Ford/Tesla Deal: Access to Superchargers, adapter coming, future EVs will have NACS (Tesla) port

[DuoRivians]

I think I’ll go out of my way to take up two Tesla supercharging spots, just to piss people off. Tesla drivers: “we don’t want your kind here!”

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[VSG]

I think I’ll go out of my way to take up two Tesla supercharging spots, just to piss people off. Tesla drivers: “we don’t want your kind here!”

Yeah and that's another thing. EA and EVgo and ChargePoint etc. have all had to deal with this forever. It's only at Tesla superchargers that there's a 1-1 correspondence of parking spots to chargers - everyone else has to deal with situations where there's a charger available but you can't use it because your charge port is not in the right spot.

And again, that affects the PERCEPTION of reliability/availability, but does not reflect the REALITY.

 

[SANZC02]

Yeah and that's another thing. EA and EVgo and ChargePoint etc. have all had to deal with this forever. It's only at Tesla superchargers that there's a 1-1 correspondence of parking spots to chargers - everyone else has to deal with situations where there's a charger available but you can't use it because your charge port is not in the right spot.

And again, that affects the PERCEPTION of reliability/availability, but does not reflect the REALITY.

Yes the newer EA chargers really help that, they have longer cords that reach both sides of the vehicles and are more in the middle of the spots. Hopefully they will retrofit all of the stations. They upgraded the one in Indio a few months ago.

 

[VSG]

Yes the newer EA chargers really help that, they have longer cords that reach both sides of the vehicles and are more in the middle of the spots. Hopefully they will retrofit all of the stations. They upgraded the one in Indio a few months ago.

I agree. A few weeks ago I encountered my first EA station with the overhead cord that I could use from the "wrong" side when I pulled nose-first into a charger. Having this is a game changer, as it opens up all the spots for charging, whereas before only 2 of the 4 parking spots at an EA charger might be usable for my R1T.

 

[scottf200]

When Tesla starts supporting dozens of different EV models from dozens of different manufacturers, it will learn that it needs longer cables, and longer cables mean increased power loss / thermal problems, which means the cables need active cooling, which means the cables are thicker, etc.

Didn't that happen already 3 years ago in Europe for Tesla? Meaning doesn't Tesla have this experience already.

Supercharger v3 cables got smaller even tho they have higher power than v2.

Supercharger v4 pedestal design as well as the location relative to the stall has changed.

Re: CHAdeMO 3.0
I'm sorry, when this was brought up I never heard of it. I literally thought it was a joke and didn't even search for it. I didn't know it still even existed. Too little, too late as the world moved on from it AFAIK.

Funny, but in all my years of driving I've never heard people go out of their way to complain about how big and unwieldy a gas pump nozzle is to use. Yes, at some stations you have to make an effort to stretch the hose, or move your car for the hose to reach, but it is what it is and people accept it

I'm not sure it is what it is means that it is well designed and has the best usability by the masses.

It'd be interesting to let a large test of all sizes of men and women use the different chargers to see which one works best and is the easiest to use.

They should have left CHAadMO 2.0 size alone. It is what it is!

 

[VSG]

Didn't that happen already 3 years ago in Europe for Tesla? Meaning doesn't Tesla have this experience already.

Yes, I believe they've learned a lot from having to support Europe. They haven't retrofitted or changed their design in the US as a result of that, as far as I can tell.

There is a new Tesla Supercharger going in near me. They started construction over two years ago. The city approved the permits within 5 days. After two years the pedestals are in, the parking lot has been torn up and re-done, and there are covers on all the pedestals, but it still isn't open. Peeking under the covers, I see this is NOT going to be a Magic Dock station. Also, I see that the layout is EXACTLY like all the other Tesla Supercharger stations - no provision for vehicles that don't have the charge port on the driver's side rear. So while Tesla gets a lot of praise from everyone for being able to churn out new stations, I'm not seeing it - it's been a full two years since they started this one with no regulatory impediments, yet it's still not open. When it does open, it will not be well utilized because it's in the middle of suburbia where everyone has a home charger and there are no apartments, and because the highway is 10 miles away and has its own supercharger right there so there's no reason for anyone to make a detour to here. But I'm sure it will be reliable because only Teslas will charge there and because it will only be used for top-off charges by people going to the supermarket nearby.

 

[Autolycus]

So... They're different but not different?

Their "protocols" are identical. The pins are arranged differently, but that's a trivial difference that has no effect on functionality, particularly with respect to DC charging.

