GM electric vehicles can now access Tesla Superchargers
(theverge.com)171 points by ivewonyoung 2 days ago
171 points by ivewonyoung 2 days ago
We had some visitors to California from out of state recently, and the rental car place gave them an electric car (not Tesla), without basically any education about how to deal with them.
I'm a huge fan of electric cars, and will probably never buy anything except EVs in the future, but man are you right that the non-Tesla experience is bleak.
Charging was incredibly stressful. Few CCS chargers, each with a tiny number of charging spots (4-8), with many chargers broken, and the rest fully occupied.
I know it will get better, but I can't believe how bad it is at the moment, and can't believe that car rental companies are handing EVs out without much much more handholding.
(Edit: plus, the car navigation system had zero knowledge of how to plan a long route with charging. That's table stakes for an EV, and criminally bad management that they'd ship a car that didn't have full knowledge of the chargers out there and also how to route. Traditional US car manufacturers are absolutely incompetent and will not survive competition with Chinese manufacturers unless they clean house on everything software related.)
> Traditional US car manufacturers are absolutely incompetent and will not survive competition with Chinese manufacturers unless they clean house on everything software related.
Legacy American car companies have been fully non-competitive with foreign brands for decades. Their continued existence is completely due to tariffs, and it’s not close. I see no reason to think congress would suddenly allow them to be threatened by Chinese companies.
“Completely due to” was meant in the sense of “fully reliant on” not “solely reliant on”. Tarrifs are not the only tool used, and US companies would simply not be allowed to fail, period.
Moreover it's not clear how long china will be able to continue subsidizing the electric cars the way they do.
For those who aren't aware it's a 25% tarrif, so most manufacturers don't bother even trying to sell in the US. That's why almost all European/Japanese brand cars are 30+ years old over there.
I find it entertaining when my US colleague come visit and are amazed at all the options. I drive a new Toyota Hilux, and they weren't even aware they made them anymore. For a country that once prided itself on being the land of the free market capitalist, it's a shame the decision makers are so scared now of competition.
> Traditional US car manufacturers are absolutely incompetent and will not survive competition with Chinese manufacturers
Oh they won't have any trouble. They may lose international market share but the US government will keep raising tariffs ad infinitum to protect the US automakers no matter how far behind they get, or how expensive the vehicles get. We already are giving them 100% tariffs against BYD/etc. You might think that's absurd but the steel industry has received tariffs up to 266% against Chinese steel, so there's a lot of headroom left to continue to price out international competition.
There's really no pressure for the US automakers to do better or innovate or actually compete.
Chinese companies can do the same thing Toyota and a bunch of other European and Japanese brands did.
Open factories in NA and make their cars here. If the US companies are so incompetent they should still be able to outcompete them while paying several times higher wages and not getting any subsidies from the CCP.
It’s shocking. I’ve had a non-Tesla electric car for about 5 years and the public chargers have always been garbage. The new ones are garbage too. If they do finally work, they charge at 1/4 the quoted speed. I had free charging for a while and even that was not enough of an incentive to use it.
Interestingly it is a very different situation in Germany and other surrounding countries.
I've been driving electric since 2022 (non-tesla) and I have never charged with a tesla Supercharger. They have been either more expensive than my contract or in locations far way from the highway or gas stations.
The situation in Germany right now is extremely good, almost every gas station by the Autobahns has 150KW+ chargers available (and most of them non-Tesla). No need to plan stops anymore. And at the moment Plug-and-Charge is also working in Ionity and other stations. My BMW is able to store several contracts and I can choose beforehand which ones to use without having to resort to any app or RFID cards.
Charging is now as easy as with Tesla, but with full market competition and many extra locations.
I've had a non-Tesla for three years now. I've never had a single problem charging at a public DC fast charger. Every time I've managed to find an open and working stall. Every time it worked either with plug and charge or took credit cards on the dispenser. My car isn't 800v so it doesn't do the full 350kW but it has always been about the speeds my car can charge at.
I'm in North Texas and have mostly encountered chargers in Texas. I can't speak to charging elsewhere.
> If they do finally work, they charge at 1/4 the quoted speed
Just to confirm, 1/4 of the quoted average charging speed of your car, 1/4 the quoted peak charging speed of your car, or 1/4 the max supported speed of the charger? Few cars can actually charge at the 350kW max charge rate available. And then on top of that those cars don't actually sustain that peak rate very long, and only when it's been preconditioned and already at a low state of charge. If you're rolling in at 50-60% SoC and especially if you didn't precondition you probably are looking at only being able to charge 100kW or so. That's not the fault of the charger.
