right on their properties. Then add charging stations by highways, gas stations. Oil companies will likely join the movement to offer incentives to gas station.

pat2man• 5 years ago

I believe they are in the process of doing just that: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/04/about-150-cadillac-dealers-t...

klondike_• 5 years ago

Dealerships are not interested in selling and servicing electric cars because of the low margins. Dealerships make most of their money off of services and repairs, which will be less frequent with EVs.

akira2501• 5 years ago

Dealerships in the US are often positioned to take advantage of tax laws, which means they're often placed outside of city limits in an inconvenient and less-traveled area that doesn't have to pay the extra 1-2% city sales tax on the vehicles.

Good for pricing, terrible for convenience.

aynyc3• 5 years ago

I'm not 100% sure about that. I used to drive a lot in western NY (mostly burned out industrial city/towns from WW2). Every decent size town that I've been to has multiple dealership right in the middle of the city. And yes, some right next to the highway because highways usually cut right thru the town/city.

cavisne• 5 years ago

they already tried that. But dealers dont have food options or public restrooms that are open outside business hours.

aynyc3• 5 years ago

This seems to be a matter of incentives.

greedo3• 5 years ago

Dealerships are really in an adversarial relationship with their parent automakers on this. They make little money off of EVs, yet have to train their staff on repairs/maintenance.

mikestew• 5 years ago

Nissan advertised that when they released the Leaf: "charge at Nissan dealers". They apparently forgot to tell the dealers, because one's experience can be...mixed, according to online reports. I can't confirm one way or another as I don't think I've ever tried to get a charge from a dealer.

saagarjha• 5 years ago

My local dealer has a charger on its premises. I think the only time I've ever used it is when I took the car in to get servicing.

theshrike7919• 5 years ago

In my part of the world dealerships are usually in the middle of industrial areas, not exactly places you'd want to visit just to charge your car.

Pretty much all paid parking lots and car parks have chargers though, it's the natural place to have them.

TedDoesntTalk• 5 years ago

In North America, that amount would finance approximately 1,000 locations with 10 charging stalls each.

I don’t think this author lives in the USA. 10,000 charging stalls for a population of 330 million spread over millions of square miles is.... pathetic.

There would be perpetual lines to use v these 10,000 stalls

tenacious_tuna5• 5 years ago

I've said this to loads of people, but the charging infra is 1/3 of the Tesla "killer app" EV experience.

There were (in my view) three core "problems" facing mass EV adoption that Tesla has engaged with and solved very well.

First is the perception that EVs (and their cousins/progenitors, hybrids) were slow, terribly boring cards. I think this was largely perpetuated by the rise of the Prius. Tesla solved this by building true performance cars, using the raw torque power of their EVs to assuage any concerns around performance and handling people could have.

Second is the concern around "fueling", especially on road trips. This is obviously addressed by how stupid-easy the supercharging network is to use. I don't think any other auto manufacturer will become a true competitor to Tesla until similarly extensive networks are built out by Ford, GM, etc.

Third is the paradigm-shift of the minimalist controls and the spaceship-like display. There are absolutely drawbacks to this--Mazda, for one, refuses to have touchscreens in their cars anymore due to safety concerns, and there are instances in my Model 3 where I dearly wish for a physical control. But there's something incredible about sitting in a modern vehicle and not being faced with a baffling array of buttons and dials, and having nothing between you and the road.

The combination of these makes for a stellar experience with the vehicle, and for EVs in general.

worldsayshi9• 5 years ago

It's ridiculously wasteful to force every carmaker to build their own charging stations. Here regulators may have to step in to force them to find a standard and a charging market.

ssheth• 5 years ago

There is an "overarching" standard now .. CCS and a couple of older standards .. J1772 and ChaDeMo .. but when Tesla was getting started making chargers, there was no critical mass around any standards so they ended up creating their own.

Kranar2• 5 years ago

A charging station isn't like a full blown gas station with safety critical infrastructure and operations staffing it. A charging station is mostly a parking lot space with some electronics, a cable and some signage featuring a company logo.

