As a (very recently) former GM employee, this is really exciting. The new division is created almost entirely of engineers, many poached from Tesla, Shell, and other energy industry players. Not to sound like a talking head for the company but these programs have been in the works for a while and if they actually come off the ground it would be a huge win for customers (and a big loss for utilities & corps that only make combustion engine vehicles).
A misconception here is that we're directly competing with Tesla on all business fronts. That's not entirely true. GM wants to become an administrator of a hardware ecosystem which can include a GM EV or an EV made by somebody else. Most of GM Energy's home hardware will be compatible with 3rd parties.
Also: I recently learned that Ford, GM, and the rest of the industry all use the same plug for their EVs. The only odd one out is.. Tesla. Annoying that the industry pioneer would also be the one who bucks its standards.
>Also: I recently learned that Ford, GM, and the rest of the industry all use the same plug for their EVs. The only odd one out is.. Tesla :| annoying that the industry pioneer would also be the one who bucks its standards.
The difference in adapter isn't such a big deal when you're only charging at home or at a Tesla supercharger station. Things with the differing connector only come in to play when you're at a non-Tesla supercharger or wall charger, so I think people are using the adapters far less than you'd expect.
No. I'm French (Tesla has a different connector for their European superchargers). I have been only using Android devices since about 2009 and I've only had USB charging plugs at my place for 12+ years. So…
While the analogy of Tesla to Apple is apt, it's ignoring the amount of industry entrenchment Tesla had to overcome to get to the point where the analogy makes sense.
There's reason to suspect that Tesla's EV systems from top to bottom are referencing a much larger bulk of design material than all other competitors (as they kind of created the modern market while all other large players mostly watched).
So, a standard selected by industry players who were all betting heavily against the design gambles Tesla took everyday ending in 'Y' might not be the rocksolid, consumer friendly standard it looks like at the first shake.
All car companies are bad, dirty, greedy, bastards.
Haha yes. I was very disconnected from EVs and the auto industry before working at GM. Either way it's just surprising they didn't help design the standard and work to make it better.
>Either way it's just surprising they didn't help design the standard and work to make it better.
Oh so you have a good deal to learn. You should start with
- Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006 film)
- Revenge of the Electric Car (2011 follow up)
Let me tell you that when Tesla entered the market as a serious player, the rest of the industry did not intend to let Tesla have their say nor to collaborate with them. Tesla had to make their own (better) design and find their way through. They could not wait for standardization when the rest of the industry was fighting tooth and nails against the transition to EV.
How has it not aged well? It documents what happened when GM killed the EV1 by interviewing the former people involved with the program. (Some of which went on to Tesla.)
It is mainly brought up today to claim that GM is somehow opposed to EVs. The actual story becomes secondary. I’ve seen this in countless discussions of EVs.
But here it was brought up to provide context for why Tesla had to go it alone in creating a charging network and connector. And to provide some useful context when digesting what amounts to a GM press release from The Verge. If you're not aware of GM's past with electric cars, you might afford them too much trust in the present. Not to say they deserve exclusively disdain, but they need to continue to (re)earn trust by actually executing rather than talking.
> Let me tell you that when Tesla entered the market as a serious player, the rest of the industry did not intend to let Tesla have their say nor to collaborate with them. Tesla had to make their own (better) design and find their way through. They could not wait for standardization when the rest of the industry was fighting tooth and nails against the transition to EV.
Supercharger came before CCS. It's always easy to create a proprietary standard; mostly because you don't have to debug incompatibilities between different interpretations of a standard. (Or deal with different company's opinions about what's important.)
Tesla has always been a member of the CCS consortium. As far as why they haven't adopted CCS in the US, I haven't seen an official answer; but we can look at the slow rollout of Tesla + CCS in the EU: It takes longer to debug equipment built to open standards than equipment built to a proprietary standard.
One thing to note is that CCS supports faster charging rates than Supercharger. It supports higher voltages and higher current. This is much more important than a thinner handle.
Betamax's smaller size ultimately was why it failed in the marketplace; VHS would always have a longer recording time because the cassette was physically larger and could hold more tape.
