Tesla Chargers: Will this reach?

[Supratachophobia]

Yeah whatever. Tesla drivers are just going to have to get used to dealing with the same issues we CCS users have had to deal with forever - different cars have different charge port locations and they all have to connect to the pedestals from different stalls, some by backing-in and some by pulling-in. At least EA etc. TRIED to design their stations to accommodate different geometries - Tesla didn't.

Tesla superchargers are not going to get 100% utilization unless all the vehicles are the same design. That's not going to be the case when Tesla opens up their chargers to all vehicles. Welcome to the club.

CCS users manage to shuffle and share at EA stations without fights breaking out all the time, so unless Tesla owners are entitled jerks there shouldn't be a problem doing the same thing at superchargers. When Tesla opens up the superchargers to Rivians, then Rivians have just as much right to use the supercharger as a Tesla.

As a Tesla owner, my default mode for the last decade has been "entitled jerk". There's no hope.

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[VSG]

At least EA etc. TRIED to design their stations to accommodate different geometries - Tesla didn't.

I was with you until this statement. What incentive did Tesla have to design their proprietary superchargers in any way to accommodate anything except their own design (which was a single location on every vehicle)?

Tesla chose to build a closed, proprietary system in part to give Tesla vehicles a competitive advantage. And it worked. But it was Bad Engineering - they could have designed their chargers and stations to reach both the right and left side of the vehicle, for example, rather than locking Tesla into one and only one charge port location. So while it was to their benefit at the start, it turns out they have literally painted themselves into the left rear location and now they have a problem.

There was no reason to do this - there is nothing that makes the left rear inherently the "best" location. It wasn't one of those brilliant feats of engineering they're always bragging about. Locking themselves into that location for future Tesla vehicles (because the charger network mandates it) was an unforced error. The Cybertruck, for instance, has a charge port that's a little far away from the end, making it a bit of a chore to back in far enough to charge.

Speaking of backing in, I know a lot of people who refuse to back into a space or to parallel park. Some of those people decide not to buy Teslas when they find out they have to back into chargers, and some who have Teslas decide not to use them for road tripping because they don't want to have to back into chargers. This aspect of their station design is also less than ideal.

So while Tesla is and was perfectly free to design their vehicles and charging stations however they want, it is clear that from the beginning the only concern was to service Teslas. Now that they want to open the superchargers, their customers have to deal with the fall out of these decisions.

but it seems a bit odd to blame a company building a supercharger network for its own vehicles for not considering every other geometry out there.

When they made this decision, history was telling them it was a bad idea - gas caps can be found on every corner, on both ends, and smack dab in the middle of the side of some vehicles. There is a 100 year history of gas station design which enables all these different kinds of vehicles to pull up and charge - as well as cars towing trailers, and large box trucks, etc. Failing to recognize that EVs would have similar needs was a mistake. They knowingly designed a proprietary system that couldn't accommodate the known use cases of the time.

I'm not trying to "blame" Tesla here, but to point out that Tesla isn't infallable and just because Tesla chose a specific way to do things doesn't necessarily make it the "right" way. If their intention all along was to open up the superchargers, like @Dark-Fx pointed out,

https://chargedevs.com/newswire/elo...akers-about-sharing-the-supercharger-network/

then why didn't they iterate on their charger station design over the years in order to prepare for this transition? Other charging companies like EA have ... Tesla has been so good about adapting charger design based on their experience with an ever-growing fleet, and they are starting their fourth major iteration of pedestal design, but we are only now seeing some small accomodations for other geometries, 10 years after they proclaimed they wanted everyone to be able to use them.

Regardless, my point was that EA, EVGo, ChargePoint, etc. have all had to deal with this geometry issue for many years. It's not a surprise (except apparently to some sheltered Tesla owners) that a rigid, self-contained system like Tesla built is going to encounter problems when opened up to the great variety of other vehicles in the world. Fortunately we CCS users have had years to learn to deal with these issue. It remains to be seen whether Tesla owners can cope with the riff-raff being let into the country club.

