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EV charging in the US is broken: Verge article

Autolycus

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Sheetz has partnered with Tesla to add superchargers to most of their locations. Loves working with EA to get chargers at all of its locations would be huge, if EA could pull it off. They’re nationwide and are generally really clean and well maintained.

Regional chains like Wawa and QT would be good ones to get onboard as well. Maybe not for all locations, but for ones along major highways for now and then their more local stores eventually.
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Lobstahz

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The walled garden will start biting Tesla in the ass as soon as V2 and V3 Superchargers don't seem that great compared to the competition. The V2 Superchargers with 150kW are middle of the road now, in two years it could be the bare minimum. The V3 Superchargers with 250kW can't keep pace if 800V vehicles begin to dominate. Tesla will have a hard time putting up the same numbers as Hyundai/Kia (18 mins 5-80% on a 350kW charger) if their charging infrastructure doesn't see a major overhaul.
Generally I agree. The v2 Superchargers and "knowing which stall to pick to not share power" is not something the mainstream will tolerate. The backstory for folks not familiar is, that with the v2 generation of SCs a pair of chargers share a 150kW feed, and if you had 2 cars parked next to each other they'd share that 150kW, so depending on even more minutiae you could get 45-75kW not the 150kW you'd generally expect. Long story short, fine for early adopters, but too complicated and not acceptable to the mainstream. This will eventually be a pain for Tesla. I'm unsure "when" though.

The v3 SCs at 250kW are quite solid though, very unlikely to have to "share" with the setup there. I'll spare the details, but suffice it to say lots more minutiae but 95%+ of the time you'll never need to think about it.

I think the overall issue that Tesla will have with their SCs is that they're 400v. Tesla due to their sizable buildout of SCs and the investment made there means they're effectively locked into the 400v battery architecture. The CCS chargers (EVGo, Electrify America, etc, etc) can do 400-1000v meaning they're a lot more flexible and future-proof as battery architectures change. This will likely become a hinderance to Telsa at some point, and I imagine at _that_ point they'll be much more likely to open up SCs to other manufacturers.
 

Gshenderson

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I am not sure they would look at it as giving up. As the ZEV credit market starts drying up. I think the will realize the cash cow they are sitting on and be looking at it as a revenue stream.

They can still keep their advantage by charging less for the Tesla vehicles and a premium for other manufacturers.
They’ll just pump and dump some more crypto to make up the difference.
 

Gshenderson

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Loves truck stops are already on board and several of them already have Electrify America chargers on site. 3 that I know of already opened:

Quartzsite, AZ
Santa Rosa, NM
Tucumcari, NM

And there is one at a Chevron station in Lordsburg, NM

And at the Dateland Travel Center, in Dateland, AZ
I own some property between Santa Rosa and Tucumcari. Here’s the Tesla several miles down the dirt road (until I hit a wash out...). Now you can see why I’ve been anxiously awaiting a true off-road capable EV for the past 6 years!
Rivian R1T R1S EV charging in the US is broken: Verge article 73E6F4DF-65FD-487C-91D8-595493D242F5
Rivian R1T R1S EV charging in the US is broken: Verge article F18B55CA-5E4F-459E-912F-72ACE1212160
 

Trandall

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Loves truck stops are already on board and several of them already have Electrify America chargers on site. 3 that I know of already opened:

Quartzsite, AZ
Santa Rosa, NM
Tucumcari, NM

And there is one at a Chevron station in Lordsburg, NM

And at the Dateland Travel Center, in Dateland, AZ
Many Sheetz (similar to Loves) locations in the mid Atlantic have embraced DCFC as well. Sheetz has locations with Tesla Super chargers, EVGO, and Electrify America chargers. I'm assuming they make a deal to allow use of the space for free and allow the charging company to operate in return for Sheetz getting some added business while drivers cars charge. I don't think it would be profitable for Sheetz, Loves, Flying J, Pilot... if they had to pay the cost of installing the chargers and the electricity, especially without government incentive. They would need to be selling a LOT of snacks and fridge magnets.
 

