I can't help but feel like this is Tesla surrendering their biggest moat (their Supercharger network, and the exclusivity of it) for questionable gain (worse immediate experience for their customers, unsure if additional revenue will outweigh the costs).
But I can't NOT see it as a huge win for accelerating the world's transition to sustainable energy (Tesla's core mission). Brave, bold, and good for the planet. Better for the consumer, who now has two manufacturers' worth of cars to choose from.
Imagine a world where oil is companies and car manufacturers teamed up to make incompatible gas station pumps, does that not sound completely ridiculous?
Yes and no. There’s more “magic” to the layperson when it comes to electrical engineering. “Liquid gets poured” is more tangible and people will have practical knowledge of it. Using convoluted methods to prevent liquid flow from your competitors’ pumps is going to be more obvious as malicious to the average consumer.
(I still definitely applaud this move which increases charging availability for consumers; just responding to this specific question.)
It doesn’t have to be convoluted. Differing the diameter (or shape!) or depth of the fuel input would do just fine unless people were going to resort to carrying around funnels.
Diesel pumps in the US aren't really standardized, or at least they didn't use to be. When all gasoline was leaded, diesel (for cars) and gasoline used the same size nozzles. When they came up with unleaded gasoline, they used a new, smaller nozzle, so that unleaded only cars could have fillers that only let the smaller nozzle fit to exclude leaded gas. But cars built for leaded gas had a larger opening and could take either nozzle. Diesel kept the larger size fillers, because all the existing pumps used them. Since they the larger filler, it was no big deal to put an unleaded size nozzle on a diesel pump --- it still fits in the car, and it's got a green cover, the international sign of not default fuel.
So, I had a 2011 VW Diesel, and before the emissions scandal, they had some fuel issues that they were blaming on gasoline in the fuel system, and so they sent out stickers to the registered owners to put around the filler that said 'hey --- diesel only', and that didn't solve the issue, so they sent a contraption that made it hard to fill with an unleaded sized nozzle. With that contraption, I found one of my usual stations was using an unleaded sized nozzle for diesel. So I stopped filling up there, because the contraption was designed to never come out and it takes a long time to fill up when the contraption opposes your nozzle because it's too small. I imagine that station eventually figured it out and put a leaded fuel sized nozzle as I think other manufacturers rolled out similar contraptions too. Gasoline ruins diesel fuel systems rather quickly, and it's not too hard to be distracted and misfuel.
Of course, truck stops have even bigger nozzles for diesel to go in big rigs and other sizable vehicles.
As they should, they're British Petroleum, right? All their pumps should be standard across the world, and in England, the custom is the diesel is default and 'petrol' is not.
Do they? Now it’s just Lightning and USB-C and it looks like Apple is finally conceding. But I agree there was a time before smart phones where it was truly all over the place.
Apple was ahead of the game though, in that their iPhone/iPod/iPad chargers had a USB-A socket (except for some of the very early iPod chargers which had Firewire 400 sockets), while other phone manufacturers were still using chargers with non-removable cables.
I still use my Apple chargers from the early 2000s, while all the chargers I had for other phones and devices are just e-waste.
> I can't help but feel like this is Tesla surrendering their biggest moat ... for questionable gain
If Tesla has a non standard connector much longer, it becomes a liability. It'll be harder and harder for them to sell cars that need adaptors everywhere.
I also don't think the Supercharger Network will be a moat much longer. As there are more EVs, the incentives for business to put in chargers gets higher. Teslas needing an adapter becomes a liability.
Questionable gain? If they can be the dominant provider of fast charging for a hundred years regardless of their car sales, that's quite the gain. They also get to build out their capacity with subsidies they would have otherwise missed out on. They are easily 10x more capital efficient than the next fast charging competitor, so this is a very well thought out move.
Over the long run, would you rather have been a car company or an energy company ( oil company )?
Turning their potentially short term dominance in EV market share into long term dominance in charging seems brilliant to me. This is especially true if you expect Chinese and Indian EV makers to commoditize the market.
Running a charger network is not the same thing as being an energy company like Shell or Exxon Mobil. Tesla has to pay peak electricity rates for their superchargers to the local utility provider. So it’s not a high margin business.
I'm curious to see how much drivers talk about their Fords vs. Teslas at the stations. In particular, the FSD capability that Ford won't have (until Tesla licenses it to them).
It's sad that the US still can't get its act together on compatible EV charging infrastructure. Incompatible chargers is profoundly stupid infrastructure.
Europe had the right idea by setting a common charging standard. All brands of charger now charge all brands of EV in Europe. Anything less is backward, primitive, and not something anyone needs.
But CCS2 is much worse NACS! Tesla would definitely prefer to use a single plug type worldwide if the common standard wasn't so bad.
They've opened up their network in Europe and clearly want more partners in the US. This business is already profitable and it's a great way to monetize their powerpacks and grid products (esp. Autobidder). They would be the first company to benefit from such a simplification and reinforce their lead.
So.. it's much worse and that's why the European EV market is bigger than the North American EV market?
Besides, Tesla Europe says CCS2 is great! Not three days ago they said, "Also, our vehicles use the European charging standard, so you can easily plug in at your charging station of choice":
Ford EV sales don't seem so frightening for Tesla. Tesla will probably get paid from each new Ford EV that get access to the supercharging network so they can speed up the deployment of new stations. This can only help with the mission.
A universal standard for charging will mean more people will be willing to switch to electric vehicles as they won't have to worry about finding their special charger. Abandoning the dream of having a captive market for electricity sales to their customers and capturing market share was going to happen anyway, might as well just pull the plug now.
Open source with such a massive caveat that you would need to have IQ 60 to take that bait. Basically by using Tesla's patents, you would give up all your patents.
I remember being worried when Tesla released the Model 3 with a pay-per-kWh scheme. Was that one supercharger by the mall on the way to Tahoe going to be full all the time? Are all of these mass-market sedans going to make me wait?
That did happen a little bit at a few legacy superchargers, but that minor inconvenience was outweighed by the sheer preponderance of additional superchargers built, everywhere. Instead of worrying about the sole charger being full, I can look on the map, and choose among several nearby chargers, each with reasonable meal options.
I hope this happens with Ford. More cars should increase demand for stations, and additional stations increase convenience for everyone.
Americans use all the same words as imperial (oz, lb, etc) yet they are different quantities to imperial. Imagine going to a Tesla supercharger and then finding that it's just a little off. Not a great standard.
But I can't NOT see it as a huge win for accelerating the world's transition to sustainable energy (Tesla's core mission). Brave, bold, and good for the planet. Better for the consumer, who now has two manufacturers' worth of cars to choose from.