This is for access to compatible 250kW Supercharges. There are a lot of them, but it is a subset of the total Supercharger network. [1]
If you check the Find Us map and select "Superchargers Open to NACS" then you will see which ones are compatible and their associated 'Charging Fees for NACS EVs' rates.
Yeah, it is a subset of the v3/v4 chargers. It isn't clear how they selected them either. Some very busy sites have been added, but other v3 sites that aren't as busy were left off.
Some have speculated that it relates to the stall layout, but if that is the case the differences must be really subtle.
The earliest sites were likely not engineered with those capacity transformers to feed the chargers.
Its going to be a dance with the power engineers to evaluate the oldest sites to balance out what it may cost to upgrade the transformers feeding the site, and if the cables from the transformers to the chargers are adequate or not. Distribution devices from the transformer will need to be evaluated as well.
Simplest would be perhaps adding a 250kw charger here and there to the site, dependant on transformer capacity. This would also be the most confusing for users.
Interestingly in LAS, the tesla charging station behind Flamingo (near the monorail) has "destination (basically 240v home chargers)" chargers intermixed for adding overall vehicle capacity.
Tesla still has a bunch of 120kw chargers around that throttle when 2 cars charge next to one another.
All of the 250kW chargers support full speed at all stalls. That was one of the major changes with v2+ of the supercharger.
IDK what would be confusing, they have the ability to throttle when over capacity already implemented and every car will ultimately have a charge curve that prevents them from charging from 0% -> 100% at 250kW the entire time.
It many cases it's probably easier/better to build a new site nearby that is 250kw capable rather than simply upgrade an existing site; you get a second site and increased total capacity.
The feed isn't an issue if Tesla doesn't want it to be. Tesla and others have been deploying stations with local battery reserves because getting a big enough utility feed is a deployment time problem in many, many locations or cost-prohibitive. Utilities are (not surprisingly) a bit pissy about where you drop a megawatt or few load.
I'm guessing it is the result of site negotiation between Tesla and Ford, coupled with firmware/hardware/signage changes.
Ford wants chargers where they think they'll be most likely to sell cars, and might have handed off a list to Tesla where market research showed they'd sell the most EVs and there is the worst charging infrastructure, for example.
Tesla might be u an algorithm to pick stations they think that adding smelly Ford-driving plebs to will irritate the fewest Tesla customers but still meet their contraction obligations to Ford.
There may also be agreements with the host site - malls and the like may have agreed to lease land for the chargers and spaces etc in exchange for the wealthy people the stations will bring to the area.
Ford et al are crazy to do this, frankly. Musk is incredibly unstable, extremely self-serving, and while I think Musk ultimately wants to become the Mobil/Shell/BP of electric charging, they're still competitors.
If you look at the map of charging locations that are enabled for Ford as of today, you can tell that there is really very little limit being placed. The map is effectively most of the supercharging locations.
The algorithm seems to be simply which stations can transition to NACS protocol.
Malls are leasing land mostly for rent. Some are obviously more enthusiastic about it than others. Some chargers are off in the corner, out of the way. Some are front and center, placed so that the drivers can have easy access to the mall. Ford is brilliant to partner with Tesla, because the existing fleet of chargers suck, and Tesla's doesn't suck. They certainly have a contract with Tesla that assures a certain lenth of time for reliable service (e.g. Tesla won't cut off Ford drivers or do wild pricing to punish them). Tesla wants more customers - car or energy customers, doesn't matter. So seems like a win-win all around. Unclear why this is bad for Ford or Tesla.
The loser here might be the Tesla drivers, who now need to compete for space with the Ford drivers, especially since the Ford cars don't charge quite as fast as the Teslas do, and there is some friction due to the position of the charge socket.
But in the end, the increased revenue for Tesla will allow Tesla to build more chargers, which is what Tesla drivers have been enjoying anyway. So maybe ultimately it is better for everyone. Everyone, that is, except for the oil company executives.
>> This is for access to compatible 250kW Supercharges. There are a lot of them, but it is a subset of the total Supercharger network.
It would be useful to compare to the publicly available "standard plug" chargers out there. Cars using the adapters are gaining charging options, while presumably near-future models might have access to the entire Tesla charging network.
Meanwhile, all those existing "standard" changers are going to need an upgrade...
