[EVnerd]

Not sure how you are reading the gray dots as destination chargers. When I click on the gray dot at Oceanside, CA, it tells me it's a Supercharger opening this year. I do not know for sure that Tesla will make those Magic Dock... just that I believe new sites will be v4 and the plan is to make v4 sites have Magic Dock. We'll know for sure as it is built (you can visit the site as it is being installed to see if the stalls have Magic Docks.

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Magic Dock was a proof of concept. This is not the direction Tesla has decided to take with third-party EV charging.

 

[p7wang]

Magic Dock was a proof of concept. This is not the direction Tesla has decided to take with third-party EV charging.

I wonder why I am seeing more, if it is only a. Proof of concept and it is proven.

 

[Moe]

Magic Dock was a proof of concept. This is not the direction Tesla has decided to take with third-party EV charging.

Tesla is taking both routes, especially to obtain government funding.

 

[Froggy]

Well my 3 years free EA expired 5 minutes ago. So I’m up for the best offer.

Well far be it from me to complain. But even though my 3 years was over on the 18th EA still isn’t charging me for electricity. I open the app, use phone tap rather than swipe and it charges me zero. I expected me to revert to standard price but maybe they only change on the first of the month?

 

[Nai3t]

Shoot, maybe I shouldn't have been so hasty to delete my free plan profile.

 

[Froggy]

Well I didn’t hire on to do their book keeping. I fully expected to be charged full price but if they can’t keep up with their record keeping so be it.

 

[mtc416]

EA did something very special just for 2023 VWs, and its only good for the free plan, which is the special part. If you buy a used one, or your free plan expires, you don't have P&C any more. So its not true P&C until VW figures out a way to attach a credit card to it in the US (as they have done in EU.)

I'm sure you are way more versed in this than I am... but it is still kinda attached to a credit card. We only get 30 min sessions for free, then it bills our card on hand. So when I P&C and go over 30 mins (often need to on parts of my road trips), I just get charged for the extra time.

Doesn't seem like it would be that much different to have the same connectivity with the app setup, and just charge a saved card, but maybe I'm missing some nuance?

 

[Froggy]

Okay who snitched? It didn’t show a charge on the pedestal screen but charge history on the EA application shows an eleven dollar charge for today.

 

[Nai3t]

I'm sure you are way more versed in this than I am... but it is still kinda attached to a credit card. We only get 30 min sessions for free, then it bills our card on hand. So when I P&C and go over 30 mins (often need to on parts of my road trips), I just get charged for the extra time.

Doesn't seem like it would be that much different to have the same connectivity with the app setup, and just charge a saved card, but maybe I'm missing some nuance?

We're all getting up to speed on this but I believe the delay in on VW's end.

For Plug & Charge to work, the car needs to install a "contract" (Hubject's language) which best I have figured out is one side of a certificate or key (I need @fireboy92k to help out with the correct verbiage) that links the car to a matching certificate stored by Hubject.

This points at whoever holds the payment information.

As it's described, this "contract" could potentially be issued by any number of sources -- it doesn't have to be EA or VW.

It seems to me that what's happening with the 2023 ID.4s is VW is having the user load / approve to load EA's "contract" which is why it's only working with EA. That doesn't explain why 2021 and 2022 models don't have access.

Using Ford as an example, they appear to issue a contract via their Blue Oval plan which then links with multiple charge point operators. For now in the US I believe EA is still the only CPO running full Plug & Charge, but this single point of billing works with Tesla Superchargers, EVGo, and I believe others.

Since VW doesn't yet offer 2023 owners a place to input their credit card number for charging, I can only guess that they're not ready yet, which might be why they're using this EA shortcut.

 

[SunWizard]

Doesn't seem like it would be that much different to have the same connectivity with the app setup, and just charge a saved card, but maybe I'm missing some nuance?

I agree. It makes no sense that VW cannot get true P&C working for all ID.4. VW is the one who says its only for 23s and only if you are on the free plan.

Since VW doesn't yet offer 2023 owners a place to input their credit card number for charging, I can only guess that they're not ready yet, which might be why they're using this EA shortcut.

It sounds like they do offer a place for it to charge a card when the session is >30mins. and its in the myVW app as mentioned above (or is it the EA app?). So limiting it to the free plan make no sense. Maybe they are worried about security with lots of transactions going through the buggy myVW app?

 

[Nai3t]

It sounds like they do offer a place for it to charge a card when the session is >30mins. and its in the myVW app as mentioned above.

I missed that. Where in the myVW app? I assumed mtc was talking about the credit card we all enter into the Electrify America app when we sign up for our free changing plans?

 

[SunWizard]

I missed that. Where in the myVW app? I assumed mtc was talking about the credit card we all enter into the Electrify America app when we sign up for our free changing plans?

Yes it must be in the EA app. It would probably need to be added in the myVW app to get P&C working across vendors like Ford does with its app. And like the EU has had P&C for a while, but there they get a better app than our myVW.

 

[Nai3t]

I could even imagine financial regulatory issues, but who knows! I'm sure it'll get sorted soon enough as it could be a major convenience selling point, even a profit center for VW.

