Hello! I agonized over this script for a long time. It is, after all, not a video I had hoped to make. But, as I said, I only have petty, ego-based reasons to be upset by this news. It would be weird to ignore it, so with this video I'm just ripping the band-aid off. Here's hoping it doesn't sting too much. During all this agonizing, a lot of stuff ended up getting removed, some in error. Hence the puppies. To tie a loose end, while Electrify America does accept normal payments (at least, when all the equipment is working) I have to use their app to take advantage of the free charging sessions my car came with. As soon as those run out, I probably won't bother anymore! I don't fast charge enough to make their membership worth it. Good job, Tesla. Now you can have your cake and eat it, too.
Correction here: CCS can handle 1500V and 800A. Please check the current standard (IEC 62196-1:2022, Edition 4 from 2022). Otherwise the video is spot on.
As an IT engineer I am pretty worried by the increasing reliance on software and apps for the most basic of functions like payments. The complexity of something should be inversely proportional to its criticality, and having to rely on a poorly coded phone app that is itself running on a device with a long list of possible failure points is just a bad bad bad idea in general.
Absolutely. Went to a pizza place that didn't have internet at the time I went in and they ceased to be a pizza place. Apparently they weren't backward compatible with paper menus and cash only.
All the companies just want your sweet sweet data. Many times they don´t even know what to do with it so they just collect it, but noway they will just let you pay anonymously by card without making a two page long log about you and your enviroment first.
@@ChaosTherumWelcome to Sweden. The cashless country. Here you use credit card, or maybe debit card, and mobile payment (called Swish). Cash is more and more rare.
As a devops engineer who meets fucking programmers on their worst on a daily basis, I wish nothing had software in it. But yeah 24 cores and 96gigs of memory seems fair for a todo app.
40:15 "While I know some EV drivers loathe the idea that charging locations might start resembling gas stations" I'm with you on this one, I really hope they _do_ start resembling gas stations. I like roofs, and fountain drinks, and the windshield squeegie. Gas stations have it figured out when it comes to physical layout, almost like they've been making incremental improvements for a century now. EV's don't need to reinvent that particular wheel.
They will have to adjust a little bit, since the turnaround time is so much longer and you kinda need to expect to be servicing more cars at the same time because of that if you want even remotely similar throughput, but yeah I agree on the whole.
It needs to be different, but same principle, offer the dry place to stand to connect the car. You do not want to do it in rain. But it needs to be drive through, so no reversing. Low roof, some simple sheet metal cover. Actually the others needs to step out front of the main building, and then driver go to put can in charger. So no kids running in the danger and no need for everyone walk under rain from charging station to main building. You need as well have a clock on top of the charger to show someone how long car is still being in there. So you can line up behind it for your turn, when there is high traffic... As 20+ stations is hard to do, and only few can do 40+.
You know what else gas stations do? TELL YOU THE PRICE! There's a gigantic illuminated sign with numbers on it facing the road that tells you how much it costs. One of the huge issues I see right now is insane levels of price gouging at smaller charging stations, and you basically have to get there and look at the screen (here in the UK) to work out beforehand what the price per kWh is. Being able to drive past somewhere and work out what the price is both for AC and DC charging, and then benchmark that against the next place, will be crucial for future adoption. Too many times I've shown up somewhere and balked at the price as being two or three times what it is at my local charging point and just driven off.
@@TheMysteryDriver Oh there are (at least in part, not every public charger is on there), and I could be accused of being a bit old fashioned at this point but I personally don't care to go into an app, click individually on each different station, try to remember the different prices and flick through about five or six in the area. Plus, to me, the broader point is that by advertising prices like gas stations do, it incentivises a degree of price competition among the various charging speeds. It's a lot harder for naughty little chargers that cost three times as much as others to hide out in the open, and I think it would facilitate the transition away from ICE cars. Plus you also get technical barriers of the stations needing to be visible - there are 24 new stations in my town installed by the local council and none of them are on any of the mapping sites. And every time the rates change, those stations need to be able to broadcast those rates to a lot of third-party sites. Plus prices can change based on the time of day, unlike gas which typically only changes once per day at most. It's just a lot more "fidgety" than I want, ignoring the fact that I'm going to have to switch to yet another app for the charger I use to initiate the session. In my ideal world, we'd colour code charging speeds (for example
@@DreadpirateflappyYou should be planning ahead no? Tesla's tablet-like interface makes it easy to pull all this info. Technology is good here, it means you don't drive an extra couple miles to visually check the next station just to go d'oh and have to turn around to save a few dollars.
@@xipalips...and *exactly that attitude* is one of the huge roadblocks to encouraging people to voluntarily switch to obligate plug-in EVs. Most people dont want to *have* to pre-plan and chart their road trips in advance like a pilot.
Electrify America is the "community service" that Volkswagen had to carry out as its sentence for Dieselgate, and gets all the attention and care you'd expect from a court-mandated reparation effort.
but but but we need to install our walled garden so everyone believes they HAVE to use us as if our widget somehow makes the electrons special!!!! And dont worry, I have a Taiwanese cousin whos really good with computers, so my aunt tells me, and I will get him to do the interface. So we can save there on our multibillion dollar venture...... Serious talk though....its what they CHOOSE to be cheap on that should worry us.....
One of those hoops that I hope is removed is the requirement to own/use a smartphone or register for an "account" to charge - someone should be able to walk up to a charger and anonymously pay cash. No app, no checking account or credit card. Or if bill acceptors on exposed terminals is an issue, then perhaps be able to walk into a convenience store and buy a "prepaid" anonymous card that they could then use to pay for charging.
@@r6u356une56neybro, you are driving a giant mobile phone that reports its location every minute and you are worried about privacy??? If you care about privacy then buy a car from early 2000s and make sure OnStar in removed if the car comes with it
Seriously, if the mess that is the charging infrastructure was a thing gas stations did over in the gasoline world, people would absolutely riot. And rightfully so. It's mind boggling that we as consumers just accept this mess as a fact of life in the EV world.
To add to your spicy bit: people lend their cars out (especially parents). If charging cost is bound to the car then you need to manually go back and sort the payment of the charges with the person who borrowed your car. Instead of, you know, them paying for it immediately
Ooh, very true. It's like having to borrow somebodies payment card. The lendee might keep receipts and the onus is on the lender to review it all or view their statement.
Do people really lend out their cars and then get an@lly retentive about the exact cost of the gas/electricity used? I'm not lending my car out to anyone who's going to use so much gas that it becomes relevant and who I don't already have a respectful relationship to know they'd do the right thing (whether that be throw a few bucks or a six pack my way).
@@DavidJao Never heard of Turo. Looking at their website seems like the closest vehicle is over 400km away (there's only a single vehicle) and next closest is about 700km from me.
@@DavidJaoAn easy solution to that would be to look at the average charging costs incurred when renting out the vehicle, and then roll that into the rates being charged.
In the UK, it is fairly common to see electric chargers at either service stations or at petrol (gas) stations, even having signs on the road advertising the price per kwh like petrol prices. It is such a nice experience to be able to charge whilst under a canopy that is lit and have a shop as well, and also someone to talk to in case of something going wrong.
Starting to see that in the US as well. A new gas station that was built in my neighborhood also has Tesla superchargers. Weirdly, the Tesla superchargers have no canopy so that was a miss, but gas stations are beginning to include EV charging at least.
@@tboneforreal I've used a Wawa, in the rain, with my Model Y. It isn't that bad getting a bit of rain on while plugging in and then unplugging. I've also used a gas station to fill up my old car in a rural area and they didn't have a canopy, and it was pissing it down. Standing next to the pump and getting drenched absolutely sucked.
@@stevemulcahy5014 the difference being that you have to hold the pump trigger the whole time you are filling the tank, whereas with an EV you insert the connector and walk away,
@@gregbailey45don't you have those little tabs that you can engage so you don't have to hold the trigger? In any case: EVs are the future, but holding a lever for 60 seconds is simply not a big deal, not even compared to getting charging cables out of the car and plugging them in.
@@gregbailey45 I think that’s the point I was making. But yes, exactly that. Canopies don’t matter so much at superchargers for the human aspect or the equipment’s resilience, but third party chargers with poorly weather sealed card readers need them.
What you described at the end is already happening in Europe. Utilities are placing normal AC charging points on the side of the road. A couple of them are even working on billing it straight to your home power bill (this already works in London in the UK, iirc).
I do Waze map editing. Recently, a 3rd party worked with Waze to add all their chargers to Waze. The problem is that all chargers had to be verified by map editors. The number of broken, blocked off and disconnected chargers that were listed as active is crazy.
I think we'll never have a TRULY accurate charge state map. Simply because, some percentage of failed units will fail after working on one car, while it is not in use, so no one (nor the internal diagnostics) will know it has failed until another car attempts to charge on it.
@@matejlieskovsky9625 Even gas stations have these issues. Nothing is perfect, but it should be easier with electric! Eventually. Having a frustrating electric experience comes down to density. If a gas station runs out, is closed, or is reported wrong, you don't blame gas engines for it because you can just go to the next station. Usually. I think that's where anti-EV misses the mark so far. Once there is more availability, those instances of failure will sting much less and the map will provide many alternative options.
Or indeed a WiFi connection. I can it's possible to have a use for a fridge that can reorder (store on a remote list app) what you use perhaps but I can see NO REASON for a kettle to have a WiFi connection,
my telescope needs an app to use from indoors. so what? my paper OS map needs an app to function as a satnav device. lots of things have extra value by being combined with an app. I think you should more carefully consider the battles you fight.
@@KarldorisLambley It's not about having an app for certain functionalities or in certain scenarios, it's about needing an app to use its basic functions where this is not necessary at all - or just to save some money on the OEM side. For the telescope example: You say it needs an app to work from indoors - but that doesn't mean it needs an app to work *at all*. That's the difference. Why would it need an app if you could, for example, just plug it into a laptop an control it from there? Or another personal example: We have a TV recorder that will only work with an internet connection. It's not IPTV, it's for cable. The signal is there. You can't even watch recordings without an internet connection. Why? It's for the greedieness of Vodafone. It's not like you pay monthly anyway so they could just check at the beginning of every month, no it needs to be connected to a rather unstable (cause Vodafone) internet connection all the time for no reason.
I feel like chargers at your workplace are significantly under-appreciated. I used them regularly and I think it's a fantastic use the ~8 hours that the car is not moving.
Not quite the same, but I want to get a fast ebike (which I'd have to register as a motorbike where I am, but no biggie) and then lug a bluetti and some flex panels to my job just once, free recharge! (most days). Also the car park is fairly secure and I live in a civilised country. If you leave such expensive toys out in the open in, say, the UK, you're basically just giving them to somebody.
Just curious, what's your commute distance? Wouldn't it be better to slow charge at your home during the night, when the electricity rates are at their lowest tier?
London/UK has a plug-n-charge solution that connects to your house power bill. With the movement to LED streetlights, there was extra capacity so custom plugs were added to the base of some streetlights. You keep a powercord with an onboard computer in your trunk, and that computer keeps track of your power usage and reports it back.
@@geoffhaylock6848 you think car thieves have an income? They steal a car and joyride crash it later or dive till caught. Very few stolen cars are able to be sold/exported/chopped up 99% is teenager's
@@frostedlambs If you can't charge the car you can't drive until caught. You drive until the battery is dead. BEV's work on rechargeable batteries not Duracell's. The teenagers can't run into Walmart and steal a bunch of double A's. You might be surprised to hear this but..... There are professional car thieves!!! I know, shock horror!!!
TC is a class act. He is willing to admit he bet on the wrong horse but that it's really nothing more than an ego blow. Which he admits. When presented with new information he adapts and accepts it
My respect skyrockets for people who are objective and just change their stance on new information. THAT is how you improve yourself, and know the person is indeed a smart person. Even smart person's make mistake, but the real smart person's are those who constantly improve themselves.
EVs needs to use GPS to route to fast chargers so the cars knows how far they are from the chargers and thus can precondition the batteries to accept fast charging. Just looking for a sign and pull in to plug in will not give you the benefit of charging fast.
@@michaelchien1236 While true, preconditioning isn't required, and doesn't invalidate highway signs. Highway signs are important for locating fuel when you are running low unexpectedly, or are unfamiliar with the area you are driving through. Not everyone is driving with a passenger, and it's unsafe to set a GPS location while driving down the highway. (Not every EV has good hands-free navigation to charging). If your battery is low and already warm from driving, it will charge at essentially the maximum rate anyway, and all you need to know is what exit to take to find an acceptable charger. Ideally the provider, the kWh range available, and if we're feeling ambitious, a live count of available stalls would be enough information to decide whether or not to exit.
@@diggoran Is there an EV without satnav though? (Well, one that takes a modern charging port, anyway?) If every car that needs to find a charging port has the map of charging ports on it, what's the issue? Keep down the annoying sign clutter, IMHO.
@@FuckGoogle502 I agree the signs do introduce a lot of clutter that I would love to see disappear. However I was simply trying to call it out as infrastructure that exists to aid gas car drivers that isn’t in place for ev drivers. And while gps or satnav is widely supported, it is also dangerous to use while driving unless you are willing to use voice commands and trust whatever option is automatically selected is the best choice for your car or journey. The signs on the highway are safer to use while driving, and some include live elements like the current price (charge speed and wait time would be more relevant for ev drivers, probably).
@@FuckGoogle502 Is there an EV without satnav? Yes, your EV as soon as your satnav stops working. Also its just a lot more user-friendly to look where you're going to find a fill station instead of looking on some kind of internal electronic GPS and following directions.
An electrical engineer here. You're absolutely right about exceeding current rating of wires for limited amount of time. Conductors are going to survive that just fine. Insulation suffers degradation with over time at high operating temperature, shortening its life; in extreme cases insulation may catch fire. Degradation is exponential with temperature. For homes it's really important not to play with this.
@@Lord_zeel it starts as an estimate how often charging occurs, a temperature profile and finally expected life is estimated. maybe even the temperature is measured (would make sense since ambient temperature wildly varies), and power is throttled such that even "often" is not that often, or is as often as anticipated. That's the level I'd expect from an engineering team that is pressed to minimize cost.
"The presumption that new and different always equals better." This sums up my thoughts as well. When I was going through engineering school to become a mechanical engineer, some of our classes dealt with the reality that new technologies pretty much always have teething issues, or don't actually solve a problem that needed solving and often end up needlessly complicating a system that already works. I completely agree with your position on this. I too carry a wallet with those plastic rectangles and have no issues using them to pay for goods or services. They just work.
I have to respectfully disagree. It seems to me that not having to use those plastic rectangles would result in less credit card fraud. Some people still use Debit cards and illegal card readers coupled with the pin pads that records a cardholders pin code is a very serious problem. It seems to be me that the Plug and Charge model would reduce or even eliminate such credit and debit card fraud. Of course, criminals are always looking for new ways to defraud people, so it wouldn't surprise me if, in the future, someone discovers a ways to defraud EV owners using Plug and Charge, but i believe that the current credit card architecture is definitely not as secure as you think.
@@chasiubow168 I just carry cash. No electrical or fraud problems whatsoever. Electric should be used for goods that are disposable and replaceable, because it is nearly impossible for the lay man to repair.
@@chasiubow168ah, the "but sometimes" argument that this channel repeatedly mentions. You know theft can happen with everything, including cash? In fact, cash technically belongs to whoever is holding it in that exact moment. If you lose it in any way, it's not your money anymore. If my credit card gets stolen, I can turn off my card and overturn any fraudulent charges made. If someone steals my cash, it's just gone. No way I'm getting it back unless I somehow catch the thief or get my belongings returned to me after they've been caught by the authorities. Any fraudulent charge, even ones made with keypad pin code recorders, can be overturned by turning off your card and contacting your bank, and reporting it as fraud. After that, you get a new card with a new pin within 3-5 business days and you're good to get using it again. It's a mild inconvenience, but in the meantime you could use a different card, or just use cash. Also, automatic pay systems like plug and charge are.... Not very secure with their payment information. They're about as good as any other app, like McDonald's or Walmart. They can be compromised. That's why we have failsafes in the event that these systems are compromised. Also, It's still technically credit/debit card fraud if the payment information is recorded for a service. Just saying.
@chasiubow168 CREDIT fraud under US law: The credit company has to take the loss, not the customer. (2) Paying with credit or cash should still be an option. Imagine going to a store, and every one of them demanded you setup an account. The walmart account. The JCPenney account. The target account. The amazon account. BS on that. Just take my credit card or cash that works universally with everyone.
CCS will accept debit cards. As far as fraud is concerned, since the vast majority of small purchases everywhere outside the US are now contactless, adding EV charging has a negligible effect. Nothing else needs a subscription so why should EV charging be different?@@chasiubow168
I love the greater charging ecosystem criticisms you bring up. Everyone in the industry should take these points seriously. Convenience is still key and building an artificial moat is backtracking progress.
Meanwhile getting ICE cars to far lower CO2 emissions than that of EVs costs a fraction of what the world-record massive (totalitarian, forced) revolution of mandated EVs cost us, and avoids destroying our economy (making us unable to invest in CO2-reducing projects), our markets, and so many lives. And with working on ICE fuels we get lower CO2 system-wide *_immediately_* instead of having to change all cars over many decades, destroy the West geopolitically and get ourselves under that one certain huge Asian nation's hegemony by buying all our tech and cars, at least battery minerals from them...made with energy from their thousands of coal-powered plants, and made with essentially slave labour. At least about 30% of them are already now cleaner than EVs using fossil fuels, and the ICE cars are easily ALL instantly made far lower than all EVs in CO2 emissions by changing their fuel at almost no cost at all! So many of us in Europe have been driving our ICE cars at far lower CO2 emissions than EVs for years and years, costing us only a few hundred more per year (or in the case of people driving on biomethane it costs LESS than fossil fuels!). Compare that to the tens of thousands in extra costs EVs cause...not to mention destroying so many lives: the human toll from forced EVs is an absolute tragedy!
100% agree with you on needing payment systems on each charger. Yes, it raises complexity and maintenance, but it increases reliability in the "I'm standing here right now" sense - not being able to charge your 0% car because some web service is down in the cloud or there's a problem with your account would be infuriating.
Yeah I'd rather have an ordinary charging station with kWh meter and be able to pay with cash to the cashier Credit cards and bank account are becoming more convenient, but regular cash money is still unbeatable to this day, especially in emergency situation
Real question. Are credit card based gas pumps not dependent upon a remote connection? I have had more issues with out of service gas pumps than EV stations.