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ElectricDan

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Completely agree here. I think one part the article missed is diving in to the intent of why companies like Rivian are pursuing their own charging infrastructure in the first place. It's because customers like us want seamless interoperability. If Rivian wants customers to pay $80k for a vehicle, those customers are going to expect both a high level of product (the vehicle itself) and experience (primarily charging). Rivian looked at existing charging infrastructure and decided that they could not rely on it for the seamless charging experience that their customers are going to expect. The problem with this approach is that it does very little to build out an interoperable charging network that will benefit every EV owner in the long run.

Can you imagine how much further along the road (hah) we'd be if Tesla owners hypothetically did not have the supercharger network? Those are like 90% of EVs on the road, and they would've raised a sh*tstorm about the state of our infrastructure years ago. Our public infrastructure would have had to make huge strides to accommodate their needs. Instead, Tesla owners are understandably happy in their walled garden.
Or if Tesla didn't have the network EVs would have never taken off and they wouldn't have the ppl to raise a sh*tstorm and tesla wouldn't have been able to pave the road for other EV upstarts or competition from legacy manufacturers
 
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sevengroove

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Or if Tesla didn't have the network EVs would have never taken off and they wouldn't have the ppl to raise a sh*tstorm and tesla wouldn't have been able to pave the road for other EV upstarts or competition from legacy manufacturers
Rivian R1T R1S EV charging in the US is broken: Verge article 1620936029805
 

DuckTruck

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I can't help but wonder how long it will be before Tesla either abandons their proprietary charging system or adds a separate CCS port as well. A CCS adapter is nice, but once the government and every other manufacturer selling EVs in North America continues building and updating nothing but CCS stations, Tesla may suffer the way Sony's Super Beta Hi-Fi did once VHS expanded to fill the market. At the very least, a big part of Tesla's marketing advantage may no longer be much of an advantage.
 

davrow_R1T

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I can't help but wonder how long it will be before Tesla either abandons their proprietary charging system or adds a separate CCS port as well. A CCS adapter is nice, but once the government and every other manufacturer selling EVs in North America continues building and updating nothing but CCS stations, Tesla may suffer the way Sony's Super Beta Hi-Fi did once VHS expanded to fill the market. At the very least, a big part of Tesla's marketing advantage may no longer be much of an advantage.
Except there have been several 'standards'. EV charging is still evolving. CCS may seem like THE standard, but this too shall pass.

Faster, higher voltage / amperage, inductive, broadcast energy... the future isn't here yet.
 

bowhunter

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Yes. The DCFC will be exclusive to Rivian vehicles, at least initially.
Based on a conversation I had with customer service*, this should be clarified to state that DCFC will be exclusive to Rivian owners as opposed to vehicles. If you are a Rivian owner and also own EVs compatible with their fast chargers then you will be able to charge those EVs on it as well. The wording on the Rivian site reflects this distinction.

*your CS conversations may vary
 

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azbill

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Based on a conversation I had with customer service*, this should be clarified to state that DCFC will be exclusive to Rivian owners as opposed to vehicles. If you are a Rivian owner and also own EVs compatible with their fast chargers then you will be able to charge those EVs on it as well. The wording on the Rivian site reflects this distinction.

*your CS conversations may vary
I asked CS about this previously and that was NOT the answer they gave me, only Rivian vehicles could charge on the CCS chargers.
 

kylealden

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If Tesla (or any other company) wants to make vehicles that cannot use the infrastructure being built/supported, does the government have any business telling them they must?
Yes.
 

CommodoreAmiga

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I asked CS about this previously and that was NOT the answer they gave me, only Rivian vehicles could charge on the CCS chargers.
That was my understanding.

reality may differ.
 

cwoodcox

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Because ideally the government would represent the interests of the people that it represents.

Think about the government in the early 1900s. It’s easy to say “well, times were different then,” but I would argue that it’s specifically because of the government that times were different then. The FDA, FCC, NIH, and lots of other federal agencies were created to further causes that enabled said times to be different.

A rather interesting (and applicable) example: the REA, Rural Electrification Administration was created to get electricity to rural America in 1936 (!!) and drove the adoption of a higher 7.2kV standard to make it feasible to extend transmission lines to farming communities. It secured loans and offered grants to companies to help them establish a viable power grid in extremely rural America. It established minimums that they had to install and safety guidelines that needed to be followed.
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