[taylodl]

> Tesla invites all device suppliers and vehicle manufacturers to join us in this initiative.

This is not a standard in the sense that engineers use the term. Tesla is hoping it will be adopted as a standard and since Tesla doesn't appear to want to involve any standards bodies, Tesla appears to only be interested in making these connectors a de-facto standard.

In any case, that is not a standard.

[electriclove]

I’m not sad they didn’t work with a hundred companies and take tens of years and still have nothing to show for it.

They are doing what they need done for their business and then inviting others to join. And way earlier than they did with NACS: https://www.tesla.com/blog/opening-north-american-charging-s...

[yegle]

Huh I noticed this section in the linked NACS post:

> As NACS is now recognized in a SAE recommended practice (RP) under SAE J3400, we have removed the technical specifications and CAD from our website.

So something that was previously freely available now requires a $300 payment to access.

I'm sad to see that.

[MichaelZuo]

I don’t think the SAE has the authority to remove anything from the public domain?

It likely is still freely shareable for existing copies.

[throwaway19972]

> I’m not sad they didn’t work with a hundred companies and take tens of years and still have nothing to show for it.

what a ridiculous counterfactual. We have plenty of wildly successful standards that weren't just thrown at consumers and called a standard.

[saturn8601]

IDK man, when I think of standard connectors I think of clunky junk: CCS which was all engineering and no focus on human centered design with its clunky connector that also wiggles in ports.

all of the USB connectors including USB-C, with it mandate to support so many different edge cases that cause cables to not always be compatible with each other defeating the purpose.

Bluetooth again with so many edge cases that made it terrible until Apple came along and cut a lot of that out in their solution finally made it tolerable.

Hell even a lot of electrical connectors (such as the US outlet) suck: developed in that way due to historical interests, it looks terrible, is not entirely safe (ie. ground does not go in first) and now has stuff bolted on to make up for its shortfalls. (GFCI, in line fuses etc.)

Now there are probably loads of terrible proprietary connectors but it seems like the free market eventually takes care of disposing of the chaff. That itself is a forcing function to get to a better design that users will like. Whereas you have no choice of a standardized connector because some "standards body" made up of opposing interests artificially keeps lousy designs around and forces it upon the population.

Im not arguing for one or the other but its just annoying that standards bodies always seem to get a pass when in my experience they produce a lot of mediocre stuff.

[binoct]

The points of standards is that they solve one or more problems for many constituents well enough so that all adopters gain in things like supply chain, design ease, and interoperability. They are rarely going to be optimal for every specific use case. They also often derive from specific designs by a specific company

Adding a standards body into the mix is going to add complexity to the process by definition, but shouldn't be taken as a default "bad", since there are tangible benefits to non-corporation-managed standards. Otherwise they wouldn't exist.

[kortilla]

Name the “wildly successful” standards you are thinking of and then look into the history of them. You’ll find one or maybe two major players that pushed it initially.

[throwaway19972]

Ok? I'd rather trust DARPA than private enterprise.

[kortilla]

You didn’t name any.

BGP, 802.11, QUIC, HTTP, SSH all came from dominating implementations.

[Ajedi32]

Yeah, there are advantages to the "just do it" approach to standardization vs design by committee. A lot of web technologies started out that way (arguably most of them actually). Both approaches are valid.

[vel0city]

I agree. Is this some kind of free licensing for these connector standards or are they still behind the "you can use this but if we rip off any of your IP and you sue us we'll revoke your license and sue you" license?

[kotaKat]

They have a "patent pledge" for their patented parts, at least -- they will "not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology".

https://www.tesla.com/legal/additional-resources#patent-pled...

[vel0city]

Yeah, and they define good faith in that document as:

A party is "acting in good faith" for so long as such party and its related or affiliated companies have not:

asserted, helped others assert or had a financial stake in any assertion of

(i) any patent or other intellectual property right against Tesla or

(ii) any patent right against a third party for its use of technologies relating to electric vehicles or related equipment;

So, if another company rips off your IP but Tesla doesn't think it is a "knock-off product", you sue that other company, you're now in violation of Tesla's "patent pledge". Its an attempt to use a carrot of Tesla's patents to make all the other rightsholders essentially give up all their IP. If you sue anyone protecting your EV IP, you're in violation of this agreement and will be open to litigation by Tesla.