 

[Spyderman09]

So while Tesla is and was perfectly free to design their vehicles and charging stations however they want, it is clear that from the beginning the only concern was to service Teslas. Now that they want to open the superchargers, their customers have to deal with the fall out of these decisions.

This is exactly what I was saying in my post. It is indeed clear that Tesla developed their supercharger network for Teslas and Teslas only (to begin with). Without needing to go into whether it was/is bad engineering, an elitism, etc. or maybe some/all of the above, Tesla did this on purpose because they had no incentive to make it work for other vehicles.

For every person who avoided a Tesla because they can’t/don’t want to back in, there was a person who chose a Tesla specifically because it had a proprietary (at the time) supercharger network that was miles ahead of the mess that was/is EA, EVGo, etc. As a business strategy, it was intentional, and given sales volume, it worked. That it, now, may create headaches is certainly not something that I think Tesla cared about at the time (and, perhaps not even now).

That was, and remains, my point. How some actual Tesla owners react, you could be right in that they’re upset the “walled garden” is being infringed upon, but I don’t think Tesla the company cared/cares.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

Tesla did what they did because they were the first and they had hoped for everyone else that followed to adopt their ways. Remember when they opened sourced their tech? That’s what it was about. Unfortunately, all automakers looked at the new kid, sneered and said “who are you to tell us what to do? And how to charge?” So now we have no standardized charge port location or charger cable length. Tesla had always planned on its network being a revenue source. Reality being what it is, they’re going to have to bring each site up-to-date eventually. Until then the mob will just have to fend for themselves and make it work.

 

[MacO512]

If Tesla had designed superchargers to accommodate all charge port locations they'd have to make cables longer and provide more cooling. These cables have up to 625amps so it's nothing like a boat extension cord. Every inch of cable costs hundreds of dollars and has performance drawbacks.

Yeah EA stations have long cables with a sec9nd backup but their reliability totally sucks.

Maybe v4 and other superchargers will have longer cables ... But it's not like Tesla just made superchargers less compatible for no reason. There are many tradeoffs.

Id prefer all manufacturers just go with drivers rear/front passenger location personally, I don't see a meaningful advantage to a different spot and there are way more Tesla chargers out there with that location.

 

[MacO512]

The way you tell if it's a v1 v2 v3 etc supercharger is KWh rate on the Tesla navigation. Also stall numbers.

V2 are up to 150kwh and power share with corresponding number. 1a and 1b stall share power. 2a 2b share power. When sharing power you get 75kwh. Usually spots are sequential but not always, especially on the end or towing style spot may share with a stall a few spots away. V2 don't have c or d spots.

V3 chargers are up to 250kwh. The are usually numbered 1a 1b 1c 1d and then 2a 2b 2c 2d etc. Doesn't matter the spot you park as cabinets can share power.

Some sites are hybrid v2/v3 so knowing how the stalls are numbered can help you pick the right one. Depending on your soc, preconditioning, and vehicles charging curve 75kwh or 150kwh may max your vehicle anyways.

V1 are older looking superchargers and below 150kw but those are less common.

Only a couple v4 sites yet but the stall is much higher like 6 feet with a longer.cable.

 

[Autolycus]

Some sites are hybrid v2/v3 so knowing how the stalls are numbered can help you pick the right one. Depending on your soc, preconditioning, and vehicles charging curve 75kwh or 150kwh may max your vehicle anyways.

These hybrid sites will probably be the biggest problem. Navigation will send non-Tesla drivers to them, but they won’t know which chargers will work and which ones won’t.

 

[MacO512]

These hybrid sites will probably be the biggest problem. Navigation will send non-Tesla drivers to them, but they won’t know which chargers will work and which ones won’t.

We'll have to see what Tesla actually does for rollout to other brands. Maybe they physically put a "Tesla only" sign on v2 stalls and "any EV" sign on v3.

Also cars like Rivian that may need to block adjacent spot from port location. Tesla could direct other brands to right side and Tesla to left side so only one spot is ultimately lost. If people can park anywhere half of spots could be lost.

We just need to see how Tesla does the rollout. Wouldn't surprise me if they enable 10x v3 sites a day or whatever phased rollout to address new brands. On the good side Tesla maintenance is exceptional and I see them doing great updates at supercharger sites normally with most stalls still fully functional.

