"Why America's EV chargers keep breaking" - Article

[whitex]

NOTE: some people with special accounts w/Tesla and "decoupled" MagicDock adapters can already "roam" to any supercharger site and charge - they've been testing it for months - so yeah - not a lot to do here other than decide to do it.

Can you provide a source of the universal/decoupled MagicDock information?

I'd be curious what happens at a MagicDock charger when internet goes out at the SC site, or Tesla servers go down (which has in the past happened, leaving all Tesla cars without app access and often without google maps). My guess is that you'll be able to charge a Tesla, but not CCS via MagicDoc.

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[daveo4EV]

TLDR: Tesla's Vehicle's and Supercharger sites/stalls are bilingual (at least) - both their vehicles and their Supercharger site hardware can do either native Tesla-supercharging protocol _OR_ native CCS - this is the only way this can work with unmodified vehicles in Europe and North America (and it already works in Europe and North America with unmodified CCS vehicles) This allows any "adapter" to be passive and just provide signal pass through

In North America J-1772, CCS1 and NACS all specify and have 5 electrical connectors - 2 for high voltage power, 2 for low voltage communication, and 1 electrical ground - from a pure electrical signaling point of view NACS, J-1772, CCS1, ISO-xxxx are IDENTICAL (5 connectors each). Nothing prevents anyone from running a native Supercharger/J-1772 AC/CCS/ISO charging session across these 5 identical electrical connectors (electrical standards and communication protocol) …with bilingual/multilingual software/hardware support in both Tesla vehicle's and their charging network it all becomes quite simple…to add CCS support for both CCS based and NACS based EV's.

• Tesla Vehicle's talk Supercharger to Supercharger sites (5 wires)
  • NCAS port to NCAS cable
• Tesla Vehicle's talk CCS to CCS Chargers (EA, Chargepoint, EVGo, ABB, Signet, etc) (5-wires)
  • NCAS Port to CCS Adapter to CCS cable
• Tesla Vehicle's talk J-1772 to J-1772 AC EVSE's (5-wires)
  • NCAS Port to J-1772 adapter to J-1772 cable
• Tesla Vehicle's talk ISO-xxxx to ISO-xxxx AC EVSE's (5-wires)
  • NCAS port to what ever 5 wire connector
• J-1772 Vehicle's talk J-1772 to EVSE's via an NACS connector or otherwise (5-wires)
• CCS Vehicles talk CCS to CCS chargers via an NACS connector or otherwise (5-wires)
• CCS Vehicles talk CCS to a Tesla Supercharger via NACS or otherwise (5-wires)
• Taycan talks ISO-xxxx to Porsche PMC+/PMCC showing charging percentage (5-wires)

as long as the physical connection/cable/connector has 2 high voltage, 2 low voltage comm, 1 electrical ground you can determine "on the fly" what communications/charging protocol you need for any given charging session (J-1772, Supercharger, CCS, ISO, others).

It is a fact that my unmodified 2020 Taycan Turbo (and any other North American CCS EV) charging in Scotts Valley, CA via a MagicDock is getting a native CCS charging session from the Tesla supercharger hardware - because once you have an electrical connection established between the vehicle and the DC charging hardware the _ONLY_ difference between CCS and native-Supercharger is software protocol negotiation…and Tesla has upgraded their Supercharger hardware and software to optionally support CCS natively but still provide Supercharger protocol/standards to Tesla vehicles over the same 5 wires - it's all negotiated when you plug the connector into the vehicle - That makes the physical shape of the connector irrelevant and any adapter or plug is simply a pass through for the 5 separate signals.

CCS is not dying - it lives on across an NACS physical plug - but the CCS protocol will be leveraged by non-TEsla's to talk native CCS to Tesla Superchargers via an NACS plug/cord _OR_ adapter. Charging station vendors such an ABB and Signet won't add supercharging to their stations - they will support running the existing CCS protocol standards across an NACS plug/cable - at the end of the day it's the same 5 wires talking to the vehicle…no actual change in the CCs electrical standards, just a new plug shape that doesn't break when you drop it.