CCS's pins appear larger, which means that they will always be able to handle more current, and thus a CCS connector will ultimately be able to charge faster than Supercharger.
(And I say this owning a Tesla, and ordering a 2nd one last night. There's many more Superchargers where I travel than CCS chargers)
Tesla is already adding CCS connectors to their supercharger stations. I don't see a problem. Maybe when the majority of EVs will be non-Tesla in the US, they'll consider switching but for now, it is non Tesla owners who're looking for ways to charge at Tesla's stations.
> but Tesla's connector is 10x better.
People used to say the same thing about Betamax.
The Tesla plug and cable weigh significantly less than the standard ones. Enough so that elderly people will have a hard time using standard vs Tesla plugs.
On the technical side, the standard involves a bunch of unnecessary complexity like power-line communication ICs and TCP/IP (note, that data does NOT go over the high power conductors in the cable).
>> CCS's pins appear larger, which means that they will always be able to handle more current, and thus a CCS connector will ultimately be able to charge faster than Supercharger.
CSS is rated to 200A, and I believe Tesla is too. To get higher power Tesla is going to higher voltage battery with the same charging current - same conductors. This seems to be a trend as well.
CSS really is crappy, but it looks like that's what we're stuck with for now.
You need an 800+ volt EV and a battery chemistry capable of taking the faster charge rate to take full advantage of the maximum kilowatts offered by these chargers. A 400 volt EV will charge at up to around 200 kW on a CCS charger (500 amps times 400 volts). The area under the charge curve tends to matter more than the peak charge rate.
> The Tesla plug and cable weigh significantly less than the standard ones. Enough so that elderly people will have a hard time using standard vs Tesla plugs.
The plug is pretty negligible. For the cables, that's entirely up to the installer whether they want to use active cooling to make things lighter.
> CSS is rated to 200A, and I believe Tesla is too.
They both have versions that go to 500 amps.
> To get higher power Tesla is going to higher voltage battery with the same charging current - same conductors. This seems to be a trend as well.
Many other cars have beat Tesla on that front, doubling their voltages to 800-ish, which is close to the max of CCS.
You know what's heavier than any plug I've seen? Gas pump nozzles.
Never noticed an elderly person struggling with one, and if someone is in such an advanced state of decline that they can't lift a pump nozzle they probably shouldn't be behind the wheel either.
I have seen some with very thick cables. Gas hoses are still thicker (though not full of copper). I'll allow that the heaviest plug I've ever come across may be slightly heavier than the lightest gas pump nozzle I've seen. But most pump nozzles in California are big hefty things with some kind of vapor capture system. Filling up your car doesn't subject you to a facefull of gasoline fumes the whole time.
Unlike a gas station I had the misfortune to use in Illinois.
> Annoying that the industry pioneer would also be the one who bucks its standards.
That's almost inevitable. By definition, the industry pioneer's product comes out before the standard unless the industry standardizes on the pioneer's solution.
"unless the industry standardizes on the pioneer's solution."
Which is also somewhat unlikely since by that time there's a chance to improve on the design, or if the design is truly better the owner wants big licensing fees.
Yeah, it's unlikely large established companies are willing to cross license with a small unproven one (at that time). The benefit balance is significantly asymmetrical.
I think the key argument, which is not acknowledged in the article, is that the recent Inflation Reduction Act has quite dramatically improved the unit economics of producing solar panels and batteries to the point of it literally being more economical to manufacture things in the US. It would be a sensible area to invest in regardless of Tesla if you think you have the capability to play in that space.
Any risk of WTO lawsuits? I know the Korean and Japanese auto companies are considering suing due to some advantages that the incumbent auto manufacturers have in the bill. I suspect there will be carve outs for every foreign company that complains.
I would guess not on the issue of solar panels as that's too distant. Maybe an argument could be made for the batteries? I don't know the bill in sufficient detail.
> Is Tesla so far ahead of competition that they are all trying to copy their playbook a decade after?
