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Comment by anonymars | Hacker News Reader

Also, how does the charging situation compare outside of the Tesla ecosystem? (Assuming you can't charge it at home)

Tesla really makes charging about as seamless as can be. It integrates into the navigation system (the car will automatically add charging stops, pre-warm the battery, tell you how many spots are open, etc.), integrates the payment, etc.

I've rented a Tesla. The most annoying thing about it was the goofy unlock (tapping a key card at the right spot on the door pillar) but I'm very wary of renting any other EV and having to dick around with finding the right charge place, determining if it has the right connection, will it charge fast enough, can I just pay by card or do I need some stupid app, etc.

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> Tesla really makes charging about as seamless as can be. It integrates into the navigation system (the car will automatically add charging stops, pre-warm the battery, tell you how many spots are open, etc.), integrates the payment, etc.

Other cars have all that, too, yeah. I got a 2025 Ioniq 5 and it does all that, and it's also not restricted to just one charging company's chargers. The payment integration stuff exists, but it requires support from the charging company obviously, and IMO that's kind of a mis-feature anyway, so I never bothered to set it up.

> can I just pay by card or do I need some stupid app

In my experience, almost all chargers just use a card. 100% of the ones I've used in regular gas stations on freeway exits just use a card. Once in a blue moon you run into a stupid app one, but it's usually an older charger that was installed in a city center in the early days of EV charging. The apps seem to be mostly disappearing, thank god. Ironically I'm pretty sure Tesla's chargers require a stupid app for non-Tesla cars, but I've never used one, so not certain.

> determining if it has the right connection

Yeah, the adapters are clunky. It's just gonna take time to phase out CCS. Hopefully that's a solved problem in 10 years as everyone switches over to NACS. I did use a native NACS non-Tesla charger with my native NACS non-Telsa car once on a recent road trip. The future is... almost here!

The idea that you don’t need an app to charge is, in my view, highly dependent on the region. I follow several YouTube channels where people document long EV road trips to showcase how the charging infrastructure is evolving. While things have definitely improved over the past couple of years, using non-Tesla charging stations still often involves:

- Charging speeds that fall short of what's advertised

- A requirement to use an app for payment (even if no account setup is needed)

- Chargers that are out of service but not flagged as such in the system

> highly dependent on the region

Oh, I hadn't thought of it that way, but I bet you're right! I bet denser areas got chargers earlier, so they're stuck on the stupid-app-based model that was popular 5 years ago. Where I am in the upper midwest, the rollout has been happening only over the last couple years (e.g. several of the chargers I stopped at last month are not even on Google Maps streetview yet), so the chargers are in better shape and just have standard card readers now.

> I got a 2025 Ioniq 5 and it does all that, and it's also not restricted to just one charging company's chargers.

Cool story bro. How is this relevant to a discussion about Tesla?

The parent was asking about EV charging experiences outside the Tesla ecosystem, so I replied with my experiences charging an EV without any Tesla products involved. Hope that helps!

Indeed, I (parent) have found the discussion interesting and helpful. (The observations about regional variations are also noteworthy in the context of renting/travel).

I'm glad to know that my mental model wasn't completely off-base, and happy to see that the situation is improving overall

And the parent response was a great case study in de-escalation. 5 stars, would ride again (assuming sufficient battery!)

The Tesla charger is now the North American Charging Standard NACS (standardized as SAE J3400). So most or nearly all new EV's in USA use it. So that's not an issue anymore.

In Europe, Tesla use the European standard Type 2 (standardized as IEC 62196-2) charger. So that's not an issue either.

> correction: I thought Tesla still used their own charger in Europe.

Teslas in Europe have Type2 connectors.

I seem to be a bit outdated then. If they've also switched over then even less of an issue.

The EV charger standard wars are over.

It was an EU mandate a few years back, I think every Tesla since about 2019 is Type2. I still have to deal with the occasional charger with a ChaDeMo port for old Nissan Leafs. I think those pioneers deserve some respect though!

Tesla is awful outside of the US where they didn't invest heavily in spamming their charging stations everywhere.

Have never had any trouble in Scandinavia or Germany.

There are regions of Europe with less developed infrastructure, but the situation is identical for all car makers.

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