Ford and GM are not adding support for Supercharging (as a protocol) to their vehicle's - Elon has already added support for native CCS to the North American supercharger network (and europe also) - But Ford and GM are abandoning the wonky and faulty and fragile complex CCS1 physical plug standard - but keeping the CCS protocol (so they can continue to work with EA, EVGo, Chargepoint and others) - all they need is 5-wires and a CCS1 adapter - which they have with NACS.

read on for a lengthy and gory reverse engineering of how Tesla has done this…


MagicDock isn't a supercharger converter (ie it's not speaking Supercharger on one side and CCS on the the other) - it's a pass through passive adapter- when charging a non-Tesla the supercharger DC hardware and firmware is actually is providing a native CCS charging session over the NACS cabling to that stall - which is why no existing CCS vehicles need any updates...in Europe or North America.

Tesla has taught their superchargers to be CCS chargers when they need to be to - the magicdock is not an "active" adapter - Tesla's superchargers are "bilingual" - each stall can talk either Tesla-Supercharger _OR_ CCS as necessary (this is how it works in europe) - Tesla does not currently support _ANY_ CCS based plug&charge would be my guess (but is likely testing it) - so CCS session must all be app based activation talking to Tesla servers - which is why all CCS vehicle's allowed to access superchargers only support app based activation (tesla's app so far, but ford and GM will apparently gain access to send requests to Tesla's network).

• In europe a Tesla vehicle talking over the CCS2 connector to a Tesla supercharger stall - negotiates a native Supercharger Session - simply using the CCS2 cable/connector for the electrical connection but not the CCS session protocol or power standards.
• A non-Tesla vehicle in Europe plugs in to a EuroSupercharger and doesn't "speak" supercharger - the supercharger "sees" a CCS handshake and waits for an activation signal from the servers sent from the user's tesla application/account (no CCS plug&charge support - yet).
• A Tesla vehicle plugging into a native CCS station in Europe see's a CCS handshake and knows not to "talk" supercharger protocol - because Tesla's vehicle's are also bilingual…

Tesla Vehicle's are now bilingual (mostlyl there are some legacy models that can't talk CCS - but nothing since 2020- Im' not sure of the exact cutoff) - Tesla vehicles can negotiate either a supercharger session or native CCS session based on what they "see" when you plug them in to a given charging stall.

Tesla Supercharger stalls are also bilingual - they can talk either Supercharger or CCS based on what they "see" when the vehicle begins talking to the station

Tesla controls access to non-Tesla's by controlling access to CCS session negotiation for a given site/stall…any adapter or otherwise is therefore invisible to the process - no different than a "native" cable with the right connector already on it.

the only "active" portion of the MagicDock is the "latch" to lock it to the NACS connector when it's release from the magicdock holster on the stall - other than that it's a passive pass-though connector - the non-Tesla vehicle "sees" a native CCS session - and by activating it with the Tesla app it instructs the supercharger stall hardware to provide a CCS charging session electrically and protocol based - my sources have confirmed it's all software upgrades for supercharger onsite firmware once a site is upgraded every stall can do either Supercharger or native CCS under software control - and for the most part all the sites are upgraded already with the new software (Tesla was super clever here - while the stall is not in use the NACS connector is connected to the MagicDock - if a tesla user presses the button on the NACS connector to release the cable it simply comes out of the holster with out the MagicDock attached - however when you use the App to "release the cable" and indicate which stall you are using, which is a required step to use a MagicDock, Tesla use the "low voltage" connectors to "talk" to the MagicDock to engage the latch so it comes out attached to the NACS connector - so there is a bit of "active" hardware on the MagicDock - but it's simply for command/control of the latching mechanism)

the supercharger _DOES_ require an internet connection to "receieve" the "start session" command, from the service and to "release" the magicdock and received biling information on the back end - but all superchargers these days are connected to the internet these days to report status and live stall utilization data to the mother ship and in car navigation stats...