I'm not sure Tesla is "far ahead" of the competition, so much as they announce stuff earlier and attract more hype and fanfare. (Compare Cybertruck to the Silverado EV, for example -- Tesla was years earlier in announcement and parties, but only a few months off from each other in likely actual ship date. Similarly, Tesla has been announcing/mentioning the 'Model 3' as their 'affordable family car' as far back as like 2008, but the Bolt EV actually shipped in late 2016, and the comparable Tesla Model 3 didn't ship until mid 2017).
In terms of "why enter the energy business", it's an easy "nearly freebie" line of business if your building EV's already. (Like how Starbucks slowly added food to their menu, as McDonalds slowly added fancy coffees). Nissan, for example, launched the Leaf EV in 2010, and has been dabbling in home energy since at least 2015 or so.
> Are there any late mover advantages GM has here?
GM has a fleet of support infrastructure in place, as well as trustworthy guarantees on replacement parts and service. Tesla historically has done the opposite, preferring a more Apple-like proprietary parts and vertically-integrated labour network.
That difference may not matter much on consumer electronics, but when your buying 10+yr long vehicles or bolting things to your house with 20+ yr lifespan expectations, it may factor in a lot more.
yeah, GM is currently knocking it out of the park with its BEVs...
"Sales data indicates that GM is nowhere near its ambitious production goal of making tens of thousands of Hummer EVs. The company sold 371 units of the Hummer EV Pickup in the U.S. in the first half of 2022. On June 30, 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that GM was making just about 12 units a day. A GM spokesman said that the deliveries could grow to thousands later in 2022."
And how about that Bolt recall which cost GM an estimated $1 B.
Most people with an EV will be fine with a simple 19kW AC charger in their garage. No batteries or solar required. Vehicle-to-home or V2G is also something that nobody cares about in the residential world, and only in certain commercial areas.
Solar and batteries I get, but that's actually quite independent of electric cars.
An EV is a huge battery on wheels. And typically it's far cheaper per kwh than dedicated solutions. Combining the two is a fantastic source of economies and convenience. I'm sure a lot of people in California would have appreciated the optionality of V2G this summer when there was a threat of blackout and PGE was paying $2/kwh for people to supply the grid from their local storage.
19kW is 80A@240V, which is just an absurd amount of power. Almost everyone will be fine with less than half that (9.6kW = 40A@240V, the max you are allowed to push continuously through a NEMA plug), and at least in the U.S. is the standard "EV-ready" plug: NEMA 14-50.
A lot of people will be just peachy with the 1500W of Level 1!
Yes. Are you planning on taking another weekend road trip in less than three days? If not, L1 is still fine. You don't need to keep the battery 100% full all the time, just like you don't need your gas tank at F all the time.
If you buy a Tesla, hopefully.its because you actually drive a decent amount. Otherwise, well, I think it's a waste. I live in a commuter town that most tech people wouldnt be caught dead in... Most people are blue collar. And there are a shocking amount of Tesla's and Bolts around.. why? Because they are great commute cars. If you don't drive much, and have $50-100k to spend, you buy an Audi or BMW. If you drive a lot, a Tesla makes sense.
Understanding that, yes most people would be in trouble if they got into their Tesla on Monday morning and it had.... 50 miles of range.
And you don't need to keep your gas tank at full because you can fill it up anywhere and everywhere at anytime in 5 minutes.
I went with a 14-30 when I installed the plug in our garage, as that's what the charger I was using with our existing dryer used. Considered the 50A upgrade, but honestly didn't matter, since I still can get to 80% any random night.
Yep, that's more than enough. I first got a 6-20 since that's the L2 plug that came with my PHEV's provided charger, and the car can't physically charge any faster than 4.3kW anyway. The only reason we're putting a 14-50 in now is that it's shorthand for "EV-ready" real estate listings if we ever want to sell the house, and the car we hope to get next year can support 9.6kW.
>> If you leave your bubble a little you'll learn a lot
I'm not in that much of a bubble. I'm currently working at a company that makes 60-120kW DC fast chargers. I've talked to many people who actually own EVs. I get that the "home backup" use case is a bonus, but it's not a key selling point and it costs more. Also, the utilities want to use your car for "grid support" by making it bi-directional which is different than using your car as a backup when the power goes out. For backup you need the ability to disconnect the house from the grid while powering it from the car, and that's additional cost that people will balk at.
