If you want to settle for the Electrify America charging experience, sure. The plug on the end of the charger was never the main advantage that the supercharger network brought to the table.
I feel like this kind of attitude is where we go wrong as engineers. We spend so much time and energy bickering over and creating the perfect solution when sometimes you just need to ship and provide a solution.
I agree that sometimes things are either “a solution” or “not a solution”. EV chargers that do not charge more than half the time are still squarely in the “not a solution” category.
There's roughly a 25% chance the credit card reader / app will incorrectly reject payment (broken or not) on competitors' stations, and roughly a 10% chance the charger will be broken. There's a 1% chance it'll feed bad voltage to your car. There's also a 5% chance you'll have to make a phone call to arrange payment.
Of the dozens of issues that I've had across a few different cities, I think the problem was related to the connector once.
If they'd simply put standard vending machine credit card readers on them and not bothered with apps, they'd have cut their downtime by at least 75%.
When I hear about Tesla and the Supercharger network what I hear about most is how easy it was to plan long trips. A road trip on gas is easy, there's a gas station in every town with a few thousand people, fast EV chargers aren't yet as common. So if your routing system understood its range, and where the charging stations where it was pretty seamless. Much better than the stuff from other EV makers.
and there are a lot of them. Usually 8-16 per supercharger chargers at a single location vs the few electrify America stations I'v seen to on the east coast that have only two chargers at the station. So I'm less worried charging at a Supercharger that all the chargers will be taken. It also tells you on the screen how many chargers are available at each location before you get there.
The Electrify America experience is pulling into the far corner of a Walmart parking lot, and often waiting for one of the working units, or struggling for 10 minutes to even start one.
The reliability is terrible and perhaps forcing VW to operate a charging network as a punishment does not lead to a good customer experience
Tesla and Rivian network charger locations are usually in better spots than a Walmart. The chargers work the first time, at full speed and availability is always correct in the vehicle display.
I would guess a consistent and effective maintenance of equipment and decent payment system. I thought that the network was the only thing really going for Tesla, I hope everyone involved on this makes out well because I don't really care to trust some mom and pop to set the standards even though in general I really care about mom and pop.
Deep integration with the car is the most difficult piece of the Supercharger system to achieve for any other charging network. They have the best in-car and in-app charging experience, with the best routing to chargers and scheduling tools. Most networks still require you to use an app or RFID card to start a charge, Tesla you just plug in.
The other is probably just scale of the parent company in terms of being able to build out and service the network. They tend to have more prominent, nicer locations for their stations.
CCS2 supports "just plug in to charge" as an optional feature so depending on your manufacturer and CCS Type 1 charger it worked some of the time. All the charger networks and manufacturers are now migrating to NACS hardware over (the ugly) CCS Type 1 and NACS requires that CCS2 optional feature (NACS uses Tesla designed hardware but CCS protocols/software) so most charger networks including Electrify America and most manufacturers moving forward past the current transition to NACS should all support "just plug in to charge". "Soon."
Standardizing NACS was an interesting win for Tesla because their hardware design won out, but it was also a massive breach in their "moat" putting the other charging networks and other manufacturers on a much more equal footing with the charging story.
On the one hand it makes direct dumb "bottom line" business sense why Tesla would stop investing in its own network with such a massive breach in their "moat" about to spill out and maybe equalize the playing field. Perhaps especially if you think you've already earned enough recognition for your brand that you don't need to maintain it long term, just maintain the facade and PR spin of it. On the other hand, with such a huge first mover advantage and what everyone knows was a respectably huge "moat", you'd think there would be pivots to take advantage of to bulwark other parts of the same moat and still maintain some other advantage along the way to the old adage that "Teslas are the easiest to charge". Gutting the department may truly be a short term gain for shareholder quarterly results traded for a long term mistake and the risk of the loss of that first mover advantage they worked so hard to earn.
It's certainly fascinating to armchair quarterback what other options were in play here.
While I do think the Tesla / 'NACS' plug is a lot nicer/smaller/easier to use than CCS1, what really is the big win here? It's all based on CCS protocol anyway and hence will have the exact same interoperability issues than before.
The big win for interoperability is that NACS as proposed flipped some CCS protocol features from "optional" to "required". The EU mandated some of those optional features. In North America so far it has been a free for all how much of the software protocol manufacturers actually implement of CCS and many truly have done "the bare minimum". That was the bargain that NACS proposed for Supercharger compatibility in the US was that the SAE should have to also start mandating those features. If it gets standardized that way, and it seems like that will happen, a lot of the interoperability issues should start to go away. One of those features was "Plug and Charge".
I rented a Tesla and did a East Coast to West Coast journey in a week and the Tesla did all the work for me for charging planning. I had never driven a Tesla or any EV at that point and I figured it out in about 5 mins on how to drive and how to plan charging after playing with the computer. I didn't think about it at all, and a week later got the charging bill from the rental company and it was hilariously cheaper than gas.
The IEC 62196 Type 2 connector is the European connector and still standard in Europe. It is different from the CCS Type 1 connector that has been used in North America, also known as the SAE J1772 Type 1 "Combo" connector as it was also standardized originally in North America under SAE J1772. Wikipedia doesn't have a separate page for the "Combo" connector and mentions it in the SAE J1772 page instead. (The base Type 1 is the Level 1/Level 2 charger and the "Combo" Type 1 is the combined one with AC plugs.)
