Tesla goes down across Europe leaving some drivers unable to charge cars

https://metro.co.uk/2023/02/14/tesla-goes-down-across-europe-leaving-some-drivers-unable-to-charge-cars-18282364/

by neverminder • 3 years ago

67 105 3 years ago

metro.co.uk

It's funny the next article under "new" is about europe banning gas vehicles.

I personally have a long list of problems with banning gas vehicles (I'd say it's insane really), but something that could easily be addressed is how manufacturers are using the shift to electric to enforce vendor lock in and steal personal data.

There is absolutely no reason why a precondition of driving an electric car should be having an app, sharing data with the manufacturer, or any of that nonsense. And this "outage" is one of the more obvious consequences. Before we even consider trying to make electric cars more popular, there needs to be open infrastructure and maintenance that doesn't depend on any proprietary crap manufacturers are trying to shove down our throats.

toomuchtodo5• 3 years ago

Any billing system will have problems when there is an outage. Gas pump credit card processing goes down too. This is a minor hiccup in the electric transition.

If you were charging at a non Supercharger with its own auth and billing mechanism, you most likely didn’t notice. I noticed in the US, but only because I emit my Tesla API call logs from teslamate into a monitoring tool catching the non 200s.

If you don’t want to enable data sharing, you can disable it. If you don’t want to enable mobile app functionality or OTA updates, you can remove the cellular module (Tesla specific, I can’t speak to other brands).

By 2035 (the new EU combustion vehicle ban agreed upon you mention), an entire generation will have grown up with EVs as the new normal. Right to repair should still be a thing, but that is a distinct issue, not something that should slow the electrification transition until perfect (passenger vehicles are responsible for 61% of CO2 (EDIT: transport) emissions in Europe).

ttkari• 3 years ago

passenger vehicles are responsible for 61% of CO2 emissions in Europe

The EC disagrees with you on this one, quoting 12%. The share is nowhere near 61% even in the US.

https://climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/transport-emissions/r...

akira2501• 3 years ago

Gas pump credit card processing goes down too.

Every gas station I pump gas at takes cash, too.

This is a minor hiccup in the electric transition.

It portends much worse outcomes if we don't address it.

Right to repair should still be a thing, but that is a distinct issue

So, we're going to use the power of government to force a markets hand, but we're going to delay the consumer issues that it is going to generate, until when? And our plan is to use something other than government force to repair that issue?

It makes no sense to process these as distinct issues, in particular, because you've failed to articulate how removing right to repair is necessary to achieve "the transition." Why would that be a requirement? We _must_ acquiesce to corporate greed or they won't let us have nice things otherwise?

So.. why use the power of government to force the market, then?

pharrington• 3 years ago

Third line of the article - "Some Tesla drivers say they can’t connect to their Powerwall home battery charging system."

lost_tourist• 3 years ago

this speaks more to the danger of monopolies than anything else

ttt3ts• 3 years ago

Just wondering but what is the lifespan of an EV? How much does it cost to replace the batteries after 10 years? I ask because I fear only the rich will be able to afford cars with such a ban. My first car cost $2k and was a clunker but it was all I could afford to get to school.

Even now, in the US, Tesla's get perks like using the car pool lane. Great deal for the rich.

rainsford• 3 years ago

Even if electric vehicle manufacturers like Tesla have been "innovating" here, it's obviously creeping into more traditionally fueled vehicles as well, with DLC, connected features, etc showing up starting with the higher end and working down to cheaper models and brands. From their perspective, it's an untapped market to both charge more money and monetize personal data, although I'd personally like to see it regulated into oblivion.

version_five3• 3 years ago

Yes I agree, almost every car electric or not that you buy now is laden with crap that's only there to benefit the manufacturer and screw the buyer. But it's clear that electric represents a chance to screw people from the ground up, cutting out things like independent garages and even gas stations, and giving cover to computerize and log everything. Regulation is necessary, but it's going to be whack a mole trying to prevent vendors ripping off customers, and the automotive already basically has regulatory captured their way into preventing competition. In some respects I think there needs to be less, or at least more sensible regulation, to encourage competition that might actually provide options to people (unfortunately I think most people don't value freedom and are happy to give it up for something shiny, it may be a lost cause)

twblalock• 3 years ago

This would be happening even without EVs. BMW is doing it for a lot of their gas cars, and other brands will follow.