I bought the Kia EV6 (and cancelled a Model 3 reservation) for a variety of reasons, and the V2L functionality (obv not exactly the same thing as V2G or V2H) was definitely a bonus point in my consideration. Funny enough, first time I used it was so I could run a fan in the garage while I turned the house power off while installing a 14-30 (30 amp) plug for charging.
Would love to pay a premium for having V2H functionality for my next car, but most manufacturers don't support it yet, and the utilities don't easily either. It would save me from buying an additional battery which in addition to the high cost will take up more space inside the house and is also a fire risk.
I don’t fully understand the appeal from the manufacturers’ side for in-home batteries and solar. We don’t expect houses to have their own coal powerplants or nuclear generators; why is renewable energy different?
Single family housing is becoming a smaller segment of the market as time goes on; those who rent apartments or own condominiums have little say in how their electricity is delivered as well.
I feel like you’re comparing Apple’s to Oranges, it’s much more reasonable to have a solar panel mounted on a house than most other power sources mainly because it’s passive, it doesn’t have any emissions as far as I know, it doesn’t make any noise, they’re not obtrusive other than being ugly to look at. Solar installed directly on a house also means you’re not using any extra land like you would a solar farm, and if you have solar panels installed then you will need a battery to store that power unless you’re feeding to a grid to store off site.
And I think one of the lesser discussed benefits of solar is it decentralizes the power grid so a hypothetical attack on infrastructure would be much harder to pull off.
Heck even a small wind turbine could probably be integrated into most homes with no major problems, but that’s just my opinion.
Yeah, my roof is free real estate as far as solar power is concerned and I would absolutely consider installing panels on my roof, if I owned. I wouldn't consider putting in a micro-coal or micro-NG power plant, if such things existed.
People install solar panels when the levelized cost of electricity is cheaper than buying from the utility. This is about the cost of fueling the vehicle.
Energy presents a new market to sell goods and services into, they don't want 3rd parties to control the ecosystem after the vehicle sale. There's a battle for home energy ecosystem control playing out today. See Enphase's full product offering for an example.
"At that moment, that electrification moment, they have to decide how they’re going to run that vehicle."
No, you don't. You use the L1 charger that comes by default with the car. Later, if you decide you want a faster charger, you put in a NEMA 14-50 and keep using the grid. When you get sick of the power bill, you upgrade to solar panels. When the solar panels don't work in a winter outage, you upgrade to batteries. You don't have to do _any_ of this stuff to successfully own an EV.
I support this as more entrants into home energy solutions can only serve to make products better at a lower cost, but at the same time I'll remain hesitant to partake in any of their products until reviews come in, especially around the UX related to all of this.
57 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 245 ms ] threadA misconception here is that we're directly competing with Tesla on all business fronts. That's not entirely true. GM wants to become an administrator of a hardware ecosystem which can include a GM EV or an EV made by somebody else. Most of GM Energy's home hardware will be compatible with 3rd parties.
Also: I recently learned that Ford, GM, and the rest of the industry all use the same plug for their EVs. The only odd one out is.. Tesla. Annoying that the industry pioneer would also be the one who bucks its standards.
Edit: spelling
You didn't know?
They use CCS Type-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_2_connector but Tesla's connector is 10x better. Looks at this comparison: https://teslatap.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/connector_co...
Tesla Superchargers are now equipped with CCS connectors and Tesla offers an adapter of course: https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/CCS/CCS_Combo_2_Ad...
It's smaller? What makes it so much better that you would be happy having to carry an adapter around with you? Is this Apple Stockholm Syndrome?
No. I'm French (Tesla has a different connector for their European superchargers). I have been only using Android devices since about 2009 and I've only had USB charging plugs at my place for 12+ years. So…
There's reason to suspect that Tesla's EV systems from top to bottom are referencing a much larger bulk of design material than all other competitors (as they kind of created the modern market while all other large players mostly watched).