Dongles are great but supercharger cables are relatively short, we're going to see Fords blocking multiple chargers in various ways so they can connect. There's usually only one pull-in spot.
The F-150 Lightning has a charging port on the front driver's side.
Tesla Superchargers are meant to be backed in to with a read driver's side charging port.
A F-150 will need to drive in to the spot adjacent to the charger they want to use and bring the charging cable across, effectivly using 2 stalls to charge, as far as I can tell.
In Sweden this is a pain at super charger locations that allow non-Tesla vehicle charging. The almost randomized charge port locations makes lots of non-Tesla vehicles park in the wrong place and take up two spots.
Not really sure what can be done about it except just hoping for more charge infrastructure to be built fast... If Tesla would go back to only offering charging for Tesla vehicles that would be nice when driving Tesla but a step back for the overall electrification so I'm actually ok with some minor annoyance on this.
I think it's a maintenance decision. Probably less wear and tear on the internal layers in a shorter cable that can't be spaghettified as easily. Could be off here.
They could have charging stations for just their vehicles, but then they'd miss out on subsidies and easier installation permits that come with installing an "EV charger" rather than a "tesla charger".
I assume they'd opt to put in more spots or longer cables rather than using exclusivity to reduce usage. Have you run into an installation that couldn't be used due to lack of space despite available chargers?
Do you wind up wasting the next one in the row, so only wasting half as many slots?
Reminds me of the 1/3 coin revolution problem: Circle A has 1/3 the radius of circle B. Circle A rolls around circle B until it returns to its starting position. How many revolutions of circle A are there in total?
Only for stations that aren't at the end of a row or lack a parking spot adjacent. And only if the "blocked" spot can't be used by another "mirror image" car design.
I mean, gas stations have been dealing with this problem for decades (different car designs need to pull through along different sides, so sometimes my Mazda "blocks" the two pumps because other cars can't pull in until I move) and we've all survived.
And in any case, unless you're trying to charge on major corridors on high traffic weekends, it's academic anyway. Over 30k miles and almost three years, I can count on one hand the number of times my Model Y has had to wait for a charger spot.
People are making way to big a deal out of a minor issue, basically. Standard Tesla discussion form.
There is 1 stall on a single set of superchargers which can be charged by a F-150 without blocking 2 stalls, that is if there is an adjacent spot on the right side/end of the chargers, which is not always the case.
This is a post about Ford's getting access to Superchargers, so I don't think it's making a "big deal" about anything to simply describe the configuration of the trucks and how that impacts their ability to use the superchargers. It just is what it is.
> There is 1 stall on a single set of superchargers which can be charged by a F-150 without blocking 2 stalls
Verifiably false. Put a F-150 in every stall, and only one on the very end is blocked, and only if there isn't an open parking space next to it. If F-150's make up a significant fraction of the charging population, then you're looking at half the impact (25%) at most, not even including the spots on the ends that don't have a spot to block (most rows are 4-8 spots wide, so that's another 12-25% recovered). And of course if F-150's don't make up a significant fraction of the charging population, then you're not looking at a significant impact by definition.
I repeat, in exhaustion: This Is Not A Big Deal. Please stop making everything a big deal Because Tesla. It's exhausting.
> I mean, gas stations have been dealing with this problem for decades
Given the much longer time it takes to charge an EV it's not comparable.
It becomes a serious issue based on demand, obviously, where a dearth of chargers becomes even worse. It'll be sorted out over time but meanwhile there's more pain for EV users even as the number of compatible chargers increases, lessening the positive impact.
Gas stations have a very different configuration than Superchargers. It's an odd comparison to being with. Drive through supercharger stalls could be really nice and would resolve this issue, but they would take up a lot more real estate.
> People are making way to big a deal out of a minor issue, basically. Standard Tesla discussion form.
Yeah, I've seen way too much stress about this issue. I'm sure there will be a few stations that have issues for short periods of time, but the overall picture just doesn't change that much.
And the solution is the same anyway. Just keep building.
This is why it is so important for stations to support sharing power between stalls via shared cabinets. Lowering the cost per stall makes it much easier to install additional posts to limit the impact of that problem.
IIRC, Tesla is currently installing ~2,400 stalls per year in the US. It could be higher now as the rate tends to trend up over time.