@@sixty-six No. Card payments can be made offline and transmitted at a later time. They won't be able to do the pre-charge though so they may limit how much you can pump.
As an ICE driver I can only compare the situation with filling up at a local gas station. I think right now the problem is that DC fast chargers are often set up by themselves at the end of a Walmart parking lot. A lot of the issues with the charging networks could be fixed by setting them up like a gas station. Gas pumps typically have both pay at the pump and pay inside options at a minimum. Ice pumps are also covered to keep the owners out of bad weather and staff than can help with any issues.
As someone who helped drive across country in an electric truck recently, I was happy to see that trashcans were added for the evgo chargers at Casey's gas stations. After we realized we were *that* pleased just because of a trash can, we started talking about many of the above points missing for EV's that ICE vehicles received.
One thing to bear in mind is that the throughput for gas pumps will likely be a lot higher for the forseeable future so costs will easier to justify (though trashcans, fair enough). The canopy makes sense too because people are basically outside the whole time they're filling where for an EV, you'd basically only be outside long enough to plug in and it wouldn't being used the rest of the charging cycle. Though with that said, I think solar powered canopies could be good for many parking spaces even without charging.
@@snoekbaars1 I'm not sure I understand what point you're trying to make with your comment. Are you saying that because gas is more widely used, simple things such as windshield washing stations and trash cans make less sense at EV charging stations?
Totally agree on the 'hot take'. Absolutely. I want electric charging stations to look like a petrol station too. They should have cover, they should have staff, and I should be able to pay for the recharge with physical money if that's all I have on me.
It's too easily automated to have staff. It doesn't have all of the infrastructure and records a gas station needs either. Dunno about your place but where I worked for a bit you need careful records of every delivery of gas with tank change readouts attached, and physical records of all of that have to be kept going back 3 years.
I will say it would be nice to have options that did not rely so heavily on a credit card payment AND a functioning app AND cellular/Wi-Fi connection (granted, these last two apply if not using a physical credit card to pay at the console, if even allowed that option, which some places crazily do not). Maybe the locations could work out using/creating pre-loaded cards made through a machine that accepts cash.
@@scout360pyroz @Mr.HansBischoff you guys do realizes that gas station isnt just for refueling, right? they have convenient stores, washroom, cafe, some even have a motel and a repair garage.. gas station are often a place for driver to take short break additional to refueling... so i really dont see a downside for recharging station to mimic a gas station... i mean, EV drivers are still human... right?
In Norway they have gas station style charging locations, canopy to shelter people, show with a deli or restaurant.Looks like the future. Hopefully as charging gets faster this will become more popular.
Almost every supercharger I've been to is in a shopping mall with restaurants, stores, entertainment, etc. I think there's like 2 out in the desert that have nothing but a convenience store nearby.
@@evilhamsterman Well, right. But if you're in a shopping mall parking lot where the other cars aren't under roofs either, I'm not sure what the problem is. Go into the mall if it's too hot. I was just pointing out that I've never been to a supercharger that didn't have a restaurant or deli like the person I was responding to said. And most of them have an entire place you can amuse yourself for the half hour it takes to charge even if you're not hungry. It's true they don't have wash buckets, but I grew up driving in the 70s and I still find it amazing that gas stations won't sell you washer fluid or engine oil or tires, either, so there's that. I stick a squeegee in my trunk and don't worry about it.
Even though I'm sure that oil companies don't want to do anything to help promote EV's, I'm honestly surprised that no gas station chains in the US have decided to start including charging stations as well, or as pointed out in the video, at least truck stops. Plus, people sitting at a charger for 20 minutes or more are a captive audience. They will definitely shop in the convenience store while waiting for their car to charge
Honestly, I think the future of the highway charging station is something like Buc-ees. Hundreds of access points, stuff for people to do, and make it more of a reason to stop other than just charging.
I agree with you. Stunned that this model has not taken off yet. I’ve been so surprised that the chargers are just sitting out in the open, with nothing around them, no employees and no security.
If you're driving long enough to kill a fully charged EV battery, then you should probably be taking a reasonable break from driving when you're on E anyways. If you have a 300 mile EV range, then you're looking at 4-6 hours on the road before that needs recharging. Sounds like a good time to have a meal break to me.
In fact, the very design of a Buc-ee's gas pump system makes its amenable to upgrading to EV charging in the future. I can see by 2040 most of the current gas pumps will all be replaced by DC chargers that support up to 512 kW initial charging rate.
Might revitalize small towns along the highway now, you could put the chargers in or near the town center, which would help local businesses instead of building an entirely new complex like buckees. Granted there might not be a small town where needed, but I'd like to think there were
You know what I appreciate a lot about your videos? That you take the time to make sure the closed captions are excellent, despite it probably taking significant effort for videos as long as yours.
@@RainingBulletsRUclips is pretty good at auto timing. You can just take the auto generated subtitles and replace the text with your script. Still takes work, of course, but a lot easier than it was before RUclips.
Normally the end card has some... interesting content as well only in the CC, but this video didn't have one so I guess you'll just have to go watch more of his videos if you haven't been watching them with captions on
@@DavidJaoYou can pass your own script to RUclips and it'll use your own formatting and even typos. It still has some issues (subtitles don't disappear when you don't speak, for example), but it's pretty good for what it has to do.
I really appreciate the quality of your captions, especially how well you include tone and timing jokes/info in them. You’d be surprised how many people don’t bother.
From someone who has been working in the EV charging industry for over a decade, I will say that you completely nailed it. I may also add that you nailed it in an entertaining and easy to understand (and share) manner. Keep these videos and perspectives coming.
As a fellow EV driver, I soooo much agree with your "rant" at the end! We need "fuel" stations for DC fast charging - not another subscription... Thanks for a great video - as always!
I don't think DC Charging can resemble Gas Stations due to overall lower usage. With Gas Stations all vehicles fill up at them 99% of the time, with DC Fast Charging these are generally only used when doing longer journeys or where drivers can't charge at home/work. I hope they will improve but I don't think the economics will work
@@Pegaroo_thats why he said "at least on major highways" Highways will get dedicated DC charging stations. Taking a 30min rest is normal even when you just stopped to fill your tank. So when charging the same thing will be an economical option. So city gasstations might disappear, but everything else will probably remain just changed
@@AlphaHorst I just don't see them having 24/7 manned services. It would be nice if it happens for the folks that need help with plugging in but it always comes down to money, is it profitable to have someone there all the time when 99% of folks don't need the help. Unless it's legislated otherwise companies will go with the cheapest option
I appreciate the point you made about charging needing to be more accessible to renters! I asked my landlord about installing EV charging in my apartment complex (which has hundreds of residents and multiple EVs), and they just ignored me. I'm fortunate enough that I can charge my Leaf at work, but not being able to charge where people live is still a big barrier to EV ownership.
Some states have a 'right to charge' law which allows the renter to install their own charger (either an outlet for one or hardwired). And in some of those cases the landlord legally cannot stop you. You'd still have to work out how to pay the electricity use with the property owner of course. It's worth looking into and worth the cost of install if you plan to stay at a given place for a few years or more.
Eventually, landlords will start to see car charging as an easy revenue stream, alongside laundry machines. Already, I've heard stories of places where renting a parking space with access to even a simple wall plug costs upwards of $100/month. Unfortunately, there are not yet enough EVs to make the business case clear, especially with the vast majority of current EV drivers being homeowners, rather than renters. There's a chicken and egg cycle here where renters won't buy EVs until landlords install chargers, but landlords won't install chargers until enough of their tenants buy EVs. If the government really wants to break this cycle (e.g. for pollution/climate change reasons), I think the only way to do it for the government to simply offer big subsidies to the landlords to get it done, while also doing the same for employers to maximize the odds that people who can't charge at home can at least charge at work. Unfortunately, governments don't seem particularly interested in this problem because the people with lots of money are all homeowners, and can install their own chargers, so the government's interest is focused on fast chargers in travel corridors for people road-tripping instead.
I'm not sure if you've covered this but have you ever covered MIDI and how all keyboard, synth, sampler manufacturers in the early 80s agreed on how to communicate between different manufacturers?
Gas pumps have already figured out how best to handle the transact of resupplying of fuel to a vehicle. I insert or tap my card, then select my resupply type, then connect the it to my vehicle. EV charges could reverse the "select" and "connect" order so your vehicle can tell the charger what types of resupply are available, but other than that it should be the exact same.
The voltage(s) are set by the car, but let's say you're parked at a charger while watching a 2 hour movie. It would be much better for your battery life to have some way of saying "hey, tbh I only need level 2 charging" or whatever Also, as mentioned in the video, gas stations have tried to implement what you suggested and no one wanted it. Unless there's a standard for that too, I don't see it being the norm. At the very least, paying by card and cash should always be an option
@@TechridrI don't really want 15 apps to pay for fuel to go on a road trip though, nor do I want the pain of trying to research if the charger I'm about to stop at supports whichever proprietary plug and charge protocol my EV vendor chose. And that's before factoring in all the privacy implications of having yet more companies gaining perpetual access to my payment details and personal information as Alec pointed out. It's really not that inconvenient to just slap your phone on the little radio symbol on a fuel pump, it requires a lot less R&D, and a lot less active management of perpetual subscriptions. Right now, I can just go to any fuel station I please and buy fuel, I don't need to think about what company owns it, I don't need to remember if I've got a subscription to their service, I don't need to download another stupid app to clutter my phone, it all just works. When I eventually get an EV, that's what I want, to be able to just pull up to any charger I choose and just slap my phone using NFC payments on the payment terminal and go from there. The only way I would accept plug and charge is if it effectively just implemented the same payment process as phone NFC payments using a standard payment processor, but I highly doubt that will happen, and in the mean time tapping a phone is just easier than dealing with multiple independent networks and implementations that refuse to talk to each other.
@@TechridrAnd actually, there are "types" of supply. In the same way that diesel can be dispensed from high flow or low flow pumps, not all chargers support 800V charging, and not all chargers offer 350kW charging. Not quite the same thing but it's still important to pay attention to unless you want to annoy people with 300+kW capable vehicles while you slowly charge a Volt on one of the few fast chargers.
Your views on charger locations are spot on and in Shreveport, Louisiana, make your point even better. Shreveport, LA has ONE (1) Tesla charger location - located in a totally dark (after 11 p.m.) mall parking lot with NO lighting (broken for two years) - in a sketchy neighborhood. This is not an incentive of locals to buy a Tesla and a horror for those getting off of I-20 or I-49 in the middle of the night for a charge. There is no place to eat or anything else. Until this charging station mess is solved in less-than-major metro areas, EVs will be a struggle to sell.
I grew up in Shreveport but left 25 years ago; I see not much has changed 😆. Oh and I live in a town of 12,000 (in New England) with a Tesla supercharging station and over half a dozen other public charging stations, many of them free… which is nice considering the diminished range during the winter months 🥶
Around here, Tesla was smart to get an agreement with Wawa to have Superchargers in the same place as a gas station. All the advantages of a gas station to stop at with almost no downsides aside a lack of canopy since they still take normal parking stands.
I've seen a few Sheetz stations that have superchargers, too. It seems like a logical progression for the better sort of convenience store or truck stop to embrace having quick charging/supercharger stations and get some business out of people who will need to spend a half hour or so topping up their cars.
I’m in Australia, and the petrol station chains are already promoting fast charging EV parking bays. Many of them have already been built. In the same advertising they promote solar panels on the roof of the shop as a green initiative to offset the coal fired electricity that they’re using for 95% of the charging kW…. Yay, I’m charging using all 3kW from the rooftop solar array and 57kW from the grid. But wait, 2 others pull up to charge and have to share that. So technically I would only be seeing a maximum of 1kW from that array….. Still doesn’t stop them greenwashing us….
I’ve used an Electrify America station located at a Loves truck stop/gas station in Salina UT. It also lacked a canopy and pull throughs but had everything else you expect at a gas station.
This is why I love this channel. Reasonable takes and willingness to adapt to new developments without much huff. If more people were reasonable like Alec, we'd be better off. And probably have a lot more bubbly jazz. Hey wait, where is the jazz??
Regarding the whole paying from the infotainment screen... I couldn't disagree more. We have things figured out, but those things are FAR more prone to damage from the elements. I think manual pay should be an option, but adding more methods could prevent your issue with broken chip readers. Keeping all payment processing internal limits wear and tear on debit processing. Good example of why this already being in place: *Current* card readers. They often have tap to pay... and chip reading... AND the magnetic strip reading still. All 3. Because if 1 breaks, the other two still function. I don't think anyone would be for completely removing debit processing from fast chargers, but I think most are for redundancy.
I love these videos and don't care how long they get. The fact you can speak for more than 5 seconds at a time without a jump cut shows you value your viewers enough to write a script and follow it rather than improvising and heavily editing your rants into something watchable.
I also appreciate the fact that he doesn't edit out any and all dead silence, like all the other youtubers do... give me a spot to pause the video and not interrupt a sentence!
@@theunwelcome It's a natural silence that you normally get during lectures or presentations. Also, editing in things like the puppy interlude was very useful, both in terms of the discussion and the footage.
The pause after "They will sell you a powerwall" was brilliant. Over here in Europe I see canopies over most charging stations for ev's. Great place for solar panels such a canopy as well.
Definitely NOT the case in Britain. The vast majority are canopyless and completely unlit at night - even the ones housed AT existing fuel stations (I'm looking at YOU, BP, Shell are at least lighting their chargers and the area where someone might need see at night to plug in)
19:00 my old Tesla Model S had a CCS2 adapter. That adapter had a thermostat that disconnected the control pilot of the adapter got too hot. That in turn immediately halted the charging session. The thermal conduction to the charger and car thermistors should cover it. But if not, there was a other failsafe. Never had it happen. Good to know it was there. 👏
If I know anything I know that people are going to scoff at whatever price dealers charge for the adapter and buy a $7 one off Amazon which very likely won't have such protections built in. I look forward to the anti-EV crowd pointing to melting plug adapters causing charging station fires as yet another reason this "experiment" has "failed". Honestly, I would rather have a charger with CCS and adapt it to NACS than the other way around. Less chance that AC power goes down the DC lines or vice versa. The more I learn about NACS the more it feels like a poorly thought out venture for one car company to cash in on everyone else's charging.
People already do this with insufficiently thick extension cables. Other than adding verified adapter licenses, it will be hard to stop people from cheaping out to save $10 on their $30k+ vehicle
I would like the chargers to “soft start” charging as soon as plugged in, before validating payment. The charger could start the session, negotiate speed, activate relays, … basically everything besides sending electrons. It would save a few seconds.
@@Pileot That sort of thing already annoys me. It's like "there are plenty of Legitimate issues that need addressing. Why are you discrediting people trying to get those fixed by associating them with your completely made up nonsense?!". Happens with lots of things, both things where the actual problems being fixed so the thing can be usable is desired, and things where the problems are so great that you would never want the thing adopted. Very annoying.
@@Pileot It is absolutely this. Every time I hear "adapter," I see the bargain bins lined with 5-oz plastic devices with 8AWG wires inside, claiming to support "2000V 1800A".
On the subject of canopies, I live in the UK and there’s a Shell petrol station near my house that has a 50kW DC charger, but it isn’t under the canopy 🤣 So you can stay dry while pumping fossil juice into your car but if you’re just there for electrons you might be getting wet.
Norway has 2 simple "right to charge" laws that helped adoption of EV's there. 1) Tenants can install their own chargers without having to beg permission from landlords. 2) new construction have to be pre-piped so chargers can be installed without having to drill through several feet of concrete
That’s what we need. The best I know of here in the us is the latest electric code requires a (single) branch circuit installed in a garage for future ev use…. A single.. 20amp 120v outlet…
@@ElConquistedor That's like mandating a gasoline pump in each garage. When EVs can be charged in under five minutes and authorities stop asking people to not charge their vehicles when it's not out, then and only then might they become practical. That and build a LOT more nuclear power plants.
Oh and also, Alec, you are an absolute legend for making an entire 50-minute video about why you were wrong for your audience of millions. I consider myself relatively non-stubborn, but even I am in awe of your candor. A lesser man (by which I mean almost anyone, including me) would never have addressed this.
The question still can be raised, “why the F Did it take this long for him to come to reason?” As an engineer, I’m blown away it took him this long. Stunned, actually.
@@GET2222 backing CCS was a completely reasonable position at the time. CCS had a massive headstart as an industry standard while NACS was still being held as proprietary. The vast majority of the industry had coalesced around it. It seemed like if Tesla was going to release NACS as a standard, it should have been done long ago.
@@MegaBrokenstar CCS has so many problems. TESLA is basically telling everyone that the software in the car should communicate better to the device is plugged into. Why do you even need a card at all when your car is connected to a card already? People swipe pumps everyday that are hacking their account. This prevents that.
Over here in Norway, gas stations have started building chargers (and calling themselves "Energy stations") as they get more people through the door when charging, Although some chains just let a 3rd party set up a couple of chargers much like the ones you describe, with most of the same issues. Not uncommon to see Tesla chargers next to the large highway service stations either, especially if there also happens to be some sort of diner/resturant thing near it.
They tried to install chargers at a gas station in my town, but the town denied the construction, saying it would place too much strain on the local power grid
@@mwbgaming28 That is only the case if the issue is generation. A nuclear power plant does nothing to improve energy transmission capacity. We do not know what exactly the issue with the local power grid is.
Usually it's not the generation of power that is the issue, it's the transport of it. In many places the electrical grid itself is overloaded. There simply aren't enough and thick enough wires to power everything. Yes, that is a very solvable issue, but it requires investment, and for profit companies tend to pay out the profit instead of actually expending their infrastructure to stay reliable into the future long term.
@@mwbgaming28 : rephrase to "without higher emissions at the outlet." (chill, just joking..) (of course lower emissions than conventional burning stuff - over a total lifecycle, without future storage) Actually the best use for nuclear (besides baseload) is to back the industrial might creating all of the green revolution components. (solar, Hydro, Wind - all or which need energy intensive processes, not directly suited to being powered by their own product.
I’m kind of surprised that Love or pilot hasn’t just said they are rolling out EV chargers across the county. They have the infrastructure already there, now it would just be building the chargers themselves on there lots. Set it up like a normal gas station, make people insert cards, charge, then drive away just like a gas station. Plus loves and pilots typically have restaurants in them, they all have restrooms, employees, and places for you to sit in them, as well as are located near other businesses like restaurants and hotels. You could have a nice sit down meal while your car charges and get a break from sitting in it all day while on a road trip. Since they are already located on major roadways, they have great locations already.