[DevelopingElk]

There are different types of standards. Car design teams are big organizations; internal standards can help reduce the development effort. Tesla needs to coordinate with their suppliers, so sharing this helps even if it isn't used by other companies.

I think we should give Tesla the benefit of the doubt for now. Harmful use of patents could cause issues, but this has potential. We will simply see if other companies are interested, and if they are it can go from internal standard to de facto standard to formalized standard.

[_ea1k]

Don't think of it as a standard as-in SAE, but a standard as in "molex", "AT", or "ATX". Yeah, they aren't really "standards", but they aren't exactly proprietary either and they also are clearly useful.

The goal seems to be to promote reuse of a good-enough design in as many places as possible. Noone's forced to use it, but it'd make things simpler for everyone if there is as much commonality as possible.

[hardikgupta]

That's fair. Should have said "Tesla proposes new standard electrical connector".

[moralestapia]

If you want to be pedantic,

What is a "standard" then? Does it need to have an ISO seal?

[foxglacier]

It's going to be a standard within Tesla, so in that way it's a standard. It sounds like they anticipate benefitting from cost reduction themselves even if nobody else uses it.

[kortilla]

Most useful standards did not originate from standards bodies. The standards bodies just formalized what already had buy-in from the significant players.

[instagraham]

Relevant xkcd, though one imagines that successful standards form despite the lack of choice in how standards are formed

https://xkcd.com/927/

[Someone1234]

The XKCD doesn't really apply here, since intra-vehicle 48v is kind of unexplored, so there aren't multiple competing standards for that in particular. I do agree that this isn't a real open and free standard however.

edit: Inter to Intra.

[duskwuff]

Nitpick: intra-vehicle. Inter-vehicle power would be pretty weird.

[toss1]

True, but Inter-vehicle could be cool for several things. First is the EV equivalent of jump-start-and-bring-a-can-of-gasoline, an in-the-field recharge for cars that run out before the recharging station or home charger. It would also be useful as a plug for a range-extending spare battery pack on a small trailer. Seems like other potential uses too.

(But no, I'm not liking that Tesla is taking the typical entitled-ass attitude of avoiding all the standards bodies, doing whatever they want, and expecting others to ratify their standard. If it is that good, it should be readily agreed to by the relevant standards bodies.)

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Inter-vehicle could be cool as the EV equivalent of jump-start

This exists: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41975736 But for Lucid, not Teslas. And also more generally as a use of V2L.

> in-the-field recharge for cars that run out before the recharging station

This exists: https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-news/2023/06/30/elec... https://www.taxi-point.co.uk/post/rac-to-equip-breakdown-van...

> a range-extending spare battery pack

This is a real Tesla Cybertruck accessory: https://insideevs.com/news/706702/tesla-cybertruck-range-ext...

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Inter-vehicle power would be pretty weird.

That's entirely possible at present. Many electric vehicles can send power out to power appliances. It's called "Vehicle to Load" or "V2L".

And electric vehicles can slow-charge off a wall power socket, so they could get that from V2L. It won't be a common use, but it would work in a pinch to get you enough juice to get to a better charger?

[_ea1k]

Lucid supports this directly too: https://lucidmotors.com/stories/introducing-rangexchange

<10kw, so not super fast, but I bet most people are really close to the charging station when they run out.

[vaillancourtmax]

I think they meant "across manufacturers".

[reaperducer]

Inter-vehicle power would be pretty weird.

Sounds like jumper cables.

[duskwuff]

You know what? You're right. That's literally jumper cables.

But no, I don't think Tesla is doing those.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Tesla vehicles do not currently support V2L or V2G, although many other EV makes do.

But it does seem that Tesla is planning to do those some time:

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/08/19/tesla-plans-to-adopt-bi...

https://thedriven.io/2024/05/06/teslas-take-on-v2g-controlli...

[Pet_Ant]

Honestly that would be awesome. I still dream of autonomous vehicles auto-convoy and link up for efficiency. Just quietly become a train as needed.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Why is it that when describing EV technology, HN people have a tendency to frame it as "imagine if it could, that would be amazing if"

While describing stuff that exists in some form, and usually has existed for years already now.

It's not evenly distributed new tech for sure (1). But maybe it's the false assumption that "if it was anywhere, I'd be among the ones to see it early".

1) See William Gibson: "The Future is Already Here, it's Just Not Very Evenly Distributed."

[hoseja]

Tell us about NACS.

[1234letshaveatw]

like NACS ?