Of course, lots of third parties are ramping up now too (Pilot, Flying J, Circle-K, and the non-EA/Wal-Mart branded sites).
The version four chargers aren’t much longer based on what I can tell from the pictures I’ve seen.
And really I think that’s probably enough. It’s not like anyone’s putting the charge port in the middle of the roof.
The cables at Electrify America and some other places are often much longer and it doesn’t seem to be a big issue. The only issues I’ve seen with the cables themselves are some form of sabotage like someone cutting them off or breaking the connector.
Agreed. The cables don't have to be _that_ much longer.
Although I do think they are going to need a little bit of a redesign of the v4 cabinet. I'm hearing that the holster design isn't working all that well in real world use.
Idea: put 2 on the car, opposite each other. Provides redundancy in the event one is damaged & increases usability by not being fussy about the specific parking situation.
I agree, and I have to think that's what will happen. Other EVs in North America have already consolidated around the Tesla charging standard, and it would be a really frustrating customer experience if customers are unable to charge because there are no charging stations with two adjacent free spots (and even then, I think most people won't want to feel like the jerk who is taking up two free spots) or else an open spot on the end.
Maybe, maybe not. I expect to see trailers come with range extender batteries (very useful for RVs where those batteries can also provide power for whatever you do when there) this means ports on the back, but those will not be accessible when towing so you want one in front too...
The important thing to take away from this is we are still figuring out details and so should not lockin yet.
Honestly I think that RVs are kind of a worst-case for batter power, and range extender trailers are unlikely because EVs get progressively less efficient as the battery capacity increases (increasing battery capacity increases the weight). When you're starting with something as heavy as an electric RV, attaching even more weight seems unlikely to pay off.
(Now I'm curious if the relationship between range and battery capacity is merely sublinear or if it actually peaks at some point i.e. there is a maximum theoretical range beyond which increasing battery capacity reduces range)
Gas filler ports is actually an advantage being a free-for-all, because it means that roughly half are on one side, and half the other, which fits pumps quite nicely.
The problem is when 80% or more are on one side (like Teslas are all on the same side now) and the rest are not.
I know, and it has been a significant advantage for them. Others have been using a similar approach recently too (EA "balanced" chargers, Kempower, newer Chargepoint setups, and quite a few others).
They won't be though. Most charging will be at home. Your neighborhood gas station's days are numbered. There may be more chargers on rural highways (charging spends more time at the "pump"), but overall there will be less charging and so chargers will never be as ubiquitous.
Neighborhoods with higher density housing won't be able to charge at home so likely EV stations will be easier than widespread curbside charging in cities.
Yeah this. I live in Silicon Valley, can't afford a house here (almost nobody can), but have an EV and rely on public charging infrastructure. Most people, and even most EV owners, don't and will never own a single family home here.
It works totally fine, my office has slow charging, the public library a short walk from my apartment has slow charging, and many supermarkets have superchargers or other DC fast charging so I almost never waste time dealing with charging.
I love public transit friendly cities, but it is almost nonexistent here. A 20 minute drive can take upwards of 1.5 hours on public transit.
And no I don't have the time or resources to fix politicians, I have enough crap to do just trying to make money to live here and take care of myself. Even if I had time it's not like anything I do is going to result in Tokyo-quality public transit being built in the time that I live here.
I think long-term chargers might be more ubiquitous than gas stations. Charging around town might allow young urban apartment dwellers without charging at home to eat and show while they charge.
How wasteful would it be to build a car with charging ports on both sides?
Would use far more resources than most other conveniences you find in a car, but would also be a far more substantial quality of life improvement than the other stuff.
I think more likely if Tesla charging is becoming the standard, just build all cars to have a charge port in the same place. I’ve never understood the need to be creative with where you put a plug/gas nozzle. If that’s your differentiation you’ve got worse problems.
I doubt they're being creative. Far more likely they're locating the charging port based on the needs of the vehicle's internal layout. Or to be consistent with the manufacturer's standard, which was likely set by the needs of their first EV's internal layout.
Are fuel inlet sides consistent with the handedness of traffic in the home market of the brand? Perhaps with occasional exceptions in brands aiming for extra britishness to appear more "sports car"?