this does mean for remote supercharger sites with no internet connection (I can't imagine that exists today in 2023) an internet connection _IS REQUIRED_ to activate a CCS session - there is no "local" only mechanism to start a session - its' all relay'd via "the cloud" from the app to Tesla's server's which then "release" the electrons by telling the stall hardware it ok to charge...there currently also no mechanism to "release" the MagicDock from the holster if there is no internet connection. But I believe it to be true that all supercharger sites are now fully connected 7/24 to the internet. For the minority of sites that are not well they will have to be upgraded to support CCS vehicles from Ford/GM…

the works with out an internet connection days of superchargers are most likely long gone - and probably died once billing for the session became a thing…

plug&charge can not be supported in this minimal configuration - but it is fully functional with app based activation and the supercharger stall "knowing" it's to provide a CCS session to the vehicle.

in reviewing my 2020 Taycan using the Supercharger site in Scotts Valley, CA - when you release the magicdock and plug it into teh vehicle - it does the same handshake and negotiation it does with an EA stall (according to the limited in car display) - and once that handshake is complete it simply waits for the electrons to flow just like it waits for me to start the charging session with my EA app…

Tesla is now "multi-lingual" on the communcations protocols over the low-voltage connectors present in both NACS and CCS1 - and it sniffs/recognizes the CCS negotiation/handshake protocols - so it then knows it's talking to a CCS vehicle…basically it doesn't "see" a Tesla talking to it, it assumes this must be a CCS vehicle and then attempts CCS...and if it works, volia I'll just feed this stall CCS protocol and power specifications.

I saw a Ford Mach-E charging at Marina supercharger site with a CCS adapter with manufacturer plates - Marina, CA supercharger site has no magicdocks…but it's clear they knew how to charge the Mach-E - the external lights were indicating a charge session.

all of this can be made to work with a BYOA (bring your own adapter) and already does work if you have "testing" access account and a loose Magicdock adapter.

I would expect the CCS vehicle Adapter to cost about the same retail as the current Tesla-CCS adapter - which is $175 on the US tesla.com site - no gps, no cell hardware, nothing more than latch control and the superchargers all need to have CCS enabled as allowed charging sessions - but Tesla has this nailed given their compatibility in Europe and clearly the adapter is already designed, and engineered.

My bet is Ford/GM are not "adding" Supercharger protocol support to their vehicles - they are working with Tesla to add CCS plug&charge support their supercharger CCS software stack - this makes the most sense, because then Tesla could do CCS plug&charge in other non-North American markets...with unmodified CCS vehicle's - it's in their interest to be a good CCS charger for non-Tesla's if they are mandated/choose to open their network to existing CCS vehicle's. Ford and GM are not adding supercharging support to their existing fleet by 2024 with an adapter - they are working with Tesla to develop/test start/stop session management to their apps/vehicle's - but it will be a native CCS sesison from the time the NACS-plug/Adapter is inserted into the vehicle's CCS or NACS port…what's missing…no different than the Porsche app being allowed to start/stop an EA session that we all use today if we aren't using plug&charge.

this by the way is also how non Tesla charging hardware vendors will add "NACS" - no one is going to add Supercharger protocol support to their stations/sites - they are just going to run the CCS protocol over an NACS connector/cable - which is essentially what they are doing today for Tesla's using EA in North America - but there is an passive CCS adapter for the NACS connector...but the Tesla using EA is talking a Native CCS session…

Superchargers are bilingual
TEsla vehicle's are bilingual

Tesla to Tesal will remain supercharger protocol/spec based
everyone else will use CCS but run it over either an NACS cable or through a passive NACS adapter.

just like USB-C does for USB-A devices…

the whole architecture here is that Tesla has made both their Vehicle's and their Supercharger Network bi-lingual…

their vehicles can talk either native-supercharger _OR_ native CCS
their supercharger stalls can talk either native-supercharger _OR_ native CCS

at the moment the _ONLY_ plug&charge support is with native supercharger (Tesla talking to Tesla) - all others are app based…

Ford and GM are probably going to remain CCS based - but get Tesla to add plug&charge support to their supercharger CCS implementation … I highly highly doubt any automotive vendor here is going to add "native" supercharger support to their vehicle's - there is no point - and CCS as a protocol is fine and world wide standard.

the problems with CCS in North America is _NOT_ the CCS charging standard…it's the physical design of the CCS1 plug and for what ever reason none of the CCS charging vendors seem to be able to effectively keep their sites running with any relaibility - this is not a problem with the CCS protocol or electrical standards (europe and other's prove this).

