Musk : Tesla may open up Super Charger as a standard

[abasile]

BTW, it seems strange to me people actually don't understand the threat of having one company control something as important as QC network. Even if we assume Musk does everything in the best interest of humanity (LOL!), the next CEO of Tesla would use the monopoly for profiteering.

Presumably if other auto manufacturers participate in building out a Supercharging network, and maintain their parts of the infrastructure, then Tesla won't be in full control. However, Tesla will maintain some control of the terms of use of the Supercharger-related IP. Still, assuming the EV market expands greatly, Tesla will have to take care not to hold too tight a grip on the Supercharging network lest they run afoul of antitrust rules.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I think this could be great if anyone else builds a car that can go 200 miles. Right now I need 40KW stations 50 miles apart, not 120KW stations 150 miles apart.

But, at least he's mentioning it as a possibility. It really is the best charging standard. I'd love it if Nissan sold their next cars with a single Tesla port and a J1772 adapter. The "charge" package just throws a CHAdeMO adapter in the trunk.

i need 50 KW stations 5 miles apart. what am i replacing here? CNG or gas?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Tesla should open the standard, that would be great.

The whole you have to have a 60 kWh pack to quick charge line is bullshit. The Leaf has a 24 kWh pack and can quick charge, same goes for the Imiev. The charge rate just needs to be lowered.

Tesla messed up not offering QC on the Model S 40, nobody wanted it so they had to cancel it, they didn't offer quick charging on the Rav4 EV, now they have to discount them to get people to buy them and they won't offer quick charging on the Benz.

Stupid, stupid stupid. 5-10 hours to charge a car on level 2 is a losing strategy. Tesla is screwing their partners Toyota and Daimler with a product that is lacking a critical QC feature necessary for mass market adoption.

It's not Tesla's fault that other car manufactures don't understand that QC is needed to sell cars. At the very least, both Toyota and Mercedes could have installed "regular" QC options on their cars. And then they could have started installing QC at their dealerships, or better yet at the locations where people want to spend time.

That seems inconsistent with Tesla refusing to offer fast charging on their canceled 40 kWh ModelS. Tesla is the industry leader in fast charging capability. It is up to them to offer the feature or not and they shouldn't build cars that don't offer fast charging... And when they do leave out this critical feature, it is a black eye for the EV business and creates a bad reputation that confirms that Ev's are not practical and inconvenient.

so what is wrong with changing their mind? or should they just continue on with the bad decision?

 

[evnow]

i need 50 KW stations 5 miles apart. what am i replacing here? CNG or gas?

They already have it in Japan !

 

[evnow]

Presumably if other auto manufacturers participate in building out a Supercharging network, and maintain their parts of the infrastructure, then Tesla won't be in full control. However, Tesla will maintain some control of the terms of use of the Supercharger-related IP. Still, assuming the EV market expands greatly, Tesla will have to take care not to hold too tight a grip on the Supercharging network lest they run afoul of antitrust rules.

That is the reason large companies will not cede control on something that critical to a competitor. It has to be an open standard governed by a standards body.

The biggest challenge Tesla has is in trying to put up chargers in urban areas. They essentially have no chargers at destinations - people can charge at home and on the way but not at the destination. They need partners who have access to expensive urban land. For all the problems OEMs have with dealers - atleast they get access to expensive land in good urban locations all over the country.

 

[evnow]

But they are still all scattered willy-nilly with no real rhyme or reason, whereas Tesla's network is being intelligently arrayed.

The scattering helps when visiting a tourist location here, a national park there etc. Tesla's are all on freeways going between large cities. That is why CHAdeMO in the PCN is useful and Tesla owners want that adapter.

 

[TomT]

If it was properly designed and laid out, you could still hit all those areas and yet do it with less units. Plus, just having one unit here and there with no redundancy is simply dooming the user to failure if they are actually depending on it and the charge is mission critical... Murphy ain't dead yet!

But they are still all scattered willy-nilly with no real rhyme or reason, whereas Tesla's network is being intelligently arrayed.

The scattering helps when visiting a tourist location here, a national park there etc. Tesla's are all on freeways going between large cities. That is why CHAdeMO in the PCN is useful and Tesla owners want that adapter.

 

[TonyWilliams]

That is the reason large companies will not cede control on something that critical to a competitor. It has to be an open standard governed by a standards body.

Tesla can very easily and somewhat quickly do that, and just be one of 5 different systems that were approved to be international DC charging standards:

CHAdeMO proposed by Japan (System A)

GB/T by China (B)

COMBO1 by the US (C)

COMBO2 by Germany (C)

SUPERCHARGER by Tesla (D)


The standards can be consulted via IEC website:

http://www.iec.ch/dyn/www/f?p=103:22:0::::FSP_ORG_ID,FSP_LANG_ID:1255,25%3Cbr%20/%3E" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

i need 50 KW stations 5 miles apart. what am i replacing here? CNG or gas?

They already have it in Japan !

yes, I know including one area that had 5 all in about a 2-3 square mile area!

 

[evnow]

Tesla can very easily and somewhat quickly do that, and just be one of 5 different systems that were approved to be international DC charging standards:
SUPERCHARGER by Tesla (D)

The problem for Tesla in making that a standard is that they cede control - since other OEMs will want to be on the board of the standards committee. If Tesla doesn't mind doing that - then it has to compete with CHAdeMO and CCS which many companies have already aligned with.

I think if Tesla was serious they should have done this before CCS was approved.

I actually think this is just frivolous talk by Tesla, not a serious one. They would know other OEMs will not jump in.