Nice example of how adding a trickle charger port is trivial, but a fast charge port would not be. Chances are in this case the mechanical parts are more expensive than the extra wiring and electronics. Almost makes me wonder if we might one day see a reboot of the magic cupholder invasion but with conveniently located trickle charger ports instead.
Probably. It'll get worse as different manufacturers gain access. This change is about ubiquity, and Tesla knows it may make things less convenient for current Tesla owners.
The Ford adapter should have been available with a cord extension instead of just a block.
Or at least offer a 10ft extension cable converter (CCS one end, NACS other end)
How does the billing work? I know with our Tesla it just billed our Tesla account and knew our car. How do other manufacturers using these work? Will my Volvo EX30 just talk to the Tesla equipment when I get it?
Edit: Sorry I see it says this in the article.
> Ford EVs already use the ISO 15118 "plug and charge" protocol, which means they give the charger their billing details as part of the electronic handshake, obviating the need to use an app or credit card to start a charging session.
Are the prices the same as the rates that Tesla charges for Tesla vehicles? It was really cheap for our Tesla and we loved that.
Edison is famous for his lightbulb, but more significant was his electric power stations and infrastructure (via GE). Similar for Birdseye frozen fish and freezer infrastructure in supermarkets.
Selling some of the cars is one thing; selling fuel to all of the cars is another. Who's richer: car manufacturers or oil companies?
While it's a good point, I think the electricity/oil comparison breaks down slightly when you remember that, at best, you are probably selling a small minority of the total fuel. Most people charge most of the time at home and buy from their home electricity provider. This will continue to be true probably forever, with fast chargers only providing energy only longer road trips. I don't know what percentage of driving occurs on those kinds of trips, but my guess is "not very much".
Yes, you have the issue with many urban dwellers not having a garage/private parking space in which to install a home charger, but I think that cheap, ubiquitous, lvl 2 chargers are going to become more and more common in apartment parking complexes, office parking lots, parking structures, and more. And these much cheaper, slower chargers are always going to have more competition simply by virtue of not needing a large "network" and therfore having very low entry costs.
Tesla very well might come to completely dominate the lvl 3 fast charging space. But I think that that is always going to remain a pretty small part of EV fuel sales.
Fast chargers for long trips is an objection-overcomer, that is important and is used, but daily commute is the main use (as you say). 0 < fast-chargers < oil
Supercharger stations are Tesla’s killer app though. Say what you want about their cars or Elon but no one else comes close to their Supercharger network in both coverage and reliability. It’s one objective reason why you’d pick a Tesla versus another EV.
Now that they’re opening it, it’s a competitive advantage lost. You could argue that it was always a matter of time before everyone else caught up, but this is accelerating the schedule.
Tesla (the company, the stock) seems to be a time bomb of trying to outrun the competition before they catch up. Lately they seem to be squandering the massive lead they had, partially because of Elon’s stupid shenanigans.
The argument could be made that as they're losing the advantage in the vehicle space, they're transitioning to be the leader in the charging station space, which I think is honestly a wise move on their part
I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad move, per what you say.
If you go by what Elon and fanatical TSLA “uberbulls” say, Tesla is no longer a car company but an AI company that just happens to make cars on the side. So there’s that.
Then it’s a matter of whether you think that’s a worthwhile investment, or just more Elon BS.
Forcing all of their competitors to pay 35% more at their fast charging network and being known as the only viable EV in North America is enough of a benefit still.
Nobody is selling NACS cars with the Tesla connector yet. They will soon but why bother with a cheap imitation of Tesla when you could go with the clear market leader and not do any mental gymnastics?
Depends if you see Tesla cars as the best EVs or not, especially if the Supercharger network is no longer exclusive.
I don’t, and I know a lot of other people think likewise. I see this becoming a wider phenomenon as the competition continues to grow. Hence, what I referred to as the “time bomb”.
I say this as someone with a huge number of TSLA shares, albeit someone that wants to dump them sooner rather than later because of reasons like this.
> the adapter is only for DC fast charging, not for Tesla's AC destination chargers
I wonder what actually happens if you try to use a Tesla destination to J1772 adapter with a NACS DC charger? In that case, the 400-1000VDC pins are connected to the 240VAC pins on the vehicle. Is the NACS handshake smart enough to detect this fault before the power turns on?
I have one of those adapters, but I stuck a "120-240V AC ONLY" label on it because I don't want to find out.
