Article: Automakers fed up with EA, driving the change to Tesla and NACS

[TXSchnee]

Saw this referenced over on The Autopian, and it is indeed an interesting article on how fed up, in general, other automakers are with EA. Part 1 released yesterday, 2 today, 3 and 4 to follow. https://chargedevs.com/features/how...o-teslas-arms-ev-charging-is-changing-part-1/

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[TXAG]

Intriguing. While my 2022 RWD had issues with EA charging about half the time during the first three months (Jun-Aug 2022), it's been flawless ever since.

 

[daveo4EV]

not enough pop-corn in the world to watch this play out - OMG it's both better and worse than I could've imagined…there is some very very high stakes let's make this up as we go along being played here while the "other guys/bullies" are being forced to reconcile with their victim, the victim is both appealing with their tech and yet untrustworthy and routinely overstates their capabilities and runs with thinner engineering standards than the industry is used to…

wow - simply wow - we are watching monumental change occur in real time with very little pre-determined outcome…

I'm both excited, optimistic and terrified and disgusted…they really haven't yet taken this whole EV thing seriously.

it's just amazing to watch people make it up as they go along on such a public stage and not everyone is that good at impromptu - unfortunately or fortunately Elon is one of the best at impromptu and that is both a blessing and a curse in this case - he's also more technical that the other CEO's he might have just outmaneuvered - but not technical enough to be infallible where others are unwilling to follow…

wow…simply wow.

 

[whitex]

Irony here is that EA is the result of collaboration between different automakers. They are essentially saying - screw what we all came up together, let's just go with the solution of a single company which said "we know better, don't need any of your input" and just built it.

 

[whitex]

Elon is one of the best at impromptu and that is both a blessing and a curse in this case - he's also more technical that the other CEO's he might have just outmaneuvered

I don't think Elon is as technical as many people give him credit for. Yes, he is technical, but I've known CEO's of large companies who were a lot more technical - could talk in amazing detail with their engineers. What Elon has that most other CEOs don't is complete, total, dictatorial control. Like Gates at Microsoft or Jobs at Apple. Such dictators have the power to do what their subsequent replacements could never pull off. Jobs for example could send engineers back to the drawing board because product was not perfect enough, totally ignoring the fact that it will cause Apple to completely miss our on the Christmas season for the year - large volume of sales lost. If Tim Cook did something like this, he'd be voted off the board before Thanksgiving. Gates was able to stop all development and refocus it around the internet (explorer) - sacrificing a number of large projects and associated revenue. If Satya Nadella wanted to focus 95% of company resources on one thing, even if it was the latest craze like AI or crypto, no way the board would let him. Sure he can dedicate large portions of resources, but not to the extent Gates could.

Elon is not always right. He's probably right less than half the time. However that is completely offset by the benefits of making decisions fast, making very quick pivots and instant corrections. In the time it would take a large company to build a new product, Elon's company would already be on their 40th iteration of the product, with the first 10 probably not even shippable. That, and Elon is an obsessive workaholic, so was Jobs and Gates.

 

[snstevens]

Now see the latest from Honda --

https://hondanews.com/en-US/honda-a...ndard-nacs-for-its-ev-models-in-north-america

 

[snstevens]

Saw this referenced over on The Autopian, and it is indeed an interesting article on how fed up, in general, other automakers are with EA. Part 1 released yesterday, 2 today, 3 and 4 to follow. https://chargedevs.com/features/how...o-teslas-arms-ev-charging-is-changing-part-1/

Great series of articles - thanks for sharing!

 

[gtm]

So no access to NACS chargers. Apparently VW wasn't invited to make the group of 7 the group of 8. Soon the upside to having a VW product will be that with everyone else abandoning EA we won't have to worry about waiting to charge at half speed at the one functioning charge tower. I road trip with my Taycan and need access to DC fast charging networks that functions. Unless Porsche finds a solution to the charging mess there will not be another Porsche EV in my future. Sad, because while there are some "quirks" I love the car.

 

[Jonathan S.]

^ Don't give up hope yet for Taycan access to those ~12k Tesla V3 Superchargers! Or maybe I'm just being delusional ...?

But seriously, Elon has said only that that NACS plug capitulators will have access next spring, w/o saying that other CCS1 marques will be blocked.
He might just decide that filtering for that is too much of an annoyance, and that he's already obtained sufficient concessions from those other marques, and that he'd rather have more charging revenue, perhaps at a higher $/kWh rate. (Please, pretty please? I'd be happy to pay a buck per kWh during my rare DCFC sessions.)

The JV membership is also puzzling. If profitability is anticipated, then why even limit it to car companies. If instead the idea is to subsidize EV sales, then the JV members are facing a big free rider problem.

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