Random EV thoughts.....

markpb · 17-06-2021 10:20AM

Considering the absolutely enormous queues at SuCs in California on busy weekends, I can't see them opening US SuCs to other manufacturers any time soon. EU is simpler because of CCS but I can't see them allowing access to other manufacturers in one region but not another, it just complicates things for everyone.

I do think this will happen, I just don’t see it happening very soon.

cannco253 · 17-06-2021 10:24AM

eh what about the BMW i's, Mercedes EQs and Audit e-Trons? Why all the negativity around ID only? Would Tesla drivers be ok seeing premium German cars at the supercharger points, maybe even a Taycan?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2020/10/31/should-tesla-open-up-its-supercharger-network-to-other-brands/?sh=591a8bf21400

If Tesla can make more money opening the supercharger network to non Tesla cars then just keeping it private to Tesla cars, there must be a tipping point when it makes sense. Business is business and the Technoking is in the business of making money. I doubt that the issue is down to technology, but business agreements.

Look at what's happening in the UK with the amount of new charging hubs/forecourts being open at a rapid pace. The supercharger network is being gradually overtaken by competitors and is becoming less of a USP for Tesla, while here the expansion is at a snail's pace.

AndyBoBandy · 17-06-2021 10:25AM

TitianGerm wrote: »

You get free charging from referrals though don't you? Would one referral get you enough for more than one year or does that expire?

they last 6 months, but every additional referral puts an extra 6 months on your end date (up to a point though).

mine expire in October 2022, and the last referral was delivered in September 2020

innrain · 17-06-2021 11:09AM

The biggest excuse I heard in the last 30 months on why ecars do not progress with the charging network and why other private entities are not installing chargers is that is not profitable. So now we're told that is actually money to be made from this? I see this as a diversion.

Not that I would be displeased to have a hub in Sandyford and maybe ecars would learn from them. 200 yards apart you'd have one charger limited @50kW total vs 1MW total.

KCross · 17-06-2021 11:14AM

innrain wrote: »

The biggest excuse I heard in the last 30 months on why ecars do not progress with the charging network and why other private entities are not installing chargers is that is not profitable. So now we're told that is actually money to be made from this? I see this as a diversion.

Its all about scale. The Tesla supercharger network discussion is on a global level.

Ireland isnt even a dot in terms of that scale.

You cant compare the two things at all.

liamog · 17-06-2021 11:16AM

unkel wrote: »

So what about last year when Musk visited Diess? As a publicity stunt, Tesla allowed all cars to charge at the V3 superchargers for a few days. This "software bug" (my hole) got great publicity. Free publicity, as usual.

I don't believe for a minute it's difficult to let other cars charge technically. Perhaps the billing for it is tricky.

Moves post to conspiracy theory forum

unkel · 17-06-2021 11:26AM

Tesla has invested an insane amount of money in the global Supercharger network. And very few Tesla owners pay very little for its use. Many / most Model S and Model X owners have free supercharging. Many / most Model 3 / Y users mainly use up the free mileage that comes with the car and referrals.

This money has obviously been paid by people buying new Teslas. And there is still a premium on second hand Teslas because of this. Tesla owners would not be pleased if the plebs were allowed to charge at the superior chargers they have paid for unless there is some sort of kickback to them from these third party users

Unless of course by government intervention. Some people who have never worked a day in their lives, live in my estate in the same house type as myself. Not too happy about it, myself and mrs unkel both work full time to pay for our house and for their free houses, but the government has ruled this to be fair :rolleyes:

unkel · 17-06-2021 11:30AM

liamog wrote: »

Moves post to conspiracy theory forum

Nothing to do with conspiracy theories. The Supercharger (V3) network can be switched to freevend easily as other posters have confirmed after my post.

liamog · 17-06-2021 11:40AM

unkel wrote: »

Nothing to do with conspiracy theories. The Supercharger (V3) network can be switched to freevend easily as other posters have confirmed after my post.

The conspiracy is that it was done deliberately rather than a simple software bug.

never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

slave1 · 17-06-2021 11:52AM

From an Irish perspective all SuC here are not CCS and the same with all Euro V2s which there are a lot of.
Only V3 onwards are CCS.

liamog · 17-06-2021 11:54AM

slave1 wrote: »

From an Irish perspective all SuC here are not CCS and the same with all Euro V2s which there are a lot of.
Only V3 onwards are CCS.

The Irish Superchargers were provided with a CCS connector. V2s are compatible with CCS.

liamog · 17-06-2021 11:55AM

It will happen eventually, probably triggered by another manufacturer attempting to build a private access network.
Long term it's not in anyone's interest for their to be a collection of distinct manufacturer chargers at a service area.
I find the concept of technically compatible infrastructure with a software lock to prevent access to be abhorrable.
The rumours that Porsche were looking to roll out a private access network should trigger a ban on further development of them.