Agreed on the bucket and squeegee being sorely missed at charging stations... and tire pressure machines please. Also 100% agree on having card readers on every charger. At least contactless ones.
I did always find it bizarre taking my Tesla to a gas station to top off my tire pressure. When I went inside for change for the coin-operated air machine, the nice gal just turned it on for free. I opted to buy a soda, since they clearly couldn't make it up by selling me gasoline 😂
The Tesla charger at Kettleman City (roughly 1/2 way between LA/SF on I-5) is exactly what you want. Roughly 40-50 chargers, well lit, 24 hour access to an enclosed lounge with vending machines, bathrooms, etc. a canopy (with solar on the roof, a no-brainier), and I think 250kw charging. It should be the model for all off-hwy charging, but sadly it seems pretty unique.
Also notably, for those that have never visited a site like it, I visited the Kettleman City supercharger about a year ago on a road trip and the building wasn't just like a gas station. I would recommend people take a look on Google maps, there are a lot of photos of the Tesla Lounge to give you an idea of what they are like (there are over 2000 photos on Google Maps for it). Notably, it requires a code to enter, which was clearly visible in the car's display for the supercharger location. This is the same location where it will list things like gate codes to access third-party destination chargers at hotels, parking garages, etc. So the lounge isn't publicly open like a regular gas station would be, but is still accessible 24 hours a day even when there's no employees at the coffee bar, etc. Any they also added another 55+ superchargers across the road as well, but those are new and don't have the full canopy, etc. just outdoor chargers.
We need to see banks of EV chargers at gas stations. Having them at libraries, grocery stores, etc is convenient, but they're essentially just abandoned after installation. By making them part of the existing petrol network they get treated the same as petrol pumps. So yeah, sometimes they go down, but the gas stations have a vested interest in maintaining their equipment. Random parking lots don't.
The charging owner should want to keep them up. As an EV owner, I don't want to wait at a smelly, dirty gas station for 20 mins. I wish all charging stations had basic amenities, but at least a lot already do
Here in the Netherlands, there is often both a fast charging station and a few fast chargers at the gas station at the stop on the highway. The same card is used for payment at both. It's all ccs2.
Not gonna lie mate, but the idea of having gargantuan transformators really close to dozens of cubic meters of highly explosive substances makes me _really_ nervous...
As a Tesla owner I rented a Kia EV not long ago in Orlando. Went to 3 different mapped chargers that didn't work and spent 2 hours trying to get to a functional fast charger. Tesla has worked flawlessly for 100k miles and dozens of cross country road trips. The difference is game changing.
Speedpass also briefly had a large EZpass type transponder that allowed you to simply pull up and pump gas, but the transponders went in the rear side window, and were frequently stolen by car wash employees and their support was discontinued.
Us automotive engineers pretty much always advocate for some mechanical override, just sometimes the sales guys dont like the extra ~$2 BOM cost... The overrides are generally simple enough to design, wires and pullies. Excellent points about the protection of the chargers from the elements. one big challenge we face is finding ways to protect the charger on EVs, currently we're solving this vehicle-side with complicated features. an overhead canopy would make this easier.
2 dollars here, 5 there a few more cents for that little thing and before you know it, you are spending a couple of hundred extra per vehicle while producing millions of vehicles per year... yes, every cent saved can become a nice sum of money in the end.
One additional thing from your gas station analogy that I'd like to see - a large sign by the roadside displaying the price you'll be paying per unit of charge. So you can decide whether even to charge there, or look for somewhere cheaper.
In France on the highway I see regularly a big sign with all KW (and gas/diesel) prices for all pumps in the next 100KM. Around 6 or 7 stations usually.
Tesla lists it on their screen where you search for the nearest charger, I don't like some of the simplification of Tesla but it has a lot of things done right. "Specific pricing for each Supercharger site is shown on the selected pin's pop-up on your touchscreen."
I strongly agree with what you said in the ending bit about how technological progression should be done to solve problems. The dogma of progress for the sake of doing what's cool instead of doing what's practical is something that i've been frustrated by before, and i'm glad to know others feel the same way.
EU will make it mandatory to be able to pay with a card and in Norway it already is the rule, although the charging providers do not comply with it yet.
Part of the problem I have seen with the whole cool factor, seams to be poor implementation to cut costs resulting in the, cool thing, becoming more frustration than cool in the end. As he mentioned, a good chunk of the issues with 3rd party charging systems is implementation of their supporting services to support their main function.
Every EV charger should include a publicly-accessible, non-software-controlled ordinary household AC outlet, so that even if everything else is broken, as long as the power is on, someone could use it as a last resort (as long as they brought along the adapter, which they would if this was widespread), to at least charge their vehicle's battery enough to limp to another charger is that hopefully fully working, instead of being stranded at one that is broken.
I would be in favor of this also, in addition to free or lower-priced AC charging as a backup for maximum compatibility and to incentivize people who need to charge to 100% to free up a DC Fast Charging connector.
@@lynnntropy There's nothing stopping people from doing that already from any outdoor outlet anywhere. What else are people going to do with AC power, anyway, in the middle of a parking lot?
With how the stations are at the far end of the lot, pretty sure it's going to become a homeless hotspot especially in the winter. I guess that's not too bad though, the homeless consistently on the streets generally aren't doing theft or vandalism.
I live in New York State, and I recently discovered that EvolveNY Charging Stations are installing free CHAdeMo/CSS to Tesla (North American Charging Standard) adapters next to all their DC Fast Charging facilities
A family friend owns 2 gas stations that offer fresh food (similar to wawa) and they just finished the 2nd location with 10 covered ev spots (EA i believe) its exactly what you describe but still with gas/diesel. If it goes well enough they have room for spots at location 1 too.
I see more and more gas stations adding some charging terminals. Being already a well known spot for re-fuelling your car probably provides them with many customers. Having a vacuum for cleaning and a sponge for the windshield are also important as told in the video.
@@joachimfrank4134 oh yeah absolutely. I have a big highway station about an hour from my house that has over a hundred pumps AND sixteen superchargers. can’t wait until they open up the network and I can charge my Audi there.
As someone who would charge their car for 30 minutes at a gas station, yeah I would stretch my legs and buy some stuff and wash my windshield. And you know that part in TechnologyConnection 's video where he talks about the sorry state of maintenance of charging stations? Well it's been out of order for months. It's basically been abandoned. Good job EVGo! (I'm glad I don't work near there anymore) @@oopszie
Speedpass at the gas station was SUPER handy for me, because I was constantly driving for work or company cars at the time. So I could just swoop it over the scanner thing and automatically charge the fuel to the correct account. I may have been one of the only to use it, but it worked for that VERY small niche audience. :)
@@undine120 SpeedPass was pre NFC payments. Like the first NFC payments I saw were in 2013 when the Nexus 7 came out, and that was at McDonald's only. I was using SpeedPass allllll the way back ten years earlier in 2003-2004. I think I stopped using SpeedPass around 2012, maybe 2013, I forget when I no longer had a station that had the readers for it.
11:23 YES! YES! YES! Mechanical overrides are a requirement and clearly marking them should be a no-brainer. Obviously this isn't understood in the industry though. This, as well as complete systems integrations that cause some vehicles to not function at all if the infotainment system is down, keep me from buying anything made within the past decade.
I am about at the 43 minute mark And wanted to stop and thank you for mentioning those of us with disabilities - I had been a driver for many years. To get gas at any station was always a challenge! Now that I can no longer drive for myself due to my vision, a self driving car is the next thing I want! Santa, can you drop one down the chimney (in my case in the heater). Here in California we fought very hard to get a portable gas distribution system set up for those that have disabilities so that they did not have to go to the gas station, but could get their gas tank, topped off right at their home - that didn’t work out. The idea of electric cars/vans add new possibilities, and new challenges!
Loved the video. Just did an 8,000 mile trip with an F-150 Lightning across the US (and through barren South Dakota) and all of the pain points you bring up are spot on. Squeegees for windshields and canopies are a must!
Thanks for this. It's unfortunately uncommon, in the tech field in particular for people to change a position based on changing facts. I recall your earlier videos on VHS vs. Beta, where there are folks to this day who are still convinced that the defeated format was best. (Something you did a very nice job of debunking). I think charging stations will improve markedly over this decade, it takes a critical mass of customers to create a viable business case. I do fear however that you may not see as many attended stations, the trend seems to be to try to minimize that (see the now ubiquitous self checkout lanes). Even though it's not perhaps the bleeding edge these days, it is still very early days for EVs.
I think in the CCS vs NACs fight, the real missed-chance was adopting Europe's version of CCS. 3 Phase charging isn't *as* useful in North America, but it still has value in commercial settings. It'd be pretty useful for places like Malls, theme parks, etc where people will spend a few hours. They often have level 2s which are still helpful, but 3phase would do much more at a similar price point, vs the costs of even basic 50kw level 3s.
German super markets tried to implement the self check outs and didn't really understand that they still require monitoring to minimise theft. They basically just slapped 8 self checkouts in a dark corner and expected everyone to pay via an honor-system, which, needless to say, didn't really work. They then concluded that it can't and will never work and are now cutting back on self checkouts. It's honestly mind boggling. But back to topic, gas stations pretty much are self check outs already. You have mostly one or two employees monitoring 6 or more pumps, that nowadays already have a payment function.
I have to agree- canopies are a simple-to-install addition to many existing ports, and even some form of restrooms or vending machines might be a possible future amenity of charging ports. But I don’t think attendants will be added any time soon, unless we see full convenience store charging stations (or charging stations partnering with or in the further future replacing existing gas stations?), in which case the counter staff has a secondary role as port attendants. As you said, that’s simply not the trend in commerce these days. The reverse is true, that we are pushing further and further towards automated, self-run check-out solutions, in restaurants, grocery stores, and more. It would be inconceivable to me for a charging port company to add in human attendants as a selling point for their station; it would be the reverse of the “futuristic” trend, and we all know that these companies of all companies are the most desperate to be futuristic.
@@Dudofall For Parisians it's extremely difficult to grasp basic geography outside of Paris. They still think the European parliament is a joke name for former elected officials unemployment benefits.
The transition from animal powered transportation to petroleum took decades. I still have neighbors (in an admittedly extremely rural part of the country) that grew up driving horses or mules. This will take time, but is moving much quicker.
The World as we know it was basically built using horses, hammers, sailboats, steam engines, ropes, dogs, coal, wood etc. Studying the history of technology is enlightening. There is value in familiarity. There are Westinghouse generators at Wilson dam on the Tennessee River that are still working after 90 years, and provide power to 350,000 homes. Don't completely dismiss the Wisdom of the Ancients.
@@TheZenytramWe've had electric cars longer than gas cars. They've just always had significant disadvantages that still make them a bad idea for a lot of people. Like people who only have street parking and don't own their home.
Love the fact that you're wearing an Amtrak shirt in this one. Electric cars are nice, but I think that it would be much more practical to implement electrified public transit given the issues with obtaining the raw resources for every car in North America to have a battery pack.
Yep, for most of the US population improved mass transit(even if it wasn't electrified) would do more good on several fronts than buying an electric car would. There's always outliers and exceptions, and they're discussed to death every time public transit's mentioned. And coming from a family of Tradesmen, yes, they're valid, but 90+% of vehicles aren't bringing one of the Plumbers or HVAC techs I know to fix your house, they're hauling one person to work or the store.
@@Joesolo13 I agree, though I will recommend you to post your comment in the main thread under the video and get more to see it, if you feel so inclined. We need more voices advocating for public transit. Great take though.
Somehow this video just popped on my recommended list. This is, hands down, one of your best videos. Ever. Thank you for such an open, honest, and thorough discussion of this subject.
Here in Italy Enel (the public energy utility company owned by the government) operates an AC charging (usually 25-50kW) network with small charging columns scattered around the city, mainly in mall/supermarket parking lots. Sometimes you get free charging while you shop, which is great
I agree 100% on the payment issue. I don't want to have to sign up for anything or fiddle around with my phone just to get a charge started. Just accept credit/debit cards! This should be universal. Anything else is just weird and most likely involves having to sign up for something that will only work with that one charging network.
And then there's the depressingly common case of going through all that hassle and loading $20 credit into the network TO FIND THE CHARGE POINT WON'T TALK TO YOUR CAR! Good luck getting your money back in that case...
@@spallwalker5683 yeah that could work, not sure how much kwh per dollar you get but perhaps it could just take change like a parking meter. Take anything up to a toonie.
With plug and charge (properly implemented) you don't need to fiddle with your phone or even pull out your wallet. You just plug it in, no using touch screens on the charger, your phone, or the car. It "just works". The payment details come from the car and it automatically starts paying for the amount of power you're consuming. The technology connections guy here is just utterly confused.
It’s shocking that electric plugs don’t provide amenities honestly. I never thought about it until you mentioned it, but gas stations have been developed over like 100 years into what they are now so why don’t they just include a few charging stalls alongside their pumps? Not to mention electric chargers take 2-4x as long as a gas fill so having a convenience store is even more important
It's all a question of initial investment. Gas stations had to spend that money to build the station when they started, as they needed space for the pump operator and cash register. Later, when those were no longer needed, with self-pumping and credit cards now being available, that investment was no issue as new gas stations were a rare thing. (And there were expectations on how they look...) With fast chargers, we are still in the initial expansion phase. Spending 5 times as much on a single location as an initial investment than what they can get away with would be foolish, as that would mean they'd only be able to build one-sixth of the locations they can without. Also, the ROI is questionable. People spend a relatively long time at chargers, but the absolute amount of people visiting any charge point is low. You need a massive location with about 40-50 stalls that see heavy use to match the number of customers even a tiny 4-pump gas station gets per day. And this quadruples for "free" services that have to be paid with the income from the pumps/stalls (i.e. trash cans, water, windshield cleaning, air, canopy), as a fill-up only costs about a fourth for electricity as it costs for gas.
It is well-known that convenience stores make most or all of their profits inside the store, their margins on gas are very low especially in todays's volatile oil market. This is especially true of the big chains like 7-Eleven. Still, they invest millions in the fueling experience and in fuel loyalty programs to entice drivers to decide to fill up at their pumps because they'll be more likely to spend money in the store. So it would seem obvious for this model to be copied for EV chargers. Why reinvent the wheel?
@@HenryLoenwind agree but they definitely still build new fuel stations. And yes about the ROI, it’s just gotta wait until electric is more popular, but you’d think that would be a growth market, esp if you already operate a station
@@benediktkrull5738 I think the problem will be charging throughput in terms of cars per hour, which probably needs a re-think in terms of how 'fuelling' stations ar laid out. Charging an EV will take in the best case scenarios about 25 mins, and with a gas fill-up taking 5 mins we'd need 5x the chargers to maintain capacity and avoid long queues. This is probably a best case scenario as charging speeds may not be optimal, people may want to fill up more capacity (which is slower), or may go and do stuff and leave their cars on the charger. Therefore stations would need an expanded footprint to maintain capacity, which would be troublesone for urban filling stations that do not have the space to expand, especially a problem in the UK where space is at a permium. I think this would necessitate a different approach, situating chargers in more locations that we have gas stations.
You've done it once again. I watched a 48 minute video about something electric car connectors and I don't plan on owning an electric car at anytime in the foreseeable future. Very interesting and fun video to watch. Thanks!
@@scarpmetal-e5ereally depends on the country. If one decides they wont switch, and their country wont mandate it, all the remaining fuel in the world remains for that country, and prices will basically drop to almost nothing as it will be the only market that buys it. I know i will stick to ICE cars until they will make driving your own car illegal.
@@scarpmetal-e5ei’m not, i have extremely severe tourette’s syndrome with motor tics so bad that they keep me from driving or even riding a bike. i’m almost 25, too, so it obviously hasn’t gotten better with age like in most cases. i will most likely NEVER be able to drive sadly…
They exist in Europe. In the UK many "Petrol" stations have a few chargers (its soon to be legally required in the UK) We also have a dedicated "GridServe" which is rare but has the whole cafe, waiting area and every parking spot is a charger.
Which is perfectly normal in the EU !!! :) Why Europe does so many things better ?? Are Americans afraid to copy, because they are afraid to just copy what is good? USA you are free to copy all the good stuff of the EU. It's fine. We won't judge ok. Just google: FastNed and look at the pictures. Beautiful charging stations.
It's a chicken and egg problem, but with higher adoption rates gas stations will have to cater to the EV-crowd as well. It's starting in Europe and because of incentives Norway's come a long way with Circle-K and other gas station operators diversifying into electric charging.
Great job covering everything so thoroughly! I'm glad to see that you're cautiously optimistic about this development. I do think the transition period will be very interesting, probably not always in good ways. Some of the nice things about Tesla's network have been the result of its walled-garden nature, not inherent upsides (for example, the whole "cross-compatibility testing" is something they never had to worry about), and I expect some of those issues to pop up in the early days. But as you say, Tesla does enough stuff right that simply making people compete with them is a good thing for the charging industry as a whole.
Remember back in the day when every cellphone had its own proprietary charger? Now that concept is so foreign to us. (Other than apple, of course, because they have disdain for their customers) I imagine something similar will happen with EV chargers eventually.
The next iPhone in a few months might actually have USB-C... here's hoping. (If so, we can thank the EU for finally making that happen, and not with a little adapter.)
@@rickgreer7203 Doesn't the advent of inductive charging already make this a moot point though? I have a cheap pad at work and one at home which I can take with me on trips. Probably over 2 years since I plugged in my phone
Elon always wanted his standard to be open, thats why he never patented the charger, he also believes his system to be better and doesnt want to change its design, rather he would want all EVs to adopt his standard as it helps everyone.
To add a simple point to the plug-and-charge discussion, it's good to have a low failure rate of individual components, but it really doesn't hurt to have redundancy. Have plug-and-charge, have touch payment, have card swipe/insert, and have an attendant who can also add payment to a charge station through cash/card (this can be done through unique ID on each charging station and calling/texting/etc. OR someone in a kiosk/convenience store/etc. nearby). If you've ever been to Japan or Korea you can see many advanced forms of payment architectures in use with many layers of redundancy. Making an infallible singular method is impossible, it's better to have many methods with near perfect systems in redundancy making total failure the actual near impossibility.
