Random EV thoughts.....

unkel

unkel wrote: »

It would be great if somehow all EVs would use the one standard of charging and it looks like most manufacturers are playing ball and already use CCS or will use it soon

That said, there's nothing inherently wrong with a 100% privately funded "members only" club though is there? We're not living in some sort of goddamn communist country now, are we, where private enterprise is verboten?

If the E.U. see fit to control the type of connectors for charging on phones to the benefit of Consumers I see nothing wrong with them controlling the type of connectors for Cars.
You are taking for granted the standardization work they enforced on manufacturers.

Tesla contributed to open standards but then went their own way. Real estate at motorway service stations is scarce so standardisation is beneficial.

slave1

Well if we live in a unrestricted economy and Tesla/Ionity/Party#1/Party#2 etc want to pay for and maintain chargers close to each other then let them off, the laws of supply/demand/cost/profits will eventually level the field if left uninterrupted.
When it comes to deciding between EV1 and EV2 and one of the choices is a Tesla then Tesla will have a huge competitive advantage due to their exclusive charging network, good luck to them, no free money, no grants, no council/government/regional support.
It would be detrimental to an open free market to force Tesla (we all know you're talking about Tesla) to take other cars or limit their charging stations.

liamog

unkel wrote: »

That said, there's nothing inherently wrong with a 100% privately funded "members only" club though is there? We're not living in some sort of goddamn communist country now, are we, where private enterprise is verboten?

Open access is a pretty standard infrastructure regulation, we apply it to lots of areas to allow private enterprises to operate. I don't think anyone is campaigning to make all chargers publicly owned, very much an over exaggeration to claim market regulation is communism.

AndyBoBandy

ELM327 wrote: »

AC is not needed at a services, should be DC only. (Ideally CCS only)

I'd take a 2kW over the current 2nd option they have there.....

unkel

Deleted User wrote: »

Tesla contributed to open standards but then went their own way.

You do realise that all new Teslas have CCS these days?

liamog

slave1 wrote: »

It would be detrimental to an open free market to force Tesla (we all know you're talking about Tesla) to take other cars or limit their charging stations.

As they are the only manufacturer running a closed access network, yes it applies to Tesla. An open market for charging cars is in the interests of the consumer, both grid supply and land at motorway services is in limited supply, so it makes sense to regulate open access.

unkel

I'm very much opposed to forcing Tesla to do anything about giving the plebs access to their superchargers (:p) but if I was the owner I would sure look into getting more revenue from them. If I were a non-Tesla owner I would be happy to pay at least €1 per kWh to use them. For their convenience, their reliability, their speed.

liamog

unkel wrote: »

I'm very much opposed to forcing Tesla to do anything about giving the plebs access to their superchargers (:p) but if I was the owner I would sure look into getting more revenue from them. If I were a non-Tesla owner I would be happy to pay at least €1 per kWh to use them.

A fair proposition, open access doesn't have to mean equitable prices
Though if I was Tesla I'd charge 78c/kWh to undercut the Ionity walk up price.

Black_Knight

Since my last random thought threw this thread into motion, how about another.

Will Nissan start adding CCS plugs to ask their garages like they have with chademo? Could that mean 10s of new CCS charge points when the Aryia comes out?

ELM327

unkel wrote: »

I'm very much opposed to forcing Tesla to do anything about giving the plebs access to their superchargers (:p) but if I was the owner I would sure look into getting more revenue from them. If I were a non-Tesla owner I would be happy to pay at least €1 per kWh to use them. For their convenience, their reliability, their speed.

Free market forces should not be interrupted so I agree.


Opening up the supercharger network would be the most pennywise pound foolish decision to ever be made. It's (via paid exclusive access) selling more Tesla cars than anything else.

unkel

You're probably right. I'm sure this is something that is carefully considered regularly in the Tesla board room.

AndyBoBandy

You'd be a fairly pi$$ed off Tesla driver though arriving at a Supercharger site to see 8 Ioniq's plugged in, and no available stalls.....