Ford/GM/MagicDock are not "moving" to supercharger protocol - they are simply going to run CCS over a NACS cable/connector - and Tesla has added CCS as an option to their supercharger network - which they can support either via:

• native CCS cords/plugs (Europe and US if Tesla wanted to)
• magicdock - (already deployed in north america at some sites)
• NACS cords/plugs - (already works in TEsla vehicle's with CCS/NACS adapter)
• a future BYOA CCS adapter - see above - this is mostly a "no-op" now - purely business policy and some software.

Tesla actually has existing today the largest and most reliable CCS network in North America - but it's currently "restricted" to: MagicDock sites, and a limited number of "test" accounts authorized along with NDA's for various partners they are working with - remember Ford/GM said they have been talking for years...

Tesla's supercharger network _IS_ a CCS based network if it needs to be!! It just has the wrong shape connector - but that can be fixed!

It already is that way in Europe - and it's also that way in north america -but Tesla so far has "not unleashed it"…

at the end of the day - once you have the electrical connector established (5 wires, 2 power, 2 communcation and one ground) - software is the difference between Supercharger and CCS - and tesla's charging "hardware" can push either standard down the wire to the vehicle. Supercharger are not CCS or Supercharger - they are both and adapt for each charging session.

CCS is not dying - just the CCS1 physical connector - if anything this further entrenches CCS protocol and electrical standards into the EV industry - Tesla gets to control their protocol and do clever things, and everybody else gets to run CCS across a CCS2(europe)/NACS(North America) cable/connector -and where necessary or purdent Tesla "enables" CCS charging sessions at their physical sites controlling access to their charging network, but not requiring anyone to adopt their protocols. And others are welcome to either use an adapter or native connector.

the CCS1 plug is dead (or nearly dead and should be killed) - but CCS as a charging protocol remains and will be leveraged…that's the only way both Ford & GM can have this working by 2024 with just an adapter, and also is the only way this actually works in Europe, and also the only way TEsla vehicle's in North America work at EA stations, and also the only way my 2020 Taycan with no software updates can charge at Scotts Valley, CA supercharger site…

Elon is "splitting" the baby - he's co-opting the CCS protocol, keeping his own protocol also but only for his vehicle's and his chargers - but giving away the physical NACS connector and adding CCS support to his charging network (which is already probably done - it is in europe) and in north america the SAE CCS1 physical design problems and the inability of the native CCS charging vendors to actually function have handed Elon the only functional large scale reliable CCS network in North America - all he needs now is for some CCS vehicles to begin using it - and Ford and GM just signed up…

 

[daveo4EV]

Can you provide a source of the universal/decoupled MagicDock information?

I'd be curious what happens at a MagicDock charger when internet goes out at the SC site, or Tesla servers go down (which has in the past happened, leaving all Tesla cars without app access and often without google maps). My guess is that you'll be able to charge a Tesla, but not CCS via MagicDoc.

correct - if internet goes out there is not way to "release" the magicdock or start a CCS vehicle session - although it's unclear these days if you could start a Tesla session either with no internet.

if you had a loose MagicDock adapter with you - you could plug in - but have no mechanism to start the charging session because of app-based activation requirement.

this would be and is true in Europe because at the moment for the supercharger sites that allow CCS vehicle's to charge it is only via app-based activation -and the app talks to tesla servers which then forward the "ok to charge" command to the supercharger stall hardware…so any Supercharger CCS enabled site in europe must have an internet connection - I don't see this as a problem.

so yeah - CCS enabled sites require internet - so if Tesla intends to support Ford/GM vehicle's at their entire set of sites, they must be confident they either already have internet or will add it.

 

[Scandinavian]

so yeah - CCS enabled sites require internet - so if Tesla intends to support Ford/GM vehicle's at their entire set of sites, they must be confident they either already have internet or will add it.