You keep saying CCS1 has all kinds of problems that the fixed with CCS2 but can't actually state a single material difference between CCS1 and CCS2 that would impact charger reliability. There aren't any. The idea that the Tesla connector is inherently more reliable than CCS1 is based on the classic logical fallacy of believing that correlation = causation. We know that because CCS1 and CCS2 are functionally identical for DC charging and networks in Europe, including Tesla's, don't have any reliability problems with CCS2. As I said before, the causation of Tesla's US network being more reliable than any CCS network is quite obvious to people who aren't blinded by bias and narratives: Tesla invests an order of magnitude more money into its network, both with respect to the number of chargers it has installed to date and with respect to its commitment to resources for maintaining a reliable network.

 

[scottf200]

There is a new Tesla Supercharger going in near me. They started construction over two years ago.

You can see the installs happening here as they show entries for the permits being found, start of construction, and then finally the opening. Some are weeks now with the prefabricated superchargers sets (where each set can share up 500 kW with the others for balancing). This was in a Tesla presentation when the head of that area talked about it.
https://supercharge.info/changes

Below is 1/2 of May's activity AND for 16 or more pedestal install locations.

I think Ford's investment will make the growth of the superchargers happen faster so that is a good thing.

I wonder if Rivian will join Ford and move their charger port location so it doesn't take up two stalls (I think Ford will do this as part of the deal). That'd be fantastic and would help them survive. I don't think GM will but they are big enough and have $. I wonder about Stellantis (Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, etc)?

P.S. I'll be in WA as part of a road trip and will be using some of the Superchargers. Two more sites have gone up in the area I'm visiting in the past year or so.

 

[VSG]

Thanks for the link. The one I'm talking about says "This charger has a target opening date of Q4 2021 on the Tesla site." I did see another supercharger under construction near me that I didn't know about - I'll check that out tomorrow - but my point is that Tesla and Rivian and every other charging network has to deal with supply chain issues, permitting issues, contractor availability issues, and all sorts of other problems. Tesla is not immune to these constraints.

 

[Insight75]

Can't they just include a longer cable to reach the front? I'm excited about this as a Tesla owner that really appreciates the network.

 

[scottf200]

Thanks for the link. The one I'm talking about says "This charger has a target opening date of Q4 2021 on the Tesla site." I did see another supercharger under construction near me that I didn't know about - I'll check that out tomorrow

You are welcome. The size and number of sites they are adding that you can see on that crowd-sourced site is pretty amazing. Look back over a few months. Sometimes the 'crowd' doesn't find them until they are open. That happens less now than it use to. The permit and construction may start on the "same day."

There have been some mysterious delays in superchargers occasionally. Your example may be one in the top X records. There are options at that site to look at the permit/const/open history for a location too.

There have been some supercharger sites that changed dramatically in just 24 hours because they bring in the prefab Just-In-Time/JIT vs having to hire cranes twice. I had an example with pictures that I saw within the past week but can't find it.

BTW, I thought when Tesla changed to CCS2 for Europe that they may have changed to CCS1 here.

 

[scottf200]

Can't they just include a longer cable to reach the front? I'm excited about this as a Tesla owner that really appreciates the network.

There have been some changes with the v4 pedestals (longer/outside/reoriented relative to center of stall loc) but what you are referring to requires tall pedestals so the longer cable can be tethered so it doesn't end up on the ground for multiple reasons.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Obviously CharIN is biased towards CCS but I definitely agree with their assessment of a industry standard open design versus one driven from a single manufacturer.

https://www.charin.global/news/char...uncement-to-use-the-nacs-proprietary-network/

 

[scottf200]

Obviously CharIN is biased towards CCS but I definitely agree with their assessment of a industry standard open design versus one driven from a single manufacturer.

https://www.charin.global/news/char...uncement-to-use-the-nacs-proprietary-network/

They make some reasonable points globally.

The US companies caused this situation. It is too bad everyone (CharIN, ~2016 Dieselgate Settlement authors, ?) seemed to let EA and other CCS1 charger brands screw up so so bad. The focus seemed to be on installing as many *small* sites with the least plugs as quickly as possible and virtually ignore the *reliability* and *maintenance* of them. If they were reliable and not a black eye then Ford would have never ever made the move.

Experts in the industry and auto manufacturers are fed up (article below). See lack of incentives comment.

CharIN are *now* launching a Consortium (below). Diesalgate was ~2016.

3) Recent activities and announcements will address concerns about charger reliability
CharIN joined the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation and the National Laboratories to support the launch of the National Charging Experience Consortium. The Consortium will address charger interoperability and reliability issues in public CCS deployments, which is appropriate to address jointly as an industry. Additionally, CharIN will announce other major interoperability initiatives in the coming weeks, including upcoming interoperability testing events. The entire EV industry should double down on activities to support public fast charging for the long-term.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a44016347/ford-tesla-ev-charging-opinion/

 

[Dark-Fx]

If they were reliable and not a black eye then Ford would have never ever made the move.

If Ford ever gave a shit in the first place they would have started their own network

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