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Comment by wlesieutre | Hacker News Reader

This has been going on for a few months now, and will probably spread in Europe. Remains to be seen what happens in the US, since Tesla has their own charging connector here. European Teslas use CCS, but obviously that wasn't an option for the first years of the US supercharger built-out, so it seems we're stuck with their proprietary connector here.

Tesla does appear to be planning some superchargers in Texas with CCS connectors available, because they're required as a condition of grant money: https://insideevs.com/news/556749/tesla-grant-application-su...

Could be they'll start doing that at other new construction if they want to bring non-Tesla supercharger access to the US. Or maybe they can make a Tesla-to-CCS cable adapter and sell it to people who want to join the supercharger club. Or maybe they won't do anything.

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>> European Teslas use CCS, but obviously that wasn't an option for the first years of the US supercharger built-out, so it seems we're stuck with their proprietary connector here.

The standard connector for DC chargers in the us is IMHO horrible. The cables are heavy, they have redundant connections - 2 (unused in a fast charger) for AC, 2 for DC. They use an overly complex PLC (powerline communication) interface over signal wires.

The whole notion of "charging networks" is stupid too. People end up having a whole bunch of different phone apps so they can use whatever network they are closest to when they need to charge. I'm not sure why investors think there's going to be big money in charging networks. IMHO the end game will be charges at McDonalds along the major highways, so people can eat and poop while their car charges on long trips. The rest of the time people will charge at home.

Back to connectors, the Tesla connectors are really nice compared to the standard. But politics defined the standard.

> IMHO the end game will be charges at McDonalds along the major highways, so people can eat and poop while their car charges on long trips

Somebody has to manage/monetize those chargers at McDonalds. The "free EV charge while you are at our store" is going away quickly. Hopefully that is an existing charging network, but in the worst case McDonalds will start their own. Hopefully we can get some location/bluetooth based app activation, or maybe just a QR code.

One of Tesla biggest mistakes was not to make that charger an open standard. It might have been an industry standard if they had.

They did, actually. But the patent grant involved a reciprocity agreement (very much along the lines of what was pioneered by open source outfits like Red Hat in the early 2000's), and the industry took a pass. The Japanese CHAdeMO standard was likewise rejected by western automakers in favor of CCS. Which is not one but two incompatible standards. CCS is just awful. It just is. They literally decided to implement the worst available choice two different ways.

But the CHAdeMO example is what gives away the strategy. CHAdeMO was a "real" standard, not a proprietary product, with documents available from real standards organizations publishing it (FWIW: it's better than CCS but not as good as Tesla). But that still wasn't acceptable. Which tells you that the idea that "standards" wasn't ever the requirement. No one wanted to give Nissan a win any more than they did Tesla.

Basically: CCS is bad because it was designed to be bad, because no one wanted EVs to succeed and one tactic picked was to make their charging experience a mess.

> CCS is bad because it was designed to be bad, because no one wanted EVs to succeed

Europe has standardized on CCS Type 2 Combo. The European EV market is three times the size of the US EV market:

https://www.ev-volumes.com/country/total-world-plug-in-vehic...

Your supposed CCS plug conspiracy seems to have backfired.

European CCS standardization is in most cases enforced by law. That doesn't say that CCS is better, it says that it's what the local auto industry demanded in an attempt to freeze out competition. Again, CHAdeMO would have been the objectively better choice.

And even then, it's worth noting that the market leader in Europe is still the company offering an integrated brand-specific charging system. They just have to do it with the inferior connector.

> That doesn't say that CCS is better, it says that it's what the local auto industry demanded in an attempt to freeze out competition.

No, you have this exactly backwards. Common infrastructure standards are what enable competition. New manufacturers can enter the European EV market without wondering what plug to support. New charging networks can build out knowing that they can support all cars on the same plug.

Proprietary plugs freeze out competition by their very nature.

> CHAdeMO would have been the objectively better choice.

No, CHAdeMO 2.0 had no roadmap to 500 kW whereas CCS has for a long time. CHAdeMO also has no AC charging support and requires two separate inlets for DC and AC. CCS has AC by virtue of its combo design only needing the one combo inlet.

CHAdeMO 3.0 has changed the plug design to be a DC and AC combo like CCS, but with control pins in the DC part.

> it's worth noting that the market leader in Europe is still the company offering an integrated brand-specific charging system

No, Volkswagen is the EV market leader in Europe by quite some margin:

https://eu-evs.com/bestSellers/ALL/Groups/Year/2021

Volkswagen owns many automotive brands (VW, Audi, Skoda, SEAT, Porsche, etc.) so sales are split across more brands and models:

https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/group.html

> No, CHAdeMO 2.0 had no roadmap to 500 kW whereas CCS has for a long time.

We're talking about decisions made in 2013-14! And it topped out at 400 kW, a power that no one is delivering on a public charger yet anyway. Just stop. Tesla was the clearly superior technology at the time. CHAdeMO wasn't as good but was still much better than CCS, which everyone else picked anyway because they wanted to retard the BEV market.

CCS is, as I said upthread, just a terrible, terrible standard. By design.

> We're talking about decisions made in 2013-14!

Yes, you have to think forward.

> And it topped out at 400 kW

So not as fast as CCS. Tesla's proprietary plug is also still not as a fast as CCS. The fastest charging cars on the road today are CCS cars.

> CCS is, as I said upthread, just a terrible, terrible standard. By design.

Conspiracy theories will get you nowhere in life. CCS is the dominant standard globally. That "terrible, terrible standard" has done well for itself.

What you should moan about is the fact that Tesla still hasn't switched to CCS in North America. The longer they delay the switch, the more it will cost.

The industry, at least in the US, is moving to support for the Plug & Charge standard which will eliminate needing specific accounts with different charging providers. The largest provider, Electrify America, already supports this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15118

The Superchargers have two cables[1]. One CCS and one Tesla standard. In the US, they can start upgrading the supercharger network with that system.

[1] https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/tesla-c...

Tesla announced they plan on selling a Tesla to CSS plug and opening up the supercharger network. However, timing is always an issue. It could happen tomorrow or in twenty years and neither would surprise me.

Tesla would have CCS everywhere in the US if the BBB federal $$ would come their way as a result.

Due to that bill not passing, it's not a priority.

Not to mention how angry Musk is at Biden for snubbing Tesla...

"Biden is a damp sock puppet in human form"

https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1486767109275328516#m

>European Teslas use CCS, but obviously that wasn't an option for the first years of the US supercharger built-out

Why not?

Predates the standard, I think?

CCS didn't exist yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Charging_System

Doing a bit of looking, CCS was standardized in 2011 and first couple charging stations went up in 2012, which is actually similar timing to Tesla's superchargers. But I would assume the Supercharger system was designed in-concert with the Model S and they were well along in development.

If they really wanted to they probably could have got on board in 2011 with the other manufacturers and made it happen. I thought CCS came along a couple of years later.

Add that alongside the UX to reasons I don't want a Tesla.

CCS type 1 was one standard among many. It wasn't until CCS type 2, and many many many years later (my recollection was the EU mandated it's use in 2018 or so?) that it became viable.

Chadamo (IIRC) was the evident standard at the time, and couldn't do supercharging.

CSS type 2 became the EU standard in 2014.

Tesla needed to create the Supercharger network to ~exist - Unfortunate that it didn't get adopted as standard.

Build Back Better bill, in addition to subsidizing non-tesla chargers everywhere, is trying to standardize the charging tech in the US. [1]

[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/11/29/2021-25...

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