I think this is the case here in Europe already. Normally when you charge at a SuC with a Tesla, there is a free WiFi connection so you can watch a video while you wait and charge. Very appreciated by our grandkids.

 

[whitex]

Thanks for the thorough write up @daveo4EV . I agree with you on most of what you said. Reading through it I realize where our disconnect is.

Superchargers are bilingual
TEsla vehicle's are bilingual

In reverse order.

• All new (post 2020) vehicles are bilingual. Pre 2020 Teslas are not (as you yourself are mentioning).
• All new superchargers are bilingual, or can be made so, however Tesla build quite a few of the old superchargers. V1 superchargers were based on stacked onboard charger and were only superseded by V3 in 2019 (V2 was an urban supercharger, 75KW max, announced in September 2017, it did not replace V1).

The disconnect you and I have is you believe Tesla replaced all V1 superchargers build between 2012 and 2019 with V3 version which can be bilingual. I don't believe that is true. Tesla had quite a decent number of chargers out by 2019 (I made a cost to coast roadtrip in 2016 with no problems).

correct - if internet goes out there is not way to "release" the magicdock or start a CCS vehicle session - although it's unclear these days if you could start a Tesla session either with no internet.

I know for a fact internet session was not required back in V1 days. If you think about it makes sense as a robustness feature. During my decade of owning Teslas, I have experienced regional and even national outages, where app would not connect for a day or two, and/or the onboard maps would not work because Tesla servers had some issue (once AT&T screwed up 3G/LTE provisioning effectively disconnecting all Teslas in the Pacific NW from the internet for over a day). While resulted in as much as all Teslas in the US not being able to show the main screen map (turn by turn directions still worked however, as that was not a cloud service like the main map), I have never heard of these (or other) outages result in national Supercharger outages, which they would if superchargers required internet to start charging. Tesla moving to make supercharging a cloud only service would screw it up like the CCS networks, whenever internet is out, or the servers have a hickup, no charging for anyone. That would be a dumbass move for Tesla, which is why I doubt they did not do this.

so yeah - CCS enabled sites require internet - so if Tesla intends to support Ford/GM vehicle's at their entire set of sites, they must be confident they either already have internet or will add it.

I don't see why they wouldn't just give Ford/GM the ability to charge using the Tesla protocol. Presuming that protocol is not desperately dependent on the cloud availability, it would be the more reliable way to go.

 

[daveo4EV]

Thanks for the thorough write up @daveo4EV . I agree with you on most of what you said. Reading through it I realize where our disconnect is.

In reverse order.

• All new (post 2020) vehicles are bilingual. Pre 2020 Teslas are not (as you yourself are mentioning).
• All new superchargers are bilingual, probably, however Tesla build quite a few of the old superchargers. V1 superchargers were based on stacked onboard charger and were only superseded by V3 in 2019 (V2 was an urban supercharger, 75KW max, announced in September 2017, it did not replace V1).

The disconnect you and I have is you believe Tesla replaced all V1 superchargers build between 2012 and 2019 with V3 version which can be bilingual. I don't believe that is true. Tesla had quite a decent number of chargers out by 2019 (I made a cost to coast roadtrip in 2016 with no problems).


I know for a fact internet session was not required back in V1 days. If you think about it makes sense as a robustness feature. During my decade of owning Teslas, I have experienced regional and even national outages, where app would not connect for a day or two, and/or the onboard maps would not work because Tesla servers had some issue (once AT&T screwed up 3G/LTE provisioning effectively disconnecting all Teslas in the Pacific NW from the internet for over a day). While resulted in as much as all Teslas in the US not being able to show the main screen map (turn by turn directions still worked however, as that was not a cloud service like the main map), I have never heard of these (or other) outages result in national Supercharger outages, which they would if superchargers required internet to start charging. Tesla moving to make supercharging a cloud only service would screw it up like the CCS networks, whenever internet is out, or the servers have a hickup, no charging for anyone. That would be a dumbass move for Tesla, which is why I doubt they did not do this.


