The great surprise isn't so much the failures as that Tesla has succeeded at getting to the volumes that they have.
Tesla didn't just make "The" electric car, they made a charging network better than pretty much anything else out there.
At this point other contenders are simply to late to the game. Tesla fundamentally changed the market and they have established themselves in a way that will be hard for competitors to topple.
After all, when Tesla pushed out the X/S, what was the competition doing? Mostly just retrofitting batteries and engines as cheap as possible on current frames. Tesla made a car that could be a universal car while everyone else was focused on short range secondary commuters.
Now, competition not only has to compete with the fact that Tesla is what people think of when they think "Next green car" they also have to find some way they can be better with a public charging network that is 10 years behind what Tesla currently has.
It isn't enough to push out a car that can go 200 miles on batteries alone anymore. You have to be better than Tesla, and that is a really high bar.
So, the real question is "What's next for tesla" can they continue to be the best in class? Will they be upstaged by the current old guard? Who knows?
One thing is for sure, car companies are going to need to evolve to compete with Tesla's offerings.
Next step for electric cars would be to address issues for non-home-owners (like me) and consequently can't find a convenient way to charge up an electric car. Hot swappable batteries come to mind.
Imagine swapping in a 10 yo battery for brand new battery. That would kind of suck.
The thing that will probably make things more tenable for non-home owners will be bigger battery densities. If you get 500 miles of range on a charge, then stopping by a fast charger once or twice a week wouldn't really be all that big of an issue. You don't even have to go to 100%, just enough to cover a week's worth of commuting.
The other thing that would make this better is a bigger source of public L2 or even L1 chargers.
But unless a reliable charger is at walking distance from my apartment, no electric car is going to work out for me.
You don't have to park your car for hours or walk. Assuming a fast charger is enroute.
Ideally, you'd pair shopping with charging, in that case electrify America chargers are often located in Walmart parking lots.
L1 and L2 chargers are more ideal for work or home parking. They'd be better for your battery in the long run, but a fast charger would do in the short run.
The alternative is more chargers in more places and bigger batteries. Chargers are actually pretty cheap, especially the 50 KW chargers (or less) that work well as destination chargers at offices, hotels, restaurants, malls, grocery stores and other locations. Increases in battery capacity directly lead to vastly greater #s of miles per day with lower charge times.
Swapping just isn't necessary or economic.
For cars, the way to go is wider charger network and scaling the battery capacity (horizontally or vertically).
Ionity's chargers are better than what Tesla has. Ionity's chargers can deliver 350kw and can charge any EV. Similarly for Electrify America's chargers. Repsol is delivering 400 kw chargers in Spain:
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1125436_the-most-powerf...
You need to get out of the mindset of a propriety charging network. Ionity, FastNed, Repsol, Allego, etc. are building chargers based on the CCS standard and any EV that can use CCS can charge at them. You can fuel your ICE car at any fuel station and you should be able to charge your EV at any charging station, regardless of the brand of the charger or the car.
That being said, it has far less to do with charge rate and far more to do with charger coverage.
If you compare CCS to Tesla supercharger, You'll see big empty spaces where there are no CCS chargers
That's what I mean when I say "It's better" not that they have faster charge rates, but rather their coverage is more complete. You'll often find supercharger locations will have 10 stalls for charging whereas the CCS charge stations will have 2 or 3.
As more electric cars become more prevalent, that's going to be a big problem for these public networks.
But, as a side note, even supporting up to 400kW doesn't really mean anything if the car can only accept 100kW. AFAIK, most cars (tesla included) are basically limited to a 1C charge rate. But, as far as capacity goes, no car (AFAIK) has surpassed tesla. Which means that 400kW is basically something you won't see until cars with 200 or 300 kWh batteries exist.
This is similar to how Tesla's 250 kW charger will only charge at that rate for about 10 to 15 minutes when the battery is at around 10->15% full.
They have in Europe, but they still refuse to allow other EVs to charge at their chargers:
https://insideevs.com/news/343728/most-tesla-superchargers-n...
> That's what I mean when I say "It's better" not that they have faster charge rates, but rather their coverage is more complete.
More companies building more chargers on a common standard will out-build a single company building a proprietary network. The CCS networks are not 10 years behind.
> This is similar to how Tesla's 250 kW charger will only charge at that rate for about 10 to 15 minutes when the battery is at around 10->15% full.
The Porsche Taycan is built on an 800 volt platform and can charge at 270 kw to about 30% state of charge. Hyundai's cars will be built on an 800 volt platform from 2021, so they may well end up with a similar charge curve to the Taycan's.
I sometimes get the feeling that the people deciding locations in the southeast have never actually traveled between destinations there.
* chargers can malfunction. Tesla has a 24/7 phone support and will send a mobile roadside assistance truck to help you out if you’re stuck due to a non-functioning charger. Will those other companies do the same?
* during peak hours popular chargers can get rather high demand. Tesla will send a valet to organize/maintain the line and allow owners to charge while absent (if they hand over the keys to the valet). Will ionity, etc. do the same?
The operating company also has to be willing and able to tow offenders if they’re blocking the spots, preventing others from access. All solutions so far are people-intensive and capital-intensive. Do those other charger companies have enough financial strength to incur such operating expense?
