Like I stated, I am not an expert on the tech but I am fairly well versed on reading between the lines. If all existing (I will use Polestar 2s in this example) cars required a hardware update, it is fair to assume that every existing owner would need to be notified and it would be a major expense to either drive them back to the dealership (nearest Polestar dealership for me is 200 miles away), or contract with entities all around the country to provide that physical update.
Certainly such a requirement would be public for at least one of the car companies by now, right? Again, I am not arguing that it has to be a software update, only that if it was hardware, someone somewhere would be stating such by now. I can’t find any mention of such, anywhere.
The Magic Dock has been one of the most interesting new products introduced by Tesla in a long time.
The charging accessory is basically a seamless charge adapter from NACS to CCS, or NACS to J1772, camouflaging as a receptor for a charge connector.
The charging station looks normal and can be used normally by Tesla EV owners, but if an owner of a non-Tesla electric vehicle wants to use it, they simply have to unlock the Magic Dock and it automatically attaches to the connector to become a CCS adapter.
It is as seamless as a charging adapter experience has gotten to date.
The new product is going to be critical to Tesla opening its charging network to electric vehicles from other manufacturers.
If that dongle works that well with a CCS car and becomes seamless way of using the Super Charger network then maybe the fear factor becomes less. This could be good.
I think there is a lot of hesitancy in the EV market now. The early adopters have probably saturated. Now it’s those with anxiety over charging, and there are a lot of people like that. Buying gas is simple. I’ve heard too many tales from people with non Teslas with problems at charging networks. It makes it hard for ordinary people to make the jump. That, and all the misinformation about climate, about lithium, about coal fired electricity charging your EV, etc.
A friend with a Mach-E did travel Austin to NY over the summer. There were some hiccups, but nothing catastrophic. But people are used to “refueling” being simple, with no hiccups. We’re not quite there yet, unless you can use SuperChargers.
The Magic dock adapter is not exactly seamless, depending on your definition of the word seamless. In order to use it you have to have a CCS EV (all the non-Teslas for sale now). And when you arrive at a Supercharger you don’t/can’t just plug in. You have to open up the Tesla app on your phone and enter the stall number you are parked at. Then the cable will unlock with the magic dock attached and you plug in.
Switching the car to natively have the NACS port on the car will give the same experience Tesla cars have where you drive up and plug in and charging starts as long as you have a current credit card on file. If you don’t have a credit card on file you have to go to the app and update it.
I assume that the non-Teslas that get the NACS port on the car will also get a software update that provides the VIN exchange to make this all work. Of course how it will work at a non-Tesla DC fast charger is up to those charger vendors since they have their own billing system. Chargers, such as at your home or free ones at hotels will work by just plugging in.
This is why buying a CCS car now and using the NACS-CCS adapter for the life of the car might not be a good idea for most people. Unless they do a software update in the car it won’t allow you to seamlessly just plug in, doing the VIN exchange to enable payment via the on-file credit card.
Just a quick minor addendum. Not all chargers at hotels (or store parking lots, or movie theaters, etc) work by just plugging in. For example, if they are ChargePoint chargers, even if free of charge, you often still need to “activate” them either using their app or using a credit card or using NFC from your phone.
Home chargers simply work by plugging in because they are private (though Tesla wall chargers can be programmed by VIN to only allow certain vehicles to charge).
This is speculation but I think well founded speculation. If you are an avant garde (forward thinking) business like Tesla it is almost a certainty that you will be using RAM that can be updated over the air, no need to make announcements. If you are a hide bound business it is more likely that you use ROM as you never even thought about over the air updates. Why would you announce it before it becomes necessary to recall the vehicles?
Not long ago while Tesla was doing over the air ‘recalls’ legacy automakers were making real hardware recalls, visits to the repair shop. I think that supports my above speculation.
The Captain
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
As a side note, in Data Processing (as IT was called when I started) anything that could be done in software could be done in hardware. Some of my ‘programming’ was done with plugboards (literally hard wired programs).
Normal ROM is not updatable – it is truly “read only memory”. RAM however is volatile. Lose power, you lose content. What they use is FLASH memory. Updatable, but non-volatile.
Car dealers tell Biden: Customers aren’t ready for electric cars https://www.axios.com/2023/11/28/car-dealers-electric-evs-biden
Nearly 4,000 U.S. car dealers are asking President Biden to tap the brakes on proposed emissions regulations designed to ensure that two-thirds of new passenger cars are all-electric by 2032.
Two problems. One, Mazda’s EV is awful (and I like Mazda). Problem two is an example. We test drove a Lyric. Our saleslady could care less. She was glued to her iPhone during our test drive, looking up only to answer a question. But she would talk about the Cadillac Blackwing’s without any prompt from us. Conclusion: dealers want to sell ICE, not EV, and the sales droids act appropriately… Then complain that “nobody is buying an EV”.
The company, which has been preparing for all-electric sales by 2030, said it now expects electrified sales - including hybrids - to account for up to 50% of the total…
Kaellenius said Mercedes-Benz wanted customers and investors to know it was well-positioned to carry on producing combustion engine cars and was ready to update the technology well into the next decade.