I don't see why they wouldn't just give Ford/GM the ability to charge using the Tesla protocol. Presuming that protocol is not desperately dependent on the cloud availability, it would be the more reliable way to go.

my assumption is that if Ford/GM agreed with Tesla for access to their entire network that Tesla either already has upgraded every site, or will upgrade every site, or feels they can support native CCS charging sessions at all existing sites with their current hardware...otherwise it's not the entire network and that would be a point of contention between the new business partners...

I agree early supercharging did not require an internet connection and that was great and very robust - I believe that ship has sailed a long long time ago and effectively the supercharger network is subject to internet outage as much as any other charging network is these days…but I could be wron g- again internet being a requirement is an issue for 100% uptime these days, but not 98% uptime…

and just because it's out for you and your vehicle doesn't mean the supercharger doesn't have internet - they can have hardwired, cell based, and satellite based internet at fixed supercharger sites - if it remains app based activation yeah you'd be blocked from starting a CCS session or Tesla could do for CCS what EA does - which is just allow charging to go forward with no billing or activation required if internet is unavailable - I can make this robust by relaxing the activation rules in the case of extraordinary circumstances - I can "eat" the charging costs if internet is down to keep my network reliability "functional" … there are solutions.

I agree 100% early day superchargers didn't not need a live connection for charging - but again I believe that ship has sailed and sailed a long time ago…in any case we'll see when this all starts to happen in 2024 for Ford/GM…

 

[daveo4EV]

Thanks for the thorough write up @daveo4EV . I agree with you on most of what you said. Reading through it I realize where our disconnect is.

In reverse order.

• All new (post 2020) vehicles are bilingual. Pre 2020 Teslas are not (as you yourself are mentioning).
• All new superchargers are bilingual, or can be made so, however Tesla build quite a few of the old superchargers. V1 superchargers were based on stacked onboard charger and were only superseded by V3 in 2019 (V2 was an urban supercharger, 75KW max, announced in September 2017, it did not replace V1).

The disconnect you and I have is you believe Tesla replaced all V1 superchargers build between 2012 and 2019 with V3 version which can be bilingual. I don't believe that is true. Tesla had quite a decent number of chargers out by 2019 (I made a cost to coast roadtrip in 2016 with no problems).


I know for a fact internet session was not required back in V1 days. If you think about it makes sense as a robustness feature. During my decade of owning Teslas, I have experienced regional and even national outages, where app would not connect for a day or two, and/or the onboard maps would not work because Tesla servers had some issue (once AT&T screwed up 3G/LTE provisioning effectively disconnecting all Teslas in the Pacific NW from the internet for over a day). While resulted in as much as all Teslas in the US not being able to show the main screen map (turn by turn directions still worked however, as that was not a cloud service like the main map), I have never heard of these (or other) outages result in national Supercharger outages, which they would if superchargers required internet to start charging. Tesla moving to make supercharging a cloud only service would screw it up like the CCS networks, whenever internet is out, or the servers have a hickup, no charging for anyone. That would be a dumbass move for Tesla, which is why I doubt they did not do this.


I don't see why they wouldn't just give Ford/GM the ability to charge using the Tesla protocol. Presuming that protocol is not desperately dependent on the cloud availability, it would be the more reliable way to go.

but Ford/GM probably don't want to update their existing fleet or requality their charging hardware and software with supercharger protocol - it's just easier to make Tesla support CCS which they already do in europe - there is no way any existing automotive vendor could roll that out fleet wide by 2024 - CCS is the logical path forward here - but running it over a NACS physical connector/cable.

 

[whitex]

but Ford/GM probably don't want to update their existing fleet or requality their charging hardware and software with supercharger protocol - it's just easier to make Tesla support CCS which they already do in europe - there is no way any existing automotive vendor could roll that out fleet wide by 2024 - CCS is the logical path forward here - but running it over a NACS physical connector/cable.

Possible for existing CCS, they will give a dumb adapter which will work with Supercharger V3 or later, but when building in NACS, why not go Tesla protocol, especially if it's more reliable. Perhaps we need to wait for a national outage of all MagicDocs and legacy Ford and GM adapter before they will realize it might be worth while to support charging which is not 100% cloud based.