Teslas don't charge at 250kW the entire time either. They too have charge curves and need preconditioning to hit max charge rates.
Same experience in the UK. Just within London you have a dozen charging networks, they all have their own shitty apps, they require you to add your credit card and create an account and half the time they simply don't work and just give you some garbage error message like "charging failed".
Don't even get me started on Oxford. We arrive to a charging station and it turns out it is exclusively for electric taxis. No mention of this anywhere online.
It boils down to trial and error, and then remembering which specific charging points tend to work. For a completely new piece of infrastructure with no legacy cruft, the industry has made a complete and utter mess of it.
Hertz walked back their big bet on EVs. They don’t make good rental cars. For day to day use where you can charge at home or go to places you know they are great.
For long trips to unfamiliar places, not so much.
This situation sounds like Europe (& the UK) two or three years ago. Plentiful well maintained, fast and convenient chargers have sprung up since from a wide variety of operators (electricity companies, oil companies, startups, plus Tesla).
We standardised on CCS a while ago.
Many chargers are even faster than Tesla Superchargers whilst supporting the plug-and-charge standard ISO 15118. They are often surprisingly cheap too.
I was surprised just how good charger provision is in Europe. On a recent 1600 mile road trip we never had a problem finding 350kW chargers. There were always plenty of spaces free and I saw one broken charger the whole time - it maxed out at ~70kW instead of 230kW - but I just moved to the next charger in the row.
Interoperability sure, but the chargers breaking left and right is a separate issue.
>The chargers are few and far between
Where are you that the CCS chargers are few and far between? While I agree it's annoying to have to potentially use multiple apps if you aren't in a car that has a consolidation play (like fordpass), there are far more CCS chargers in the states I've visited than Tesla counterparts.
With gas station chains like Pilot, 7-eleven, Wawa, Circle-K, and others building out their own networks, and Tesla firing basically their entire charging network staff, non-Tesla chargers will only continue to grow at a faster pace than what Tesla has to offer. At least we've standardized on J3400 plugs so we can (hopefully) move away from the game of "do you have the right adapter"?
I guess it's more "few" than "far between". There are a decent number of locations in e.g. grocery store parking lots but they usually only have 2-4 fast chargers and one or two are broken. So you'll show up and someone got there before you and took the last one. Meanwhile I don't think I've ever seen a Supercharger with fewer than 8 stalls and many have 20+.
Non-Tesla charging locations can be hit or miss. As others have mentioned, many spots only have 2-4 stations, with at least one often out of order and others occupied by cars that have been sitting there for a while. If you manage to find a working charger, actually paying for it can be a hassle. I’ve had situations where I skipped the wait at Tesla chargers and tried another network, maybe EA. Despite having the app and using it before, it wouldn’t work. My credit card didn’t go through either, so I used my bank card, which worked for half the charge, but then stopped working for the rest.
> the [Tesla] charging experience couldn't be simpler, park and plug in, unplug and go. No tap, no app. Crazy how no one else could figure this out.
Agreed. I don't know why the vehicle and charger manufacturers didn't settle on a system that would let a user store credit card credentials or some other token in the car itself. When you pull up to a charger, plug in, and the charger and car do the handshake, and the car requests that a PIN be entered to release the credentials to the charger.
The charger could still support their own cumbersome apps or CC entry system (if you're trying to charge someone else's vehicle, in a rental scenario for example), but the default experience should be: pull up, plug in, enter PIN/Passkey, walk away.
Well, for another anecdote from the PNW, there are dozens of combo chargers in the 300 miles North of me and 6-8 in the 300 miles south. They seem to mostly work, more are going in, and old, unreliable ones are getting swapped out. It’s not perfect, but it’s fine for me. Of course, 99% of my charging is at home.
> The chargers are few and far between, half of them are broken, and even the ones that aren't broken have compatibility issues so they may not work anyway. The required apps are unreliable and annoying.
This also describes a lot of modern American life. I am constantly impressed by people saying how reliable the Tesla charger network is. This level of quality should be held up as an example at every opportunity. My 0.02€
It’s not that Tesla has uniquely worked it out. It’s that the other options in your country basically only exist out of spite. We know how to do charging networks now. Eventually, someone in the US will see the worth in it.