The amount of "waste" amounts the the plastic used to display said logo and some rubber and copper. The actual electricity itself and the infrastructure used to deliver that electricity is already standardized and shared among not only all electric car companies, but everyone in the area period.

oneplane3• 5 years ago

It's also ridiculous that some private company has to stamp out a good charging setup because nobody else will, but then has to let others use it. Granted, it would be nice if everyone would play together, but they didn't and they don't.

Some heavy-handed top-down inter-organisational group with top-down design-by-committee ideas is going to be a shitshow too, so now the question becomes: what IS a good solution going to look like?

fblp• 5 years ago

Suggested improvement: To be eligible for government electric car subsidies the car maker should meet certain standards for their chargers and charging stations that enable interoperability and a more competitive market.

nickik7• 5 years ago

First of all, nobody is forcing anybody. Those manufactures that want to use a standard are free to use one.

This is intact what happened, the waste majority is standardized and that mostly without regulation.

Market forces are driving standardization. Tesla however is special because they have in incredibly dominate position in the market and they don't have to relay on 3rd parties creating charging stations.

They can offer their costumers a premium experience and support their own growth. Eventually once charging is more universally available Tesla can simply expand to allow others to charge there and make a lot of money.

Tesla has invested huge amount of money and this is their reward. Not sure why regulation needs to come in and force everybody to do things. Specially when early on a lot of things were not very clear. Also, government regulation defined API standards for payments are usually terrible.

908B64B1975• 5 years ago

Just like when the EU tried to legislate micro-usb everywhere.

ogre_codes9• 5 years ago

Tesla has said anyone is welcome to use their charging technology. They did this 7 years ago, before any of these other networks were built out.

https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you

zippergz• 5 years ago

A lot of this is obviously just personal preference, but the spaceship-like display is the exact reason (well, not the only reason, but a big and emblematic one) that I don't want a Tesla. I have driven them. I do not like the interface. I want a "regular car" that happens to be electric, not something that's trying to be a smartphone on wheels.

tenacious_tuna5• 5 years ago

And that's absolutely okay! I totally get not wanting that experience, and I'm glad that we're at a point with EV development that the styles are proliferating so people have those choices.

Personally I just love the disruption Tesla has caused to the "idea" of a car and its interface. I hope it'll encourage other car manufacturers to reconsider how they do their interfaces--even if they don't consolidate all their controls into the touchscreen, I hope at the very least the media systems in cars start being of higher-quality, now that people see what's possible.

yardie• 5 years ago

I tested the Model Y and this was my impression as well. Everything about the car was great but the human factor. I need my dashboard at eyelevel to the windshield, not down and to my right. I need more controls that do a few things. Not few controls that try to do too many things. They literally took decades of research in automotive human factors research and dumped it in the trash. And now they are going to have to discover those lessons all over again.

vondur• 5 years ago

Can you use other electric vehicles at a Tesla charging station? I'm thinking of getting as used Bolt. I'd mainly use it for driving around town and back and forth to work where they do have really cheap charging available. But it'd be nice to have more options when doing some longer trips.

tenacious_tuna5• 5 years ago

Not in the US, at least. The US supercharger connectors are Tesla-proprietary. In the US, the EU forced Tesla to join the CCS standard.

Notably, the CCS standard didn't exist when Tesla began rolling out their infrastructure. And I think Tesla open-sourced the patents for their DC charging in the hope that folks would standardize on their technology, but I don't know that they ever had plans to allow non-Tesla vehicles t o use their charging network.

I also don't know if Europe CCS Tesla chargers can be used by non-teslas, but I would assume that's the case--otherwise, what's the point of the standardization?

At any rate, I do hope to see other manufactures push for a unified charging network, explicitly so that non-Tesla EVs can experience the same luxuries as first party vehicles.

Reason0773• 5 years ago

"I don't think any other auto manufacturer will become a true competitor to Tesla until similarly extensive networks are built out by Ford, GM, etc."

Given Tesla's success with the Supercharger network, it's tempting to think that this is a model that other manufacturers should follow.

But in reality, it would be a hugely inefficient for every car maker to build their own charging network. Can you imagine how inconvenient it would be if Ford's gas vehicles could only be refuelled at Ford gas stations?

Charging networks that are as extensive as Teslas will be built much faster if they're shared by all brands of vehicles. Manufacturers seem to understand this, and that's exactly what they're doing - investing in networks like Ionity (Europe) and EA (USA).

