Jim Farley Discusses Switch to NACS

[67 Stang Convertible]

How can Tesla not know a Ford just plugged in? The car has to do a handshake with the charger, and it would need some sort of identification to know who to charge.

Also, I don’t find Jim Farley to be very authentic

Interesting, I find the oposite. I find Farley to be "real". Maybe he is snowing me, just seems a "regular guy". I was happy to see he is an early adopter as well. He does not seem "polished" as you would see a trypical Fortune 500 CEO. IMO....

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[GreaseMonkey]

I wish he had asked if they will make a retrofit for the vehicle plug and how much if they will offer it. Eventually CCS will be a thing of the past and it would be nice to not have to use the adapter. I know it will be quite some time before CCS is gone, but I think it would be a benefit to have the correct plug when selling the car.

I don’t know. It gives it a retro vibe, to go along with an oversized battery, slow charging, and antiquated software. All you need is shaggy brown carpet and you’d be all set.

 

[VegStang]

We could have all gone to CCS2, which until now I didn't realize the EU version of CCS was different. It will be nice to have a smaller door on the car.

This was a proposed new "standard" back in 2016, note the pins are labeled:

 

[bbulkow]

I would bet your house that he did [call EVGo / EA], although he probably phrased it differently. ?

Just telling someone they suck doesn't automatically mean that years old design and vendor selection decisions can be changed immediately.

I think it's that and more.

EA and EVGo have also focused on small sites. With small sites, maintaince is harder per charger, and the impact of one or two bad chargers is worse.

Having their equipment be as reliable as Tesla would certainly be a start

Changing the entire business model including site selection & sizing would be a seismic change. The roots of EA's model being about pleasing regulators, not customers, has its impact.

CEOs, quite correctly, are often taught "the power of AND". When you're running / influencing a large organization, your go-to move is not to do *one* thing, but to do *a few* things, and find a way to message "more than one" message as FOCUS not DISTRACTION. Then when only one of those few pans out and you kill the other things, it's best to give the also-rans strong thumbs up - often the teams worked well within their suboptimal constraints, which often were either not known or not appreciated when the project kicked off.

 

[bbulkow]

So my question is - why are we having subpar equipment? EU DC chargers seem to be quite a bit more reliable (maybe still not as reliable as Tesla's, but still). Everyone likes to say "EA doesn't give a shit about their product because it's a punishment" - fine, but that doesn't explain EVgo or ChargePoint. I'm a little frustrated that no one seems to have asked CxOs of those companies point blank - are you simply unable to procure products that don't suck? I've had a short conversation with EVgo's chief operating officer, and all he could tell me was "it'll get better in Q1 2024 as we replace power units that aren't up to par", in addition to the fact that they're abandoning some locations where they've installed the new 50kW BTC Power chargers that broke almost immediately because they can't get replacement parts.

(And yes, I'm aware that ChargePoint's CPE250 chargers are very reliable, but it's a relatively low-powered unit)

Here's how I would answer that question: engineering still matters.

The ability to deliver a higher quality product for less money comes down to the nuts and bolts of an engineering organization, which often comes to a combination of culture and individual contributions. "Culture" also becomes how fast you replace sub-par performers, or how fast you ferret out nepotism or "misaligned goals" (read, shady pricing and kickbacks between suppliers and customers). Individuals matter too - and that story doesn't get told.

We tend to focus on the leaders - Farley vs Musk - and they will have influence. Musk (and many other successful engineering culture companies at different times, cf Jobs, Gates) famously have engineering-focused leaders who can better direct their companies - unless they step into an area they have little expertise and foul things up royal (eg, Musk and X). Farley's story of actually finally having product insight by using the product is classic, war stories like this abound in engineering companies where CEOs can't even communicate with users (eg, a sales person put in as CEO to a chip-building company who can't even converse with the engineer at a customer company about why they selected one chip over another).

The untold stories are often the VPs, senior engineers, tech leads, line-engineers who find a better way, call out a bad part or supplier, and actually get listened to.

Don't get me wrong: there are strategic approach questions that will tell the tale too. Can be a vertical-integration-better-in-early-stage argument, it's a good one, but knowing when to go horizontal can be an interesting choice - will Tesla's approach start sucking more in about 4 years when there are N different highly functional and reliable suppliers of chargers and the price/relaibility curve moves strongly toward an integration approach? We shall see.

Chargepoint, specifically, had as its mission tying together chargers, not building their own network. The amount of funding for a project in this stage matters: Tesla put more money down in their charging network, right?

Another strategic question is "fast follower" vs "market leader". Market leaders often take bad paths in technology or approach, and don't have the fortitude or money to course correct - but sometimes they get it right the first time or correct fast. Fast Followers have to both learn the lessons, and *actually* follow fast. Neither path is particularly easy.

CxOs, if they are CEOs and COO and CFOs, probably don't know the answer, or know a very simplified version that's more wrong than right. CTOs are taught to know the answer and keep their mouths shut. Speaking as a two-time CTO myself. Proving you know how to keep your mouth shut is a required demonstrable skill for being hired at those levels.

 

[KevinS]

With NACS, Port location on the car needs to be rethought entirely. Center back would be ideal for every charging situation.

Right now I'm at the mercy of the charging station cord, and have yet to find any but EA, assuming I can get the right stall, that work well.

 

[timbop]

With NACS, Port location on the car needs to be rethought entirely. Center back would be ideal for every charging situation.

Unless you have a bike rack or trailer

 

[zvez]

It's worth noting that the phrasing has always been "new vehicles starting in 2025". We can hope that this means the Mach-E and Lightning will get it actually IN 2025, but I don't take it as a guarantee.

I'm sure we'll see significant refreshes for both the Mach-E and Lightning, but I don't think they'll get NACS until then, and we don't know for sure that will happen for '25.

so the existing ford EVs will require a nacs adapter starting in 2025?

 

[mdolan92869]

Unless you have a bike rack or trailer

Then how about something like this, a recharging boom that extends out, up and forward. You get the car close, the boom gets you even closer. What could go wrong?

 

[KevinS]

Unless you have a bike rack or trailer

Good point. This is why I don't design cars for a living. ?

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