 

[pkulak]

If it was properly designed and laid out, you could still hit all those areas and yet do it with less units. Plus, just having one unit here and there with no redundancy is simply dooming the user to failure if they are actually depending on it and the charge is mission critical... Murphy ain't dead yet!

But they are still all scattered willy-nilly with no real rhyme or reason, whereas Tesla's network is being intelligently arrayed.

The scattering helps when visiting a tourist location here, a national park there etc. Tesla's are all on freeways going between large cities. That is why CHAdeMO in the PCN is useful and Tesla owners want that adapter.

If you look at the layout of the West Coast Electric Highway, it is very well thought out. By the end of this month I'll be able to go SE to Mt. Hood, Madras or Redmond. East to Hood River. South at least to the border (possibly down to Redding, CA). West to the coast and then all down the coast to Coos Bay or up to Astoria. Or North up to Vancouver BC and all sorts of places in WA. And pretty much all of that on a $20/month AV membership.

Would I do it? Hell no! haha. No way I wanna get stranded at a broken QC. But! They are _laid out_ just fine.

 

[TomT]

Exactly. Without redundancy it is a crap shoot and you could also wind up there for hours if there are number of vehicles ahead of you for that one QC unit...

Would I do it? Hell no! haha. No way I wanna get stranded at a broken QC. But! They are _laid out_ just fine.

 

[evnow]

Exactly. Without redundancy it is a crap shoot and you could also wind up there for hours if there are number of vehicles ahead of you for that one QC unit...

They are well laid out - they are not arbitrary as you were implying. Reliability is a different issue.

If you follow local facebook groups you will see members making frequent trips to all kinds of places.

 

[evnow]

I'll take that bet. Long range to me is 200 miles or more, BTW...

BTW, you can't even think of a long range EV by a competitor even for the "for the foreseeable future" ? I bet, there will be other long range EVs by the time Tesla Gen 3 comes out.

And "foreseeable future" means ?

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

Somebody start a poll, do you think any mfr other than Tesla will have a 200+ mile range BEV before the model E ships?

Personally I really doubt it. Some significant improvement from Nissan seems likely to me, as does some broader phev offerings from GM.

BMW could be a dark horse, they must know that while the i8 is a pretty face it is remarkably lame, and will look to get past that embarrassment.

 

[kieranmullen]

Perhaps that is why blink and averoviroement changed the chargers to 80% ???

There are still many people complaining over that through the use of comments on plugshare.

And I don't blame them, that has been my experience at chademo stations as well. There can be a line of three cars waiting while people chademo to 100%. I have never had the opportunity to use one due to this.

 

[mitch672]

Tesla can very easily and somewhat quickly do that, and just be one of 5 different systems that were approved to be international DC charging standards:
SUPERCHARGER by Tesla (D)

The problem for Tesla in making that a standard is that they cede control - since other OEMs will want to be on the board of the standards committee. If Tesla doesn't mind doing that - then it has to compete with CHAdeMO and CCS which many companies have already aligned with.

I think if Tesla was serious they should have done this before CCS was approved.

I actually think this is just frivolous talk by Tesla, not a serious one. They would know other OEMs will not jump in.

Tesla has been on ALL of the standards committees. The problem for them was they where taking too dammed long to make a decision, and the Model S had to be final designed BEFORE there was any real DC high power standard. From what I know of tesla, they are most likely protocol compatible with CCS, just using a different physical connector, they designed to handle the higher power. The Model S is using J-1772 2010 for the AC standard, with their own connector. They do the DC by having high power relays switch the power pins directly to the battery's 400VDC. What they have done is stack their standard 10KW Charging modules together, and sync them, up to 12 work in harmony in the SuperChargers.. They are switched 3 at a time, to balance the AC load (so 30KW, 60KW, 90KW or 120KW). I don't think there will much of a issue with other manufacturers using SuperChargers, other than they can't handle the power.. I'm also fairly certain tesla will make a CCS to Model S adapter, if that standard ever gets widely deployed (yeah, right)

 

[TonyWilliams]

I actually think this is just frivolous talk by Tesla, not a serious one. They would know other OEMs will not jump in.

Exactly. No major manufacturer has plans to build a 60kWh car anytime soon, and with the largest company in the world not even interested in EV's, and the "Frankenplug" consortium doing their thing (including having problems charging the BMW i3), I think I'll be safe from sharing a Tesla charging stall with a non-Tesla car.

 

[lorenfb]

I actually think this is just frivolous talk by Tesla, not a serious one. They would know other OEMs will not jump in.

Exactly. No major manufacturer has plans to build a 60kWh car anytime soon, and with the largest company in the world not even interested in EV's, and the "Frankenplug" consortium doing their thing (including having problems charging the BMW i3), I think I'll be safe from sharing a Tesla charging stall with a non-Tesla car.

Given the present cost per kWh ($250-$300), the 60kWh market becomes questionable unless one
enters a low-end luxury market and even that lacks volume OEMs desire. Remember, Tesla has
discontinued the 60 MS. The BMW i3 sales volume in the next six months will exemplify whether
a market exists for a $45K+ BEV with; a range less 100 miles, no significant features, no snob appeal,
and no technology break-thru.

Bottom line: Most/all OEMs don't perceive a viable volume market, presently, for that battery cost,
i.e. $15K-$20K. The added cost, presently, for the "volume" $35K target BEV market would be
$10K-$12K, which wouldn't sell based on economics versus hybrids, e.g. Prius, Honda, Volt, etc.

 

[TomT]

The next few years...

And "foreseeable future" means ?