According to this Reuters article, Apple is talking with charging station companies:
Apple is now asking charging station companies about their underlying technology, one person with knowledge of the matter said. The talks, which have not been reported, do not concern charging for electric cars of Apple employees, a service the company already provides. They indicate that Apple is focused on a car, the person added.
If Apple is building a car, of course they’re going to be involved in the rollout of charging stations.
It is unclear whether Apple would want its own proprietary technology, such as Tesla Motors’ (TSLA.O) Supercharger network, or would design a system compatible with offerings from other market players.
This is where it gets interesting to me. Will Apple create a car-charging version of the lightning cable? Will it be more than a proprietary plug? Will the specific battery makeup require a custom charger, one that will only charge an Apple battery?
Elon Musk once said:
Musk responded that he specifically wants to avoid the walled garden effect with Supercharger technology, and that the main barrier to universal adoption by other EVs is whether or not other vehicles can accept the power level that a Supercharger delivers. Musk also noted that other manufacturers that want to use the Supercharger network would have to adopt the same cost structure. Currently, Supercharger users don’t pay for a fill-up; Musk has stated that each adoptee would need to contribute capital costs “proportional to their fleet’s usage of the network.”
Not all cars are compatible with Tesla’s charging solution. For example, the Chevy Volt is not plug compatible and, more importantly, not electrically compatible with the Tesla Supercharger network.
As Google and Apple (presumably) enter the fray, the national and, eventually, international charging network will see explosive growth. It will be interesting to see if the walled garden emerges, where an Apple car can only use an Apple charger, purely due to competitive business instincts.
It would be in the public’s best interest to develop a small set of standard plugs (think the standardization of USB phone charging bricks), the absolute minimum required for each voltage/amp setup, then have all manufacturers agree to support this standard, along with a system so a user can pay for a charge-up.
Tesla paid for the first wave of charging stations, true, but if they insist on maintaining ownership and sharing their stations only if other manufacturers play by their rules, they are contributing to the walled garden, not offering a way out.
I own a leaf & stock in Tesla. Currently charging at 120 or 220V does have a standardized plug, the J1772 plug. This is what most people charge at home with.
At the high-capacity charging there are 3 plugs. The CHAdeMO, SAE Combo & Tesla’s. It isn’t just a matter of plug types, it’s not like going from the US to UK where they differ by voltage & frequency. the car & charger have to communicate as the voltage has to be adjusted through the charge cycle. Currently only Tesla uses Tesla’s chargers, most likely because of the fee Tesla wants for a no customer pay system.
For long distance Tesla’s is the best solution, 30 minutes for 200 mile range. The Leaf can charge in 30 min but only to 100 miles. That makes any long trip with charging during the trip take hours longer.
Tesla has also managed to get the plug/cable size to an easily manageable size. The CHAdeMO charger I occasionally is huge and a bit unwieldy to maneuver. A kid couldn’t do it. I believe Tesla did this by liquid cooling the cable so it could be thinner. But that probably makes the supercharger stations more expensive.
Basically I’m not sure CHAdeMO is the solution for charging higher capacity batteries in a timely manner. I’m not sure they can handle the higher current that would require. Tesla solved that but the fee from the manufacturer they want may discourage uptake. Once a 3rd party company adopts it they’re pretty much tied to any decision Tesla makes about the fee and battery system.
People frequently talk about why Apple should consider buying Tesla. The one reason that makes sense to myself is to uptain a supercharging network instantly for a Apple car. It has taken Tesla several years to build out its system and as a Tesla owner I would call it serviceable. For long distance travel ( San Diego to Napa Valley). You must stop every 150 miles (the stations are 150 miles apart) and recharge for 30 minutes. As Tesla production increases I believe that they will reach a bottle neck with too many people wanting to charge with not enough charging outlets available.
This is what worries me about the “rEVolution”: https://xkcd.com/927/
I thought Tesla open sourced most of their tech. So what’s stopping others from adopting the Supercharger model? It would be stupid to do otherwise considering the current order status for future Teslas.
This is one of the things that could kill/radically hurt EV adoption. Now, when I need to gas up my car, I can stop at any gas station. The hoses are all the same size. The gasoline or diesel is all the same and will work in any gasoline powered vehicle I buy * and I know this will continue*. I don’t have to worry that Apple will come out with a gasoline powered car that doesn’t work with the current stations – that would be suicide for that effort.
The same assurance needs to happen for EVs. If I’m down to 20 miles of charge I don’t want to be in the position of passing a station because it’s not compatible and running out of charge because the nearest compatible charger is 25 miles away.
The hoses didn’t use to be the same, and technically aren’t now. Back in the days when leaded fuels were around, leaded nozzles fit one tank, unleaded the other. And as you point out gas AND diesel still exist, don’t try to run your gas car off diesel (and the nozzles are different to minimize this)
If you build a car that uses the tesla supercharger technology you either have to pay tesla for use of their chargers, or make a different connector.
The cost of the connector design is minimal compared to being tied to Tesla’s decisions about that design, and it’s not free if your car can plug into Tesla’s chargers.
There is no system in place on the superchargers to take payment. If the model 3 can plug into the supercharger then it will be free.
there’s a battery swap station at harris ranch.. about half way between SF and LA
pilot, closed program, but they can swap one out in less time than it takes to fill a tank.
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-battery-swap-harris-ranch-20150310-story.html
pretty sure tesla knows who is charging where (or at least which car).. how hard would be to hit a credit card too?
And yet you understand my point, yes? If I wanted gasoline, I can get it and the GAS hoses are the same. Even when we had leaded and not, it’s not like the leaded hoses were all different. They were all the same (not that tolerances were THAT tight) as were all the unleaded. I didn’t have to worry about the Shell unleaded being incompatible with my car because I’d bought a car that can only fill at Arco stations.
I’m not sure the paying for the supercharger is a showstopper. IF car companies were bright, they’d sell it as a subscription to their customers. “Buy a Supercharger subscription for $20/month and you can use any Tesla SC….” Sell one time ‘cards’ too. Done.
Someone else here had the idea of simply allowing non-Tesla owners to sign up with an app and simply have their designated charge account billed for energy consumption. It’d be like the parking meter system in use here in Tampa Bay. I think that would be more elegant.
Tesla uses a different plug because the existing plugs at the could not handle the needs of a Tesla sized battery. Apple will use a new plug just because they are apple. and Apple NEVER plays nice with others.