bityard2• 3 years ago

I agree that it's likely the future, but right _now_ you can buy any number of ICE cars that don't require permission from the manufacturer (in the form of account creation, app usage, and a permanent connection to the cloud) to drive/own, but I'm not aware of any full electric cars that don't.

sangnoir• 3 years ago

It's funny the next article under "new" is about europe banning gas vehicles

There's nothing inherently "Internet of Shit" about EVs - that's a manufacturer decision that some consumers put up with on some models.

bob1029• 3 years ago

There is absolutely no reason why a precondition of driving an electric car should be having an app

Aside from the motor/inverter/charge/battery control, I don't see why an electric car needs a computer any more than a gasoline car. In fact, the gasoline car is probably seeing a better uplift from having computerized aids around its prime mover (i.e. EFI makes a massive difference compared to purely-mechanical alternatives).

b1122• 3 years ago

There is absolutely no reason why a precondition of driving an electric car should be having an app, sharing data with the manufacturer, or any of that nonsense.

I agree, and it is even getting bad with gas cars. GM, Ford, and non-domestics just snarf data, with build in cellular modems, and more.

The CEO of Ford was bragging about the revenue, at an earnings meeting, from selling this data.

All tracking, data gathering, needs to be made 100% illegal. It is constantly abused, and literally weaponized against consumers, and their democracies.

Laaas• 3 years ago

Why does it need to contact a central server anyway? Seems like a huge issue.

kurthr2• 3 years ago

It's billing for the SuperChargers.

mattbee2• 3 years ago

The UK's motorway charging network lose their connections all the time, but they tend to fail open, i.e. charge for free as long as it's not an electrical fault. It seems like a very petty upside to change that.

Lammy• 3 years ago

So they can combine the known geolocation of every charging station with the acceleration+steering data stored in the car to re-create any Tesla's exact journey if need be:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/dutch-...

“The NFI said the decrypted data showed Tesla vehicles store information about the operation of its driver assistance system, known as Autopilot. The vehicles also record speed, accelerator pedal position, steering wheel angle and brake usage, and depending on how the vehicle is used, that data can be stored for over a year.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_reckoning

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_navigation_system

Tanjreeve2• 3 years ago

So the user's are now suffering for the sake of neurotic data collection.

jeroenhd• 3 years ago

Why can't Tesla owners plug in their car at home because Tesla's online stuff is broken? Do their cars really need internet access to charge?

kurthr2• 3 years ago

You can, you just can't do billing on SuperChargers. Home charging works... cars work, but it's like credit cards didn't work at the gas station and there was nobody there to take cash.

ThunderSizzle• 3 years ago

Typically if a gas station isn't accepting payment, I can drive to the one next door. I've done that before, but it's very rare unless if Visa or Mastercard is having issues (which is pretty rare, but affects much more than just gas).

pcdevils2• 3 years ago

In the old days when the card machine went down they'd pull out the manual machine that used carbon paper to pick up the embossed numbers on the card and you signed for it.

Of course there were lots of cases of fraud linked to those too.

filoleg6• 3 years ago

They can at home (and third-party chargers), but not at Tesla superchargers. The internet access is needed not for charging, but for making a supercharger transaction.

Though I would have personally expected Tesla to set up supercharges in a way that would instead provide free charging when the supercharging internet access is down. The monetary loss from that would probably cost far less than this negative PR. And this is literally the first time I hear about their network going down in a way that supercharging is unavailable (maybe it happened before, but I haven't been paying much attention until 2019), so it isn't like they would be losing tons of money by providing that charging for free. And especially since filling up from around 20% to 90% at a supercharger typically costs me way less (somewhere between $16-26 total) than it would for a gas car.

helf3• 3 years ago

Wait wait wait. You expected Tesla to have pre-emptively done something to avoid negative PR? When have they ever done that?