 

[whitex]

my assumption is that if Ford/GM agreed with Tesla for access to their entire network that Tesla either already has upgraded every site, or will upgrade every site, or feels they can support native CCS charging sessions at all existing sites with their current hardware...otherwise it's not the entire network and that would be a point of contention between the new business partners...

I agree early supercharging did not require an internet connection and that was great and very robust - I believe that ship has sailed a long long time ago and effectively the supercharger network is subject to internet outage as much as any other charging network is these days…but I could be wron g- again internet being a requirement is an issue for 100% uptime these days, but not 98% uptime…

I have yet to read/hear about an entire supercharger location or all of US superchargers to be out for any amount of time. Either they don't require internet to charge, or Tesla solved true 100% uptime for a cloud service - perhaps they will take on AWS and Azure next?

 

[daveo4EV]

I have yet to read/hear about an entire supercharger location or all of US superchargers to be out for any amount of time. Either they don't require internet to charge, or Tesla solved true 100% uptime for a cloud service - perhaps they will take on AWS and Azure next?

or they just allow charging to continue when the internet is out…and then work to make sure that doesn't happen that often (as a cost of business optimization)- I know EA does that - in fact their network is more reliable when the internet is down than when the internet is functional - and plug&charge works for ALL CCS vehicle's regardless of their actual support…

LOL - EA does in fact work better when their stations can't communicate with the internet - OMG we've solved it!!

 

[whitex]

or they just allow charging to continue when the internet is out…and then work to make sure that doesn't happen that often (as a cost of business optimization)- I know EA does that - in fact their network is more reliable when the internet is down than when the internet is functional - and plug&charge works for ALL CCS vehicle's regardless of their actual support…

LOL - EA does in fact work better when their stations can't communicate with the internet - OMG we've solved it!!

Yea, but has anyone ever reported free supercharger charging due to a network outage? I've seen people talk about EA free sessions, and personally experienced a session where EA claims to have charged me, but I never got billed - it was under $1 over 30m free charge, perhaps not worth while charging under $1 on credit card, or did it just get lost in their billing system?

 

[daveo4EV]

Possible for existing CCS, they will give a dumb adapter which will work with Supercharger V3 or later, but when building in NACS, why not go Tesla protocol, especially if it's more reliable. Perhaps we need to wait for a national outage of all MagicDocs and legacy Ford and GM adapter before they will realize it might be worth while to support charging which is not 100% cloud based.

I don't believe the CCS protocol is the problem - and the auto guys have existing implementations - I'll bet you a friendlly lunch that it's all CCS under the covers - and no one wants or cares to adopt the supercharger protocol - there is frankly no point

CCS as a protocol is not the problem…that's my bet! Tesla already has the CCS protocol working at their sites in US and Europe… they have to otherwise unmodified CCS EV's wouldn't work...that's the fastest and most reliable path forward for the other guys to hop onto the network…and leverage their existing QA and fleet software images - No one at Ford/GM wants to take on a new charging protocol - and if they did it would be in their 2028 vehicle road map given industry standard lead times.

also I'm betting Ford/GM are pushing tesla to add plug&charge support to their CCS stack for the NACS physical plug roll out with the associated model year vehicles with NACS native

Road map is therefore:

• all existing CCS vehicles receive/purchase the NACS adapter w/App based Activation via FordPass or Onstar - that will be how they get supercharger access for now and forever
• ModelYear 2025/2026 vehicles w/NACS support plug&Charge CCS for both CCS native networks and Supercharger network - this is gated by two critical path items - NACS ports in vehicle's and tesla adding plug&charge support to their CCS stack.

 

[daveo4EV]

or they just allow charging to continue when the internet is out…and then work to make sure that doesn't happen that often (as a cost of business optimization)- I know EA does that - in fact their network is more reliable when the internet is down than when the internet is functional - and plug&charge works for ALL CCS vehicle's regardless of their actual support…

LOL - EA does in fact work better when their stations can't communicate with the internet - OMG we've solved it!!