Meanwhile just yesterday the cashless infrastructure of 1 of my country's banks & part of some other banks' infrastructure got brought down for ~1/2 a day due to problems with an outsourced data centre used by all these banks (Equinix). That'd be disastrous for merchants that've stopped accepting cash
I've been watching your older stuff...4 years back or so...and am happy to see that nothing has changed! Very informative and entertaining at the same time.
Brilliant, as always👋 I have no idea what the situation with ev chargers is like here in Australia, but at least I have a graspable benchmark to compare it against when I need to.
8:27 - quick note, Tesla did do DC charging through the Type 2 connector in the EU. The Model 3 was the first Tesla model sold in EU that had the separate DC plugs. Superchargers in the EU were retrofitted with additional CSS plugs. Old chargers now have both, new chargers only have CSS for which older Model X and S cars will need an upgrade - you then get an adapter you can use.
Same in Australia. We still have "legacy" Superchargers that have the Tesla-modified Mennekes plug and the CCS 2 plug. I'm hoping we can get something sensible like a "NACS three phase" or CCS3 which would basically be an up-rated version of the Tesla modified Mennekes.
The plug & charge option is attractive for fleet users. No card that you can loose or could me misused. I worked at an airport many years ago and it had a fueling station for internal use only vehicles. Each had a small chip at the fuel filler and the nozzle also had one. As Munich airport is rather big that ensures automatic billing and again for fleet vehicles was very nice. You simply pulled up and pumped. Later in the military we had fleet cards for petrol stations. We never lost one but still I can imagine the comfort for pool fleet vehicles
It's a little weird that gas stations haven't started to get into the EV charging business in the US much. This has started to happen a bit in Canada at some stations like Petro-Canada, Co-op and to some extent Shell. The other advantage of colocating charging at a staffed location is that it accommodates those who refuse to use or are unable to get a credit or debit card. There's basically no way to pay for EV charging with cash right now at most locations. That will become an issue as EV ownership eventually becomes more realistic for those lower on the economic ladder. (Edit: which Alec did address later in the video.)
They haven’t done much in Europe either. EV charging usually co-located at the same highway concession, and even when it’s at the actual gas station, it’ll often be operated by a different company anyway. Shell has a decent number of their own chargers, and there’s another company starting to roll them out (forgot which, maybe Esso or Total). In all cases: app or fob required to pay.
Only reason I can see is their available real estate for each station. Most gas stations have little free space you could devote to EV charging. Most certainly don't want charging stations next to gas or diesel pumps.
@@monkeybarmonkeyman true.. Gas fumes are dangerous... Over 4000 gas pump fires each year in the USA with multiple deaths. Safer to be far away from gas pumps,!
Petro Canada chargers are always broken, they basically only exist to justify that "coast to coast EV charging" page on their website while providing nothing in the real world
I live in a whole other country, New Zealand, where about half the cars have CCS-Type2 and the other half have CHAdeMO. The Teslas have CCS-Type-2. Almost all the DC chargers have both types of connectors, with some having two CCS and one CHAdeMO per dispenser. It's super fun to charge three cars on one 300kW charger. We will continue to import vehicles with both types of connectors. We have a few charging networks and I don't enjoy signing up to networks to use chargers in different regions. There is one network that I have tried to sign up for twice, and I have still never managed to get it to work. However, I have done about 400 or 500 charge sessions and only have suffered about 5 charge locations I could not get to work. Mostly the two networks I use are very reliable. They do the maintenance and they upgrade and replace old equipment. We have some DC chargers at petrol stations, But mostly DC chargers are at supermarkets and cafes. I think the petrol station chargers are starting to get more common, I figure that on the main north-south highways, there will be pull through petrol station like chargers popping up in the next few years. Quite a lot of car parking buildings have AC chargers for all day charging, and they use the same tags and apps as DC chargers. We also have some AC chargers for residents in city neighborhoods that have no off street parking. I made some videos about most of this stuff.
23:34 The first thing that comes to mind about Electrify America horror stories is that for some reason, they thought it would be a good idea to upgrade the only (at the time) fast charger between Dallas and Austin during the week of Thanksgiving last year. There were so many drivers scrambling to find any sort of L2 charger around Waco. The only ones available were 2 ChargePoint stations at a hotel and then there was one ABB CCS 25w charger at a Kia dealership that only worked half the time. Nothing else. It’s still mind-boggling to this day as to why they would think to start a station upgrade during the week of Thanksgiving. 40:51 Is having a place to use the bathroom while I charge too much to ask for? There have been times where I’ve gotten up early to roadtrip my Bolt and when I eventually need a charge, there’s absolutely nothing open or within walking distance to get snacks or just to use the bathroom. It’s incredibly frustrating.
Seattle City Light (Seattle's municipal electric utility) is already doing chargers for street parking, and you can request some be installed for free at a particular location if you have an electric car and regularly park it on the street.
The only thing I don't like about using credit cards at chargers is the preauthorizations. Every charge stop authorizes the card for $20-50, which is a lot of money you don't have access to for up to a week when you have to make five or more stops in one trip. Gas stations do this too, but you are more likely to spend that much or more on a fill-up anyway, as opposed to charging where I rarely go over $12 at each stop. Credit cards should always be an option, but they really need to change the preauthorizations to be closer to what you will actually spend.
Most gas stations over here let you choose the preauthorization amount, and simply stop the fuel when you hit the limit. Seems like the best solution for chargers as well?
Honestly the "plug and charge" concept would be great for gas vehicles imo. We basically have that at my job. All the vehicles on property have an RFID ring around where you put the nozzle and the on site gas station has special nozzle that reads the info from the ring to charge the right account. Edit: And for anyone like "that wouldn't work with current infrastructure" the pumps this system was installed on early this year are older than any pump you'd find at a modern gas station. They have analog rolls for keeping track of current gallons pumped and the total gallons pumped.
It works great on Teslas. You just plug in and go. I guess he's worried that the different charging networks would each have their own payment system to sign up for which I can understand.
@@bparrish0 Yeah, that is the foundational problem with those kind of solutions, it would be great if you had one account and it just worked regardless where you plugged in as it is then close to the one service fit all of a credit card, but it is horrible if you need 15 accounts for the 15 service providers of charging.
If this is backward compatible with older vehicle, I see no problem with new fuel nozzle with such mechanism, it could reduce the risk of spillage and reduce a lot of fuel vapor hazard and emission.
The thing there is that your company's gas solution exists in the closed ecosystem of your workplace for that workplace's vehicle fleet. For such a system to work in the wild, all the gas station companies and/or car companies would need to standardize on software and hardware, and we would all have to be okay with it working that way. I would need to sign up for a service which stores my payment information (something I'm generally not okay with, personally), and then hope nothing goes wrong at the pump. If this technology "removes the need for gas station attendants," I would suddenly have no recourse should the system fail, if there isn't also a POS machine on the pump ... which I would be using anyway given the choice. Sometimes "good enough" really is good enough to leave well enough alone.
@irregularassassin6380 I'm not saying make it the only option, I'm saying make it AN option. Things would have to be installed on vehicles so you can't make it the only option without forcing every driver to modify their car, I would just think it fits alongside the way technology is moving to start adding this into vehicles and at the gas stations that have it you are essentially doing the same thing that most people do with apple/google/Samsung pay. It especially would make sense for rental cars given you could set it up to read for the type of fuel required so nobody puts regular in a vehicle that needs higher octane fuel.
This brings up a great point. It totally makes sense for places like Sheetz or Speedway that have full service food and beverages. To those places, gasoline is at best low margin and could be a loss leader. They want people to come in and buy stuff. It seems like AC or DC charging at a "pump" would offer the same financial benefits to those sorts of businesses. I wonder why they haven't jumped on yet.
Could be they are afraid of any chance of a spark near gasoline vspors. After all, cigarette smokers blow up two gas stations in the US annually. (And the stations keep selling ciggies and lighters. Hmm.)
It's interesting to me that the kind of fuel network you mention around 36:25 - having a chip next to your car's gas filler - is something that has absolutely caught on here in Turkey. In fact, my second hand ICE car came with a Shell chip installed that I had to take out. Typically it will be fitted to company cars and fleet vehicles so that the driver - who doesn't own the car - can fill up and it will automatically be expensed to the company.
Buit the general user wants the freedom to charge where he chooses and will wish to take advantage of price competition. Monopoly or oligopoly charging is bad news.
@@rogerphelps9939 Of course, this is almost 100% used in fleet applications here, and I believe it should stay that way. My car didn't let the gas pump refuel it when I first bought it because of course the old owner took it out of his company account, so I had to rip out the RFID tag before I could actually refuel.
I never understood why charging banks didn't look like gas stations already. People are more comfortable seeing/using what they already know, and everyone knows what gas stations look and act like. Having an attendant on duty to help out with technical issues would also be a big plus. Now that everything is actually going to standardize, connector-wise, perhaps we can finally see this apparently very novel idea take hold.
I think a big problem is the additional costs involved in all of that, from capital to land to additional employee pay, that would raise prices to customers perhaps higher than customers would be willing to pay for the option.
I think it's an infrastructure and usage thing. There aren't enough electric car drivers to justify something that big. The networks out there apparently can't afford to keep their current chargers in good condition. Tesla has a vested interest in keeping theirs working as their car business requires a reliable charging network.
@@chaos.corner but the network's also rely, even more completely, on the same thing, keeping their chargers up and able to charge. But yep, if there aren't enough customers then it makes especially little sense to increase capital and operational costs to build the more expensive stations to serve fewer customers. Really a large part of why gas stations look the way they do are because of things that don't apply to electric charging, from ideas about the safety of the fuel through the established supply chain and market for the gasoline itself. In a way it's kind of nice that charging stations can make an evolutionary jump past all of those practices that keep gas stations looking like gas stations. Maybe you buy the energy more at cost without issues of whether a bag of chips is subsidizing the fill up.
@@volkris I agree. It's the sign of a company not doing so well. Potentially in a death spiral. Either that or one that has captive audience and could do with some competition. So this change should show which.
Tesla thought about this already. (When your company's very survival hinges on these details, you sweat those details thoroughly. That's why the NACS design did everything right and CCS did not.) Fundamentally, EV charging is NOT like getting gas. Charging times are longer, of course, but there are more subtle differences. For example, owners of gas cars MUST buy 100% of all their gas from a gas station, leading to a guaranteed and captive market, but public chargers are only rarely used by most EV owners, who can just charge at home. A gas station moves a large amount of fuel per day, which has a high cost just for the fuel itself; an EV charger might charge cars only very sporadically, and the cost of the electricity is minimal compared to the cost of the charging station infrastructure. For all these reasons, the gas station model is not a good fit for public charging stations. What is a good fit? Just look at what Tesla has already done, and there's your answer.
I love your scripts because I always learn a few new things. And you are so right about the need for charging stations to become more like traditional gas stations. At the very least a canopy and an inflation pump for the tyres.
FYI, EV chargers _are_ quite analogous to a specific type of gas station: the autonomous "cardlock" gas stations that exist along long-haul truck routes (in places where it's nearly impossible to staff the station.)
I remember the Mobil Speedpass. You had a little dongle on your keychain that looked like a stubby pencil that you held to the Mobil Pegasus logo which would then light up to show authorization. I used to go to a Mobil in Santa Clarita, CA that was equipped with it; but I don't remember ever seeing at another Mobil further North in California.
Honestly I like the idea of having charging stations be just like gas stations for electric cars. And I especially love the lounge idea because what if you don't want to sit in your car while it charges and you can just sit back in a lounge, order a coffee and a snack and relax to a show or something.
There's an article recently in Australia about how ev charging is changing rural communities. Whereas before petrol pumps were drive thru, places are now placing the charging stations next to the local tourist attractions. This way they attract people who would otherwise have never stopped. And ev drivers actually like the idea.of stopping every few hours for a real break next to some interesting places they would otherwise have never stopped. It will be interesting to see how this develops.
@@martijn8554That sounds like a fantastic way to conduct a trip! So many people really do focus on the destination, not the journey. If EV charging "forces" you to visit a super-cool local museum, that's a great thing! There are so many cool little places the the world that tourists aren't interested in, because they're not the Eiffel Tower, or an equivalent.
on a recent roadtrip, nearly 60% of the chargers i used with electrify america, ev go and chargepoint were broken. i almost got stranded out of batteries. I support this change.
When I did the my last EV evaluation in the UK, around 1/3 of the chargers were broken. Sometimes it was indicated on the map, sometimes I called the company to check if there were little alternatives around. I suppose the whole infrastructure will eventually get fixed, but I also believe it will take decades. EVs are a pretty niche market.
Charging stations becoming more like gas stations is exactly the future I want. While the car is charging I can go use the bathroom, clean the windshield, and grab a snack. Sounds really nice to me.
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Hello! I agonized over this script for a long time. It is, after all, not a video I had hoped to make. But, as I said, I only have petty, ego-based reasons to be upset by this news. It would be weird to ignore it, so with this video I'm just ripping the band-aid off. Here's hoping it doesn't sting too much.
During all this agonizing, a lot of stuff ended up getting removed, some in error. Hence the puppies.
To tie a loose end, while Electrify America does accept normal payments (at least, when all the equipment is working) I have to use their app to take advantage of the free charging sessions my car came with. As soon as those run out, I probably won't bother anymore! I don't fast charge enough to make their membership worth it.
Good job, Tesla. Now you can have your cake and eat it, too.
Musk isn’t a trustworthy steward of anything. He’s reckless, careless, and reactionary.
I have never clicked faster on a video. Thanks for making this... essay Alec!
Correction here: CCS can handle 1500V and 800A. Please check the current standard (IEC 62196-1:2022, Edition 4 from 2022). Otherwise the video is spot on.
When I head the news, I actually thought of TechnologyConnections.
Fast charging hurts your battery health!!!
As an IT engineer I am pretty worried by the increasing reliance on software and apps for the most basic of functions like payments. The complexity of something should be inversely proportional to its criticality, and having to rely on a poorly coded phone app that is itself running on a device with a long list of possible failure points is just a bad bad bad idea in general.
Absolutely. Went to a pizza place that didn't have internet at the time I went in and they ceased to be a pizza place. Apparently they weren't backward compatible with paper menus and cash only.
All the companies just want your sweet sweet data. Many times they don´t even know what to do with it so they just collect it, but noway they will just let you pay anonymously by card without making a two page long log about you and your enviroment first.
@@John-zh1ud Personally I refuse to patronize businesses that don't have paper menus or take cash.
@@ChaosTherumWelcome to Sweden. The cashless country. Here you use credit card, or maybe debit card, and mobile payment (called Swish). Cash is more and more rare.
As a devops engineer who meets fucking programmers on their worst on a daily basis, I wish nothing had software in it. But yeah 24 cores and 96gigs of memory seems fair for a todo app.
40:15 "While I know some EV drivers loathe the idea that charging locations might start resembling gas stations" I'm with you on this one, I really hope they _do_ start resembling gas stations. I like roofs, and fountain drinks, and the windshield squeegie. Gas stations have it figured out when it comes to physical layout, almost like they've been making incremental improvements for a century now. EV's don't need to reinvent that particular wheel.
They will have to adjust a little bit, since the turnaround time is so much longer and you kinda need to expect to be servicing more cars at the same time because of that if you want even remotely similar throughput, but yeah I agree on the whole.
They’d become more like truck stops. Expectation is folks being there at least a half hour, often longer.
Buccees style with a hundred station, arcade/diner or something inside to keep people entertained who want to get out of the car would be smart
It needs to be different, but same principle, offer the dry place to stand to connect the car. You do not want to do it in rain.
But it needs to be drive through, so no reversing. Low roof, some simple sheet metal cover.
Actually the others needs to step out front of the main building, and then driver go to put can in charger. So no kids running in the danger and no need for everyone walk under rain from charging station to main building.
You need as well have a clock on top of the charger to show someone how long car is still being in there. So you can line up behind it for your turn, when there is high traffic...
As 20+ stations is hard to do, and only few can do 40+.
yessss! I just want the squeegie PLEASE
You know what else gas stations do? TELL YOU THE PRICE! There's a gigantic illuminated sign with numbers on it facing the road that tells you how much it costs. One of the huge issues I see right now is insane levels of price gouging at smaller charging stations, and you basically have to get there and look at the screen (here in the UK) to work out beforehand what the price per kWh is. Being able to drive past somewhere and work out what the price is both for AC and DC charging, and then benchmark that against the next place, will be crucial for future adoption. Too many times I've shown up somewhere and balked at the price as being two or three times what it is at my local charging point and just driven off.
Are there no apps like gas buddy that have prices?
@@TheMysteryDriver Oh there are (at least in part, not every public charger is on there), and I could be accused of being a bit old fashioned at this point but I personally don't care to go into an app, click individually on each different station, try to remember the different prices and flick through about five or six in the area. Plus, to me, the broader point is that by advertising prices like gas stations do, it incentivises a degree of price competition among the various charging speeds. It's a lot harder for naughty little chargers that cost three times as much as others to hide out in the open, and I think it would facilitate the transition away from ICE cars.
Plus you also get technical barriers of the stations needing to be visible - there are 24 new stations in my town installed by the local council and none of them are on any of the mapping sites. And every time the rates change, those stations need to be able to broadcast those rates to a lot of third-party sites. Plus prices can change based on the time of day, unlike gas which typically only changes once per day at most. It's just a lot more "fidgety" than I want, ignoring the fact that I'm going to have to switch to yet another app for the charger I use to initiate the session.
In my ideal world, we'd colour code charging speeds (for example
@@TheMysteryDriver when driving along looking for a charger you can't really get your phone out and check an app...
@@DreadpirateflappyYou should be planning ahead no? Tesla's tablet-like interface makes it easy to pull all this info. Technology is good here, it means you don't drive an extra couple miles to visually check the next station just to go d'oh and have to turn around to save a few dollars.
@@xipalips...and *exactly that attitude* is one of the huge roadblocks to encouraging people to voluntarily switch to obligate plug-in EVs.
Most people dont want to *have* to pre-plan and chart their road trips in advance like a pilot.
it's somehow comforting to hear that even outside of gaming ea remains a major pain
LOL
Electrify America is the "community service" that Volkswagen had to carry out as its sentence for Dieselgate, and gets all the attention and care you'd expect from a court-mandated reparation effort.
@@BogeyTheBear I've had nothing but great experiences using my free EA DC fast charging with my Ioniq 5.
"Technologists, don't make it weird, don't make people jump through hoops" is like the child's prayer against evil of the modern age.
but but but we need to install our walled garden so everyone believes they HAVE to use us as if our widget somehow makes the electrons special!!!! And dont worry, I have a Taiwanese cousin whos really good with computers, so my aunt tells me, and I will get him to do the interface. So we can save there on our multibillion dollar venture......