Crazy how Tesla vastly outperformed the govt investing billions into making 8 chargers
The government investment is just getting started with deployment, and frankly waiting to standardize on NACS instead of deploying with CCS was the smart choice, even if it delayed deployment by a year or so.
NACS is so much better and having a single standard will smooth out so much in the future.
But globally it's not a single standard. I believe with NACS, the US once again, sits alone, like it does so often.
Basically every other country is doing CCS, the US was deploying CCS but then the government said "nah, let's go with this other one".
I remember when I saw companies switching to it, I seemed to be the only person who thought it was a bad idea.
On the side of International Standardization it's me, a couple crickets, and a bunch of people telling me how wrong I am.
>> The required apps are unreliable and annoying.
The requirement of an app to fuel a car is ridiculous and is one of the largest barriers for many people. Too much of our lives are already dependent on our phones. The idea that any random issue with my phone will then cause my car to not work ... that is just unacceptable. This is why airplanes don't have keys, let alone apps.
(My secure work phone is currently bricked due to an issue with my email address being moving between departments. That sort of thing is why I would never trust a phone for vital things like fueling a vehicle.)
I have a Mustang mache specifically because of the Tesla supercharger authorization and compatibility
It’s still bleak-ish, but is right on the cusp of getting better
Tesla’s schizophrenic behavior makes the promised adapter to have an unknown delivery date
The bootleg adapter works decently, tricky at first though
I had to learn there are multiple versions of tesla superchargers, and even of the V3 ones they are not all the latest version that I’m supposed to use. This is undocumented.
Then, of ALL of them, the charging cable is too short and in the wrong place for my vehicle. I have to take up two spots unless I’m next to another vehicle with my ‘affliction’, rare
I dont want a Tesla I want the supercharging network
Now, knowing all these things and altering my life just a little bit around the local ones, things are great
CSS charging stations are pathetic and often have long lines, while the Tesla stations are massive, don't have a line, all while an additional doubling is occurring in a roped off section
Fortunately, you don't have to supercharge and its ill advised to do it often.
>> Future GM vehicles will come with Tesla’s charging port natively installed.
This makes me happy. I worked on "standard" charging infrastructure for a while and those plugs are fv*king heavy and clunky by comparison. Also talked to an old Ford guy I worked with years ago who was involved in the standard development process - he seems content to "understand" what the politics and compromises were to the extent he couldn't look at the thing and say "this sucks". Going beyond the physical clunkiness: There is no reason to have a powerline PHY in there. None. It's stupid and costs extra and isn't even used on the high power conductors.
This just feels like VHS vs. Betamax. VHS won because it was the better format, but Betamax fans took a value out of context and kept whining about the loss for years.
(VHS was better. Not only was it cheaper, Betamax's smaller cassette meant that feature length movies used a slower tape speed than VHS, negating claims of a better picture.)
Must resist... nitpicking... no I can't. Betamax originally didn't sell tapes which could record more than 1 hour. So people couldn't tape movies onto a single tape, but had to use 2 tapes.
What I really came to say is that the current reality is worse. In this analogy, not only did BetaMax win, neither BetaMax nor VHS came to Europe, but instead Philips 2000 won there. (US Teslas don't fast-charge in Europe.)
>US Teslas don't fast-charge in Europe
This is going to be deeply frustrating when they finally build that tunnel across the Atlantic.
Great step. NACS is so nice compared to CCS 1. Can't wait for this to standardize and EV charging stations to stop being so novel.
This still feels a long way off. I have yet to encounter a charger, not made by Tesla, that has an NACS plug.
Everyone in the US has committed to NACS in the next couple years. The others are aware of this and if they are not completely stupid making plans. They will probably support CCS for a while in some form, but they will be doing NACS in the near future. It might be like regular/premium/diesel fuels - pumps support more than one hose (though wire is more expensive than a hose).
> They will probably support CCS for a while
NACS is CCS with a different plug on the end. Tesla's charging standard is to die off, CCS will be the standard going forward.
Here's a real world demonstration of a charger with J3400 plugs (aka Tesla's plug):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3-0xRTduPI
It works on a Chevy Bolt because it is CCS.
That is the definition of the current state.
Fortunately for the future state, they can be changed.
I'd seen some rumors that Tesla has been trying to slow down onboarding of other automakers to their charging network, so it's good to see information to the contrary.