Now you come to the question of how to pay for overall network access. I could easily envision a circumstance where Tesla join/partner with the Ionity group.
Tesla owners would then get supercharger rates at Ionity chargers, and Ionity members would get Ionity rates when using superchargers whilst subscribed.

There would then need to be some arrangement for manufacturers who are avoiding infrastructure investments, how much do you charge owners of cars from the Stellantis group (Peugeot/Opel etc)

slave1 · 17-06-2021 11:58AM

innrain wrote: »

The biggest excuse I heard in the last 30 months on why ecars do not progress with the charging network and why other private entities are not installing chargers is that is not profitable. So now we're told that is actually money to be made from this? I see this as a diversion.

Not that I would be displeased to have a hub in Sandyford and maybe ecars would learn from them. 200 yards apart you'd have one charger limited @50kW total vs 1MW total.

KCross wrote: »

Its all about scale. The Tesla supercharger network discussion is on a global level.

Ireland isnt even a dot in terms of that scale.

You cant compare the two things at all.

Charger cost would also be taken into consideration.
eCars are paying how much for a 150kW unit or Ionity for their more powerful ones.
SuC are bundled home charger boards so no great expense there, these stalls/gravestones are mostly air on the inside.
It's the cabinets that house and produce the power

slave1 · 17-06-2021 12:01PM

liamog wrote: »

The Irish Superchargers were provided with a CCS connector. V2s are compatible with CCS.

Were they, so long since I've used one I'd forgotten, ones I used in Scotland were Tesla only connectors so that's probably what I was thinking.

In the US there's a Tesla only connection, it's very similar to Type 2 but there's an extra notch from memory that would be an issue perhaps, or maybe not, they could be the early ones, I've never used a US charger

slave1 · 17-06-2021 12:08PM

Still cannot see this happen, the amount of negativity from existing Tesla owners would be off the planet, it's a significant USP.
I often look at the UK occupancy when charging and over there there is plenty of "short waits" or "long waits" already popping up on the screen and Tesla have introduced dynamic higher day time pricing to alleviate, imagine making this worse, huge self inflicted wound.

Re free SuC for life, the last session was late 2019 when new X's and S's had free SuC for a short time, to boost sales I assume.

After free SuC was withdrawn across the board it was available for a time as an add on, $1,500/€1,400

liamog · 17-06-2021 12:37PM

It won't be self inflicted, these kind of things tend to follow a predictable path in EU markets. Companies are given a strong suggestion to co-operate or face regulation forcing them to do so. If you co-operate by choice you end up with more control over the results.

zg3409 · 17-06-2021 12:51PM

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

It'd be interesting to see what habits need to change to reduce that evening peak

Ideally you want to move things that can easily be moved and automated. Things like a timer on your immersion or a sensor to turn it off at high cost times. Similarly to turn off heat pumps during peak hours.

Most washing machines and dishwashers have a delay start feature, future ones might detect high rate times and automatically delay.

Hot water is simplest, particularly if it is a large tank and you don't tend to have lots of baths at peak time.

the_amazing_raisin · 17-06-2021 01:01PM

slave1 wrote: »

Still cannot see this happen, the amount of negativity from existing Tesla owners would be off the planet, it's a significant USP.
I often look at the UK occupancy when charging and over there there is plenty of "short waits" or "long waits" already popping up on the screen and Tesla have introduced dynamic higher day time pricing to alleviate, imagine making this worse, huge self inflicted wound.

Re free SuC for life, the last session was late 2019 when new X's and S's had free SuC for a short time, to boost sales I assume.

After free SuC was withdrawn across the board it was available for a time as an add on, $1,500/€1,400

I remember this was discussed a bit by Bjorn Nyland and there seemed to be basically 2 options

1 - Tesla would open up some sort of payment portal that allows other cars to pay for SuC usage. This would require other car makers to build the software necessary to interface with Tesla's backend. SuC users would then pay whatever rate Tesla agrees to sell SuC usage for

2 - Car companies (let's say VW) pay Tesla a fixed cost per car to support the network, in the same way that Tesla holds back a certain amount per car sale to build the network. Tesla would then give VW the keys to allow all of their cars to use the SuC network

It seems scenario 1 is more likely given that I can't see other car makers paying a fixed amount that's likely to be in millions for access to a network they have no control over

Scenario 1 would require some work on Tesla's part but to be frank it would probably be more reliable than the garbage collection of RFID cards and apps that EV owners have to put up with. The majority of work would be with the car makers who would have to implement a system to mimic Tesla's plug & charger protocol

As I've said, as a non Tesla owner I'd pay Ionity prices or higher for access to the network. For the rare occassion I would be using it it's a fair price to pay and if it helps support the SuC network then it's worthwhile

the_amazing_raisin · 17-06-2021 01:13PM

zg3409 wrote: »

Ideally you want to move things that can easily be moved and automated. Things like a timer on your immersion or a sensor to turn it off at high cost times. Similarly to turn off heat pumps during peak hours.