Serious talk though....its what they CHOOSE to be cheap on that should worry us.....
One of those hoops that I hope is removed is the requirement to own/use a smartphone or register for an "account" to charge - someone should be able to walk up to a charger and anonymously pay cash. No app, no checking account or credit card. Or if bill acceptors on exposed terminals is an issue, then perhaps be able to walk into a convenience store and buy a "prepaid" anonymous card that they could then use to pay for charging.
@@r6u356une56neybro, you are driving a giant mobile phone that reports its location every minute and you are worried about privacy??? If you care about privacy then buy a car from early 2000s and make sure OnStar in removed if the car comes with it
Seriously, if the mess that is the charging infrastructure was a thing gas stations did over in the gasoline world, people would absolutely riot. And rightfully so. It's mind boggling that we as consumers just accept this mess as a fact of life in the EV world.
Strangely accurate description you got there bud
To add to your spicy bit: people lend their cars out (especially parents). If charging cost is bound to the car then you need to manually go back and sort the payment of the charges with the person who borrowed your car. Instead of, you know, them paying for it immediately
Ooh, very true. It's like having to borrow somebodies payment card. The lendee might keep receipts and the onus is on the lender to review it all or view their statement.
Do people really lend out their cars and then get an@lly retentive about the exact cost of the gas/electricity used? I'm not lending my car out to anyone who's going to use so much gas that it becomes relevant and who I don't already have a respectful relationship to know they'd do the right thing (whether that be throw a few bucks or a six pack my way).
@@Thermalions I agree with you, but in the real world, people put their cars on Turo and stuff.
@@DavidJao Never heard of Turo. Looking at their website seems like the closest vehicle is over 400km away (there's only a single vehicle) and next closest is about 700km from me.
@@DavidJaoAn easy solution to that would be to look at the average charging costs incurred when renting out the vehicle, and then roll that into the rates being charged.
In the UK, it is fairly common to see electric chargers at either service stations or at petrol (gas) stations, even having signs on the road advertising the price per kwh like petrol prices. It is such a nice experience to be able to charge whilst under a canopy that is lit and have a shop as well, and also someone to talk to in case of something going wrong.
Starting to see that in the US as well. A new gas station that was built in my neighborhood also has Tesla superchargers. Weirdly, the Tesla superchargers have no canopy so that was a miss, but gas stations are beginning to include EV charging at least.
@@tboneforreal I've used a Wawa, in the rain, with my Model Y. It isn't that bad getting a bit of rain on while plugging in and then unplugging. I've also used a gas station to fill up my old car in a rural area and they didn't have a canopy, and it was pissing it down. Standing next to the pump and getting drenched absolutely sucked.
@@stevemulcahy5014 the difference being that you have to hold the pump trigger the whole time you are filling the tank, whereas with an EV you insert the connector and walk away,
@@gregbailey45don't you have those little tabs that you can engage so you don't have to hold the trigger?
In any case: EVs are the future, but holding a lever for 60 seconds is simply not a big deal, not even compared to getting charging cables out of the car and plugging them in.
@@gregbailey45 I think that’s the point I was making. But yes, exactly that. Canopies don’t matter so much at superchargers for the human aspect or the equipment’s resilience, but third party chargers with poorly weather sealed card readers need them.
What you described at the end is already happening in Europe. Utilities are placing normal AC charging points on the side of the road. A couple of them are even working on billing it straight to your home power bill (this already works in London in the UK, iirc).
I do Waze map editing. Recently, a 3rd party worked with Waze to add all their chargers to Waze. The problem is that all chargers had to be verified by map editors. The number of broken, blocked off and disconnected chargers that were listed as active is crazy.
Isn’t Waze owned by Google? Why not put the effort into OpenStreetMap?
I think we'll never have a TRULY accurate charge state map. Simply because, some percentage of failed units will fail after working on one car, while it is not in use, so no one (nor the internal diagnostics) will know it has failed until another car attempts to charge on it.
You could just let users report them as broken or not working.
Oh right LOL Waze doesn't listen to user reports! How foolish of me.
@@slightlyevolvedtruly accurate? No, we won't. 99%? We sure could get there! Not happening right now, though.
@@matejlieskovsky9625 Even gas stations have these issues. Nothing is perfect, but it should be easier with electric! Eventually. Having a frustrating electric experience comes down to density. If a gas station runs out, is closed, or is reported wrong, you don't blame gas engines for it because you can just go to the next station. Usually. I think that's where anti-EV misses the mark so far. Once there is more availability, those instances of failure will sting much less and the map will provide many alternative options.
One of my strongest held beliefs is that no physical product or service should ever *need* an app to function, period.
If you disagree your net has never stopped.
Or indeed a WiFi connection. I can it's possible to have a use for a fridge that can reorder (store on a remote list app) what you use perhaps but I can see NO REASON for a kettle to have a WiFi connection,
my telescope needs an app to use from indoors. so what? my paper OS map needs an app to function as a satnav device. lots of things have extra value by being combined with an app. I think you should more carefully consider the battles you fight.
@@KarldorisLambley It's not about having an app for certain functionalities or in certain scenarios, it's about needing an app to use its basic functions where this is not necessary at all - or just to save some money on the OEM side.
For the telescope example: You say it needs an app to work from indoors - but that doesn't mean it needs an app to work *at all*. That's the difference. Why would it need an app if you could, for example, just plug it into a laptop an control it from there?
Or another personal example: We have a TV recorder that will only work with an internet connection. It's not IPTV, it's for cable. The signal is there. You can't even watch recordings without an internet connection. Why? It's for the greedieness of Vodafone. It's not like you pay monthly anyway so they could just check at the beginning of every month, no it needs to be connected to a rather unstable (cause Vodafone) internet connection all the time for no reason.
@@KarldorisLambley so as soon as the company that made the app goes under, you are left with a useless brick, nice
I feel like chargers at your workplace are significantly under-appreciated. I used them regularly and I think it's a fantastic use the ~8 hours that the car is not moving.
Not quite the same, but I want to get a fast ebike (which I'd have to register as a motorbike where I am, but no biggie) and then lug a bluetti and some flex panels to my job just once, free recharge! (most days).
Also the car park is fairly secure and I live in a civilised country. If you leave such expensive toys out in the open in, say, the UK, you're basically just giving them to somebody.
Yes, with solar panels for direct sun to battery and at parking lots too, plus they cover the cars.. more please
Just curious, what's your commute distance? Wouldn't it be better to slow charge at your home during the night, when the electricity rates are at their lowest tier?
People with gas powered cars are always parked at them where I work. There are probable 3 emails per week about it, but nothing changes. :|
You drive to work, leave the car in a charging bay (so nobody else can use that charger), then drive it home again. CATCH THE BLOODY BUS!
London/UK has a plug-n-charge solution that connects to your house power bill. With the movement to LED streetlights, there was extra capacity so custom plugs were added to the base of some streetlights. You keep a powercord with an onboard computer in your trunk, and that computer keeps track of your power usage and reports it back.
That sounds excellent! Could you post the title of an webpage about this if you remember it?
I don't want to pay for it
Do charging networks get disabled for stolen cars? This could make a dent in car thieves income 😊
@@geoffhaylock6848 you think car thieves have an income? They steal a car and joyride crash it later or dive till caught. Very few stolen cars are able to be sold/exported/chopped up 99% is teenager's
@@frostedlambs If you can't charge the car you can't drive until caught. You drive until the battery is dead. BEV's work on rechargeable batteries not Duracell's. The teenagers can't run into Walmart and steal a bunch of double A's.
You might be surprised to hear this but..... There are professional car thieves!!! I know, shock horror!!!
TC is a class act. He is willing to admit he bet on the wrong horse but that it's really nothing more than an ego blow. Which he admits. When presented with new information he adapts and accepts it
I *do* think there are problems with Musk winning but for reasons that are entirely unrelated to the technology itself.
'.....It is nothing more than an ego blow.' that really helped, just seeing it typed out is therapeutic. TC, I always knew that he was grande.
While presenting a perfect model of humility, he maintains levity: "they're not jusr girthy, they're also quite long... 30 millimetres"...
My respect skyrockets for people who are objective and just change their stance on new information. THAT is how you improve yourself, and know the person is indeed a smart person. Even smart person's make mistake, but the real smart person's are those who constantly improve themselves.
@@HermanWillemsI rejoice every time I'm proven wrong because it means I'll be less wrong in the future.
Another point for your gas station thoughts: Signs visible from the highway and easily findable without GPS is also missing from the charger networks.
EVs needs to use GPS to route to fast chargers so the cars knows how far they are from the chargers and thus can precondition the batteries to accept fast charging. Just looking for a sign and pull in to plug in will not give you the benefit of charging fast.
@@michaelchien1236 While true, preconditioning isn't required, and doesn't invalidate highway signs. Highway signs are important for locating fuel when you are running low unexpectedly, or are unfamiliar with the area you are driving through. Not everyone is driving with a passenger, and it's unsafe to set a GPS location while driving down the highway. (Not every EV has good hands-free navigation to charging). If your battery is low and already warm from driving, it will charge at essentially the maximum rate anyway, and all you need to know is what exit to take to find an acceptable charger. Ideally the provider, the kWh range available, and if we're feeling ambitious, a live count of available stalls would be enough information to decide whether or not to exit.
@@diggoran Is there an EV without satnav though? (Well, one that takes a modern charging port, anyway?) If every car that needs to find a charging port has the map of charging ports on it, what's the issue? Keep down the annoying sign clutter, IMHO.
@@FuckGoogle502 I agree the signs do introduce a lot of clutter that I would love to see disappear. However I was simply trying to call it out as infrastructure that exists to aid gas car drivers that isn’t in place for ev drivers. And while gps or satnav is widely supported, it is also dangerous to use while driving unless you are willing to use voice commands and trust whatever option is automatically selected is the best choice for your car or journey. The signs on the highway are safer to use while driving, and some include live elements like the current price (charge speed and wait time would be more relevant for ev drivers, probably).
@@FuckGoogle502 Is there an EV without satnav? Yes, your EV as soon as your satnav stops working. Also its just a lot more user-friendly to look where you're going to find a fill station instead of looking on some kind of internal electronic GPS and following directions.
An electrical engineer here. You're absolutely right about exceeding current rating of wires for limited amount of time.
Conductors are going to survive that just fine. Insulation suffers degradation with over time at high operating temperature, shortening its life; in extreme cases insulation may catch fire.
Degradation is exponential with temperature. For homes it's really important not to play with this.
Doubly so because you can't actually see any damage to the insulation when it's in your walls.
Which presumably means they can just go balls to the walls and replace their cables often?
@@Lord_zeel it starts as an estimate how often charging occurs, a temperature profile and finally expected life is estimated.
maybe even the temperature is measured (would make sense since ambient temperature wildly varies), and power is throttled such that even "often" is not that often, or is as often as anticipated.
That's the level I'd expect from an engineering team that is pressed to minimize cost.
Electrician here. That’s why conductors are derated in these cases.
Will just replacing the cable with new connector, is that hard?
"The presumption that new and different always equals better." This sums up my thoughts as well. When I was going through engineering school to become a mechanical engineer, some of our classes dealt with the reality that new technologies pretty much always have teething issues, or don't actually solve a problem that needed solving and often end up needlessly complicating a system that already works. I completely agree with your position on this. I too carry a wallet with those plastic rectangles and have no issues using them to pay for goods or services. They just work.
I have to respectfully disagree. It seems to me that not having to use those plastic rectangles would result in less credit card fraud. Some people still use Debit cards and illegal card readers coupled with the pin pads that records a cardholders pin code is a very serious problem. It seems to be me that the Plug and Charge model would reduce or even eliminate such credit and debit card fraud. Of course, criminals are always looking for new ways to defraud people, so it wouldn't surprise me if, in the future, someone discovers a ways to defraud EV owners using Plug and Charge, but i believe that the current credit card architecture is definitely not as secure as you think.
@@chasiubow168 I just carry cash. No electrical or fraud problems whatsoever. Electric should be used for goods that are disposable and replaceable, because it is nearly impossible for the lay man to repair.
@@chasiubow168ah, the "but sometimes" argument that this channel repeatedly mentions. You know theft can happen with everything, including cash? In fact, cash technically belongs to whoever is holding it in that exact moment. If you lose it in any way, it's not your money anymore. If my credit card gets stolen, I can turn off my card and overturn any fraudulent charges made. If someone steals my cash, it's just gone. No way I'm getting it back unless I somehow catch the thief or get my belongings returned to me after they've been caught by the authorities.
Any fraudulent charge, even ones made with keypad pin code recorders, can be overturned by turning off your card and contacting your bank, and reporting it as fraud. After that, you get a new card with a new pin within 3-5 business days and you're good to get using it again. It's a mild inconvenience, but in the meantime you could use a different card, or just use cash.
Also, automatic pay systems like plug and charge are.... Not very secure with their payment information. They're about as good as any other app, like McDonald's or Walmart. They can be compromised. That's why we have failsafes in the event that these systems are compromised. Also, It's still technically credit/debit card fraud if the payment information is recorded for a service. Just saying.
@chasiubow168 CREDIT fraud under US law: The credit company has to take the loss, not the customer. (2) Paying with credit or cash should still be an option. Imagine going to a store, and every one of them demanded you setup an account. The walmart account. The JCPenney account. The target account. The amazon account.
BS on that. Just take my credit card or cash that works universally with everyone.
CCS will accept debit cards. As far as fraud is concerned, since the vast majority of small purchases everywhere outside the US are now contactless, adding EV charging has a negligible effect. Nothing else needs a subscription so why should EV charging be different?@@chasiubow168
I love the greater charging ecosystem criticisms you bring up. Everyone in the industry should take these points seriously. Convenience is still key and building an artificial moat is backtracking progress.
There’s no such thing as “progress”. That’s Whig History nonsense. Please read more John Gray and Oswald Spengler.
@_peters6221state-backed fiat currency has been a disaster.
Meanwhile getting ICE cars to far lower CO2 emissions than that of EVs costs a fraction of what the world-record massive (totalitarian, forced) revolution of mandated EVs cost us, and avoids destroying our economy (making us unable to invest in CO2-reducing projects), our markets, and so many lives. And with working on ICE fuels we get lower CO2 system-wide *_immediately_* instead of having to change all cars over many decades, destroy the West geopolitically and get ourselves under that one certain huge Asian nation's hegemony by buying all our tech and cars, at least battery minerals from them...made with energy from their thousands of coal-powered plants, and made with essentially slave labour.
At least about 30% of them are already now cleaner than EVs using fossil fuels, and the ICE cars are easily ALL instantly made far lower than all EVs in CO2 emissions by changing their fuel at almost no cost at all! So many of us in Europe have been driving our ICE cars at far lower CO2 emissions than EVs for years and years, costing us only a few hundred more per year (or in the case of people driving on biomethane it costs LESS than fossil fuels!). Compare that to the tens of thousands in extra costs EVs cause...not to mention destroying so many lives: the human toll from forced EVs is an absolute tragedy!
There's a genuine chance that this video or at least it's points will be raised with Elon Musk at some point. He is a huge nerd for product feedback.
@@Doctaphil64 Yeah, that's why he ran Twitter into the ground.
100% agree with you on needing payment systems on each charger. Yes, it raises complexity and maintenance, but it increases reliability in the "I'm standing here right now" sense - not being able to charge your 0% car because some web service is down in the cloud or there's a problem with your account would be infuriating.
Yeah I'd rather have an ordinary charging station with kWh meter and be able to pay with cash to the cashier
Credit cards and bank account are becoming more convenient, but regular cash money is still unbeatable to this day, especially in emergency situation
Real question. Are credit card based gas pumps not dependent upon a remote connection? I have had more issues with out of service gas pumps than EV stations.
@@sixty-six No. Card payments can be made offline and transmitted at a later time. They won't be able to do the pre-charge though so they may limit how much you can pump.
@@chaos.cornercan but they don’t
As an ICE driver I can only compare the situation with filling up at a local gas station. I think right now the problem is that DC fast chargers are often set up by themselves at the end of a Walmart parking lot. A lot of the issues with the charging networks could be fixed by setting them up like a gas station. Gas pumps typically have both pay at the pump and pay inside options at a minimum. Ice pumps are also covered to keep the owners out of bad weather and staff than can help with any issues.
As someone who helped drive across country in an electric truck recently, I was happy to see that trashcans were added for the evgo chargers at Casey's gas stations. After we realized we were *that* pleased just because of a trash can, we started talking about many of the above points missing for EV's that ICE vehicles received.
One thing to bear in mind is that the throughput for gas pumps will likely be a lot higher for the forseeable future so costs will easier to justify (though trashcans, fair enough). The canopy makes sense too because people are basically outside the whole time they're filling where for an EV, you'd basically only be outside long enough to plug in and it wouldn't being used the rest of the charging cycle.
Though with that said, I think solar powered canopies could be good for many parking spaces even without charging.
@@mckidyl70 | Nightmare scenario: The can lid stays maglocked unless you have the app open with NFC active.
More widely-adopted and established technology better supported than novel technology. More news at 8.
@@snoekbaars1 I'm not sure I understand what point you're trying to make with your comment.
Are you saying that because gas is more widely used, simple things such as windshield washing stations and trash cans make less sense at EV charging stations?
@@ZSchrink I was misunderstanding the comment. Excuses.
Totally agree on the 'hot take'. Absolutely. I want electric charging stations to look like a petrol station too. They should have cover, they should have staff, and I should be able to pay for the recharge with physical money if that's all I have on me.
Not a fan of this idea.
It's too easily automated to have staff.
It doesn't have all of the infrastructure and records a gas station needs either.
Dunno about your place but where I worked for a bit you need careful records of every delivery of gas with tank change readouts attached, and physical records of all of that have to be kept going back 3 years.
I will say it would be nice to have options that did not rely so heavily on a credit card payment AND a functioning app AND cellular/Wi-Fi connection (granted, these last two apply if not using a physical credit card to pay at the console, if even allowed that option, which some places crazily do not). Maybe the locations could work out using/creating pre-loaded cards made through a machine that accepts cash.
@@scout360pyroz @Mr.HansBischoff you guys do realizes that gas station isnt just for refueling, right? they have convenient stores, washroom, cafe, some even have a motel and a repair garage.. gas station are often a place for driver to take short break additional to refueling...
so i really dont see a downside for recharging station to mimic a gas station... i mean, EV drivers are still human... right?