As for ease of use, yes, Tesla sets the standard here. But other manufacturers will eventually catch up, with technology like CCS Plug & Charge.

tenacious_tuna5• 5 years ago

I'm not convinced other manufacturers will catch up. As other users in the thread have noted, the frustrations of non-tesla chargers range to every extreme: needing to set up an account, and connect a credit card; stuck waiting for that credit card to authorize; the charger not communicating properly with the vehicle; not having internet connectivity to get the charger to activate--the issues are endless.

I have never had an issue with a Tesla supercharger, ever, and that's the bar I expect out of third party chargers.

All that said, I WHOLLY agree that it would be markedly more beneficial to all if the chargers were standardized, and you could charge (e.g.) non-Tesla vehicles on Tesla chargers. That would be maximally ideal--but I can't fault Tesla for things like their plugs being different when they had to forge the way.

paxys3• 5 years ago

I'm going to disagree on #3. I'd say Tesla is succeeding in spite of its interiors not because of it, and people mostly tolerate it because they like the rest of the car so much.

reilly3000• 5 years ago

Agreed on all fronts. They've also integrated residential solar directly into the car business in a way that was poorly understood then and still is now.

Also, OTA updates. Its a terrifying concept, but going to the dealership to get your car's firmware flashed is as archaic as boxed software. As more automakers move in that direction, their attention to detail with security is going to be under a microscope. Tesla managed to capture the magic of waking up to an upgraded car, and hasn't has too many security nightmares to keep people away.

josefresco• 5 years ago

Anecdotally I travel frequently to rural areas in the northeast USA. We stopped recently at a truck stop for gas and lo and behold, among the semis, huge propane/oil fuel tanks and farm feed supply store, there was a Supercharging station. Keep in mind this station is hundreds of miles from any substantial city, and maybe 75 miles from a large town.

rstupek• 5 years ago

Tesla likes to put superchargers on major highway routes in between cities so you can stop for 15 minutes and get topped off on your way

JackPoach• 5 years ago

It should be noted that is is a US only/mostly story. A fair analogy is Uber - dominant in US and some other markets, but clear loser in China, India, Africa and many European markets

hnburnsy2• 5 years ago

Here is a good article on what non Tesla owners face, not just I convince but often higher charges. The final take...

" As I wrote in my review, the Mustang Mach-E is one impressive EV, one that stands tall against the Tesla Model Y in most competitive measures. But Tesla’s foresight and investment in its own proprietary network remains a key competitive advantage, right up there with its edge in electric efficiency and range"

https://www.autoblog.com/2020/12/24/2021-ford-mustang-mach-e...

LinuxBender3• 5 years ago

I think they can do even better. Stop charging the car. Keep is as an option, but make it something people only do at home with their solar power and leisure time. Make the battery modules hot swappable. Even better, make it so I can drive over a thing, the batteries swap while I am moving. This means I stop owning batteries and as batteries improve, my car gets automatic upgrades. I bet Elon can not only do this, but can probably even one-up this idea.

clintonb2• 5 years ago

They tried: https://www.businessinsider.com/teslas-battery-swapping-plan.... Supercharging is more convenient.

recursive• 5 years ago

That results either in a decrease in range or increase in weight and size. Physical space for these batteries is a limiting factor. Making the whole thing modular increases complexity, size, and weight.

LinuxBender3• 5 years ago

True, but according to Elons plans around the airline industry, the extra module space should be a wash in a couple of years as battery capacity is expected to grow substantially.

greedo3• 5 years ago

So instead of having a few parking spots with charging stations, now you need to have some sort of hydraulic lift system to swap out a multi-ton battery. And a facility to store these batteries (and charge them). Oh and these batteries are quite valuable, at least half the price of the EV. You would also need to have different size batteries, based on the EV model, the battery model (LF or SF), etc etc.

You would have to staff these Battery Swap (I'll call them BS) facilities for when the machinery breaks down, or damages a car, or any other of a myriad number of problems. You would also need substantial real estate for this BS facility, zoned appropriately.

Or you could simply install some automated charging stations that don't require any of this CAPEX or headache. Pretty easy to see why this is the model Tesla pursued.

