Kentucky Mandates Tesla's Charging Plug For State-Backed Charging Stations - Sla...

Kentucky Mandates Tesla's Charging Plug For State-Backed Charging Stations

• "broken-ass shit." Have you seen the size of the CCS adapter??? It is stupid huge. The NACS can do both AC and DC fast charging without a huge connector. I can confirm that it has worked flawlessly for 4 years now, and I cannot say the same for many other charging networks. The plug really isn't that big a deal, I'm confused why you seem to be so angry about it.

  • Re:

    Not angry but I'm a little annoyed that Tsala took this long to release a standard (in 2014 they kinda did but half-assed it here nobody else would touch it)

    If NACS was available as an open standard then we wouldnt be in this, the US would have jumped on it as the standard.

    • Re:

      Tesla opened its patents and connector for anyone to use long ago. Not only that, but it would really dumb as fuck for Kentucky to support another standard. Practically all other EV automakers are struggling to gain traction (VW [thetimes.co.uk]) or adopting Tesla's plugs anyway, which Tesla is providing at cost. They are also the most common connector on the road BY FAR. (Tesla Deliveries Q2 2023 [reuters.com]).

      • They opened their parents but not all of them (like design parents
          and left enough strings attached that nobody would touch it. It really wasn't just everyone else being stubborn, nobody wanted to touch it under those terms.

        Standards aren't just made by popularity, should we all be using Lightning because Apple sells the most or USB since it's a truly open industry standard.

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        • Re:

          Do you have a citation on them not opening up enough of their patents that others can't use NACs? That there remained problems in doing so?

          As for lightning connectors, well: [wikipedia.org]

          Sounds like the opposite of open-sourced. Unlike NACs.

          I'll note how at least in the USA, once a major car company folded and said they'd use NACs, most of the others quickly fell in line, effectively making it the standard in the USA.

          • Re: Dumbest shit ever

            If you were paying attention during the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray format war, it was about paying royalties for the VC1 codec. I kept saying the US DoT should have stripped the patent and mandated a standard with SAE. It would have been moot. We have an SAE standard for the size and shape of gasoline vs diesel flow nozzles and tank receptacles. Its not some revokeable gentlemans handshake. Companies, thats read lawyers, fear being painted into a royalty corner.

          • Here is some info from Georgia Law, it is generally positive of the patent opening but really the fact nobody used it speaks volumes:

            As beneficial as the open patents are to Tesla, the electric car market, and possibly even the world, there are still issues for a company who wishes to use Tesla’s patents. Currently there are scant legal protections for other manufacturers who may wish to take Musk up on his offer.

            There is a potential fear that Tesla could take advantage of the expanded market for batteries and charging stations before reneging on their promise of nonlitigation and suing the competitors for large settlements.51 If companies create new products based on Tesla’s technology, there is a substantial chance that they could still be sued.

            Tesla has not shied away from using its legal protections to protect its intellectual property. As recently as 2008 Tesla sued a manufacturer over its use of trade secrets and confidential information. Because of this risk, a company must have a great deal of trust in Elon Musk’s promise before making the decision to invest costly and valuable research and development funds in such a venture.

            Some critics have been quick to point out that saying Tesla “opened” their patents is quite simply a misnomer. When the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office grants a patent, that very patent is published for the entire world to see.

            In exchange for publishing their intellectual secret, the Patent Office grants a narrow monopoly to the inventor of that item. This monopoly is not exactly something that Tesla “gave away” either. Without entering into a contractual licensing agreement or other formal assignment with the specific user of Tesla’s patents, it still retain, all of its rights and enforcement opportunities.

            Since Tesla has not fully ceded its ownership rights to the public domain, it occupies a middle ground between giving them away and retaining full rights. Musk’s blog post on the company website lacks all the formalities of a contractual agreement. While Google has a similar, yet untested, open patent pledge for cloud-related patents, it appears to be much more formal and was most likely drafted by an attorney instead of the CEO.

            Such formality and boilerplate language makes it more likely to be upheld by a court as a valid contract. Unlike the pledges of other large companies, Musk’s statements lack an intention for his representations to be held as legally binding or irrevocable.

            This means that Tesla may be able to withdraw or change its “open source” patent policy at any time.

            Furthermore, Musk stipulated in his blog post that Tesla would not seek patent infringement litigation against those who used the patents “in good faith.”

            While this seems to give Tesla a little more flexibility in preventing patent abuse, it also must cause the potential user to pause. What constitutes “good faith” to Elon Musk? Keep in mind that without some protective instrument or license in place, Tesla could very well sue even if the user had the best of faith in using the patent.

            https://digitalcommons.law.uga... [uga.edu]

            Now the compairson to lightning seems a little more apt. Since companies now, in 2023 can clearly feel free from legal limbo and the SAE was finally able to get involved and make NACS a real working standard it's taking off.

  • Re:

    It is huge since it supports 3 phase charging as used in Europe. That requires more pins than NACS provides. Simple.