@@zerocalvin Thats not a gas station.
that is a laundromat/handymart combo or more that HAPPENS to have a gas station attached.
In Norway they have gas station style charging locations, canopy to shelter people, show with a deli or restaurant.Looks like the future. Hopefully as charging gets faster this will become more popular.
Almost every supercharger I've been to is in a shopping mall with restaurants, stores, entertainment, etc. I think there's like 2 out in the desert that have nothing but a convenience store nearby.
@@darrennew8211but they still don't have things like, wash buckets, roofs, or attendants. Roofs would be great for solar too
@@evilhamsterman Well, right. But if you're in a shopping mall parking lot where the other cars aren't under roofs either, I'm not sure what the problem is. Go into the mall if it's too hot. I was just pointing out that I've never been to a supercharger that didn't have a restaurant or deli like the person I was responding to said. And most of them have an entire place you can amuse yourself for the half hour it takes to charge even if you're not hungry.
It's true they don't have wash buckets, but I grew up driving in the 70s and I still find it amazing that gas stations won't sell you washer fluid or engine oil or tires, either, so there's that. I stick a squeegee in my trunk and don't worry about it.
The one I saw in Norway, a Circle K it even had the bucket with windshield wiper. The canopy’s even had solar panels.
Even though I'm sure that oil companies don't want to do anything to help promote EV's, I'm honestly surprised that no gas station chains in the US have decided to start including charging stations as well, or as pointed out in the video, at least truck stops. Plus, people sitting at a charger for 20 minutes or more are a captive audience. They will definitely shop in the convenience store while waiting for their car to charge
Honestly, I think the future of the highway charging station is something like Buc-ees. Hundreds of access points, stuff for people to do, and make it more of a reason to stop other than just charging.
Ya, around here there are charger stations at malls of different kinds
I agree with you. Stunned that this model has not taken off yet.
I’ve been so surprised that the chargers are just sitting out in the open, with nothing around them, no employees and no security.
If you're driving long enough to kill a fully charged EV battery, then you should probably be taking a reasonable break from driving when you're on E anyways. If you have a 300 mile EV range, then you're looking at 4-6 hours on the road before that needs recharging. Sounds like a good time to have a meal break to me.
In fact, the very design of a Buc-ee's gas pump system makes its amenable to upgrading to EV charging in the future. I can see by 2040 most of the current gas pumps will all be replaced by DC chargers that support up to 512 kW initial charging rate.
Might revitalize small towns along the highway now, you could put the chargers in or near the town center, which would help local businesses instead of building an entirely new complex like buckees. Granted there might not be a small town where needed, but I'd like to think there were
You know what I appreciate a lot about your videos? That you take the time to make sure the closed captions are excellent, despite it probably taking significant effort for videos as long as yours.
Not really, I mean he just has to import his script he is reading from right?😅
@@Jcreamy513 He probably still has to time all the scripts to the videos, which unfortunately is the bulk of the work involved in subtitling.
@@RainingBulletsRUclips is pretty good at auto timing. You can just take the auto generated subtitles and replace the text with your script. Still takes work, of course, but a lot easier than it was before RUclips.
Normally the end card has some... interesting content as well only in the CC, but this video didn't have one so I guess you'll just have to go watch more of his videos if you haven't been watching them with captions on
@@DavidJaoYou can pass your own script to RUclips and it'll use your own formatting and even typos. It still has some issues (subtitles don't disappear when you don't speak, for example), but it's pretty good for what it has to do.
I really appreciate the quality of your captions, especially how well you include tone and timing jokes/info in them. You’d be surprised how many people don’t bother.
From someone who has been working in the EV charging industry for over a decade, I will say that you completely nailed it. I may also add that you nailed it in an entertaining and easy to understand (and share) manner. Keep these videos and perspectives coming.
As a fellow EV driver, I soooo much agree with your "rant" at the end! We need "fuel" stations for DC fast charging - not another subscription... Thanks for a great video - as always!
It’s almost like that’s part of being an early adopter of EV’s.
I don't think DC Charging can resemble Gas Stations due to overall lower usage. With Gas Stations all vehicles fill up at them 99% of the time, with DC Fast Charging these are generally only used when doing longer journeys or where drivers can't charge at home/work. I hope they will improve but I don't think the economics will work
@@Pegaroo_thats why he said "at least on major highways"
Highways will get dedicated DC charging stations. Taking a 30min rest is normal even when you just stopped to fill your tank. So when charging the same thing will be an economical option.
So city gasstations might disappear, but everything else will probably remain just changed
@@AlphaHorst I just don't see them having 24/7 manned services. It would be nice if it happens for the folks that need help with plugging in but it always comes down to money, is it profitable to have someone there all the time when 99% of folks don't need the help.
Unless it's legislated otherwise companies will go with the cheapest option
That's my biggest gripe with EV infrastructure now.
Apps and subscriptions annoy me. Just let me tap my credit card and charge me.
37:21 thank you for the new word. I shall now use Automagically, at least 3 times a day.
I appreciate the point you made about charging needing to be more accessible to renters! I asked my landlord about installing EV charging in my apartment complex (which has hundreds of residents and multiple EVs), and they just ignored me. I'm fortunate enough that I can charge my Leaf at work, but not being able to charge where people live is still a big barrier to EV ownership.
Some states have a 'right to charge' law which allows the renter to install their own charger (either an outlet for one or hardwired). And in some of those cases the landlord legally cannot stop you. You'd still have to work out how to pay the electricity use with the property owner of course. It's worth looking into and worth the cost of install if you plan to stay at a given place for a few years or more.
In Norway it is illegal to deny EV chargers in such situations.
@@VirtuellJoIf only we all lived in civilized countries 🥲
Eventually, landlords will start to see car charging as an easy revenue stream, alongside laundry machines. Already, I've heard stories of places where renting a parking space with access to even a simple wall plug costs upwards of $100/month. Unfortunately, there are not yet enough EVs to make the business case clear, especially with the vast majority of current EV drivers being homeowners, rather than renters.
There's a chicken and egg cycle here where renters won't buy EVs until landlords install chargers, but landlords won't install chargers until enough of their tenants buy EVs. If the government really wants to break this cycle (e.g. for pollution/climate change reasons), I think the only way to do it for the government to simply offer big subsidies to the landlords to get it done, while also doing the same for employers to maximize the odds that people who can't charge at home can at least charge at work. Unfortunately, governments don't seem particularly interested in this problem because the people with lots of money are all homeowners, and can install their own chargers, so the government's interest is focused on fast chargers in travel corridors for people road-tripping instead.
@@ab-tf5fl Those subsidies literally exist in many states though, they'll often pay for most/all of the install cost of a EVSE
I'm not sure if you've covered this but have you ever covered MIDI and how all keyboard, synth, sampler manufacturers in the early 80s agreed on how to communicate between different manufacturers?
that would prolly be a great video
Gas pumps have already figured out how best to handle the transact of resupplying of fuel to a vehicle. I insert or tap my card, then select my resupply type, then connect the it to my vehicle. EV charges could reverse the "select" and "connect" order so your vehicle can tell the charger what types of resupply are available, but other than that it should be the exact same.
The voltage(s) are set by the car, but let's say you're parked at a charger while watching a 2 hour movie. It would be much better for your battery life to have some way of saying "hey, tbh I only need level 2 charging" or whatever
Also, as mentioned in the video, gas stations have tried to implement what you suggested and no one wanted it. Unless there's a standard for that too, I don't see it being the norm. At the very least, paying by card and cash should always be an option
@@TechridrI don't really want 15 apps to pay for fuel to go on a road trip though, nor do I want the pain of trying to research if the charger I'm about to stop at supports whichever proprietary plug and charge protocol my EV vendor chose. And that's before factoring in all the privacy implications of having yet more companies gaining perpetual access to my payment details and personal information as Alec pointed out.
It's really not that inconvenient to just slap your phone on the little radio symbol on a fuel pump, it requires a lot less R&D, and a lot less active management of perpetual subscriptions. Right now, I can just go to any fuel station I please and buy fuel, I don't need to think about what company owns it, I don't need to remember if I've got a subscription to their service, I don't need to download another stupid app to clutter my phone, it all just works. When I eventually get an EV, that's what I want, to be able to just pull up to any charger I choose and just slap my phone using NFC payments on the payment terminal and go from there. The only way I would accept plug and charge is if it effectively just implemented the same payment process as phone NFC payments using a standard payment processor, but I highly doubt that will happen, and in the mean time tapping a phone is just easier than dealing with multiple independent networks and implementations that refuse to talk to each other.
@@TechridrAnd actually, there are "types" of supply. In the same way that diesel can be dispensed from high flow or low flow pumps, not all chargers support 800V charging, and not all chargers offer 350kW charging. Not quite the same thing but it's still important to pay attention to unless you want to annoy people with 300+kW capable vehicles while you slowly charge a Volt on one of the few fast chargers.
@@Techridrin Australia you fill your car, then go inside and pay
Nah man you gotta make it quirky, futuristic, touch based and more importantly, incredibly stupid.
Your views on charger locations are spot on and in Shreveport, Louisiana, make your point even better. Shreveport, LA has ONE (1) Tesla charger location - located in a totally dark (after 11 p.m.) mall parking lot with NO lighting (broken for two years) - in a sketchy neighborhood. This is not an incentive of locals to buy a Tesla and a horror for those getting off of I-20 or I-49 in the middle of the night for a charge. There is no place to eat or anything else. Until this charging station mess is solved in less-than-major metro areas, EVs will be a struggle to sell.
I grew up in Shreveport but left 25 years ago; I see not much has changed 😆. Oh and I live in a town of 12,000 (in New England) with a Tesla supercharging station and over half a dozen other public charging stations, many of them free… which is nice considering the diminished range during the winter months 🥶
Around here, Tesla was smart to get an agreement with Wawa to have Superchargers in the same place as a gas station. All the advantages of a gas station to stop at with almost no downsides aside a lack of canopy since they still take normal parking stands.
There's some Wawas that have EVGo charge stations as well.
It's going to be a battle. Gas stations are going to fight it and fight it until enough competitors give in.
I've seen a few Sheetz stations that have superchargers, too. It seems like a logical progression for the better sort of convenience store or truck stop to embrace having quick charging/supercharger stations and get some business out of people who will need to spend a half hour or so topping up their cars.
I’m in Australia, and the petrol station chains are already promoting fast charging EV parking bays. Many of them have already been built.
In the same advertising they promote solar panels on the roof of the shop as a green initiative to offset the coal fired electricity that they’re using for 95% of the charging kW….
Yay, I’m charging using all 3kW from the rooftop solar array and 57kW from the grid.
But wait, 2 others pull up to charge and have to share that. So technically I would only be seeing a maximum of 1kW from that array…..
Still doesn’t stop them greenwashing us….
I’ve used an Electrify America station located at a Loves truck stop/gas station in Salina UT. It also lacked a canopy and pull throughs but had everything else you expect at a gas station.
Do you know what I love the most about your videos? Your loyalty to logic.
Personally, I like the puppies best.
@@Agh42 Logical puppies! This channel is the best.
The only way to convince a scientist is facts with logic. Other arguments will not work.
@@jurjenbos228Ha, if only the same could be said for politicians. Imagine!
there's no logic in holding a grudge against Tesla
This is why I love this channel. Reasonable takes and willingness to adapt to new developments without much huff. If more people were reasonable like Alec, we'd be better off. And probably have a lot more bubbly jazz.
Hey wait, where is the jazz??
Moar jazz, moar puppy edits
WHERE'S THE JAZZ??????????
Absently smooth jazz :(
Yeah, what happened to the smooth jazz outro with the funny extra remarks in the subtitles?
Jazz? I never thought of it as jazz. More like 90s high school science video theme music
Regarding the whole paying from the infotainment screen... I couldn't disagree more. We have things figured out, but those things are FAR more prone to damage from the elements.
I think manual pay should be an option, but adding more methods could prevent your issue with broken chip readers. Keeping all payment processing internal limits wear and tear on debit processing.
Good example of why this already being in place:
*Current* card readers. They often have tap to pay... and chip reading... AND the magnetic strip reading still. All 3. Because if 1 breaks, the other two still function.
I don't think anyone would be for completely removing debit processing from fast chargers, but I think most are for redundancy.
I love these videos and don't care how long they get. The fact you can speak for more than 5 seconds at a time without a jump cut shows you value your viewers enough to write a script and follow it rather than improvising and heavily editing your rants into something watchable.
Thoes cuts are there 😂 but that's from. Him messing up his lines not just from him rambling
I also appreciate the fact that he doesn't edit out any and all dead silence, like all the other youtubers do... give me a spot to pause the video and not interrupt a sentence!
@@theunwelcome It's a natural silence that you normally get during lectures or presentations. Also, editing in things like the puppy interlude was very useful, both in terms of the discussion and the footage.
Good point. I hate those jump cuts. They always make the speaker seem so insincere when there's a lot of them.
There are likely dozens if not hundreds of speech edits throughout this video. The difference is he knows how to properly mask them with B-roll.
The pause after "They will sell you a powerwall" was brilliant. Over here in Europe I see canopies over most charging stations for ev's. Great place for solar panels such a canopy as well.
Definitely NOT the case in Britain. The vast majority are canopyless and completely unlit at night - even the ones housed AT existing fuel stations (I'm looking at YOU, BP, Shell are at least lighting their chargers and the area where someone might need see at night to plug in)
@@miscbits6399 You Brits are officially not in Europe anymore 😝
And yet you won't pay less to charge your car if they installed them.
Just in case you wondered: No, the solar panels on a canope would not be enough to charge your car by themselves. But every little bit helps I guess.
@@BurningTrapezoid Of course not, but as you mention, every available place should be used.
19:00 my old Tesla Model S had a CCS2 adapter. That adapter had a thermostat that disconnected the control pilot of the adapter got too hot. That in turn immediately halted the charging session. The thermal conduction to the charger and car thermistors should cover it. But if not, there was a other failsafe.
Never had it happen. Good to know it was there. 👏
If I know anything I know that people are going to scoff at whatever price dealers charge for the adapter and buy a $7 one off Amazon which very likely won't have such protections built in. I look forward to the anti-EV crowd pointing to melting plug adapters causing charging station fires as yet another reason this "experiment" has "failed". Honestly, I would rather have a charger with CCS and adapt it to NACS than the other way around. Less chance that AC power goes down the DC lines or vice versa. The more I learn about NACS the more it feels like a poorly thought out venture for one car company to cash in on everyone else's charging.
People already do this with insufficiently thick extension cables. Other than adding verified adapter licenses, it will be hard to stop people from cheaping out to save $10 on their $30k+ vehicle
I would like the chargers to “soft start” charging as soon as plugged in, before validating payment. The charger could start the session, negotiate speed, activate relays, … basically everything besides sending electrons. It would save a few seconds.
@@Pileot That sort of thing already annoys me. It's like "there are plenty of Legitimate issues that need addressing. Why are you discrediting people trying to get those fixed by associating them with your completely made up nonsense?!". Happens with lots of things, both things where the actual problems being fixed so the thing can be usable is desired, and things where the problems are so great that you would never want the thing adopted. Very annoying.
@@Pileot It is absolutely this. Every time I hear "adapter," I see the bargain bins lined with 5-oz plastic devices with 8AWG wires inside, claiming to support "2000V 1800A".
On the subject of canopies, I live in the UK and there’s a Shell petrol station near my house that has a 50kW DC charger, but it isn’t under the canopy 🤣 So you can stay dry while pumping fossil juice into your car but if you’re just there for electrons you might be getting wet.
Norway has 2 simple "right to charge" laws that helped adoption of EV's there. 1) Tenants can install their own chargers without having to beg permission from landlords. 2) new construction have to be pre-piped so chargers can be installed without having to drill through several feet of concrete
I think it's the same all over Europe now. We implemented the same in Greece.
What a shock, Norway passes even MORE laws. 🙄
That’s what we need. The best I know of here in the us is the latest electric code requires a (single) branch circuit installed in a garage for future ev use…. A single.. 20amp 120v outlet…
@@ElConquistedorthat sounds painfully slow
@@ElConquistedor That's like mandating a gasoline pump in each garage.
When EVs can be charged in under five minutes and authorities stop asking people to not charge their vehicles when it's not out, then and only then might they become practical.
That and build a LOT more nuclear power plants.
Oh and also, Alec, you are an absolute legend for making an entire 50-minute video about why you were wrong for your audience of millions. I consider myself relatively non-stubborn, but even I am in awe of your candor. A lesser man (by which I mean almost anyone, including me) would never have addressed this.
The question still can be raised, “why the F Did it take this long for him to come to reason?” As an engineer, I’m blown away it took him this long. Stunned, actually.
@@GET2222 backing CCS was a completely reasonable position at the time. CCS had a massive headstart as an industry standard while NACS was still being held as proprietary. The vast majority of the industry had coalesced around it. It seemed like if Tesla was going to release NACS as a standard, it should have been done long ago.
@@MegaBrokenstar CCS has so many problems. TESLA is basically telling everyone that the software in the car should communicate better to the device is plugged into. Why do you even need a card at all when your car is connected to a card already? People swipe pumps everyday that are hacking their account. This prevents that.
Over here in Norway, gas stations have started building chargers (and calling themselves "Energy stations") as they get more people through the door when charging, Although some chains just let a 3rd party set up a couple of chargers much like the ones you describe, with most of the same issues. Not uncommon to see Tesla chargers next to the large highway service stations either, especially if there also happens to be some sort of diner/resturant thing near it.
They tried to install chargers at a gas station in my town, but the town denied the construction, saying it would place too much strain on the local power grid
@@jgood005nuclear power plants could solve that problem, and do it without higher emissions
@@mwbgaming28 That is only the case if the issue is generation. A nuclear power plant does nothing to improve energy transmission capacity. We do not know what exactly the issue with the local power grid is.
Usually it's not the generation of power that is the issue, it's the transport of it. In many places the electrical grid itself is overloaded. There simply aren't enough and thick enough wires to power everything. Yes, that is a very solvable issue, but it requires investment, and for profit companies tend to pay out the profit instead of actually expending their infrastructure to stay reliable into the future long term.
@@mwbgaming28 : rephrase to "without higher emissions at the outlet." (chill, just joking..)