LinuxBender3• 3 years ago

I agree with everything you said but if I put my Elon hat on, aside from the itching sensation I can imagine their security team pointed out that people would find ways to DoS the terminal into being free. I'm not saying that would be logical, just probably how they were thinking. I'm taking that hat off now.

sneak• 3 years ago

TFA: "Some Tesla drivers say they can’t connect to their Powerwall home battery charging system."

frumper• 3 years ago

They could also have the supercharger locally store what car charged how much and when the system goes back up it charges the account. If there is no card on file then it'll be owed until that person connects a card. They could even send out a list of cars to each supercharger as a blocklist if they find abusers to help deter attacks and limit the downside.

sixQuarks3• 3 years ago

So Tesla goes down momentarily, it's huge news. Meanwhile, try taking a road trip with a non-Tesla vehicle. You will quickly see that more than half the chargers are broken, and the other half charge at slow rates, and half the charger locations are off or not even there.

neverminder3• 3 years ago

I have my popcorn ready. Watching the number of EVs increase exponentially faster than the number of chargers. I think right now in UK, where most people are unable to charge at home, there are regions with 1:50 charger to EV ratio which is just comical. Politicians are delusional with their plans to ban the sales of ICE cars in 2030, because it will take forever for the EV infrastructure to catch up.

coldtea3• 3 years ago

Don't worry, the EV EU date ain't gonna happen anytime near the schedule. Those dates are for show, they'll always get pushed into the future...

cyberge99• 3 years ago

The big difference is that most people can charge their EV’s at home. The majority of people charging are on long road trips.

You can’t fill an ICE gasoline tank at home.

ytdytvhxgydvhh• 3 years ago

I’ve taken plenty of road trips in non-Tesla vehicles, many before Tesla even existed. Non-Tesla cars work fine.

simondotau2• 3 years ago

The vagueness in your reply is intriguing. I will assume you’re not being obnoxious and referring to an ICE vehicle. Well, Tesla “existed” in 2004 and its first commercially available vehicle, the Roadster, predates the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV.

The Tesla Model S wasn’t the first EV, but it’s arguably the first commercially available product capable of a “road trip” by any reasonable definition of the term.

vel0city2• 3 years ago

I've taken several road trips in my non-Tesla. I've yet to fail to charge at any location I've tried at the rates my car can charge at.

sixQuarks3• 3 years ago

You should play the lottery because you sound like the luckiest person alive.

LinuxBender3• 3 years ago

Will Prowse also a member of HN has made a video on this. [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATyBdJic8-o

batch12• 3 years ago

Would have been smarter to fail open in a situation like this and get the good press for eating the costs.

KerrAvon• 3 years ago

Musk is hostile to any form of press at this point. Tesla really needs a new leadership team.

hcurtiss• 3 years ago

Are those two sentences somehow connected or related?

user3939382• 3 years ago

I want a WW2 Willy’s Jeep that I can easily see/fix in an emergency.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS2• 3 years ago

I have a '46 Dodge WC that can be fixed with an adjustable wrench and a hammer & will run on even the crappiest fuel (5.1:1 compression ratio). I can crank start it, too. It's an old farm truck, and cost less than $2500 (albeit over a decade ago).

Buy 'em while you can.

bmitc• 3 years ago

I personally want a modern car that won't gravely injure me in even the most modest of car accidents but one that doesn't have inane software-controlled lockout features.

bsagdiyev• 3 years ago

That was the logic we used, bought an Explorer ST instead of a BMW since they've shown the desire to charge to unlock stuff already in the car. I'm sure Ford will do it at some point if it takes off but so far they haven't. Now the connected features on the car I'm not a huge fan of but they're not limiting thankfully.

Tesla goes down across Europe leaving some drivers unable to charge cars

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