ELM327

I mean, it's not without some probable income from charging other OEMs but if you remove that reason to buy a Tesla, it puts all the other OEMs cars on level pegging and makes something like an etron or ipace more realistic.

ELM327

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

You'd be a fairly pi$$ed off Tesla driver though arriving at a Supercharger site to see 8 Ioniq's plugged in, and no available stalls.....

Absolutely.
Especially when, for a lot of people (myself included) the exclusive SuC network was the main reason to buy a Tesla. The idea that I can travel to france or spain in the morning (pre covid) and not have to worry about a million apps and fobs is brilliantly reassuring

Black_Knight

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

You'd be a fairly pi$$ed off Tesla driver though arriving at a Supercharger site to see 8 Ioniq's plugged in, and no available stalls.....

Priced appropriately for 3rd party manufactures and you'll have very few using them, but the option will still be there. Just like ionity, very expensive, but glad it's an option for me.

liamog

Seems we have a good mix of libertarians and market socialists here.

unkel

Black_Knight wrote: »

Priced appropriately for 3rd party manufactures and you'll have very few using them

Not commercially interesting if very few non-Teslas use them. I think I'll side with ELM327 here. Probably not a good idea for Tesla to open them up.

McGiver

liamog wrote: »

Seems we have a good mix of libertarians and market socialists here.

I prefer the centrist way - like they do in Germany or Norway.

Sound regulation, no over-regulation, but no crazy wild west "free" market either.

Example - Just mandate petrol stations to install chargers. If you leave it to the "market" in Ireland which can't legislate/regulate properly then you're up for a long wait for a proper infrastructure. Well, yeah Tesla will have a proprietary one, but that's kind of pointless for most of the consumers/market as a whole.

slave1

liamog wrote: »

As they are the only manufacturer running a closed access network, yes it applies to Tesla....

Nissan and Audi both have closed access networks via their dealership setup.
Rock up the Athlone Audi dealer day or night and you can charge your eTron for example.

Smaller than Tesla for sure but Tesla are not the only manufacturer "at it", they've just done it better penetration job, saw the market weakness and exploited it to their competitive advantage.

unkel

unkel wrote: »

You do realise that all new Teslas have CCS these days?

Where? Where did they do that.

https://electrek.co/2020/08/12/tesla-slashes-price-ccs-retrofit-model-s-x/#:~:text=Tesla%20has%20slashed%20the%20price,main%20charging%20standard%20to%20CCS.

Regulation is often good for consumers.

unkel

McGiver wrote: »

I prefer the centrist way - like they do in Germany or Norway.

Sound regulation, no over-regulation, but no crazy wild west "free" market either.

Example - Just mandate petrol stations to install chargers. If you leave it to the "market" in Ireland which can't legislate/regulate properly then you're up for a long wait for a proper infrastructure.

I believe market works best (within a legal framework)

The problem in Ireland is not that things were left to the "market". It's the opposite. A semi-state company installed and controls the public charging network, funded mostly from tax payers money. Their chargers were free to use for many years. This is completely the opposite of how a free market works. That is the problem.

liamog

slave1 wrote: »

Nissan and Audi both have closed access networks via their dealership setup.
Rock up the Athlone Audi dealer day or night and you can charge your eTron for example.

Smaller than Tesla for sure but Tesla are not the only manufacturer "at it", they've just done it better penetration job, saw the market weakness and exploited it to their competitive advantage.

As I said earlier.

liamog wrote:

There is a distinction between a charger at a dealer, and a limited charging network on a motorway. My own opinion is that is should be illegal to limit access to a public charging station. I don't want a situation where Castlebellingham has 50 chargers, 10 from each manufacturer. It's incredibly wasteful.