 

[VSG]

We'll have to see what Tesla actually does for rollout to other brands. Maybe they physically put a "Tesla only" sign on v2 stalls and "any EV" sign on v3.

Just as a data point, Tesla currently still has "Tesla only" signs at all of its Magic Dock chargers. Tesla hasn't been changing the signage when it upgrades a site to Magic Dock - this is still the situation almost a year after the first Magic Dock was opened.

 

[emoore]

Just as a data point, Tesla currently still has "Tesla only" signs at all of its Magic Dock chargers. Tesla hasn't been changing the signage when it upgrades a site to Magic Dock - this is still the situation almost a year after the first Magic Dock was opened.

Exactly. Tesla won’t go out of their way to accommodate other EVs. Going to be the Wild West of charging for a few years.

 

[MacO512]

Exactly. Tesla won’t go out of their way to accommodate other EVs. Going to be the Wild West of charging for a few years.

Well I think the difference in saying "wild West" to me implies a bunch of non Tesla hurting Tesla owner current charging experience. Right now there are hardly any non Tesla charging at magic dock locations, and those locations usually aren't very full.

I could see Tesla doing something such as only allowing non Tesla to use a few of the stalls at each v3 charger, who knows. We'll have to see what happens.

I just don't think Tesla will allow a rollout of other brands in a way that dramatically hurts the current Tesla owner experience.

Tesla is aiming to become even more of the dominant country wide charging infrastructure that dwarfs all other options combined. There is a way they can do it while getting massive revenue, government subsidies, giving other vehicles brands a far better experience than any other charging network, and still giving Tesla vehicles superior charging options than other OEMs.

 

[emoore]

Well I think the difference in saying "wild West" to me implies a bunch of non Tesla hurting Tesla owner current charging experience. Right now there are hardly any non Tesla charging at magic dock locations, and those locations usually aren't very full.

I could see Tesla doing something such as only allowing non Tesla to use a few of the stalls at each v3 charger, who knows. We'll have to see what happens.

I just don't think Tesla will allow a rollout of other brands in a way that dramatically hurts the current Tesla owner experience.

Tesla is aiming to become even more of the dominant country wide charging infrastructure that dwarfs all other options combined. There is a way they can do it while getting massive revenue, government subsidies, giving other vehicles brands a far better experience than any other charging network, and still giving Tesla vehicles superior charging options than other OEMs.

Will be interesting to see how they handle it. It’s Musk so I’m not confident it’s not going to be a total mess. I think there is a chance that Tesla has opened up their chargers to everyone and just saying that they are staggering the rollout.

 

[VSG]

Will be interesting to see how they handle it. It’s Musk so I’m not confident it’s not going to be a total mess. I think there is a chance that Tesla has opened up their chargers to everyone and just saying that they are staggering the rollout.

Not just a chance - a certainty. And I think that is be a quite reasonable strategy for Tesla to take - they need to learn as a company how to deal with all different vehicle types and learn what sort of changes to charger usage this brings. Also, there's going to be some amount of debugging because I guarantee that there are ambiguities in the NACS "standard" which will manifest in different manufacturer's implementations being slightly incompatible.

Ford and GM are going to get access first. On a subset of chargers. We know that. Depending on how that goes, they will decide when to make the network available to Rivian and others. And they will decide which superchargers will be opened. I don't expect that the extremely busy sites will be opened at this time, because that would just suck for everybody.

 

[Bob R1T]

I don’t think all Destination chargers fit into that category. I’ve been using a Tesla->J1772 adapter to charge my R1T at HPWC’s ever since I took delivery.

Speaking of destination chargers, I've just installed two Tesla majicDoc wall connecters at The Schooner Inn on the oceanfront in Va Beach. They have the adapter for J1772, and it locks to the wall connector when using the NACS, and locks to the NACS when you need the J1772.
Does anyone know how to get them located on all of the EV maps? Tesla doesn't work with you on that, unless you buy 6. Best I've come up with is start with google maps and hope others will pick up from there.

 

[CharonPDX]

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