I still struggle to see how this ends up favorable for Tesla in the long run. They did not charge licensing fees for the connector, and even if they charge a premium to charge non-Tesla vehicles, now owners of Tesla vehicles are going to run into situations where a Chevy Bolt has to double park to use a Tesla fast charger at <=50kW, doubly driving down utilization.
Tesla actually had $1.74 billion in revenue from its charging network in 2023, Bloomberg estimates that they probably made about 10% profits from that or $174 million. They are predicting that to grow to $7.4 billion in revenue by 2030. In my neck of the woods many of the Tesla superchargers I see are empty most of the time, presumably adding 3rd party vehicles is a way for Tesla to increase it's profits on their already built out network. Of course Tesla is still adding to their network but presumably as that investment decreases and the fact that they are charging more for non-Tesla vehicles, their profits will increase. It seems like it's turned into a nice little side business.
https://insideevs.com/news/715644/tesla-supercharger-network...
The impact of selling fewer cars due to the chaos of standing in mall lines waiting to charge is going to be a net harm I think to Tesla in the long run
> I still struggle to see how this ends up favorable for Tesla in the long run.
They're expanding their customer-base by maybe 2x or more. Those new customers will be be giving recurring payments to Tesla. For vehicles that Tesla didn't build. How is that not favourable?
Tesla doesn't break out the details, but I think it's generally understood among investors that they just break even on Supercharger. Their profit comes from their cars, and the Supercharger network was a competitive advantage to get people to buy the cars.
I think they opened up the Supercharger network to ensure that the US didn't establish CCS as the standard and overtake Superchargers, such that Teslas have a competitive dis -advantage, but I don't think they're particularly thrilled to have all these other companies using their chargers.
People seem to think they're raking it in with the Superchargers, but distributing electricity is a low margin business. Same with gas stations where the money mostly comes from the convenience store part of it and such.
> they just break even on Supercharger
So far, sure, but that can change. When most customers are non Teslas, it makes no sense to keep prices low.
Gas is lower margin than the other things in a convenience store, but they sell enough more gas than anything else that much of the money is there. I haven't checked in 10 years, but at one time I did read the share holders information from a convenience store and for that brand it was about 1/3 gas, 1/3 tobacco, 1/3 everything else. Tobacco is very high margin but very few people buy it. The everything is is a nice high margin, and most people buy, but they don't buy every trip. Gas is what gets people in the doors and often is all people get.
This goes both ways -- historically the other charging networks were J1772 or CCS (with a few CHAdeMO to support Nissan Leafs), but now Electrify America, EVgo, etc. have been retrofitting or newly installing a mix of CCS and NACS cables onto their L3 chargers. This increases the available charger footprint for Teslas as well.
Tesla chargers are CCS. It's just that in the US they use a different plug, in Europe Tesla chargers uses CCS-2 connectors.
The downside is that when people are considering which car to buy, Tesla has enjoyed their charging network as a strong selling point that other automakers don't have
But they gain the selling point that charging Teslas is cheaper.
> where a Chevy Bolt has to double park to use a Tesla fast charger at <=50kW, doubly driving down utilization
I’ll have you know my Bolt EUV can get 53, maybe 54 kW, for 5, or maybe 10 minutes, thank you very much.
But seriously while the max Bolt charge speed is rather slow I rarely ever fast charge. We recently took a road trip that required multiple charging stops and it was fine.
I understand it could be inconvenient for drivers who have cars that with a higher charge speed who could have to wait but I’ve never encountered this.
I'm on my third (long story) Bolt, I would pick it three more times if I could, and I'm certain that I've sold more Bolts than most GM salesmen, so my comment was more familiar snark than anything. I have done the trips into minimally friendly locales and spent longer than is wise at a Tilted Kilt with small children in order to ensure a healthy buffer for a trip home. This news is nothing but upside for me personally. Perhaps we will encounter one another at a Tesla charging station one day!
>> I still struggle to see how this ends up favorable for Tesla in the long run.
This will allow the rest of the charging infrastructure to become Tesla compatible. That may reduce the load on Teslas network, which they only built so their EVs could go cross country.