LinuxBender3• 5 years ago

I am not considering parking spots at all. That is where the traditional charge stations would remain. This would be for modernizing gas stations, or adding refueling stations anywhere there is room for a "drive through". No hydraulics. Just a set of carbide gears and points that push on a set of battery module releases one set at a time. Old module roles out, new module roles in. Never more than 1 disconnected at a time to ensure vehicle does not lose power. I envision that with time, the speed allowed in the drive-through should increase exponentially, speeding up commute times. No stopping, no lifting, just keep driving.

coding123• 5 years ago

Obligatory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec-LrW1tSHQ

stcredzero2• 5 years ago

I'm now a Model 3 owner, but back when I had the Fiat 500e, I was actually surprised at how widespread Chargepoint chargers were in the Bay Area. The experience with those isn't 100% seamless. I'd wave an RFID card, and most of the time, it would work after a 5-15 second pause. I'd occasionally encounter a broken charge plug that wouldn't release, or an otherwise malfunctioning charger.

Even with the piddling 87 mile range of the 500e, I'd still drive from SF to San Jose on a regular basis. I could pretty much depend on the availability of Chargepoint chargers in the South Bay.

I even went to an event near San Rafael once, and found that the charger at the school was free!

drivebycomment• 5 years ago

I second this. I've been driving various non-Tesla EVs over the past 7+ years and during that time, Chargepoint has become quite good and widely available. Phone RFID integration and their "waiting queue" feature have been very useful additions.

edaemon3• 5 years ago

This article leaves out a lot of information.

...none of the major incumbent automakers seems to pose much of a threat to market leader Tesla, which has become nearly synonymous with EVs.

This is only true in the US. In Europe VW and Renault have cut into Tesla's lead, and in some countries VW just overtook Tesla in vehicles sold. In 2020 the Renault Zoe outsold the Tesla Model 3 in Europe.

But imagine if, instead of investing tens of billions of dollars in producing cars with no way to drive long distances individually, Audi, GM, Ford, and the rest each spent just a billion dollars to build a network of supercharging stations.

They have. BMW, Daimler, Ford, Hyundai, and VW collaborated to build out the IONITY network. VW is also building Electrify America (albeit as a result of Dieselgate). Non-Tesla DCFC stations far outnumber the Tesla Superchargers now.

nickik7• 5 years ago

"In some markets" lots of things are true.

In practice 28% of global EV sold are Tesla, and very large numbers of the others are tiny city cars or very small cars like the Zoe.

In terms of BEV cars Tesla is the clear global market leader.

They have. BMW, Daimler, Ford, Hyundai, and VW collaborated to build out the IONITY network.

And they don't want to pay so the network is not that large and doesn't grow very fast and of course its European network.

Electrify America is doing better and as you said, its a punishment for Dieselgate and that why they have capital.

edaemon3• 5 years ago

Well, that applies to this article. Tesla left other automakers in the dust "in some markets" -- and by "some" I really mean just one: the US.

Tesla is the leader globally, but the article claims that other automakers aren't even a threat to Tesla, and goes further to argue that the reason they aren't a threat is because they haven't built out charging networks. I don't see how one can reach that conclusion when in the two biggest EV markets, China and Europe, Tesla is no longer the market leader.

I'd also point out that Tesla doesn't have 28% of the global EV market anymore (that was H1 2020). As of October 2020 Tesla comprised 18% of 2020's global market [1]. Still the clear leader, and almost the only contender in the US, but globally other automakers are threatening their lead.

[1] https://electrek.co/2020/10/30/tesla-tsla-market-share-globa...

itsoktocry2• 5 years ago

In practice 28% of global EV sold are Tesla

18%, and share shrank in 2020. Why make stuff up?

wp3816402• 5 years ago

Tesla sales in Europe _fell_ YoY between '19 and '20 - at a time when overall EV sales were up 130%+

theshrike7919• 5 years ago

in some countries VW just overtook Tesla in vehicles sold

This is 100% caused by the WV ID.3 being delayed. There was a metric fuckton of preorders, which were delayed because of software issues.

After they got the software fixed enough for a release, they "sold" (delivered) a bazillion cars in a few months, boosting them on the top of every chart.