So, a standard selected by industry players who were all betting heavily against the design gambles Tesla took everyday ending in 'Y' might not be the rocksolid, consumer friendly standard it looks like at the first shake.
All car companies are bad, dirty, greedy, bastards.
Oh so you have a good deal to learn. You should start with
- Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006 film)
- Revenge of the Electric Car (2011 follow up)
Let me tell you that when Tesla entered the market as a serious player, the rest of the industry did not intend to let Tesla have their say nor to collaborate with them. Tesla had to make their own (better) design and find their way through. They could not wait for standardization when the rest of the industry was fighting tooth and nails against the transition to EV.
Supercharger came before CCS. It's always easy to create a proprietary standard; mostly because you don't have to debug incompatibilities between different interpretations of a standard. (Or deal with different company's opinions about what's important.)
Tesla has always been a member of the CCS consortium. As far as why they haven't adopted CCS in the US, I haven't seen an official answer; but we can look at the slow rollout of Tesla + CCS in the EU: It takes longer to debug equipment built to open standards than equipment built to a proprietary standard.
One thing to note is that CCS supports faster charging rates than Supercharger. It supports higher voltages and higher current. This is much more important than a thinner handle.
People used to say the same thing about Betamax.
Betamax's smaller size ultimately was why it failed in the marketplace; VHS would always have a longer recording time because the cassette was physically larger and could hold more tape.
CCS's pins appear larger, which means that they will always be able to handle more current, and thus a CCS connector will ultimately be able to charge faster than Supercharger.
(And I say this owning a Tesla, and ordering a 2nd one last night. There's many more Superchargers where I travel than CCS chargers)
The Tesla plug and cable weigh significantly less than the standard ones. Enough so that elderly people will have a hard time using standard vs Tesla plugs.
On the technical side, the standard involves a bunch of unnecessary complexity like power-line communication ICs and TCP/IP (note, that data does NOT go over the high power conductors in the cable).
>> CCS's pins appear larger, which means that they will always be able to handle more current, and thus a CCS connector will ultimately be able to charge faster than Supercharger.
CSS is rated to 200A, and I believe Tesla is too. To get higher power Tesla is going to higher voltage battery with the same charging current - same conductors. This seems to be a trend as well.
CSS really is crappy, but it looks like that's what we're stuck with for now.
The current CCS standard is 500 amps and up to 1000 volts, so in principle up to 500 kW.
Typically the fastest CCS charger you'll see these days is 350 kW.
ABB's newer chargers are up to 360 kW: https://insideevs.com/news/583774/abb-installed-first-terra-...
Alpitronic's new charger is up to 400 kW: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6931968...
Zerova's future chargers will be 480 kW: https://newatlas.com/automotive/zerova-prototype-10-minute-e...
You need an 800+ volt EV and a battery chemistry capable of taking the faster charge rate to take full advantage of the maximum kilowatts offered by these chargers. A 400 volt EV will charge at up to around 200 kW on a CCS charger (500 amps times 400 volts). The area under the charge curve tends to matter more than the peak charge rate.
Yes, with liquid cooled cables, which are even heavier.
The plug is pretty negligible. For the cables, that's entirely up to the installer whether they want to use active cooling to make things lighter.
> CSS is rated to 200A, and I believe Tesla is too.
They both have versions that go to 500 amps.
> To get higher power Tesla is going to higher voltage battery with the same charging current - same conductors. This seems to be a trend as well.
Many other cars have beat Tesla on that front, doubling their voltages to 800-ish, which is close to the max of CCS.
Never noticed an elderly person struggling with one, and if someone is in such an advanced state of decline that they can't lift a pump nozzle they probably shouldn't be behind the wheel either.
You haven't tried some of the level 2 CSS charger plugs.
Unlike a gas station I had the misfortune to use in Illinois.
That's almost inevitable. By definition, the industry pioneer's product comes out before the standard unless the industry standardizes on the pioneer's solution.
Which is also somewhat unlikely since by that time there's a chance to improve on the design, or if the design is truly better the owner wants big licensing fees.
* Is Tesla so far ahead of competition that they are all trying to copy their playbook a decade after?
