November 24, 2024

"Much like the 'videotape format wars' Betamax and VHS fought in the 1970s and '80s, in the new millennium..."

"... automakers have vied for dominance over ways to charge EVs. Tesla created a proprietary, compact plug design; most other automakers used a shared design for a larger plug.... Tesla won. Within the last 18 months, every other EV maker in the U.S. has agreed to switch to Tesla's technology...."

From "Tesla won the plug war. Enter the age of the EV charging adapter" (NPR).

BUT: It seems to me that Tesla's technology was in the Betamax position — limited to one brand. Betamax was Sony. So looking at that analogy, the companies other than Tesla might well have thought their technology would win, even if it wasn't as good. That's what happened with VHS. 

47 comments:

Heartless Aztec said...

Like putting wings on pig. An expensive pig. With little or no resale value.

Leland said...

An individual business intent on being efficient beat out a consortium that just wanted a monopoly. Huh.

Kate said...

Didn't VHS win for basically the same reason? A more compact design. Betamax was a chonkster.

Glenn Howes said...

Everything I’ve seen indicates NACS is a superior interface, allowing for either AC or DC charging over fewer wires with a lithe cable. So sometimes things work out. Reminds me when the Europeans wanted to force everyone to use the horrid microUSB standard but we held out long enough to use the much nicer USB-C standard.

Dixcus said...

It's not about the nozzle, it's about the number of tanks you have.

Dixcus said...

Think of it this way ... Tesla owns almost 60% of all the EV charging stations in the United States. Imagine that you owned a Ford, but Chevy owned 60% of all the gas stations in America? Would you want your gas tank hole to fit Chevy's nozzles?

Dixcus said...

He who controls the spice (gas tanks) controls the universe.

paminwi said...

And now the auto manufacturers want to keep the EV MANDATE intact because they spent so much gearing up factories to make EV cars that for the most part NO ONE WANTS!

stlcdr said...

Betamax was slightly thicker but smaller, as I recall. (Can’t be bothered to look it up, and going from memory). Also, Betamax was technically superior, if nuanced.

None of that matters, though, as technology simply is improved and transitory, not invented, these days.

Wince said...

Elon Musk linking linking to a rather risqué "plug-in" meme.

"And lead us not into temptation…"

stlcdr said...

Electrify America says “early stages” to cover up for their demonstrable incompetence.

mezzrow said...

If it don't fit, don't force it (don't force it, force it)
Just leave it a little room, let it ease on in (let love just ease on in)
If it don't fit, don't force it (don't force it, force it)
Wait a second with your help, it needs a chance

If it don't fit, don't force it (don't force it, force it)
Mind control is what it's all about (no, no, no)
If it don't fit, don't force it (don't force it, force it)
Just take your time and check it out (take your time and check it out)

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

It's funny how lots of people have vied but almost nobody ever vies.

And when was the last time you ever heard anyone vie?

Só danço samba
Só danço samba
Vai, vai, vai, vai, vai
Só danço samba
Só danço samba
Vai

Jaq said...

Well he installed a ton of chargers on his own dime, until the Biden Administration changed the subsidy rules so that Tesla couldn't qualify, and he could no longer afford to to it. Without this ruling, he would still be building out the charger network, instead we had to spend a half a trillion dollars of taxpayer money to do it.

Jaq said...

And remember, Donald Trump *falsely* claimed that it was going to force people to buy EVs! What is likely to happen is that the ICE cars, which the industry will only be able to sell in limited quantities, will get bid up out of the reach of you peasants.

Aggie said...

"The auto industry, climate advocates and lawmakers have all bet heavily on the prospect that drivers will embrace EVs as superior to gas-powered cars. They are — as auto executives will eagerly tell you — cheaper to own,easier to maintain, quieter and speedier, and charging at home is downright convenient. But drivers' anxiety about charging..."

Tesla won by doing instead of promising. But as this NPR spin says, it's all about 'anxiety', not facts. Voters: You're wrong again !

And the so-called auto executives are trained seals. Pay no attention to that great big government thumb on the scale, there.

Aggie said...

How many charging stations delivered, please?

Achilles said...

VHS won because it was easier and cheaper to adopt.

Tesla won this because their solution is ready for mass implementation while the automakers solution was ready for government subsidy.

Yancey Ward said...

One design was always going to win. Can you even imagine a world where the gas nozzle hole was proprietary?

Temujin said...

"In 2014, Elon "gave away" Tesla's secrets to BWM.
Everyone thought he was crazy.
But this "act of charity" was actually the most ruthless business move in corporate history.
Here's why BMW never saw it coming"
Why Tesla is the charging standard.

Read the entire thread.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

No they can't because most of 'em don't realize that there are standards for gas pump nozzles.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Considering that the Biden administration did everything they could to force the country on to EV's, they should have figured this out a long time ago. No, wait, let me guess! This is one of the things they put Kamala Harris in charge of....

Tom T. said...

"And when was the last time you ever heard anyone vie?"

"Vie" most often describes a continuous activity, so you're more likely to hear "he is vying for the job" than "he vies for the job."

David53 said...

Government inefficiency might have something to do with it.

"So far, the program funded by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law has installed 19 charging stations in nine states, according to the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, which serves as the program’s technical resource."

JAORE said...

Maddow had a meltdown when she saw that. Poor dear just-could-not-go-on.

Ann Althouse said...

Straighten up!

JAORE said...

"So far, the program funded by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law has installed 19 charging stations in nine states, according to the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, which serves as the program’s technical resource."