It's a great car, but the software isn't still complete and has obvious bugs, nothing fatal but a bunch of annoyances - they didn't even manage to get OTA updates working.

marvin2• 5 years ago

Well, the ID.3 doesn't always stop when you push the brake pedal. Were multiple accounts of that in the last few weeks. I suppose they'll sort it out eventually.

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 5 years ago

I am not sure how big of a deal this is.

The main use case for EV is short distance daily trips where you can charge at home.

Going on a long distance trip, a gas powered vehicle is superior. With gas, especially with cell phone gps, you basically need no planning or forethought. You just drive, and if you think you are runnning low, you just look for a gas station along your route.

So yes, Tesla has a vastly superior charging network compared to to the others, but it is still vastly inferior to the gas station network.

ggreer2• 5 years ago

Charging time is a non-issue nowadays. Last weekend I drove from Portland to Spokane and back (almost 400 miles each way). I entered my destination on the Tesla's giant touchscreen. The car figured out the route and the one charging stop. I drove to the freeway, turned on autopilot, and let the car do its thing. Then three hours later the car took an exit. I drove from the offramp to the charging station, plugged in, and had a snack/coffee. By the time I was back, the car was ready to go. The only issue was that automatic lane change was occasionally disabled due to snow obscuring cameras. The whole experience was far less tiring or stressful than any road trip I've taken with a gas car.

Erlich_Bachman• 5 years ago

Your views are 5-10 years obsolete. Keep up, please.

Artlav5• 5 years ago

Makes it double sad that Chevy Volt got discontinued and no similar designs were made.

guerby• 5 years ago

Everyone knows that at some point non Tesla charging stations will catch up.

But I'm still surprised it has not happened yet.

Volkswagen is starting to sell lots of long distance capable EV like id.3 and id.4 (at least in Europe) with absolutely zero visible/working plan to provide their customer reliable fast charging everywhere they need (directly or via a partner network).

And Renault still hasn't made a car with more than 50 kW charging (and even that is a paying option...). Well at least their customer don't need long distance fast charging network ...

clouddrover5• 5 years ago

Volkswagen is starting to sell lots of long distance capable EV like id.3 and id.4 (at least in Europe) with absolutely zero visible/working plan to provide their customer reliable fast charging everywhere they need (directly or via a partner network)

The plans are:

- Ionity in Europe: https://ionity.eu/

- Electrify America in the US: https://www.electrifyamerica.com/locate-charger/

- Electrify Canada in Canada: https://www.electrify-canada.ca/locate-charger/

And since these are CCS cars you can also use any other CCS charging network like Fastned, Gridserve, BP Pulse, Petro-Canada, Chargefox, EVgo, ChargePoint, Circle K, McDonald's, etc, etc.

OliverJones2• 5 years ago

NEWS FLASH! Tesla pours capital into building infrastructure to deploy vast fleet of BEVs!

Details in Harvard Business Review!

This would have been news in 2014 or so. That's when Tesla's efforts to get this right started being obvious. I'm glad HBR caught up to it, even if they're years late to the party.

Telsa is getting it right. For their Superchargers, they have excellent location-scouting crews, permitting crews, construction crews, alliance-building crews, and maintenance crews. Not to mention the actual equipment, centrally monitored. It's no simple thing to convince rural convenience store operators and building inspectors to install electrical equipment that draws more than a megawatt.

Most people other than Tesla customers don't know this: they lined up a world-wide network of electricians trained to install those 40a x 240v connectors at peoples' homes and businesses.

They must have imbibed Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing the Chasm." Until the Model 3 started appearing in 2017, their customers were classic early adopters. (I was one.) They managed to turn their early vehicles into Veblen goods (where demand goes up as price goes up). That would not have worked without the infrastructure they built. (I didn't buy Ludicrous Mode: it cost an extra US$15K and I would have used it once or twice for the lulz. But I did buy a big battery.)

If Tesla's mission were merely to sell cars, they would have failed. Many years ago.

Today's bafflement for me: do electric grid operators understand what's happening in the next thirty years? Do they know they're going to win almost all the business of fuel stations? Are they preparing for that? If so, they're awful quiet about it.

foepys• 5 years ago

Why should they really care? They are selling the electricity and access to the grid anyways. Better to sell the shovels than trying to find gold. Investing in an expensive large-scale charger infrastructure could very easily go wrong and they might not get a return from because of competition.