The chargers at dealers are intended to charge cars at the dealers, not as a public access network. I'm sure if you rocked up to the Audi garage every couple of days and used it to charge your car they'd be miffed.

slave1

Ah pednatic, if they want to charge just cars at dealers they would just granny it or an AC charger, the UK had a Nissan Network past 50 rapids for all Nissans to use (could not refuse) a few years back.
Time to just move on if you don't recognise the Nissan network as a network

liamog

slave1 wrote: »

Ah pednatic, if they want to charge just cars at dealers they would just granny it or an AC charger, the UK had a Nissan Network past 50 rapids for all Nissans to use (could not refuse) a few years back.
Time to just move on if you don't recognise the Nissan network as a network

Nissan funded a lot of the DBT chargers installed by Ecotricity, they partnered with a third party to offer a public access network. In fact I'm pretty sure Nissan and OLEV paid for all of the Ecotricity chargers, I'm not sure they've ever paid for an unsubsidised charger.

ELM327

Deleted User wrote: »

Where? Where did they do that.

https://electrek.co/2020/08/12/tesla-slashes-price-ccs-retrofit-model-s-x/#:~:text=Tesla%20has%20slashed%20the%20price,main%20charging%20standard%20to%20CCS.

Regulation is often good for consumers.

Since 2019 Q3 all Tesla cars sold will be sold "natively" with CCS. In the case of S/X the adapter is included

MJohnston

Is the Nissan network actually a closed one or just honour-system closed?

I went into Frank Keane VW Liffey Valley the other week for some enquiries and I saw a couple of fast chargers there (none of them on any of the charging map apps btw). So I plugged my i3 in without asking anyone at all, it worked, for free, right away.

Had I just sat in the car, I very much doubt anyone would have stopped me, or even looked in my general direction. Are the Nissan chargers any different?

McGiver

unkel wrote: »

I believe market works best (within a legal framework)

The problem in Ireland is not that things were left to the "market". It's the opposite. A semi-state company installed and controls the public charging network, funded mostly from tax payers money. Their chargers were free to use for many years. This is completely the opposite of how a free market works. That is the problem.

I think we're talking more or less the same thing. I just maintain that semi-states are fine if regulated.

Yes, leaving it to the market is fine but the key here is "legal framework", which generally doesn't happen in Ireland at all or it's outright wrong. You have to regulate/enforce rules well for the "free market" to work, else it's neither free nor a market.

Not allowing ANY semi-states AT ALL is an ideological purism and eventually harmful position tot take - it's an idealistic position which doesn't work in reality. Semi-state involvement is perfectly fine if it is tendered out via a proper tender, with a proper legislation in place, with proper conditions and followed by a proper regulation of the market including allowing/encouraging further operators to enter the market. None of that happened in Ireland.

If there was no semi-state involvement in Ireland at all and if it was all 'left to the "market"', you know what would happen? There would be no infrastructure at all, because Irish governance is pretty poor when it comes with legislation and regulation. Leaving it to the market would have worked ONLY and ONLY IF the state properly legislated rules how that market should operate, legislate to remove obstacles ("cut red tape") and also legislate incentives to kick-start the market. Do you realistically think any of that would happen?

KCross

MJohnston wrote: »

Is the Nissan network actually a closed one or just honour-system closed?

Open and free to use but only have ChaDeMO cable so closed from that perspective!

slave1

MJohnston wrote: »

Is the Nissan network actually a closed one or just honour-system closed?

I went into Frank Keane VW Liffey Valley the other week for some enquiries and I saw a couple of fast chargers there (none of them on any of the charging map apps btw). So I plugged my i3 in without asking anyone at all, it worked, for free, right away.

Had I just sat in the car, I very much doubt anyone would have stopped me, or even looked in my general direction. Are the Nissan chargers any different?

You rogue!
From when I was researching prior to getting our Leaf back in 2017 the Nissan Fast Charger networks are for Nissan car owners and unless there's a queue or some operational reason the Nissan garage cannot refuse a Nissan car from charging as passing.
Again from memory, there was a Nissan dealer who got the charger taken out because of the amount of Nissans that were stopping and charging and he was worried about his leccy bill.

eagerv

I see my local VW dealer has two charge points in front of main door. One AC other DC (I Think 22kW).

The salesperson knew nothing about them, but they appear to need a card to start, so probably just for in house use.