But for a company who has had their hands all over the development of P&C, it's unbelievable how behind the curve they are.

 

[Dougie01]

I could even imagine financial regulatory issues, but who knows! I'm sure it'll get sorted soon enough as it could be a major convenience selling point, even a profit center for VW.

But for a company who has had their hands all over the development of P&C, it's unbelievable how behind the curve they are.

Now let's talk about V2x. 😜

 

[mtc416]

I missed that. Where in the myVW app? I assumed mtc was talking about the credit card we all enter into the Electrify America app when we sign up for our free changing plans?

Correct, I meant in the EA app.

It seems that contract could be made in the EA app right now for anyone w/o a free plan, as they essentially already do that for our 30 min plans for the overages.

That doesn't solve for true PnC across platforms, but seems easily solvable for EA specifically, and for 21 and 22 ID4.

 

[Nai3t]

It seems that contract could be made in the EA app right now for anyone w/o a free plan, as they essentially already do that for our 30 min plans for the overages.

The "contact" in this case is either a term of art or a cyber security term (I don't like it and feel like I need to put it in quotes until the reference is commonly understood).

The "contact" comes in the form of software the user needs to authorize the installation of inside of their ID.4's Plug and Charge environment that allows the cryptographic handshake between the car and I guess the biller / payment holder (there's a new acronym for that, too).

The charging provider (who also gets a new acronym) can simultaneously be the biller / payment holder, or can just be a middle man in the handshake, even though ultimately the payment holder is the middleman between us users and the charging provider.

 

[EVnerd]

Tom Malogney of "State of Charge" and Patrick of "Mach E Vlog" both tested the Lectron adapter and had no issues. I own the Lectron adapter tested it, with no issues. What I've found is on the bottom of the Tesla 3400 charging plug, the notch to lock the plug into a Tesla charge port or the Lectron adapter gets worn from heavy us and causes this issue. I tested 12 Tesla SC handles in my Lectron adapter, and 4 of the 12 locked properly while the other 8 didn't. The 8 handles that didn't lock looked beat up and well used to say it politely. This seems to be more of a Tesla issue and not Lectron issue. But Lectron said they would provide a return label and send me a new adapter free. They are taking responsibility and fixed the issue according to them as they say t was a bad batch, but I don't think it's the adapter lock or else it wouldn't lock on any of the Tesla charging handles.

What did you use the adapter with?

 

[IslandLarry]

EA did something very special just for 2023 VWs, and its only good for the free plan, which is the special part. If you buy a used one, or your free plan expires, you don't have P&C any more. So its not true P&C until VW figures out a way to attach a credit card to it in the US (as they have done in EU.)

EA already has a way to attach a credit card to it.
When I went over 30 minutes the one time I tried P&C my card was charged fro teh overage (acutally my pre-paid balance was charged and my my card was charged to replenish it).

 

[Ida Red]

t seems that for Tesla Superchargers to work with 3rd-party EVs, the least that needs to happen is plug-and-charge, as there is no manual "authorize payment" option for Supercharger stalls without a Magic Dock.

Plug and charge and working at Tesla Superchargers are two completely different things. Superchargers can be authorized from the Tesla app, no plug and charge needed. I believe this is how it is being done with other makes that are further along with their deal with Tesla. Even if VW does finally implement plug and charge for CCS, there's no guaranty that it will talk to NACS. Your car came from the factory with the expectation that it would have CCS fast charging and only CCS. Any charging that you ever get from Tesla, even if you have to hop 3 times and stand on 1 foot, is a bonus.

Plug and charge at Tesla Superchargers would be a nice to have feature but I don't think that VW ever promised that. TBH, even plug and charge at EA is not a big deal - somehow people have been charging their cars all these years without plug and charge. How many seconds does not having plug and charge add to the charging process? VW in many respects overpromised and underdelivered on many small things (cough, OTA updates) but the car is fundamentally sound and usable despite that. VW is an experienced car maker and a lousy software house. Who could have imagined that would be the case? If you wanted the opposite then you should have bought a Tesla.

 

[Ida Red]

Now it seems the smart thing to do for the 1st gen ID.4 was to lease. Those vehicles will never get 4.0 and the 21s and 22s will probably never get Plug and Charge, or access to Superchargers.

Historically, if you bought a '64 Beetle, you got a '64 Beetle. If there were new features in the '65 (3HP more!), you were never going to get them. Want the new features? Trade in your '64 and get a '65.

Even today in the age of software updates, if you buy a Pixel phone, they guarantee you a certain # of updates and that it's it. They are not going to keep upgrading your OS forever for free - this is not a viable business model. And at some point there is new, faster hardware to go with the new software and the new software is not going to run on the old software or the old hardware is going to be too slow to be usable with the latest OS, so even if they wanted to give it to you, it wouldn't work well or at all.

The mfrs dream of a car as a subscription with never ending monthly charges ("subscribe to windshield wipers for only $8/month!) is not fair but neither is "we will upgrade the car that you bought years ago to the current model forever for free".