More importantly, there are not a lot of chargers. Gas stations are on every important intersections, chargers are much less common and only rarely in places as convenient. (part of this is charging takes longer and there is the expectation the people charging are willing to go a little farther to find someplace where there is something else to do). As electric cars become more common every car manufacture needs to be able to say you can get anywhere with no worries as there are chargers. Tesla can get you across the country but you often have no choice where you stop to charge - if you pass a charger at 25% charge you are likely to run out a long way from any charger, while if you pass a gas station at 25% fuel you can probably pass several dozen more before running out and then are close to a station (more than walking distance, but an easy hitchhike) There are exceptions - I've been in remote areas where gas stations are that far miles apart, but they are rare, while that is still normal for EV charging outside of cities (and inside of a city you are more likely to charge at home and thus not care).
Uhm, that's no longer true. There's a lot of new charging stations.
This summer, I drove from MA to Washington DC and every other rest stop had chargers; sometimes multiple brands. I also drove from MA to Montreal and there were plenty of chargers.
Basically, every time I needed to pee there was a charger 5-10 minutes ahead of me. Plugged in, went to the bathroom, and then I had more than enough charge to go to the next bathroom.
> I'd seen some rumors that Tesla has been trying to slow down onboarding of other automakers to their charging network
It's more simple. The delays have been because Musk threw a tantrum and fired the whole supercharging team:
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/inside...
> I still struggle to see how this ends up favorable for Tesla in the long run
Standardization gives Teslas more access to more chargers. It will also drive up utilization of Tesla's charging network because more cars will use more of Tesla's chargers more of the time.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/28/22596337/tesla-supercharg...
Tesla's chargers have been open to all brands for a long time in Europe. Here's a Kia charging on a V4 charger with no app and no Tesla account just as Nature intended:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yflZN0dLT8s
Tesla is just one charge point operator among many in Europe. Tesla's chargers are behind the state of the art. They still don't work well for 800 volt cars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJ2KtzMeh8
The Cybertruck is an 800 volt platform and charges faster on Electrify America than on Tesla's own chargers:
https://x.com/itskyleconner/status/1775014705222070331
EV charging standardization in Europe has driven investment in and deployment of charging infrastructure. The US has 193,000 public AC and DC charge points:
https://www.carscoops.com/2024/09/americas-ev-charging-infra...
Europe has over 900,000:
Europe still hasn’t solved the need-another-app-for-every-charger problem.
Probably more effective than standardization is Europe’s love of pigovian taxes on gasoline.
Contactless payment is mandated going forward. There's an example of no app, no subscription payment in my previous comment. It's being implemented in the field now.
EU regulations: https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/new-energies/europe/article/f...
UK regulations: https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/electric-...
No licensing fees, but they are charging a premium for non-Teslas to use the superchargers.
No licensing fees to use the connector but do we know they didn't pay any fees for access to Tesla's chargers?
EDIT - at least in Ford's case they've stated that they aren't https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/29/ford-tesla-supercharging-par...
As a non-Tesla EV owner, I would happily pay surcharges for charging on Tesla's network if it meant I could reliably use my vehicle on extended trips out of town. Tesla charging network has a very good reputation for reliability, which is a primary concern if I'm traveling on the highway. It's not something I do often, so paying a premium once in a while to use my EV instead of my ICE vehicle seems like a decent tradeoff.
Do you have a source showing they are charging higher prices for non Teslas?
This is common knowledge. I don't have a link to send you, but I've just looked up the closest supercharger on the Tesla website and it charges 0.55$ / kWh for NACS vehicles, while in my Tesla app the same supercharger shows 0.42$ / kWh.
From the article: GM is also updating its brand apps to allow customers to search for available Superchargers, check station status, initiate a charge, and pay for charging sessions. Tesla has said that non-Tesla owners would have to pay a little more to charge their vehicles than Tesla owners.
In Europe Tesla offer a subscription that gives you the same prices as Teslas get. Otherwise you pay more. Of course Tesla then makes a profit on the subscription cost.
It's in the article: "Tesla has said that non-Tesla owners would have to pay a little more to charge their vehicles than Tesla owners."
Tesla go was to speed the adoption of EVs. They succeeded.
Tesla bills themselves as an energy company. In theory, they could back their charging network with solar and battery storage and offer power cheaper/cleaner than competitors.
Yeah, I can't see how it's great for Tesla other than I guess extra revenue from charging. But the infrastructure already is somewhat constrained, so yes there will be more lines now at superchargers.
On the other hand, I'm happy we're not heading down the path of shitty walled gardens of charging, eventually Tesla owners will also benefit from being able to charge more easily at 3rd party chargers. For humanity this is a good thing, and increases overall efficiency of infrastructure greatly.