* In a supply constrained environment, can GM pull this off being a late mover?
* GM may have current administration advantage for at least 2 more years over Tesla & foreign companies.
* Are there any late mover advantages GM has here?
* GM is without question a much cheaper investment than TSLA when looking at P/E ratio.
I would guess not on the issue of solar panels as that's too distant. Maybe an argument could be made for the batteries? I don't know the bill in sufficient detail.
I'm not sure Tesla is "far ahead" of the competition, so much as they announce stuff earlier and attract more hype and fanfare. (Compare Cybertruck to the Silverado EV, for example -- Tesla was years earlier in announcement and parties, but only a few months off from each other in likely actual ship date. Similarly, Tesla has been announcing/mentioning the 'Model 3' as their 'affordable family car' as far back as like 2008, but the Bolt EV actually shipped in late 2016, and the comparable Tesla Model 3 didn't ship until mid 2017).
In terms of "why enter the energy business", it's an easy "nearly freebie" line of business if your building EV's already. (Like how Starbucks slowly added food to their menu, as McDonalds slowly added fancy coffees). Nissan, for example, launched the Leaf EV in 2010, and has been dabbling in home energy since at least 2015 or so.
> Are there any late mover advantages GM has here?
GM has a fleet of support infrastructure in place, as well as trustworthy guarantees on replacement parts and service. Tesla historically has done the opposite, preferring a more Apple-like proprietary parts and vertically-integrated labour network.
That difference may not matter much on consumer electronics, but when your buying 10+yr long vehicles or bolting things to your house with 20+ yr lifespan expectations, it may factor in a lot more.
"Sales data indicates that GM is nowhere near its ambitious production goal of making tens of thousands of Hummer EVs. The company sold 371 units of the Hummer EV Pickup in the U.S. in the first half of 2022. On June 30, 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that GM was making just about 12 units a day. A GM spokesman said that the deliveries could grow to thousands later in 2022."
And how about that Bolt recall which cost GM an estimated $1 B.
BEVs sold by GM through 2022 Q3...
36 Lyriqs 782 Hummers 22,012 Bolts
For comparison Tesla sold around 32,000 Model S in 2014.
Solar and batteries I get, but that's actually quite independent of electric cars.
A lot of people will be just peachy with the 1500W of Level 1!
Understanding that, yes most people would be in trouble if they got into their Tesla on Monday morning and it had.... 50 miles of range.
And you don't need to keep your gas tank at full because you can fill it up anywhere and everywhere at anytime in 5 minutes.
If you leave your bubble a little you'll learn a lot. And Im only 50 miles east of your bubble.
I'm not in that much of a bubble. I'm currently working at a company that makes 60-120kW DC fast chargers. I've talked to many people who actually own EVs. I get that the "home backup" use case is a bonus, but it's not a key selling point and it costs more. Also, the utilities want to use your car for "grid support" by making it bi-directional which is different than using your car as a backup when the power goes out. For backup you need the ability to disconnect the house from the grid while powering it from the car, and that's additional cost that people will balk at.
Technology Connections (of dishwasher fame) goes over why you probably need much less:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyp_X3mwE1w&t=28m09s
Single family housing is becoming a smaller segment of the market as time goes on; those who rent apartments or own condominiums have little say in how their electricity is delivered as well.
And I think one of the lesser discussed benefits of solar is it decentralizes the power grid so a hypothetical attack on infrastructure would be much harder to pull off.
Heck even a small wind turbine could probably be integrated into most homes with no major problems, but that’s just my opinion.
Energy presents a new market to sell goods and services into, they don't want 3rd parties to control the ecosystem after the vehicle sale. There's a battle for home energy ecosystem control playing out today. See Enphase's full product offering for an example.
No, you don't. You use the L1 charger that comes by default with the car. Later, if you decide you want a faster charger, you put in a NEMA 14-50 and keep using the grid. When you get sick of the power bill, you upgrade to solar panels. When the solar panels don't work in a winter outage, you upgrade to batteries. You don't have to do _any_ of this stuff to successfully own an EV.
Does GM have any competency in this area?