Most washing machines and dishwashers have a delay start feature, future ones might detect high rate times and automatically delay.

Hot water is simplest, particularly if it is a large tank and you don't tend to have lots of baths at peak time.

I've always had this theory that there are energy usage tasks that can happen anytime and tasks which are harder to move around

Washing machines, dishwashing, EV charging, water heating and to an extent space heating can be moved around a fair bit. You don't car when they happen, just that they're done by a certain time

As you rightly mentioned, this stuff can be easily automated with delay timers, or even energy manager which will tagrte the cheapest times of the day

Some things are trickier like cooking dinner, you can't eat all your meals at 5am when electricity is cheap. Moving the main meal to lunchtime is better from both an energy usage and health standpoint and a lot of workplaces are starting to provide canteens which are generally more efficient than a bunch of people cooking dinners themselves

As I said, I think one of the main reasons people have the big meal at dinnertime is because of schoolkids. So a hot meals programme for schools would have tangible environmental benefits as well as health benefits

As unkel said, the stick is the one of the best methods to force change, but it helps a lot when you can offer a viable alternative

slave1 · 17-06-2021 01:13PM

Maybe with the likes of Ionity and Gridserve and other providers in Norway the need to get access to the SuC network has naturally waned

the_amazing_raisin · 17-06-2021 01:31PM

slave1 wrote: »

Maybe with the likes of Ionity and Gridserve and other providers in Norway the need to get access to the SuC network has naturally waned

Yes and no

The problem with other networks is that they aren't expanding fast enough to handle the number of EVs coming to market

Even in Norway they're seeing charging queues in summer when everyone is driving around. They aren't bad, and there's generally another hub (a real hub) 5 mins down the road, but they still happen

One of the key differences with Tesla is that they reinvest a certain amount of every car sale into the SuC network, so it's guarunteed to expand as Tesla sells more cars

On the flip side you have Ionity, which is in theory a great network but is falling short of it's expansion goals. Because it's a consortium, all the partners need to agree if they want to invest more, which some of them evidently aren't prepared to do

I think this is part of the reason VW group is starting to strike out on it's own away from Ionity. They want more control over 'their' network and what direction it goes, since they know that a high quality charging network drives EV sales

Unfortunately they're doing it in a halfway fashion by partnering with local providers rather than putting VW branded chargers wherever they can

For VW* gaining access to a network which is well established, well known and high quality would be a major selling point. Especially in the US where the ID.4 is going to be built soon. Imagine US car buyers being told that VW cars get access to the biggest charging network in the country. You'd be fighting off the crowds from the showrooms

*Again, I'm just using them as an example, you can insert you car company of choice instead

markpb · 17-06-2021 02:24PM

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

Unfortunately they're doing it in a halfway fashion by partnering with local providers rather than putting VW branded chargers wherever they can

That sounds like a good approach to me. The Tesla SuC network was born out of necessity, not desire. If every manufacturer ended up building out their own proprietary charging network across the world, the cost and waste would be enormous and the outcome would be a poorer experience for customers, driving past row after row of charging equipment that you can't use. If the Tesla SuC network was as poor in Ireland as eCars, would Tesla owners be clamouring
to retain their private charging network? Of course not. People are conflating the SuC network being of good quality and assuming that the only way to get good quality is to build a private network.

If all the money that would be needed for each manufacturer to build their own network was instead invested in a single, public charging network, the outcome for everyone would be much better. There's a reason why we don't have Ford filling stations and Peugeot filling stations. EV charging stations should be no different.

17-06-2021 03:24PM

The difference between charging and fuel stations is that a great portion of of EV owners don't use public charging. The flip side is that the ones who plan to use public charging should support manufactures that try to make their lives easier by providing the right charging product at the right price.

One of the biggest reasons to go for Tesla for me was the European wide network of chargers with multiple units per site that just work without extra faffage with cards accounts and occasional rip off pricing. Done that, looking forward not to do it in the future.

the_amazing_raisin · 17-06-2021 03:27PM

markpb wrote: »

That sounds like a good approach to me. The Tesla SuC network was born out of necessity, not desire. If every manufacturer ended up building out their own proprietary charging network across the world, the cost and waste would be enormous and the outcome would be a poorer experience for customers, driving past row after row of charging equipment that you can't use. If the Tesla SuC network was as poor in Ireland as eCars, would Tesla owners be clamouring
to retain their private charging network? Of course not. People are conflating the SuC network being of good quality and assuming that the only way to get good quality is to build a private network.