They had to open their chargers to get some of the benefits from that big bill a year or two ago (build back better?).
That may be why. In low use areas it may be a nice ROI.
I’ve heard in high use areas things could already be bad from the increase in Teslas sold and piling Fords, GMs, and Rivians in isn’t going to lighten the load any.
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, https://driveelectric.gov/news/new-cfi-funding-released
> This funding opportunity is made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s signature EV charging investments: the $2.5 billion Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Discretionary Grant Program and funds from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program that are set aside for strategic grants to states and local governments to deploy EV chargers.
It seems like Tesla's behavior has been much better in Europe, and I'm not sure what explains the discrepancy.
While I have no information here, I'd bet/conspiracy theorize that Tesla is looking to maintain exclusivity/low-ish congestion of its Supercharger sites for as long as possible, and using its position as a supplier of NACS adapters to do that. Demand for and purchasing of Tesla cars has gone down considerably[1], and I'd assert that Superchargers, which have historically been a positive for Tesla, catching a reputation for being "busy" would hurt Tesla even more. There are already regularly lines for charging at some of the busier Supercharger sites.
[1] https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/q1-2024-ev-sales/
Just like how the Hyperloop was a scheme to prevent development of trains. Tesla doesn't try to make the best product, they just try to hurt the competition.
Supercharger is the best product, and without Tesla we wouldn't be half as far as we are with car electrification. I don't get the ludicrousness of statements such as yours.
I own a Chevy Bolt, and have no luck actually figuring out how to buy this adaptor
They made it ridiculously convoluted to order. You need to use the awful MyChevrolet app, and click your initials in the corner. From there, select "Public Charging". After it loads, there should be a Tesla-related option to click towards the top. (If it's missing, force-kill the app and relaunch and try again. I had to do that, even though I was already running the latest version of the app.)
Next you'll need to enter a credit card, and then X out of the confirmation screen. Finally you'll get a link to order the adapter, which you can only access in a web view inside the MyChevrolet app.
The web view will show multiple discount codes regarding parts, but none of the %-off ones do anything for this order, only the free shipping one works on this. Also don't click the outermost X during the order process, since this will close the web view and make you start over. At times you'll need to click an "inner" X below that. It's one of the worst order interfaces I've ever seen.
Oh, and the first time I actually made it through the full checkout process, it gave me an error and said to try again later. But it wouldn't let me try again later (couldn't resubmit my order/cart) so I had to start from scratch for like the third time.
Also the adapter is already on backorder, so there's no estimation of when this will actually ship.
I think I'm never buying a GM car ever again.
Please... DO NOT BUY A LECTRON ADAPTER mentioned in this article. This company is shady and has absolutely horrendous customer service, along with products that do not work and are not authorized at Tesla Super Chargers.
How do I know? I bought one. The first issue I had was they claimed the unit was available to ship when I purchased, but did not ship even though they sent me a tracking number that simply stated "package hasn't been dropped off at UPS" when looked up. When I inquired they said it would be shipping "this week" for 3 weeks. I had also paid for expedited shipping and the company refused to refund this. After collecting screenshots I told them I would be reversing the charge through my CC company. That same day the product was shipped.
Then I experienced the design issues with the product first hand that everyone has now beaten to death on the Internet. Next I spent another two weeks trying to get the company to refund my money and take back their product. I ended up reversing the charge and only after I did that did they issue me an RMA to send the unit back, because now they wanted it back since my CC company reviewed all of my screenshots of their claims and reversed the charge.
Do not waste your time with Lectron!
In the EU, it is required to use a specific type of plug at chargers and in electric cars. This made everything compatible.
So it not working wasn't a US thing. It working was an EU thing.
Here's ChargePoint's interoperability lab.[1] They're not sure how the connectors and interfaces will end up, so their charging system is modular and field-upgradable. They bring in various cars and check out the charging process.
Eight years ago, when I bought my first Nissan Leaf, I was astonished to learn that the process of charging the car at a CHAdeMO station was entirely different from the process of filling a gasoline car. Eight years later, with a wallet full of different membership cards, and every charger with a different UI, the situation has actually gotten worse.
I, for one, welcome our new Tesla charging overlords.