Ahh, but they have also "installed" hundreds of bureaucrats at Federal, State and local levels. Plus funneled tens of billions to poiticos, NGOs and other parasites. Not to mention private industry planners, designers and contractors (all at cost plus rates).
From the perspective of the left this is a raging success.

Enigma said...

The EV mandate will die pretty soon, as mainstream green passion fell apart after just two years of Biden's war on gasoline in 2021 and 2022. Remember the sarcastic Biden "I did that" stickers on gas pumps when prices spiked?

Hybrids will be the transit standard for a long, long, long time. Toyota did the energy/efficiency math back in the 1990s for the Prius and got it right the first time. Batteries require lots of mining, there's not enough raw battery material to supply the world battery demand across all industries, and batteries force cars to drag around heavy dead weight as they run down. The only advantage EVs have is for central controllers and dictators -- they limit range and flexibility and thereby can be manipulated to meter use and punish enemies.

Bitcoin + EVs = Brave New World culture

Dogma and Pony Show said...

A better analogy than Betamax v. VHS is when railroad companies in the 19th Century were battling over which track-width would become standard.

Dogma and Pony Show said...

It's wrong to think that "nobody" wants EVs. Plenty of people love them, and there are plenty of things to enjoy about a Tesla over an ICE car. But obviously range, the scarcity of charging stations, and the time it takes to charge them are huge downsides.

Ann Althouse said...

Straighten up

hawkeyedjb said...

Mrs. Hawkeye has a EV. She loves it. It do too. It's the perfect around-town car; we will never take it on a highway trip. For convenience, we installed a home charger (total cost <$350). I resisted at first, then realized that we don't have a Tesla therefore we don't have access to all the zillions of convenient chargers Elon has built. I stopped at a charger farm where there were about 20 Tesla pumps and 2 non-Tesla.

Elon is the ultimate get-stuff-done guy. I guess that's why lefties and governments hate him.

hawkeyedjb said...

*I do too

hawkeyedjb said...

Similar to the way Bill Gates practically gave away the operating system to IBM, making it the defacto standard. Which everyone in the world then wanted, and which Microsoft was happy to sell to them.

n.n said...

Democratic economics.

MadTownGuy said...

??? I don't get the drift.

rehajm said...

Golly. I winced…

rehajm said...

They make adapters. I have one for the Euro plug…

NKP said...

Will your homeowner's insurance go up/disappear if you keep an EV in your home's garage? Fire risk?

Ex-PFC Wintergreen said...

Betamax had a superior picture and a somewhat smaller cartridge, but when VHS introduced the ability to record six hours on a single cartridge, it was game over for Betamax. The superior picture didn’t really matter when even the best TV was pretty crappy (unless you were willing to shell out for a Sony Trinitron, which was great but a lot more spendy).

On the EV charging topic…NACS is a much better design than CCS; more compact and the weight of the cable is better reacted by the socket. CCS really is a crappy design; had to have been a committee.

On the general EV topic…I like my Tesla a lot, and with a home Level 2 charger on a time-of-use plan, I save a lot in “fuel” costs. Maintenance costs are also quite low. The car has enough range so that I can do a round trip of 240 miles in one day without recharging, which is about the longest single-day trip I need to do. But…I live in a place where I don’t have to be concerned with cold-related loss of efficiency, and I own my home so having the aforementioned Level 2 charger in my garage is no big deal. IOW, I’m a near-perfect customer for a BEV; not a rare situation but certainly not a large fraction of the U.S. auto-buying population. Without government meddling, there will be a robust market for ICE cars for decades, and with government meddling, there will be a lot of people out there pissed off that the government has meddled in something they shouldn’t have, and made lots of people’s lives significantly worse.

John henry said...

"Patents are for the weak" - Elon Musk

Interesting trailer for an interview with Jay Leno about rocket engines. Musk open sources all his patents meaning that anyone is free to use them.

NASA, Boeing, blue origin are free to copy anything he does.

And they are still a decade behind and orders of magnitude more expensive.

John Henry

John henry said...

Example: the giga press casting an entire chassis as a single piece. It eliminates a couple hundred parts from a dozen suppliers.

Ford, gm, BMW etc all could have done it but they knew

John henry said...

Link to the Leno Musk clip

https://youtu.be/DpZj9mvcJYs?si=2PQ4WCrpY4IooHcv

Jaq said...

Yeah, my tense was wrong, "instead, we are going to spend a half a trillion dollars so that it happens some time in the future."

Jaq said...

Fires in EVs are actually very rare, but when they happen, they are spectacular. ICEs have a few more fires per 100,000 cars, and the "Ford Pinto Award" goes to hybrids, which have the most fires per 100,000 by far. Most non accident related EV battery fires are due to manufacturing defects, which means that they will eventually disappear.

I did my research before keeping an EV in my garage, which is attached to my home where my family sleeps.

John henry said...

hn henry
Example: the giga press casting an entire chassis as a single piece. It eliminates a couple hundred parts from a dozen suppliers.

Ford, gm, BMW etc all could have done it but they knew it was impossible.

Musk was bright enough to see the benefits but to naive to know it could not be done.

So he did it.

Like Henry Ford did with the float process for plate glass. The glass manufacturers td him it was impossible. So he plucked a young naive engineer from the drawing room and told him to do it.

The process is still the industry standard.

loudogblog said...

Tesla didn't win because their charging plug was a better technology. They won because they had invested a lot of money to make sure that their public chargers were more widespread and available. (Plus, another factor could be that Tesla's patent on their charger plug has expired so companies can make cheaper knock offs.)