OliverJones2• 5 years ago

My remark about grid operators? The transportation-energy workload will be large, widely distributed, and somewhat time-shiftable.

Some "electric companies" may find a business rigging the retail infrastructure (charging stations). But that's not the key point. The key point is the new revenue potential, and how they will meet it.

doanerock2• 5 years ago

Cool now just stop using a non standard connector if you actually cared about the environment. Tesla's sold in Europe come with CCS2, let's just make a standard that all electric cars have the change charge port.

doanerock2• 5 years ago

https://techau.com.au/tesla-supercharger-ccs2-upgrades-are-h...

lovetocode• 5 years ago

Serious but maybe a dumb question. I know only Tesla’s can use the Supercharger network at this time. Is this because other EV cars would be damaged by the power of these Superchargers? Are they designed to be charged at such a high rate? I know the V3 pushes 1000 mi/hr. A recent v2 I used was pushing in the 300 mi/hr range.

edaemon3• 5 years ago

Charging stations coordinate with the vehicle to determine the charge rate, so there's no restriction based on power. Other EVs technically could use the Supercharger network, though many of them wouldn't be able to charge at the SC's maximum rate. Tesla has decided to keep it exclusive for now.

There are actually other charging networks that have more powerful chargers than Tesla; for example, while the V3 SCs max out at 250 kW, Electrify America's most powerful chargers max out at 350 kW.

agitator• 5 years ago

First thing to note is that DC fast chargers output high voltage DC to the vehicles they are charging, bypassing the onboard charger. So although most are theoretically capable of charging many different cars at their voltage requirements, not all are, and that's a base requirement. In order to even charge the different Tesla models and their differing packs, the chargers are capable of varying voltage and current. So they are designed to be variable, but depending on how it's designed, most likely the vehicle needs to communicate the voltage and current charging requirements for it's state of charge.

Secondly, Tesla's chargers have unique connectors and unique communication with the vehicles. Not to mention, the architecture is designed in a way that no payment, identification, etc. happens at the supercharger. You just plug it in and everything else is handled on your vehicle touch screen and Tesla web account. So really, unless Tesla decided to license the tech and allow other vehicle brands to id and communicate with their chargers, it wouldn't be possible to charge at a supercharger.

clouddrover5• 5 years ago

Yet, despite investments that add up to many billions of dollars, none of the major incumbent automakers seems to pose much of a threat to market leader Tesla

It depends where you're talking about. Here are BEV sales figures for Europe (currently the world's biggest plug-in market i.e. BEVs and PHEVs) for December and 2020 in total:

https://ev-sales.blogspot.com/2021/01/europe-december-2020.h...

https://insideevs.com/news/482202/europe-world-biggest-plugi...

In 2020 in Europe the Renault Zoe was the best selling model and Volkwswagen Group was the biggest BEV manufacturer (VW owns 12 automotive brands: https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/brands-and-models.html).

The reason why consumers still choose Teslas over products like Audi’s eTron

The Audi e-Tron was the best selling BEV in its category in Europe and the best selling BEV overall in markets like Norway:

https://ev-sales.blogspot.com/2021/01/norway-december-2020.h...

Different markets prefer different cars.

maxdo• 5 years ago

As an owner of a car I paid a lot of money I don’t want other brands occupy my charger spot, sharing with other brands is a very bad idea. LA owners will confirm :)

RealityVoid• 5 years ago

This is myopic. Cross-charging means more chargers you can use and better accessibility for you as well in the long run.

theshrike7919• 5 years ago

In EU the situation is that Teslas can charge everywhere (Type2 + CSS) _and_ at Superchargers.

Other brands can charge everywhere but Superchargers.

liquidify• 5 years ago

Seems like it would be wise for government to kick in with some recommendations or standards. I'd personally like to see something that would allow robotic battery pack swap outs. Basically run your car through something like a carwash and then come out the other side with a new battery pack.

wp3816402• 5 years ago

There is regulatory risk in Tesla's charging network. The example with ICE fuel networks working is because they're heavily regulated - the type of fuel, octane rating, testing, bowser types. is all set by government bodies.