Funny anecdote from two weeks ago: I had just finished a CHAdeMO session, stopped the charge, the UI said it was done (have a nice day!) but the charger refused to release the plug from the car. I spent ten minutes pulling and pulling, and talking to a clueless person on a customer service line, when the charger unlocked it all by itself. Imagine a system where a bug or glitch can lock the charging cable to your car for no reason whatsoever, completely immobilizing you in the middle of your trip!
I think as soon as thieves realize cars that are plugged in with drivers inside waiting are not able to drive away without unplugging, there will be a huge surge in crime against people charging their EVs. Then there will be a large surge in people going back to complaining about EVs having too many drawbacks.
At least at a gas station I'm only there for 5 minutes, it's not at the back of some dark parking lot, and I can start the car and drive away if I had to.
I live in a fairly high crime area, but I can't imagine this being true in any way. What sort of crime are you thinking? Standard mugging? So many easier targets in other areas, plus the cars record everything, and there are usually lots of others charging.
The worst experience I have had while charging late at night in a remote area was being accosted by an over-enthusiastic Tesla fan who just wanted to talk talk talk about the car and where it had gone. That was very unpleasant, but certainly not criminal.
I said as soon as criminals figure it out. They don't know people sitting alone in the back of parking lots can't even drive away without getting out first.
It also took them a few years to figure out they could steal the cables. At first they probably thought they were live.
No
Industry is already figuring out magsafe like solutions for Tesla Car chargers, it’s something else that Tesla is suing them for it lol.
Also, considering car chargers are likely to have many cars being charged, thieves would rather find it easier to steal parked out in the open cars outside people’s homes, than car charging spots which can easily be targeted by police to catch thieves red handed.
Not to mention, you’ll see more Magsafe charger implementations for Cars soon.
[see this](https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/2/24212160/tesla-evject-laws...)
Criminals mug and kill shop owners pretty often. Knowing theres a camera isn't going to stop anyone.
I should add that I currently have a non Tesla EV. So I've sat in those charge spots. A camera or possibly another sitting duck next to you isn't going to save you.
Most of the comments here seem to be suffering from amnesia as to why Tesla is even opening their charging network- remember, the Feds literally begged them to and paid them money to do so.
As a Tesla owner, I see this as a straight up loss in nearly every category. I never have used a third party charger, so even if those chargers move to the NACS standard it won’t improve my life in any way.
I’ve already had to deal with Rivian or Ford owners taking up several stalls at the Superchargers (because they weren’t designed to fit correctly, and Rivian drivers are incompetent) and taking over twice as long to charge as Teslas are able to.
Hot take. Tesla supercharger network is better quality and an actual product compared to their rattle box cheap ass cars. Not worth it at the price I bought, and only good as leases imo now that they’re cheap.
I am an OG in the sense that I had FSD at $2k and have seen the evolution of “full self driving”. It sucks. It’s a gimmick that I would not trust with the lives of my family. I trust myself enough to use it when it was just me driving. Good for highway driving in middle lane, but other cars do that as well..
Also in my friend group it was just me who had FSD nobody else had it.
I sold my Tesla long ago when Elon start short circuiting his brain with brainrot.
However the prevalence and reliability of supercharger is unmatched.
It wouldn't be a pivot that would please investors. It's inherently a near-zero-margin business (if you are making a significant margin, then someone will open one down the road and undercut you); many actual fuel stations only really survive on the add-ons (convenience stores, 'premium' petrol, etc.)
Yes like the case around a laptop, or the body/fuselage and wings of a drone, saves weight. They showed it on the news recently.
"Structural batteries are materials that not only store energy, but can also carry loads. In this way, the battery material can become part of the actual construction material of a product, which means that a much lower weight can be achieved in electric cars, drones, hand tools, laptops and mobile phones, for example."
They claim to increase the range of an electric car up to 70%
More recent article: https://www.electrive.com/2024/09/12/swedish-researchers-rep...
I tried the reverse recently, charging my Model 3 at third party CCS chargers with adapter (and CCS compatibility retrofit). It is bleak out there. The chargers are few and far between, half of them are broken, and even the ones that aren't broken have compatibility issues so they may not work anyway. The required apps are unreliable and annoying.
I remember 5+ years ago Superchargers were a lot less common and also frequently broken. But those days are long gone. Tesla has really figured out reliability and maintenance, and there are plenty of stations for all but peak times. And the charging experience couldn't be simpler, park and plug in, unplug and go. No tap, no app. Crazy how no one else could figure this out.