(of course lower emissions than conventional burning stuff - over a total lifecycle, without future storage)
Actually the best use for nuclear (besides baseload) is to back the industrial might creating all of the green revolution components. (solar, Hydro, Wind - all or which need energy intensive processes, not directly suited to being powered by their own product.
I’m kind of surprised that Love or pilot hasn’t just said they are rolling out EV chargers across the county. They have the infrastructure already there, now it would just be building the chargers themselves on there lots. Set it up like a normal gas station, make people insert cards, charge, then drive away just like a gas station. Plus loves and pilots typically have restaurants in them, they all have restrooms, employees, and places for you to sit in them, as well as are located near other businesses like restaurants and hotels. You could have a nice sit down meal while your car charges and get a break from sitting in it all day while on a road trip. Since they are already located on major roadways, they have great locations already.
Agreed on the bucket and squeegee being sorely missed at charging stations... and tire pressure machines please. Also 100% agree on having card readers on every charger. At least contactless ones.
I did always find it bizarre taking my Tesla to a gas station to top off my tire pressure. When I went inside for change for the coin-operated air machine, the nice gal just turned it on for free. I opted to buy a soda, since they clearly couldn't make it up by selling me gasoline 😂
And the air compressor would also be a self-serve, electrical, device. Seems like a no-brainer addition.
The Tesla charger at Kettleman City (roughly 1/2 way between LA/SF on I-5) is exactly what you want. Roughly 40-50 chargers, well lit, 24 hour access to an enclosed lounge with vending machines, bathrooms, etc. a canopy (with solar on the roof, a no-brainier), and I think 250kw charging. It should be the model for all off-hwy charging, but sadly it seems pretty unique.
Also notably, for those that have never visited a site like it, I visited the Kettleman City supercharger about a year ago on a road trip and the building wasn't just like a gas station. I would recommend people take a look on Google maps, there are a lot of photos of the Tesla Lounge to give you an idea of what they are like (there are over 2000 photos on Google Maps for it). Notably, it requires a code to enter, which was clearly visible in the car's display for the supercharger location. This is the same location where it will list things like gate codes to access third-party destination chargers at hotels, parking garages, etc. So the lounge isn't publicly open like a regular gas station would be, but is still accessible 24 hours a day even when there's no employees at the coffee bar, etc. Any they also added another 55+ superchargers across the road as well, but those are new and don't have the full canopy, etc. just outdoor chargers.
We need to see banks of EV chargers at gas stations. Having them at libraries, grocery stores, etc is convenient, but they're essentially just abandoned after installation. By making them part of the existing petrol network they get treated the same as petrol pumps. So yeah, sometimes they go down, but the gas stations have a vested interest in maintaining their equipment. Random parking lots don't.
Wawa's started installing them here in Florida.. It's nice to charge and grab food while I wait.
The charging owner should want to keep them up. As an EV owner, I don't want to wait at a smelly, dirty gas station for 20 mins. I wish all charging stations had basic amenities, but at least a lot already do
Here in the Netherlands, there is often both a fast charging station and a few fast chargers at the gas station at the stop on the highway. The same card is used for payment at both. It's all ccs2.
Not gonna lie mate, but the idea of having gargantuan transformators really close to dozens of cubic meters of highly explosive substances makes me _really_ nervous...
My apartment garage has no connections or plans to install them.
As a Tesla owner I rented a Kia EV not long ago in Orlando. Went to 3 different mapped chargers that didn't work and spent 2 hours trying to get to a functional fast charger. Tesla has worked flawlessly for 100k miles and dozens of cross country road trips. The difference is game changing.
Speedpass also briefly had a large EZpass type transponder that allowed you to simply pull up and pump gas, but the transponders went in the rear side window, and were frequently stolen by car wash employees and their support was discontinued.
29:40 My attention was split, and when I came back, I saw a video of puppies and Alec saying "To be clear I don't WANT them to die."
Us automotive engineers pretty much always advocate for some mechanical override, just sometimes the sales guys dont like the extra ~$2 BOM cost...
The overrides are generally simple enough to design, wires and pullies.
Excellent points about the protection of the chargers from the elements. one big challenge we face is finding ways to protect the charger on EVs, currently we're solving this vehicle-side with complicated features. an overhead canopy would make this easier.
2 dollars here, 5 there a few more cents for that little thing and before you know it, you are spending a couple of hundred extra per vehicle while producing millions of vehicles per year... yes, every cent saved can become a nice sum of money in the end.
@@Hans-gb4mv A nice sum of money for who? Not me.
Love the mannerisms in this guy’s videos. Im hooked. My brain flows with your words.
One additional thing from your gas station analogy that I'd like to see - a large sign by the roadside displaying the price you'll be paying per unit of charge. So you can decide whether even to charge there, or look for somewhere cheaper.
In France on the highway I see regularly a big sign with all KW (and gas/diesel) prices for all pumps in the next 100KM. Around 6 or 7 stations usually.
Tesla lists it on their screen where you search for the nearest charger, I don't like some of the simplification of Tesla but it has a lot of things done right. "Specific pricing for each Supercharger site is shown on the selected pin's pop-up on your touchscreen."
@@marijnlin Sweden too.
I strongly agree with what you said in the ending bit about how technological progression should be done to solve problems. The dogma of progress for the sake of doing what's cool instead of doing what's practical is something that i've been frustrated by before, and i'm glad to know others feel the same way.
If it's not solving either more problems, or the same problems in more-practical ways, then it's not actually progress; it's just fucking around.
EU will make it mandatory to be able to pay with a card and in Norway it already is the rule, although the charging providers do not comply with it yet.
Part of the problem I have seen with the whole cool factor, seams to be poor implementation to cut costs resulting in the, cool thing, becoming more frustration than cool in the end. As he mentioned, a good chunk of the issues with 3rd party charging systems is implementation of their supporting services to support their main function.
Every EV charger should include a publicly-accessible, non-software-controlled ordinary household AC outlet, so that even if everything else is broken, as long as the power is on, someone could use it as a last resort (as long as they brought along the adapter, which they would if this was widespread), to at least charge their vehicle's battery enough to limp to another charger is that hopefully fully working, instead of being stranded at one that is broken.
I would be in favor of this also, in addition to free or lower-priced AC charging as a backup for maximum compatibility and to incentivize people who need to charge to 100% to free up a DC Fast Charging connector.
That's a cool idea and all, but implementing this would make it comically easy to steal power from public charging stations, so it's never happening.
@@lynnntropy There's nothing stopping people from doing that already from any outdoor outlet anywhere. What else are people going to do with AC power, anyway, in the middle of a parking lot?
With how the stations are at the far end of the lot, pretty sure it's going to become a homeless hotspot especially in the winter. I guess that's not too bad though, the homeless consistently on the streets generally aren't doing theft or vandalism.
I live in New York State, and I recently discovered that EvolveNY Charging Stations are installing free CHAdeMo/CSS to Tesla (North American Charging Standard) adapters next to all their DC Fast Charging facilities
A family friend owns 2 gas stations that offer fresh food (similar to wawa) and they just finished the 2nd location with 10 covered ev spots (EA i believe) its exactly what you describe but still with gas/diesel.
If it goes well enough they have room for spots at location 1 too.
Good on them!
smart move, people who charge for 15-30 mins will def stretch their legs and shop
I see more and more gas stations adding some charging terminals. Being already a well known spot for re-fuelling your car probably provides them with many customers. Having a vacuum for cleaning and a sponge for the windshield are also important as told in the video.
@@joachimfrank4134 oh yeah absolutely. I have a big highway station about an hour from my house that has over a hundred pumps AND sixteen superchargers. can’t wait until they open up the network and I can charge my Audi there.
As someone who would charge their car for 30 minutes at a gas station, yeah I would stretch my legs and buy some stuff and wash my windshield.
And you know that part in TechnologyConnection 's video where he talks about the sorry state of maintenance of charging stations? Well it's been out of order for months. It's basically been abandoned. Good job EVGo! (I'm glad I don't work near there anymore)
@@oopszie
Speedpass at the gas station was SUPER handy for me, because I was constantly driving for work or company cars at the time. So I could just swoop it over the scanner thing and automatically charge the fuel to the correct account.
I may have been one of the only to use it, but it worked for that VERY small niche audience. :)
I liked it too, but... I'm struggling to find the difference between that and credit card NFC use which just works everywhere.
@@undine120 SpeedPass was pre NFC payments. Like the first NFC payments I saw were in 2013 when the Nexus 7 came out, and that was at McDonald's only. I was using SpeedPass allllll the way back ten years earlier in 2003-2004.
I think I stopped using SpeedPass around 2012, maybe 2013, I forget when I no longer had a station that had the readers for it.
11:23 YES! YES! YES! Mechanical overrides are a requirement and clearly marking them should be a no-brainer. Obviously this isn't understood in the industry though. This, as well as complete systems integrations that cause some vehicles to not function at all if the infotainment system is down, keep me from buying anything made within the past decade.
I am about at the 43 minute mark And wanted to stop and thank you for mentioning those of us with disabilities - I had been a driver for many years. To get gas at any station was always a challenge! Now that I can no longer drive for myself due to my vision, a self driving car is the next thing I want! Santa, can you drop one down the chimney (in my case in the heater).
Here in California we fought very hard to get a portable gas distribution system set up for those that have disabilities so that they did not have to go to the gas station, but could get their gas tank, topped off right at their home - that didn’t work out.
The idea of electric cars/vans add new possibilities, and new challenges!
Loved the video. Just did an 8,000 mile trip with an F-150 Lightning across the US (and through barren South Dakota) and all of the pain points you bring up are spot on. Squeegees for windshields and canopies are a must!
Canopies would be nice, BUT SOMETIMES you might want to be in the sunshine.
Thanks for this. It's unfortunately uncommon, in the tech field in particular for people to change a position based on changing facts. I recall your earlier videos on VHS vs. Beta, where there are folks to this day who are still convinced that the defeated format was best. (Something you did a very nice job of debunking). I think charging stations will improve markedly over this decade, it takes a critical mass of customers to create a viable business case. I do fear however that you may not see as many attended stations, the trend seems to be to try to minimize that (see the now ubiquitous self checkout lanes). Even though it's not perhaps the bleeding edge these days, it is still very early days for EVs.
I think in the CCS vs NACs fight, the real missed-chance was adopting Europe's version of CCS. 3 Phase charging isn't *as* useful in North America, but it still has value in commercial settings. It'd be pretty useful for places like Malls, theme parks, etc where people will spend a few hours. They often have level 2s which are still helpful, but 3phase would do much more at a similar price point, vs the costs of even basic 50kw level 3s.
German super markets tried to implement the self check outs and didn't really understand that they still require monitoring to minimise theft. They basically just slapped 8 self checkouts in a dark corner and expected everyone to pay via an honor-system, which, needless to say, didn't really work.
They then concluded that it can't and will never work and are now cutting back on self checkouts. It's honestly mind boggling.
But back to topic, gas stations pretty much are self check outs already. You have mostly one or two employees monitoring 6 or more pumps, that nowadays already have a payment function.
@@Joesolo13 But ALL homes in EU have 3phase service so the EVs need to be configured the same. A 3phase home in US is exceedingly rare.
self-checkout still have attendants
I have to agree- canopies are a simple-to-install addition to many existing ports, and even some form of restrooms or vending machines might be a possible future amenity of charging ports. But I don’t think attendants will be added any time soon, unless we see full convenience store charging stations (or charging stations partnering with or in the further future replacing existing gas stations?), in which case the counter staff has a secondary role as port attendants. As you said, that’s simply not the trend in commerce these days. The reverse is true, that we are pushing further and further towards automated, self-run check-out solutions, in restaurants, grocery stores, and more. It would be inconceivable to me for a charging port company to add in human attendants as a selling point for their station; it would be the reverse of the “futuristic” trend, and we all know that these companies of all companies are the most desperate to be futuristic.
Nowadays, in France, pretty much every highway gas station have now installed EV charging stations, so that's is pretty neat
same in europe
Wait isn't France in Europe?
@@Dudofall rural europe i meant
@@Dudofall For Parisians it's extremely difficult to grasp basic geography outside of Paris. They still think the European parliament is a joke name for former elected officials unemployment benefits.
Champing at the bit is so absolutely correct! Thank you Alex for that!!
The transition from animal powered transportation to petroleum took decades. I still have neighbors (in an admittedly extremely rural part of the country) that grew up driving horses or mules. This will take time, but is moving much quicker.
The World as we know it was basically built using horses, hammers, sailboats, steam engines, ropes, dogs, coal, wood etc. Studying the history of technology is enlightening. There is value in familiarity. There are Westinghouse generators at Wilson dam on the Tennessee River that are still working after 90 years, and provide power to 350,000 homes. Don't completely dismiss the Wisdom of the Ancients.
well, it has passed 1 decade already, how many more will come ??
pov: You realize that petroleum is basically Million Years Ago dead animal powered transportation.
Here in the city where I live in Brazil (200 000 population), It's not a rare sight to see a Horse Waggon transporting people and other things
@@TheZenytramWe've had electric cars longer than gas cars. They've just always had significant disadvantages that still make them a bad idea for a lot of people. Like people who only have street parking and don't own their home.
Love the fact that you're wearing an Amtrak shirt in this one. Electric cars are nice, but I think that it would be much more practical to implement electrified public transit given the issues with obtaining the raw resources for every car in North America to have a battery pack.
Yep, for most of the US population improved mass transit(even if it wasn't electrified) would do more good on several fronts than buying an electric car would. There's always outliers and exceptions, and they're discussed to death every time public transit's mentioned. And coming from a family of Tradesmen, yes, they're valid, but 90+% of vehicles aren't bringing one of the Plumbers or HVAC techs I know to fix your house, they're hauling one person to work or the store.
@@Joesolo13 I agree, though I will recommend you to post your comment in the main thread under the video and get more to see it, if you feel so inclined. We need more voices advocating for public transit. Great take though.
Amtrak is though regrettably a huge example of the failure of America's public transit system.
@@StopTryingSoHard Regrettably, but I do have hope moving forward.
I have always assumed that the first truly viable open charging system would call itself Standard Electrons.
Or General Electr---wait a minute!
@@crash.overridecall i GE for short XD
Not Electron! The 2 apps using this is already eating RAM like crazy.
@@gluttonousmaximus9048that's what you get for trying to run web pages natively JUST USE A BROWSER
Well, knowing history.... we're eventually going to need a mobile electron too 😂
Somehow this video just popped on my recommended list. This is, hands down, one of your best videos. Ever. Thank you for such an open, honest, and thorough discussion of this subject.
Here in Italy Enel (the public energy utility company owned by the government) operates an AC charging (usually 25-50kW) network with small charging columns scattered around the city, mainly in mall/supermarket parking lots. Sometimes you get free charging while you shop, which is great
That'd be such a great way to encourage people to shop at your place over the competitor!
Which city?
Adapters can have temperature sensors - the Tesla European CCS adapter for Model S had one - it just disconnects the comms line, stopping charging
I agree 100% on the payment issue. I don't want to have to sign up for anything or fiddle around with my phone just to get a charge started. Just accept credit/debit cards! This should be universal. Anything else is just weird and most likely involves having to sign up for something that will only work with that one charging network.
There also should be a way to pay cash. A lot of people still do that for gas.
And then there's the depressingly common case of going through all that hassle and loading $20 credit into the network TO FIND THE CHARGE POINT WON'T TALK TO YOUR CAR!
Good luck getting your money back in that case...
@miscbits6399 put a buck in to get started, and add more as it goes? Seems like that would be simple enough on the software side
@@spallwalker5683 yeah that could work, not sure how much kwh per dollar you get but perhaps it could just take change like a parking meter. Take anything up to a toonie.
With plug and charge (properly implemented) you don't need to fiddle with your phone or even pull out your wallet. You just plug it in, no using touch screens on the charger, your phone, or the car. It "just works". The payment details come from the car and it automatically starts paying for the amount of power you're consuming. The technology connections guy here is just utterly confused.
Just want to say: Thank you for saying "Champing at the bit" rather than chomping. Truly a gentleman and a scholar.
It’s shocking that electric plugs don’t provide amenities honestly. I never thought about it until you mentioned it, but gas stations have been developed over like 100 years into what they are now so why don’t they just include a few charging stalls alongside their pumps? Not to mention electric chargers take 2-4x as long as a gas fill so having a convenience store is even more important
It's all a question of initial investment. Gas stations had to spend that money to build the station when they started, as they needed space for the pump operator and cash register. Later, when those were no longer needed, with self-pumping and credit cards now being available, that investment was no issue as new gas stations were a rare thing. (And there were expectations on how they look...)
With fast chargers, we are still in the initial expansion phase. Spending 5 times as much on a single location as an initial investment than what they can get away with would be foolish, as that would mean they'd only be able to build one-sixth of the locations they can without.
Also, the ROI is questionable. People spend a relatively long time at chargers, but the absolute amount of people visiting any charge point is low. You need a massive location with about 40-50 stalls that see heavy use to match the number of customers even a tiny 4-pump gas station gets per day. And this quadruples for "free" services that have to be paid with the income from the pumps/stalls (i.e. trash cans, water, windshield cleaning, air, canopy), as a fill-up only costs about a fourth for electricity as it costs for gas.
It is well-known that convenience stores make most or all of their profits inside the store, their margins on gas are very low especially in todays's volatile oil market. This is especially true of the big chains like 7-Eleven. Still, they invest millions in the fueling experience and in fuel loyalty programs to entice drivers to decide to fill up at their pumps because they'll be more likely to spend money in the store. So it would seem obvious for this model to be copied for EV chargers. Why reinvent the wheel?
@@HenryLoenwind agree but they definitely still build new fuel stations. And yes about the ROI, it’s just gotta wait until electric is more popular, but you’d think that would be a growth market, esp if you already operate a station
In Europe, the gas station did put up chargers at their stations
@@benediktkrull5738 I think the problem will be charging throughput in terms of cars per hour, which probably needs a re-think in terms of how 'fuelling' stations ar laid out.
Charging an EV will take in the best case scenarios about 25 mins, and with a gas fill-up taking 5 mins we'd need 5x the chargers to maintain capacity and avoid long queues.
This is probably a best case scenario as charging speeds may not be optimal, people may want to fill up more capacity (which is slower), or may go and do stuff and leave their cars on the charger.
Therefore stations would need an expanded footprint to maintain capacity, which would be troublesone for urban filling stations that do not have the space to expand, especially a problem in the UK where space is at a permium. I think this would necessitate a different approach, situating chargers in more locations that we have gas stations.