I expect at some point the EU will step in and open up the Tesla network much in the same way they have with everything from regular fuelling stations to phone chargers.

908B64B1975• 5 years ago

to phone chargers

I can't wait the EU to force some standardized interop charging scheme designed by committee. Just like how they wanted everyone to use standard micro-usb.

Can't fast charge, can't use the whole range of lightning accessories. But bureaucrats liked it!

If you can't innovate, better regulate!

ajayyy• 5 years ago

My Note 4 had fast charge with micro-usb

theshrike7919• 5 years ago

I can't wait the EU to force some standardized interop charging scheme designed by committee

coughCCScough

The whole plug was basically invented to not exclude existing Type 2 connectors. It's good, but not as good as the Tesla proprietary one.

But the ship has sailed, CSS is the EU standard now and ChaDeMo is being phased out slowly.

fggg444• 5 years ago

seems to be missing one important thing, all the EV owners have chargers at home, someone just needs to leverage this network to make it easy to book a charge at any owner's place that available and convenient - if you supply, you can consume, everyone benefits.

dukeofdoom• 5 years ago

I need to replace my car in the next year. I was thinking of either going with a hybrid (Rav 4), because of price/range + extra hp. Or going with a something like a new corvette, because I figure these will become a collectible once the switch to electric is made on mass. Range anxiety, and having to worry about recharging is the biggest thing stopping me from pure electric. Plus I think they should be much cheaper, since its a simpler car to build (fewer mech parts), less interior space, worse interior and so on.

redindian753• 5 years ago

checkout Model Y great price, comes in 7 seat variant. 330 mile range

jskrn• 5 years ago

I've only driven Tesla's for short amounts of time. What is the comfort level on longer trips both seat and road noise/bumps, etc? Are the suspensions pretty comfortable?

GizmoSwan5• 5 years ago

Unfortunately I believe that the article is a Tesla pump because it also pumps the self driving yet pie in the sky feature to be that is not available for review.

Tesla had to provide charging stations to sell their cars and California provided them with subsidy.

Charging stations should eventually converge to support all electric cars to allow for independent operators rather than a price gauging opportunity to prevent captive consumers in future.

drzoltar• 5 years ago

In California, the main issue seems to be that there’s no money in these charging networks. Most non car company chargers I’ve seen are laughably expensive (sometimes exceeding the price of gas per mile) and slow. Despite being so expensive, it’s hard for me to believe that they make more than $10/day. It’s a few dollars per hour to charge, and most of the time they’re empty. And that excludes the maintenance cost. So you end up with many broken chargers. I’m guessing there’s some sort of state subsidy that helps establish these chargers in parking lots? It all feels like a money laundering operation.

cyberpsybin• 5 years ago

I guess we will never have a common standard for charging EVs. So much for good of environment.

amir734jj• 5 years ago

Maybe I'm an oddity but I'm 26 single and I don't drive much, maybe 2000 miles a year. I order food, grocery and almost everything online. I don't see myself owning an electric car. Here in Wisconsin it gets so cold that my gas barely starts. I don't think an electric car or any type of battery will last.

namdnay• 5 years ago

If your electric car is plugged in, there's no risk, it can keep itself warm enough

theshrike7919• 5 years ago

I live in Finland and we need to sell a special kind of diesel for it to stay liquid during winter months. Cranking a diesel in -30C weather is ... not a fun experience. Petrol engines are a bit better, but the 5W40 oil is like syrup and the sound the engine makes is not pleasant to hear.

With an electric car I can just jump in, press a button and it'll just start. In -27C a few weeks ago I timed it and it started blowing in warm air in 3 minutes, in 8 minutes the internal temperature was around 20C. Yes, it affects the range, but I don't drive hundreds of km a day, so the convenience and comfort trumps range for me every day.

If my car was less shit (Hyundai limiting app availability per country ffs) I could heat up my car with my phone and jump in when it's nice and toasty.

luka-birsa• 5 years ago

I do understand the reporting around Tesla is very distorted to parrot the cult of Tesla, but come on...

Yes, Tesla has a huge lead in charging. Yes, Tesla has the best UX for charging. Yes, right now this is an important consideration point when buying an EV, especially in the US market that is lagging in terms of EV choice.

