Alright. A main channel video on NACS

Are you still using ABRP, and do you have a BLE OBD2 to feed live data to it? If so, how well does it work? Can you see much difference from running ABRP without it?

BrandEver

Hey, I had totally forgotten about SpeedPass! I had one of those RFID dongles back when that was a thing! It absolutely didn't solve any real problem, but it made me feel like I was living in the future and it WAS faster than paying any other way.

Circuitmike

This was great! Thank you.

Within

Well done!

The timing on these deals to open up the Tesla charging network to others sooner than what the fed was going to eventually force was fortunate for my business. We had a Supercharging station installed earlier in the year. In the couple months its been online, its usually almost half full during the day, and soon Rivians are going to be able to use it to, and there's some of their Office's near by along with the increasing number of their cars in the county. Walk-in business is going to increase overtime, not to mention the possibly of Tesla wanting to expand their lease to add even more stations, though the current 30+ stalls require almost all of the 4KA service, which already took SCE around 6+ months to bring in that much additional capacity to our heavy commercial and light industrial area.

Kadah

What, we have to hum the theme song for ourselves?!? :-)

Arthur Robillard

EVgo supports it. I hear they use OnStar to verify the location of GM vehicles during the authentication process, even if the driver doesn’t subscribe to OnStar.

Colin Cogle

I haven’t used any Plug and Charge interfaces. Are there security checks at the time of the charge? Or do these systems just trust that the user driving the vehicle is authorized to use any stored payment information? If it’s just trusted, that’s going to be a problem for car rental companies… oh look, the underpaid rental return attendant forgot to reset the car’s payment storage, and the previous renter’s info is still here… I guess we’ve got free charging on this trip!

Nitron F117

I'm glad to see you focus on not completely upsetting the gas station paradigm as part of this. We've had some conversations about that on various platforms and it seems like an obvious solution going forward, since the convenience store isn't just a sideline to the sale of gas. They're a package deal, especially on freeways. I will say, though, if we were to implement a plug-and-charge model for urban charging, the infrastructure would have to exist for that, and would likely be used for fast charging at that point. But I also see that stuff being integrated into existing parking infrastructure, which has fairly robust payment infrastructure. Whether it be being located in ticketed lots, run off of parking meters with apps or card readers, or involve some kind of license plate scanning tech, like the Illinois tolls use, there's not really a huge need to put that in the car either. Most payment problems could be solved by re-using existing car infrastructure to add charging, rather than reinventing the wheel.

Kevin Kostka

GM has announced that they’ll make a NACS-to-CCS adapter available in early 2024. Obviously, it won’t be free — “sorry we backed the wrong horse, here you go!” — but it should work with any CCS vehicle.

Colin Cogle

I have absolutely no intereset in EV charging in the US, as I live in NL, but damn I can listen to you talk for hours.

I have! I think that's a great concept. I do wonder, though, what the value of some of those amenities will be over time. As soon as 15 minute charges become the norm, which is undoubtedly around the corner as it's (not to brag) already a thing with my car, there's less time to wait around than you realize. While I don't have the best track record for making predictions, I think they'll probably simplify to the point of being virtually indistinguishable from today's truck stops - but perhaps a nicer environment.

Technology Connections

I mean, you're welcome to disagree with me, but to be blunt... those ideas make little sense period. If charger reliability is a concern, I cannot imagine a world in which the Tesla snake (or any such thing) is a net positive. That adds sooooo many potential points of failure, and then that stall is useless if the robotics are offline. It's also just... not something I even want? Like, I'll have been driving for 2 or 3 hours. The last thing I desire is the ability to just stay in the car and wait - I'm gonna be getting out to stretch my legs anyway. Now, presuming we can make wireless charging efficient enough to be worth the added expense, then that is a decent opportunity. But, that's probably just gonna be level 2 power levels. And that's the use-case in which I think plug-and-charge has merit, anyway. For when I'm traveling long-distance, in an unfamiliar area with new charging networks I haven't used before, I just want to use my credit card. Those networks can guarantee compatibility with any car with nothing but a PIN pad.

Technology Connections

I hard-disagree on the plug-and-charge. It allows several interesting options like wireless charging or automated charging cable plugging devices (the Tesla charger snake). Because they make little sense without an automated payment infrastructure. Imagine, you just drive up to a marked spot on a parking lot and the car starts to charge with zero input. Now add autonomous vehicles to the mix, that might not even HAVE human drivers to plug in the cable.

Aleksei Besogonov

Alec, have you seen (UK company) GridServe has 'Electric Forecourts' which are an attempt to meet the needs you describe of an EV Gas Station. Canopy. Meeting space. Food. Comfy chairs. Etc.

George M1GEO

I’m here to petition for jazz played over puppy videos for the outro

PerfectlyAdequate