It is an interesting piece of recent electric vehicle (EV) history that the Tesla not only has two different charging plugs for different markets, but they also differ to the ones chosen by the other EV manufacturers.
In this article I will contend that this is not really due to Tesla ‘wanting’ a separate plug standard to the rest of the world – more it is because they needed them right then, and could not delay waiting for the rest of the world’s EV manufacturers to catch up.
The marketing advantage of having a bigger (and Tesla-only) DC charging network than everybody else is in fact a happy accident. (Although it may also become a millstone as the non-proprietary CCS DC charging system is now rolling out chargers that are three times faster than the Tesla DC Supercharger).
Firstly – in 2008 when the Tesla Roadster was first released, Tesla needed a robust plug for general AC charging, as well as allowing for DC charging capacity. (DC charging was even then recognised by Tesla as being important for making long-distance travel practical).
Read the full story on RenewEconomy’s electric vehicle dedicated site, The Driven…
You can also sign up to TheDriven’s regular, and free, newsletter here.