In NACS the DC and AC pins are the same pins. The car only connects the charge port pins to either the AC/DC charger or to the DC battery after it communicates with the charger and tells the charger what voltage / amps it wants.
You are describing the behavior of a NACS vehicle. I'm wondering what happens if you connect a DC charger to the AC pins of a CCS1 vehicle, and then start the DC handshake.
If the DC charger is required to passively sense the battery voltage before charging, then it's probably fine. Otherwise, magic smoke!
Only tangentially related....but why do so many people seem obsessed with the "network" when it comes to chargers?
I'm a non-tesla EV owner, and on the relatively rare occasions that I need a lvl 3 charger, I do find myself almost (but not entirely) exclusively using EA chargers, but this is because A)they are usually conveniently located and B) they are almost always the cheapest available option. I do not care at all that they are part of the same network, and I would happily use whatever charger was convenient and cheap, just like I used to do with gas stations.
There is no advantage, to me as a driver, of it being part of a "network".
My understanding is that the Tesla supercharger network was/is the most reliable network, whereas there were frequent reports of the unreliability of all non-Tesla networks. Also once all the networks adopt the NACS plug, it will be great because all vehicles should be able to connect with all charge networks and I'm looking forward to the high availability and competition that will offer.
I have a Tesla and haven't had occasion to use a non-Tesla L3 charger, but my understanding is that different networks may make it easier to pay without a credit card, or offer discounts for being part of their network, or maybe don't have a credit card reader at all? And having their app installed on your phone (or whatever) will make it easier to find them or view the realtime status.
So I would think it's simply easier to always use the same network or else you're juggling apps and payment methods.
The price of the electricity delivered by the supercharger is shown when you use the Tesla app or the in car navigation. At least in Australia it does.
Hmm? Do you mean online or something as the car does show the price (per min or per kwh, depending on jurisdiction) in-car when you are browsing the superchargers on the map.
One aspect that is quite important to me but I can't find it mentioned anywhere is the integration with the API of superchargers. Will Ford cars get live access to statistics on what superchargers are available in what capacity that could help planning the trip a bit better?
It's finally a good time to start considering other EVs than Tesla assuming one drives relatively far distances. One thing that Tesla car still does exceptionally well is trip planning where I don't have to think anything about planning the trip w.r.t. charging. I don't know if using CarPlay with Apple Maps would provide similar experience.
Seems like a strange day for something to start, and it has nothing to do with leap years. Starting something on a Thursday seems odd. Starting something major and new like this not on a 1st seems odd. It just so happens to also be a leap day, but starting something on the last day of the month seems odd.
Question: Could ford one day be denied access? I know there is a physical adapter, but could a certain mercurial billionaire one day decide to restrict access via software?
That's not "no reason". The insurance company incorrectly listed the car as totaled and the DMV issued a salvage title for it. Tesla doesn't want chargers or vehicles to be damaged or destroyed, so they have a policy of disabling supercharging on cars with salvage titles.
That Tesla didn't fix the issue until a news crew contacted them is an indictment of Tesla's customer support, not some sort of fickleness where they gleefully disable supercharging for random cars.
Edit: The parent comment originally said "They block access to current Tesla owners for no reason."
I would prefer agnostic hardware, a scheme that would not allow anyone to cut off access. Car companies long ago abandoned similar attempts to limit gas for particular vehicles, the one remaining limit being the nozzle standard so diesel doesn't get pumps into non-diesel cars, but even there there is a bypass. The concept of DRM to "gas up" my electric car just rubs me the wrong way. I hesitate to trust that Ford and Tesla will always remain friends.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. A gas station owner is certainly free to onyl service certain brands and control access in any way that they choose. Customers would simply be free to take their business elsewhere. In practice, station owners would rarely (if ever) choose such an option.
Similarly, these NACS equipped vehicles can use any open NACS station, or any open CCS station via an adapter. There is nothing in the standard that limits charge station providers to only Tesla.
Any charge station (whether CCS or NACS) could implement restrictions in any way that they see fit. The most common cases of this are CCS stations at dealers, where they often restrict it to their company's vehicles.
It is unlikely that a public charge company would want to cut themselves off from revenue by severely limiting who could use their site.