I don't know but it doens't matter unless it's out for a really long time - and tesla is so good at monitoring their network I bet they don't let the internet be out for very long…and Elon does own starlink…
again I don't see internet requirement as a major reliability issue and there are straight forward work arounds (for example Tesla's could report their vehicle ID for charging session and all the biling data gets stored locally and uploaded later when the internet comes back)

you could for example: simply "queue" tesla charging sessions and bill them "later" since you can "trust" the car's client and sites server implmentation - but honestly sessions are starting on "faith" when the internet is down...and CCS well you simply "eat" the costs of those session for the sake of reliability since they are a minority of your load

at the moment MagicDock in north America, and native in europe require internet - and you can't start a session with out it - again not a lot of reports of major problems.

we'll have to see how this goes in North America starting in 2024...personally I can keep the network running 100% with or with out internet if I'm wiling to accrue costs while it's down and then I'll beat the internet providers up to not be "down"....and have redundancy at the sites.

there are many approaches to mitigate this requirement and the times you invoke those mitigations can be managed, monitored and fixed based on data - but requiring internet for CCS session seems a reasonable place to start until you get a robust plug&charge session activation stack implementation and then you can store/forward the plug&charge session data and keep the charging network running …and some fractional portion of your user based may be inconvienced, but you can address them with "free" session for non-plug&charge based vehicle's - and never have any perceieved down time and only fractional impact on revenue when internet is out - and them beat on the "why is the internet down" it's costing us money for this to not be reliable metric.

 

[daveo4EV]

I don't know but it doens't matter unless it's out for a really long time - and tesla is so good at monitoring their network I bet they don't let the internet be out for very long…and Elon does own starlink…
again I don't see internet requirement as a major reliability issue and there are straight forward work arounds (for example Tesla's could report their vehicle ID for charging session and all the biling data gets stored locally and uploaded later when the internet comes back)

you could for example: simply "queue" tesla charging sessions and bill them "later" since you can "trust" the car's client and sites server implmentation - but honestly sessions are starting on "faith" when the internet is down...and CCS well you simply "eat" the costs of those session for the sake of reliability since they are a minority of your load

at the moment MagicDock in north America, and native in europe require internet - and you can't start a session with out it - again not a lot of reports of major problems.

we'll have to see how this goes in North America starting in 2024...personally I can keep the network running 100% with or with out internet if I'm wiling to accrue costs while it's down and then I'll beat the internet providers up to not be "down"....and have redundancy at the sites.

there are many approaches to mitigate this requirement and the times you invoke those mitigations can be managed, monitored and fixed based on data - but requiring internet for CCS session seems a reasonable place to start until you get a robust plug&charge session activation stack implementation and then you can store/forward the plug&charge session data and keep the charging network running …and some fractional portion of your user based may be inconvienced, but you can address them with "free" session for non-plug&charge based vehicle's - and never have any perceieved down time and only fractional impact on revenue when internet is out - and them beat on the "why is the internet down" it's costing us money for this to not be reliable metric.

relax the session start criteria when the internet is down and accrue the identified sessions vs. the unidentified sessions - but always let the charge session work for the perception and actual fact of network reliably - I can also put limits in place to mitigate how long I let this go on before the site goes off line due to lack of command/control from the mother ship and accrued costs - and then monitor costs associated with "outages"…and if "outage based" session costs and getting out of hand - work to manage that and mitigate it - but honestly I bet the data shows this is not the biggest problem they have or will have - and lots of other things don't work when the internet is "down" - but i can keep the charge session working no problem - you can fire me when those costs become our biggest problem - I doubt that's the reason however that will come up

I can manage the hell out this problem and makes sure it's not the significant bit in the cost of the network - smart business don't inconvenience their customers with their infrastructure problems - they manage those problems and mitigate their impact, and then fix them when it becomes a big enough problem that it matters.

 

[feye]

too late - it already has - the "flaws" in the CCS network are well known...

The fanboy back in full swing!



I rather watch this, then reading your fanboy nonsense!

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