You've done it once again. I watched a 48 minute video about something electric car connectors and I don't plan on owning an electric car at anytime in the foreseeable future. Very interesting and fun video to watch. Thanks!
And I watched the entire video living in a country that isn't affected by any of this!
both the comment and replies, same
At this point, we’re all just future EV owners so it’s worth being informed at the least
@@scarpmetal-e5ereally depends on the country. If one decides they wont switch, and their country wont mandate it, all the remaining fuel in the world remains for that country, and prices will basically drop to almost nothing as it will be the only market that buys it. I know i will stick to ICE cars until they will make driving your own car illegal.
@@scarpmetal-e5ei’m not, i have extremely severe tourette’s syndrome with motor tics so bad that they keep me from driving or even riding a bike. i’m almost 25, too, so it obviously hasn’t gotten better with age like in most cases. i will most likely NEVER be able to drive sadly…
Electric “gas” stations sounds like a great idea to me. If the companies that own these added EV charging, that would make a lot of sense.
They exist in Europe. In the UK many "Petrol" stations have a few chargers (its soon to be legally required in the UK) We also have a dedicated "GridServe" which is rare but has the whole cafe, waiting area and every parking spot is a charger.
Which is perfectly normal in the EU !!! :) Why Europe does so many things better ?? Are Americans afraid to copy, because they are afraid to just copy what is good? USA you are free to copy all the good stuff of the EU. It's fine. We won't judge ok. Just google: FastNed and look at the pictures. Beautiful charging stations.
It's a chicken and egg problem, but with higher adoption rates gas stations will have to cater to the EV-crowd as well. It's starting in Europe and because of incentives Norway's come a long way with Circle-K and other gas station operators diversifying into electric charging.
@@nnthepirate True, however here in Aus, most Petrol stations have car parks away from the pumps that could easily be used for EV charging.
Most new fule stations near me (DC metro area) have charging stations of some type
Great job covering everything so thoroughly! I'm glad to see that you're cautiously optimistic about this development.
I do think the transition period will be very interesting, probably not always in good ways. Some of the nice things about Tesla's network have been the result of its walled-garden nature, not inherent upsides (for example, the whole "cross-compatibility testing" is something they never had to worry about), and I expect some of those issues to pop up in the early days.
But as you say, Tesla does enough stuff right that simply making people compete with them is a good thing for the charging industry as a whole.
Wrong NACS is backwards looking anticompetitive technology.
Remember back in the day when every cellphone had its own proprietary charger? Now that concept is so foreign to us. (Other than apple, of course, because they have disdain for their customers)
I imagine something similar will happen with EV chargers eventually.
The next iPhone in a few months might actually have USB-C... here's hoping. (If so, we can thank the EU for finally making that happen, and not with a little adapter.)
@@rickgreer7203 Doesn't the advent of inductive charging already make this a moot point though? I have a cheap pad at work and one at home which I can take with me on trips. Probably over 2 years since I plugged in my phone
Elon always wanted his standard to be open, thats why he never patented the charger, he also believes his system to be better and doesnt want to change its design, rather he would want all EVs to adopt his standard as it helps everyone.
I mean it did happen. That's one of the major points of the video.
This, and it should be CCS2
To add a simple point to the plug-and-charge discussion, it's good to have a low failure rate of individual components, but it really doesn't hurt to have redundancy. Have plug-and-charge, have touch payment, have card swipe/insert, and have an attendant who can also add payment to a charge station through cash/card (this can be done through unique ID on each charging station and calling/texting/etc. OR someone in a kiosk/convenience store/etc. nearby). If you've ever been to Japan or Korea you can see many advanced forms of payment architectures in use with many layers of redundancy. Making an infallible singular method is impossible, it's better to have many methods with near perfect systems in redundancy making total failure the actual near impossibility.
Meanwhile just yesterday the cashless infrastructure of 1 of my country's banks & part of some other banks' infrastructure got brought down for ~1/2 a day due to problems with an outsourced data centre used by all these banks (Equinix). That'd be disastrous for merchants that've stopped accepting cash
I've been watching your older stuff...4 years back or so...and am happy to see that nothing has changed! Very informative and entertaining at the same time.
Brilliant, as always👋 I have no idea what the situation with ev chargers is like here in Australia, but at least I have a graspable benchmark to compare it against when I need to.
8:27 - quick note, Tesla did do DC charging through the Type 2 connector in the EU. The Model 3 was the first Tesla model sold in EU that had the separate DC plugs. Superchargers in the EU were retrofitted with additional CSS plugs. Old chargers now have both, new chargers only have CSS for which older Model X and S cars will need an upgrade - you then get an adapter you can use.
Same in Australia. We still have "legacy" Superchargers that have the Tesla-modified Mennekes plug and the CCS 2 plug. I'm hoping we can get something sensible like a "NACS three phase" or CCS3 which would basically be an up-rated version of the Tesla modified Mennekes.
@@manicdee983ironically, Tesla’s original Mennekes solution was based on an open standard, but no other vehicle manufacturers adopted it!
@@manicdee983 They didn't modify the Type 2 connector. They were simply the only manufacturer to use the functionality. It's called "DC-Mid".
The plug & charge option is attractive for fleet users. No card that you can loose or could me misused.
I worked at an airport many years ago and it had a fueling station for internal use only vehicles.
Each had a small chip at the fuel filler and the nozzle also had one.
As Munich airport is rather big that ensures automatic billing and again for fleet vehicles was very nice. You simply pulled up and pumped.
Later in the military we had fleet cards for petrol stations. We never lost one but still I can imagine the comfort for pool fleet vehicles
The only question is - are fleet users the overwhelming majority? But I can see the point
"lose"
In markets where carsharing is popular (think Zipcar, Car2Go, Evo...), it solves a huge problem!@@Yorick257
@@Yorick257 what was the point of this comment? an ev owner doesn't have to be a fleet user to benefit from plug and charge.
Fine, no need to not offer it for commercial users, but foist it on all users? no. 🙂
It's a little weird that gas stations haven't started to get into the EV charging business in the US much. This has started to happen a bit in Canada at some stations like Petro-Canada, Co-op and to some extent Shell.
The other advantage of colocating charging at a staffed location is that it accommodates those who refuse to use or are unable to get a credit or debit card. There's basically no way to pay for EV charging with cash right now at most locations. That will become an issue as EV ownership eventually becomes more realistic for those lower on the economic ladder. (Edit: which Alec did address later in the video.)
They haven’t done much in Europe either. EV charging usually co-located at the same highway concession, and even when it’s at the actual gas station, it’ll often be operated by a different company anyway. Shell has a decent number of their own chargers, and there’s another company starting to roll them out (forgot which, maybe Esso or Total). In all cases: app or fob required to pay.
Some buc ee's stations have Tesla chargers.
Can't beat a buc ee's charging stop!
Only reason I can see is their available real estate for each station. Most gas stations have little free space you could devote to EV charging. Most certainly don't want charging stations next to gas or diesel pumps.
@@monkeybarmonkeyman true..
Gas fumes are dangerous...
Over 4000 gas pump fires each year in the USA with multiple deaths.
Safer to be far away from gas pumps,!
Petro Canada chargers are always broken, they basically only exist to justify that "coast to coast EV charging" page on their website while providing nothing in the real world
I live in a whole other country, New Zealand, where about half the cars have CCS-Type2 and the other half have CHAdeMO. The Teslas have CCS-Type-2. Almost all the DC chargers have both types of connectors, with some having two CCS and one CHAdeMO per dispenser. It's super fun to charge three cars on one 300kW charger. We will continue to import vehicles with both types of connectors.
We have a few charging networks and I don't enjoy signing up to networks to use chargers in different regions. There is one network that I have tried to sign up for twice, and I have still never managed to get it to work. However, I have done about 400 or 500 charge sessions and only have suffered about 5 charge locations I could not get to work. Mostly the two networks I use are very reliable. They do the maintenance and they upgrade and replace old equipment.
We have some DC chargers at petrol stations, But mostly DC chargers are at supermarkets and cafes. I think the petrol station chargers are starting to get more common, I figure that on the main north-south highways, there will be pull through petrol station like chargers popping up in the next few years.
Quite a lot of car parking buildings have AC chargers for all day charging, and they use the same tags and apps as DC chargers. We also have some AC chargers for residents in city neighborhoods that have no off street parking.
I made some videos about most of this stuff.
23:34 The first thing that comes to mind about Electrify America horror stories is that for some reason, they thought it would be a good idea to upgrade the only (at the time) fast charger between Dallas and Austin during the week of Thanksgiving last year. There were so many drivers scrambling to find any sort of L2 charger around Waco. The only ones available were 2 ChargePoint stations at a hotel and then there was one ABB CCS 25w charger at a Kia dealership that only worked half the time. Nothing else. It’s still mind-boggling to this day as to why they would think to start a station upgrade during the week of Thanksgiving.
40:51 Is having a place to use the bathroom while I charge too much to ask for? There have been times where I’ve gotten up early to roadtrip my Bolt and when I eventually need a charge, there’s absolutely nothing open or within walking distance to get snacks or just to use the bathroom. It’s incredibly frustrating.
Lack of bathroom facilities is a deal breaker for families … little kids can’t wait to pee!
Seattle City Light (Seattle's municipal electric utility) is already doing chargers for street parking, and you can request some be installed for free at a particular location if you have an electric car and regularly park it on the street.
The only thing I don't like about using credit cards at chargers is the preauthorizations. Every charge stop authorizes the card for $20-50, which is a lot of money you don't have access to for up to a week when you have to make five or more stops in one trip. Gas stations do this too, but you are more likely to spend that much or more on a fill-up anyway, as opposed to charging where I rarely go over $12 at each stop. Credit cards should always be an option, but they really need to change the preauthorizations to be closer to what you will actually spend.
This is a fair consideration!
Most gas stations over here let you choose the preauthorization amount, and simply stop the fuel when you hit the limit. Seems like the best solution for chargers as well?
@@alexanderdekeuyper2990It's not like they give you a choice
As a european, wtf are preauthorisations? Over here you just, yknow, pour x amount of gas and pay for what you poured, same for EVs
Europe uses reserved amounts too, but those funds are immediately released once you're done with the transaction.
I don’t have an electric car, but love to hear your voice and how you talk about the tec. So thank for sharing this!
Honestly the "plug and charge" concept would be great for gas vehicles imo. We basically have that at my job. All the vehicles on property have an RFID ring around where you put the nozzle and the on site gas station has special nozzle that reads the info from the ring to charge the right account.
Edit: And for anyone like "that wouldn't work with current infrastructure" the pumps this system was installed on early this year are older than any pump you'd find at a modern gas station. They have analog rolls for keeping track of current gallons pumped and the total gallons pumped.
It works great on Teslas. You just plug in and go. I guess he's worried that the different charging networks would each have their own payment system to sign up for which I can understand.
@@bparrish0 Yeah, that is the foundational problem with those kind of solutions, it would be great if you had one account and it just worked regardless where you plugged in as it is then close to the one service fit all of a credit card, but it is horrible if you need 15 accounts for the 15 service providers of charging.
If this is backward compatible with older vehicle, I see no problem with new fuel nozzle with such mechanism, it could reduce the risk of spillage and reduce a lot of fuel vapor hazard and emission.
The thing there is that your company's gas solution exists in the closed ecosystem of your workplace for that workplace's vehicle fleet. For such a system to work in the wild, all the gas station companies and/or car companies would need to standardize on software and hardware, and we would all have to be okay with it working that way.
I would need to sign up for a service which stores my payment information (something I'm generally not okay with, personally), and then hope nothing goes wrong at the pump. If this technology "removes the need for gas station attendants," I would suddenly have no recourse should the system fail, if there isn't also a POS machine on the pump ... which I would be using anyway given the choice.
Sometimes "good enough" really is good enough to leave well enough alone.
@irregularassassin6380 I'm not saying make it the only option, I'm saying make it AN option. Things would have to be installed on vehicles so you can't make it the only option without forcing every driver to modify their car, I would just think it fits alongside the way technology is moving to start adding this into vehicles and at the gas stations that have it you are essentially doing the same thing that most people do with apple/google/Samsung pay. It especially would make sense for rental cars given you could set it up to read for the type of fuel required so nobody puts regular in a vehicle that needs higher octane fuel.
This brings up a great point. It totally makes sense for places like Sheetz or Speedway that have full service food and beverages. To those places, gasoline is at best low margin and could be a loss leader. They want people to come in and buy stuff. It seems like AC or DC charging at a "pump" would offer the same financial benefits to those sorts of businesses. I wonder why they haven't jumped on yet.
Could be they are afraid of any chance of a spark near gasoline vspors. After all, cigarette smokers blow up two gas stations in the US annually. (And the stations keep selling ciggies and lighters. Hmm.)
Every Wawa in FL that I have been to have charging stations, not sure why Sheetz doesn’t
When I was driving through Pennsylvania on my way to Cleveland, every Electrify America station on the turnpike was at a Sheetz
Travel Centers of America is rolling out charging stations soon.
@@lyfandethI would say the bigger issue is lack of room. Few gas stations have the space to have more vehicles parked for 30min to an hour or two.
It's interesting to me that the kind of fuel network you mention around 36:25 - having a chip next to your car's gas filler - is something that has absolutely caught on here in Turkey. In fact, my second hand ICE car came with a Shell chip installed that I had to take out. Typically it will be fitted to company cars and fleet vehicles so that the driver - who doesn't own the car - can fill up and it will automatically be expensed to the company.
Buit the general user wants the freedom to charge where he chooses and will wish to take advantage of price competition. Monopoly or oligopoly charging is bad news.
@@rogerphelps9939 Of course, this is almost 100% used in fleet applications here, and I believe it should stay that way. My car didn't let the gas pump refuel it when I first bought it because of course the old owner took it out of his company account, so I had to rip out the RFID tag before I could actually refuel.
Type 2 has been doing DC, 1 phase AC and 3 phase AC for 10 years. The N, L1, L2, L3 in AC mode do double duty as plus and minus in DC mode.
I never understood why charging banks didn't look like gas stations already. People are more comfortable seeing/using what they already know, and everyone knows what gas stations look and act like. Having an attendant on duty to help out with technical issues would also be a big plus.
Now that everything is actually going to standardize, connector-wise, perhaps we can finally see this apparently very novel idea take hold.
I think a big problem is the additional costs involved in all of that, from capital to land to additional employee pay, that would raise prices to customers perhaps higher than customers would be willing to pay for the option.
I think it's an infrastructure and usage thing. There aren't enough electric car drivers to justify something that big. The networks out there apparently can't afford to keep their current chargers in good condition. Tesla has a vested interest in keeping theirs working as their car business requires a reliable charging network.
@@chaos.corner but the network's also rely, even more completely, on the same thing, keeping their chargers up and able to charge.
But yep, if there aren't enough customers then it makes especially little sense to increase capital and operational costs to build the more expensive stations to serve fewer customers.
Really a large part of why gas stations look the way they do are because of things that don't apply to electric charging, from ideas about the safety of the fuel through the established supply chain and market for the gasoline itself.
In a way it's kind of nice that charging stations can make an evolutionary jump past all of those practices that keep gas stations looking like gas stations. Maybe you buy the energy more at cost without issues of whether a bag of chips is subsidizing the fill up.
@@volkris I agree. It's the sign of a company not doing so well. Potentially in a death spiral. Either that or one that has captive audience and could do with some competition. So this change should show which.
Tesla thought about this already. (When your company's very survival hinges on these details, you sweat those details thoroughly. That's why the NACS design did everything right and CCS did not.) Fundamentally, EV charging is NOT like getting gas. Charging times are longer, of course, but there are more subtle differences. For example, owners of gas cars MUST buy 100% of all their gas from a gas station, leading to a guaranteed and captive market, but public chargers are only rarely used by most EV owners, who can just charge at home. A gas station moves a large amount of fuel per day, which has a high cost just for the fuel itself; an EV charger might charge cars only very sporadically, and the cost of the electricity is minimal compared to the cost of the charging station infrastructure. For all these reasons, the gas station model is not a good fit for public charging stations. What is a good fit? Just look at what Tesla has already done, and there's your answer.
I love your scripts because I always learn a few new things. And you are so right about the need for charging stations to become more like traditional gas stations. At the very least a canopy and an inflation pump for the tyres.
FYI, EV chargers _are_ quite analogous to a specific type of gas station: the autonomous "cardlock" gas stations that exist along long-haul truck routes (in places where it's nearly impossible to staff the station.)
I've often wondered how that worked.
I remember the Mobil Speedpass. You had a little dongle on your keychain that looked like a stubby pencil that you held to the Mobil Pegasus logo which would then light up to show authorization. I used to go to a Mobil in Santa Clarita, CA that was equipped with it; but I don't remember ever seeing at another Mobil further North in California.
I appreciate your humbleness.
It’s a strength not commonly seen in people today.
Honestly I like the idea of having charging stations be just like gas stations for electric cars. And I especially love the lounge idea because what if you don't want to sit in your car while it charges and you can just sit back in a lounge, order a coffee and a snack and relax to a show or something.
Teslabjørn visited a new station in Norway built with mostly charging in mind. Playground for children ie.
There's an article recently in Australia about how ev charging is changing rural communities. Whereas before petrol pumps were drive thru, places are now placing the charging stations next to the local tourist attractions. This way they attract people who would otherwise have never stopped. And ev drivers actually like the idea.of stopping every few hours for a real break next to some interesting places they would otherwise have never stopped.
It will be interesting to see how this develops.
The Björn video is called "Brand new Shell Lohnelier with 2400 kW Kempower charging"
@@martijn8554That sounds like a fantastic way to conduct a trip! So many people really do focus on the destination, not the journey. If EV charging "forces" you to visit a super-cool local museum, that's a great thing! There are so many cool little places the the world that tourists aren't interested in, because they're not the Eiffel Tower, or an equivalent.
on a recent roadtrip, nearly 60% of the chargers i used with electrify america, ev go and chargepoint were broken. i almost got stranded out of batteries. I support this change.
When I did the my last EV evaluation in the UK, around 1/3 of the chargers were broken.
Sometimes it was indicated on the map, sometimes I called the company to check if there were little alternatives around.
I suppose the whole infrastructure will eventually get fixed, but I also believe it will take decades. EVs are a pretty niche market.
Charging stations becoming more like gas stations is exactly the future I want. While the car is charging I can go use the bathroom, clean the windshield, and grab a snack. Sounds really nice to me.