Roadside assistance is hardly a novel feature of electric vehicles.
The problems you're describing are all the problems of operating proprietary chargers with a proprietary plug. The advantage of CCS is that everyone can run their own chargers.
McDonald's does: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/06/mcdonalds-in-sweden-ser...
BP does: https://insideevs.com/news/365416/bp-chargemaster-first-150-...
Shell does: https://electrek.co/2017/09/27/shell-new-electric-car-chargi...
Small operators do: https://electrek.co/2019/09/27/gas-station-removes-gas-pumps...
Large operators do: https://ionity.eu/en/about.html
Some operators are offering CCS charging for free: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/299467-volta-offers-free...
A single company trying to run a proprietary standard can't keep up with the investment being put into a common charging standard in the long run. Tesla would be better off switching to CCS everywhere and opening their chargers to all EVs.
That’s what’s disappointing to me about current deployments by municipalities or retailers. It could be blocked for hours (by a non-EV, too), could be broken, and nobody cares. Volta is probably the least reliable network, as they still get paid for displaying ads whether or not the charger is operational.
I agree that smaller operators have more skin in the game.
https://www.drivingelectric.com/news/658/roll-out-shell-ioni...
Have a look at how it works at Circle K:
Is Ionity structured and capitalized in a way to ensure long-term success even if/when a few partners pull out a few years down the road?
Tesla was notorious (still is) for flirting with bankruptcy as it burned through massive amount of capital, but at least internally it was understood that expanding the supercharger network would drive the car sales.
It doesn't matter if Ionity fails. Other CCS networks already exist.
You're stuck in this closed network perspective. It's like panicking over what will happen if AOL goes bust. The answer is: who cares? There are plenty of other internet providers.
If it helps, here's a Tesla Model 3 and an Audi e-tron charging on an Ionity 350kw charger:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPrVZtzAqX4
Ionity's open to everyone. When will Tesla open its chargers to other EVs?
European chargers and the European Model 3 have CCS plugs, but Tesla disallows other EV brands to use Tesla chargers:
https://insideevs.com/news/343728/most-tesla-superchargers-n...
> I suspect it's just the matter of financial terms
What terms? Ionity's open to everyone already. Tesla doesn't exactly have much leverage here, and they'll have even less leverage as time goes on.
Tesla says its mission is to "accelerate the advent of sustainable transport". If that's true then Tesla should open their chargers up to all EVs. Ionity is doing a far better job of Tesla's mission than Tesla is.
Ionity: "As of September 2019, IONITY has 140 stations live".
Tesla: "1,636 Supercharger Stations with 14,497 Superchargers".
I don't think Ionity operates from such incredible leverage position as you imagine them to be, and I think they will have to burn through quite a few billions dollars to match Tesla's capacity. It remains to be seen if those billions of dollars will materialize, but there's no reason not to wish them well - any additional capacity, whether it comes from ChargePoint, evGo, ChargeNow, Volta, etc. is a net positive.
With that said, Tesla will probably open up to third parties at some point, provided they can bill on their terms, and they can manage capacity to prioritize Tesla owners.
Supercharger overload at popular destinations is probably one of the most common recurrent complaints in the owner groups.
Again, you're thinking terms of closed networks. It's all CCS charge points combined. Tesla doesn't have anything magical to offer them, and will have even less to offer year by year. Tesla can either join the party or keep running a closed network and carry that cost with no business from other EVs.
Ultimately the same thing will happen to Tesla's chargers as happens to all closed networks: they either become dead infrastructure or they convert to the common standard. America Online and Prodigy already found that out. Tesla will too.
> You have to be better than Tesla
If that were true, Tesla’s stock price would be higher, because realistically no one is going to get there at Tesla’s price points.
But I don’t think they have to. The other automakers just have to be comparable to a Tesla. They are already superb at making mediocre cars seem like great cars to buyers. That won’t be a problem.
That’s why the markets haven’t trashed the other companies. They know in the 11th hour Ford can throw a third-party electric drivetrain in a F-350, spin some hype and sell vehicles on brand loyalty.
Whether Ford can a) meet the basic performance spec, b) secure enough battery supply, and c) get dealers to sell them during an awkward ramp... now that’s a question.
I think 9 out of 10 of the legacy automakers are a write off at this point. They’re not investing in EVs because it’s wasted money. They’re going bankrupt either way so their only goal is to try to get one more year of ICE sales. That’s a lot of money so it’s as good a place to focus as any.
Executives will do OK if they succeed. Pensioners (both inside the companies and those whose pensions are publicly invested) will be fucked.
I agree completely that established car companies like Ford need to only be as-good-as (or even slightly worse) in order to really take a bite out of their market share.
Dyson, however, needs to make a car that is better than a Tesla in order to compete. That is, it has to have the same range or more, a nice interior, and a price point at or lower than what Tesla currently offers.
Established companies can get by with just one or 2 of the above (probably at least 2 to be honest as most have at least one of those).
The big thing holding back established companies, IMO, is that they really just aren't taking electric cars seriously. It feels like they are making them more to appease federal regulation and less because they care about a good product.
Anyone that fails to be impressed by at least some aspects of Tesla is not objective and can be safely ignored.