If all the money that would be needed for each manufacturer to build their own network was instead invested in a single, public charging network, the outcome for everyone would be much better. There's a reason why we don't have Ford filling stations and Peugeot filling stations. EV charging stations should be no different.

True, and I'm sure smarter people than me have done the numbers and decided this was best from a risk vs reward viewpoint

I feel like VW might edn up missing out on some free advertising however. Tesla superchargers aren't exactl sublte and they have Tesla badges slapped all over them. People see them and think "hmm, that's a lot of chargers, if I had a Tesla I could charge here"

If VW slapped VW badges on any charging networks they build, then they'll generate the same effect, even if the network is open to other cars (which it should be)

For example in Spain, VW have partnered with Iberdrola to build upon their (crap) charging network there and install HPC chargers. It makes sense because Iberdrola is a local company with local knowledge and the resources and expertise needed to do the job

Those chargers will probably be Iberdrola branded chargers but if I were a VW execs I'd be making sure that they had a "brought to you by Volkswagen" put very prominently on the chargers and any advertising features an ID.3 or 4

the_amazing_raisin · 17-06-2021 03:29PM

sh81722 wrote: »

The difference between charging and fuel stations is that a great portion of of EV owners don't use public charging. The flip side is that the ones who plan to use public charging should support manufactures that try to make their lives easier by providing the right charging product at the right price.

One of the biggest reasons to go for Tesla for me was the European wide network of chargers with multiple units per site that just work without extra faffage with cards accounts and occasional rip off pricing. Done that, looking forward not to do it in the future.

Plug & charge literally can't come fast enough

A lot of the networks already support it, it's the car companies that are slow to implement it

liamog · 17-06-2021 03:39PM

sh81722 wrote: »

One of the biggest reasons to go for Tesla for me was the European wide network of chargers with multiple units per site that just work without extra faffage with cards accounts and occasional rip off pricing. Done that, looking forward not to do it in the future.

Tesla are by far the biggest rip off when it comes to their charging network, a one time €39,000 membership fee that comes with a free car!

cannco253 · 17-06-2021 03:54PM

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

True, and I'm sure smarter people than me have done the numbers and decided this was best from a risk vs reward viewpoint

I feel like VW might edn up missing out on some free advertising however. Tesla superchargers aren't exactl sublte and they have Tesla badges slapped all over them. People see them and think "hmm, that's a lot of chargers, if I had a Tesla I could charge here"

If VW slapped VW badges on any charging networks they build, then they'll generate the same effect, even if the network is open to other cars (which it should be)

For example in Spain, VW have partnered with Iberdrola to build upon their (crap) charging network there and install HPC chargers. It makes sense because Iberdrola is a local company with local knowledge and the resources and expertise needed to do the job

Those chargers will probably be Iberdrola branded chargers but if I were a VW execs I'd be making sure that they had a "brought to you by Volkswagen" put very prominently on the chargers and any advertising features an ID.3 or 4

Already done with PodPoint/VW branding at Tesco UK. Are the Irish Tesco chargers all eCars, maybe they could do something similar here?
https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/electric/partnerships/tesco

markpb · 17-06-2021 04:04PM

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

For example in Spain, VW have partnered with Iberdrola to build upon their (crap) charging network there and install HPC chargers. It makes sense because Iberdrola is a local company with local knowledge and the resources and expertise needed to do the job

Considering Tesla's experience at building SuCs in Ireland (applying to the wrong planning authority and forgetting a key element of the application pack), maybe they should be partnering with anyone in Ireland to do a better job

the_amazing_raisin · 17-06-2021 04:09PM

cannco253 wrote: »

Already done with PodPoint/VW branding at Tesco UK. Are the Irish Tesco chargers all eCars, maybe they could do something similar here?
https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/electric/partnerships/tesco

I'd like to see how ECars would cope in the face of German expectations

Herbert Deiss visits the Athlone HPC: "Nein, zis is not a hub!"

(I'm probably doing him a disservice here since a lot of Germans speak better English than I do!)

I think the Tesco deal was a bit of a lame attempt because most of those were 22kW units of limited use to Tesco customers

VW seem to have learned their lesson based on their power day a while back since they specifically mentioned building up HPC networks, not just "charger" networks which can mean anything

AndyBoBandy · 17-06-2021 04:51PM

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

I think the Tesco deal was a bit of a lame attempt because most of those were 22kW units of limited use to Tesco customers

The hope is that eventually they'll see sense and the AC22's will be replaced with 44kW DC units......

and in an even more ideal world, if those replaced AC22's are still in good serviceable condition, they should be re-deployed to new* or existing locations.

*unfortunately eCars said there would be no new locations, but it would be at least nice to double up the number of AC plugs in existing locations... (1 AC22 in a village somewhere just aint going to cut it).

Random EV thoughts.....

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