Meh, Costco controls fueling based on member status. Lots of company depot fueling stations exist, with various methods of access control. Access control isn't that hard, if the provider wants it.
not really a contract issue. GM was not under any obligation to Apple to continue to use their service. GM seems to not care about it's customer's desires in this issue, either.
Volvo and Polestar are both Geely brands. Volvo is decoupling from Polestar and they'll each be pretty independent at that point, although the corporate lineage may lead to technology sharing you would think.
My Ioniq 5 does, but I don't think it'll natively support NACS until next year's model... That said using most Superchargers would be a step down in terms of charging speed, I think it would mostly be helpful in areas where there's low coverage for 350kW stations (edit: to be clarify, 350kW stations are the only ones I've seen that saturate the cars ability to charge. But it doesn't hit the full 350kW)
I think the max charge rate for an Ioniq 5 is actually more like 225kW. The bit about 350kW stations enabling the 15m 20->80 charging is because the next step down in an EA/Chargepoint station is 150kW. And in practice, mine rarely gets up anywhere near max charge rate, though that probably has more to do with EA's station quality than the car itself.
The bigger issue with Supercharger is the voltage, if it's not a 800V charger. The internal converter in the E-GMP platform for a 400V source ends up being a limiting factor and drags the system down to something like 75kW, similar to a Bolt.
Updated the comment to be a bit more clear. Funnily enough, I usually get better than 150kw on EA's 150kw chargers (I assume because being capable of 150kw at 400v actually means they can do even more at 800v?)
Note really. Cybertruck has a foot longer bed and more payload/towing capacity. Faster charging. I'm not saying it's the best in every category, but people are definitely cross shopping, and will be choosing it more as the supply goes up and costs come down. Video comparison - https://youtu.be/fxqpFI-vJpo?t=853
The difference is that one is almost half the price of the other.
50-60k for a vehicle with good utility, cheap maintenance and fueling, and ability to power your house is a pretty good purchase. Home natural gas generators can cost up to $10k, Tesla Powerwalls are even more. Utility of the truck is unparalleled if you actually need to carry gear for whatever reason. So many people see practical. These people are also not carrying large stuff all the time where a foot of bed length matters, nor are towing big things. Fast charging is also mostly irrelevant as people top up at home and rarely take long trips where they need to use public charging.
Spending 90k+ for pretty much the same stuff is stupid.
So you arbitrarily have decided that bed length is not important, but home powering is.. how convenient for your argument.
Pretty sure I addressed price. There are cheaper models not yet available as they are still supply constrained so are selling the most expensive options first. As they did with every other vehicle they released.
Either way people are paying 90k and more for trucks already. It's only stupid if you can't afford it. You're not going to find another eye catching, steer by wire truck out there to buy.
If cybertruck actually manages to be sold at 40k, then it will be the one to get. Not gonna happen though, because empty promises, and generally a midsize hybrid truck will still most likely be the better buy because cybertruck will have way less power and range.
Bed length matters for carrying big stuff with tailgate up, which most people dont do, and for most stuff like motorcycles, the tailgate is left down. Both cybertruck and lightning can power a house btw, im just saying that for most people if you subtract that value from both vehicles if you are going to invest in backup power anyways, Lightning becomes a 30k nice pickup truck.
Also the 90k trucks that people are buying are way more capable than a Cybertruck, and have actual good quality construction and finish.
Tesla has proven many times that will flex pricing to move supply. Not having dealers gives them a huge advantage in that they have higher margins from which to offer discounts.
You seem obsessed with price, and in terms of price Tesla really can't be beat. Best selling vehicles in the world right now. Good luck betting against them.
Rivian is a whole other segment. Its more for people who don't really need a truck but like the idea of one. Their SUV is really pretty much way better, as the truck bed is too small.
Cybertruck is simply too big for most people. Rivian is much smaller
Back in mid 2000s, the midsize truck segment was booming, despite the fact that you could get a similarly equipped f150 for the same price that was better in almost every way except for one thing, size.
Ford at least is attempting to go after the pro market though. You are correct it is mostly toys, but I expect the pro market will start buying them more as they figure out how nice it is. (in many areas the first thing the pro does is unload the generator - the truck can provide all the power they need for a day and get back home, thus saving a ton of money in gas)
The ford f150 lightning is an amazing truck. Love everything about it
It’s excellent for any working professional that remotely deals with any power tools or other electronics at job sites and wants to always be ready and charged
You might be underestimating how many Cybertruck buyers are not pickup truck buyers.
