Comment by adrianmonk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by adrianmonk | Hacker News Reader

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And/or, since automakers evidently need some sort of agreement with Tesla[1], if it takes a while, it could be due to negotiations.

For example, if there are fees for using the connector (not sure), an automaker might hold out to get the best price. There may be terms related to the rates that will be paid for using Tesla's charging stations.

There might be other issues. Maybe Tesla wants to qualify automakers' designs so cars don't cause problems with their charging network, or vice versa. The automaker might want access to Tesla engineers or facilities for help with designing or testing stuff.

Also, I don't know who's supplying the connectors (that will be built into the cars), but if it's Tesla, the automaker may want commitments about how many will be delivered by what date and at what cost.

There could also be some sort of IT integration, like charging location map data or maybe allowing customers a different way to pay for charging (through the automaker's app or something).

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[1] Rivian's press release (https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230620267452/en/Riv...) says they "signed an agreement with Tesla".

> Maybe Tesla wants to qualify automakers' designs so cars don't cause problems with their charging network, or vice versa.

I shouldn't need Exxon and Shell and Phillips and Wawa and Sheetz and whoever to qualify my car to get gas. I shouldn't need Tesla and EA and whoever to qualify my car to get electricity.

I don't see how anyone can see that and think its a good thing.

I don't like that a single private company is in charge of this standard, but I think this sort of thing is pretty common and necessary when two companies integrate technologies.

For example, look at how USB C compatibility worked at first. There was a standard, but there were still lots of problems. In practice, implementers may not correctly understand certain parts of the standard, may not grasp the importance of doing something a specific way, or may try to cut corners. Also, the standard may have omissions or errors.

All of this should theoretically be fed back into a future version of the standard, but with evolving technologies, it takes time to get there.

Yeah but Google doesn't need to certify Anker or whoever to make a charger and there's no on-going agreement to make this charging brick work with my phone. Anker can't just later decide to not work with Samsung devices and suddenly not work. They all just speak USB-PD and it works.

Tesla chargers shouldn't care if the car is a Tesla or Rivian or GM or VW or whatever, if it plugs in and it speaks CCS it should charge.

Hopefully government funding of any type will be withheld from Tesla until this happens. I don't care about the port as much as I care about anything with the right connector should be able to charge anywhere. Having to have the proper "agreement" between your car manufacturer and the charging company seems ridiculous. Especially with how mercurial some of the leaders of these companies can be.

maybe google should've, i remember it was basically "buyer beware" with cables. there was this benson something guy who was testing cables and found that a bunch of them would blow up your phone, until he literally had his test equipment blown up by a bad cable. compared to the usb-c situation, apple mfi is a godsend.

They all need to agree how it's done though. And gas cars were the same - did you think the size and shape of the gas pump nozzle were handed down from God or something? Everyone had to agree on that at some point. Apparently that was in 1930, or around 30 years after cars were invented. https://www.cspdailynews.com/csp-magazine/industry-views-all...

We are at that point right now. That is the process happening in front of us. Eventually it will all be settled enough that nobody will have to check that devices work with each other, but we aren't there yet.

> did you think the size and shape of the gas pump nozzle were handed down from God or something?

No, but you'd just have the fuel tank opening large enough that you can put in any particular handle. And in the end you didn't need Gulf saying this brand or that brand could buy gas, but not that brand. So while there were a lot of different handles before U842, they usually all actually worked with all the different brands and the gas stations didn't have to pre-approve the different cars to get gas there.

I've had a few gas tools and gas tanks which didn't have a gas port that was shaped for a U842 handle and yet I've still managed to fuel them just fine. I didn't need to get Shell's authorization every time I wanted to fuel a Toro.

I'm kind of amazed people think its a good thing for Shell to have the ability to say "no, that brand of car isn't allowed to buy gas here anymore". Imagine if Ford operated most of the pumps in the US and could just decide Toyotas could no longer get gas at the majority of pumps. Sound like a good idea?

Imagine if Tesla operated most of the DCFC dispensers and could just decide Toyotas could no longer get gas at the majority of dispensers? Oh wait, they already made that decision. Despite the majority of Tesla dispensers technically supporting CCS communications a Toyota couldn't possibly charge on most of those dispensers even if they had an adapter, because Toyota and Tesla don't have an agreement.

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