It's very useful to note that the North American SAE Type 1 "Combo" connector and the European IEC Type 2 connector have surprisingly different form factors with the SAE one being bulkier by quite a bit. That too was a factor in NACS getting fast tracked for standardization. (It's the least bulky of the three hardware designs.)
It's the third plug that CCS uses. The whole point of NACS is that it is CCS.
It's going to be easy for everyone to support it because they support CCS already. Charger manufacturers like that. Charging networks like that. Car manufacturers like that.
Instead the NACS is the proprietary Tesla plug but using the CCS protocol instead of a CAN-based one. Practically this means that all superchargers remain compatible and it also means that all cars with the CCS plug are not compatible (unless the plug is changed or an adapter is used). Therefore your statement is misleading in addition to being plain wrong about „Type 3“. Tesla has, of course, always also supported the CCS outside of the United States, both inside the superchargers and inside the cars.
The NACS is not part of CCS.
The plug type is not part of CCS either.
And what you called „Type 3“ is in fact a completely different plug that uses this name as standard.
Perhaps this might help explain why you both are saying similar things in different ways and maybe just talking past each other:
CCS doesn't exist as a standards body in and of itself. It's a joint effort by the North American SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) and the European-based IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission). The CCS standard is actually sets of interoperable standards defined by both the SAE and the IEC built to work in tandem. There is no actual "CCS standards document" there are only SAE standards and IEC standards, but if the joint CCS work does its job they interlock to form one worldwide mega-standard which we call CCS because it useful to name the combined Voltron form.
The NACS plug is in the final drafting process of becoming a recognized SAE standard. In that SAE standards (help) define the CCS standard, NACS is being standardized as a part of CCS, or at least the part that SAE controls/owns. Whether or not you can name it "CCS" depends on what you think the name CCS stands for. SAE and IEC always had different plug standards, so in that regard NACS isn't new to CCS and is a normal part of CCS because whatever SAE says is the North American standard plug is the CCS plug in North America. On the flipside with naming, is branding and NACS clearly has its own brand name and development history. It was developed for Tesla initially. It was opened under the brand name "NACS" to help sell it to the rest of manufacturing. "North American Charging Standard" was an intentional PR move. Because it wasn't intentionally developed for being called "CCS" and because it has a strong brand name of its own, does that mean you can't call it "CCS"? (A rose by any other name, right?)
When that standard is finalized it will be the third type of plug that has a practical rollout. Does that make it the real "Type 3" as opposed to the older prototype that didn't make it past standards processes? Do we want that to call it "CCS Type 3" in the long run to reduce confusion? If "CCS Type 1" is truly dead, but is also the standardized name for "Plug that North America uses and is SAE standardized" should we refer to it as "CCS Type 1 2.0" or something like that?
Names are one of the hardest problems to solve. But to recap the facts: NACS will be as close to a part of the CCS standard as it gets (because it will be an SAE standard), and is a new type of plug now directly related to the CCS standard. Whether you want to call NACS a part of CCS is a matter of perspective and branding as much as "standards" on the ground.
Control right? This way Tesla keeps ownership and control of the network and can license access out to competitors. If they spun it off, they would have to pay for access themselves.
Still, I can't see the 4D chess behind this move. It's far beyond my limited understanding.
You jest, but it is impossible to say this is a mistake without knowing the future. If anything, it's a good indicator that Tesla is forecasting very hard times for EV charging adoption. Killing the goose that lays eggs all day may be justified if the egg supply is exploding.
It's the rational consequences of Tesla failing to turn it's charger network into an network effect creating an monopoly for Tesla.
Essentially the ploy was for Tesla to use the charging network as a loss leader to make Tesla the only/most viable EV brand, and because both roads and electricity grids are well regulated utilities that failed so from here on the only source of money for Tesla is going to be the company revenue/profit, as it's phase as a buy an monopoly startup is over.
There are a crazy number of charging companies out there. They literally just install a charger at any parking spot anywhere and connect electricity. It’s the simplest thing in the world, there is no ploy to be a monopoly in the space. The issue is there is not enough EVs on the road. Think cell towers in the middle of no where, sure you wish they were there but they just are not useful or profitable to many people.
This. I think because NACS is becoming the standard is exactly why they don't want to invest in EV Charging. When Superchargers were Tesla-only, they were a way to promote and market Tesla cars. Now that every car will be able to use them, that's gone. Let someone else run EV charging networks.
Additionally, EV Charging is not going to be a high-margin, disruptive industry that is a darling of wall street. Can you imagine investors getting excited about investing in the largest operator of Gas Stations? I don't think so. It's going to end up being a tight, competitive business where people pick where to charge based on prices down to the penny. No one's going to end up as a billionaire running that business.
I think your (plural) problem is that you're talking about chess as opposed to a chess board.
A chess board is 2D. But, you could technically say it's 4D (3 dimensions + time). You could also technically say it's 1D (a string) if you play by just writing the chess notation.
Just a thought experiment. I was implying that chess is a game, not a board. That game can be encoded/coded without any need for a Z variable, can't it? My Rook doesn't go up and down an ladder, it doesn't need a 3D array to record its position. So that's 2D + Time, or 3D. YRMV.