Also not sure that a little added charging convenience is going to sway Cybertruck buyers to an F150. The "antialiased 3D polygon" design is a big part of the appeal.
The order will be Ford, GM, Rivian, Volvo..it's the same order the OEMs decided to make a deal. Elon won't let anyone get ahead of anyone else, because money is not the objective.
If money was the objective, they would have vending machines and unskippable ads on superchargers. Monetizing EV charging would be a complete disaster, and Tesla can always leverage it years and years after the adoptions are complete.
Kinda like how there's ads on the home screen of certain products, but other companies may opt to forgo them for a more premium experience that keeps customers coming back and paying them long-term subscription fees?
Money was always the objective, hell it's even their legal duty, and shareholders could sue if you claimed otherwise.
Some companies just choose to look further than the next quarter ahead with their plan to get that money.
> Ford EVs aren't compatible with every Tesla Supercharger, however. They must be the more recent units, which are able to charge at up to 250 kW, identified by a black collar at the base of the charging plug.
> And the adapter is only for DC fast charging, not for Tesla's AC destination chargers.
While charging interoperability is a great step forward, all these conditionals will make the transition to EV’s much slower.
Imagine if gas stations had a different charger for each vehicle manufacturer. Now imagine that gas station (really ought to rebrand them as refuel stations) had to replace charge points every 2-5 years when newer charger models are made.
And this model is supposed to be more sustainable? We really need a standard charging plug / port for EV’s, and it needs to be enforced by the relevant authorities.
Perhaps we could call it the North American Charging Standard, and get the SAE to formalize it as an automotive standard! It looks like the standard got published in December-
Right. And ford is giving one free adapter for EVERY ford EV for people who already own them or buy them through June(?).
Free shipping too.
So you put in your order, your vehicle gets a software update, and you’re ready at any station. You don’t have to wait for a new vehicle with the NACS plug. The car doesn’t need to be retrofit.
IRT the AC charging situations, it seems far more likely to come across a J1772 AC charger instead of a Tesla destination charger. I don't know of a single place that offers public AC charging that has only Tesla destination chargers around me. Back when Teslas were still pretty new I would see only Tesla destination chargers at some hotels, but even now most hotels I've been to that had charging had J1772 or J1772 + Tesla.
In some areas, a green nozle means diesel. In others, a yellow one means diesel... And different states have different levels of ethanol added that can mess with your older hoses and fittings. But most of us got quickly used to that
Europe already did what you described: standardized charge port standard (CCS2) and Tesla chargers already open to non-Tesla vehicles. It was glorious.
The US's reluctance to regulate emerging tech is both why they take longer to standardize, and it's also part of the reason why so much emerging tech comes from the US. It's a trade-off.
As a consequence Europe has a much worse standard and the US has a better one.
Tesla should have opened the spec much earlier (independent from if they actually wanted other car companies to use their super charger). Had Tesla done this they would be in a much better position now.
The Tesla charger standard was not open. The Tesla charger standard is older then CCS-2. My point is Tesla should have made its design a standard, even before CCS-2.
And my point about North America was that now North America has a better standard, even if its later. The NACS Standard is better then the CCS-2 standard.
Tesla, Apple, and any other upstart business is entirely welcome to submit their connector or cable standard to the appropriate forum for evaluation. Because they avoid this, they get targeted by corrective legislation. Particularly when they take Apple's pathetic example of charging a licensing fee for class-compliant serial connectors.
> the EU is hell-bent on locking it in for eternity.
No it hasn't. The EU Commission also gets the right to examine future common charging solutions.
Also your comparison is not apt. The USB-C port is not required if the device does not require a wired charging port just as a computing device without a serial interface does not need a DB9 connector.
How exactly did the EU define "USB-C" because there are all sorts of ways it could have been defined that leave wiggle-room for future advancements (even now, I believe the USB-C port on an iPhone may actually be a Thunderbolt port ...)
If you check the Find Us map and select "Superchargers Open to NACS" then you will see which ones are compatible and their associated 'Charging Fees for NACS EVs' rates.
1: https://www.tesla.com/findus?v=2&bounds=53.02665397538087%2C...