Do you really think that the guys at VW and others can't figure it out? It just takes a while. Just like it was with cars - they were behind Tesla, now they are in the driving seat in terms of numbers on the markets that are truly developed (in Norway Audi, VW and others are eating Tesla's lunch).

The chargers will become a commodity in 5 years time and Tesla really needs to figure out something special as the first mover advantage is going away. The chargers (and the fact that it's sold out) are the only thing that is currently preventing me to go and buy a Skoda Eniaq IV (size of Tesla X, costs less than Tesla 3). I'm sure that's changing in two years time when my current lease expires.

Perhaps it's a fully autonomous approach and perhaps they can really make it, but it's really hard to see through the PR bullshit Tesla produces. I guess we're in a phase where people are valuing Tesla more than all car makers combined (crazy, right?) and this hype obviously reflects in news.

mavhc2• 5 years ago

"Volkswagen’s Audi brand topped the 2020 leaderboard with its e-tron sports utility and sportsback vehicles as the most sold new passenger cars in Norway last year, while Tesla’s mid-sized Model 3, the 2019 winner, was relegated to second place"

Not exactly eating lunch, maybe a mid afternoon snack

icelancer2• 5 years ago

> Do you really think that the guys at VW and others can't figure it out? It just takes a while.

So they'll always be slower than Tesla?

> Just like it was with cars - they were behind Tesla, now they are in the driving seat in terms of numbers on the markets that are truly developed (in Norway Audi, VW and others are eating Tesla's lunch).

The European car market is very different than the American one. For starters, a shit load more land... where getting charging networks right matters a lot. And fast.

> The chargers will become a commodity in 5 years time

Would easily take the over on that if we're talking United States. No other company is remotely close to building out a nationwide fast-charging network close to Tesla.

I don't even own a Tesla nor do I think the company is a good investment, and I think Elon is FOS on a lot of things.

Charging networks and batteries aren't two of them, though.

noodle• 5 years ago

Do you really think that the guys at VW and others can't figure it out? It just takes a while.

Probably, yes, but Tesla does have quite a head start. This is also something both professional and armchair analysts have been saying for the last decade. "The big automakers will just throw their weight around to catch up." They still haven't caught up. They probably will someday, but having the head start and the lead during an inflection point period is quite valuable.

now they are in the driving seat in terms of numbers on the markets that are truly developed (in Norway Audi, VW and others are eating Tesla's lunch).

I mean, lets compare apples to apples. In 2020, Tesla sold ~500k EVs worldwide. Audi sold ~50k EVs. The remainder of the VW group sold about ~175k EVs. Tesla is still significantly ahead despite your characterization.

ElCamino• 5 years ago

As a side node: Volkswagen finished the development of their Modularer Elektrofahrzeug Bauskasten (MEB) design in the meantime. This is their framework for powering all their future vehicles based on one common platform.

sub7• 5 years ago

That's what they said about project BetterPlace.

Tesla is a bad joke cult company at this price. IMO it's worth $75.

jaimex2• 5 years ago

Not surprising given they spent all their energy arguing that hydrogen fuel was the future like muppets while Tesla stuck to its plan.

Neil44• 5 years ago

Did any of them argue that?

marvin2• 5 years ago

Toyota didn't talk about anything else. Their strategy was loudly 100% hydrogen and no batteries. Probably from 2014-2019, while Tesla built their global charging infrastructure and manufacturing capacity.

rpcwork• 5 years ago

Imagine being the CEO of a company whose capital structure has IC related debt that amortizes over 10 years, having to report next quarter to shareholders, and your tenure is measured in quarters not years, if you cannot deliver on the topline.

How can you responds to requests to buy into a charging network when your response to market forces is existentially reptilian?

That is how IC inertia has allowed an innovator like Tesla to come into being.

GizmoSwan5• 5 years ago

Tesla cult writes articles devoid of any valid criticism and upvotes their own biased view by populating all relevant comment boards typically.

The fact that Tesla is avoiding standardization is to prevent competition just like famous single cup coffee machine maker. They want to make this a service that they can only profit from.

Tesla cult is knowingly naive.

Tesla’s charging stations left other manufacturers in the dust

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