⚡ Ford Lightning Forum ⚡ banner

Official Magic Dock Installation Thread

8K views 62 replies 18 participants last post by  ChasingCoral 
Two Lightnings ‘hogging up’ the Tesla Super Chargers. 🤦🏻‍♂️ 🛻🛻


Over my 32 min charge, I averaged 110 kW. Yes $0.52 is more than EA, but it’s a price we’ll have to pay to gain access to their larger network. As has been pointed out by others, as more networks come on line, we’ll be able to shop around for better rates and faster chargers. For now, though, it’s all about more access.
I understand for $13/mo you can get a Tesla charging membership and get a lower rate.
 

Attachments

After using, does it seem to you like it would make sense/more sense to just make a 6' NACs to CCS adapter that we could buy, and make all the superchargers work without adding a magic dock?
Yeah, I think so. Strangely, I think Tesla missed an opportunity here. How many of us bought a really expensive Tesla Tap (btw, they don’t work with the Super Charger - it does not convert you to the DC CCS interface)? I’m sure the same number would have bouget an adapter/extension cord directly from Tesla thus saving them the time/expense of retrofitting all their SuperChargers and still not solving the cable length issue. 🤷‍♂️
 
Tesla laid out their supercharger control pretty explicitly in the March 1st investor day presentation.

No, third party adapters will never work with their system. No, adapter cables are never going to work with their system. The roll out of the magic dock is meticulously planned to do exactly what they wanted to do, and not anything they don't want it to do. In the presentation they laid out not only how strictly supercharger access control and routing is presently, but ways it is going to be even more controlled in the future (i.e. Tesla vehicles automatically reserving supercharger slots they are in route to).

With Tesla, software is king. Without the software overlay on specific stands (the magic docks), no third party is going to be allowed to tap into their network.

Tesla is not "missing out" on anything, quite the opposite. This technology has been ready to go for a while, but was not rolled out until Tesla got the concessions it felt it needed from the Biden administration on funding. Now, going forward, it is Tesla's intent to build out infrastructure for "all the rest", while rapidly increasing the "Tesla only" sites to make sure that their customers will not be impacted by the magic dock users. Keep in mind, it costs Tesla 20 to 30% of what it costs everybody else to put in a DCFC site. They could be hard to compete with going forward when it comes to installing these sites. Financially, I can't conceive of a way E.A. or anybody else is going to compete with them. Tesla is positioning itself to be able to wreck the competition with just the turn of a dial (price). Elon had an enormous grin on his face when he spoke of proving that hypothesis with the recent dial twists on model Y pricing.

Having just sold their 4 millionth vehicle, Tesla is now the 800lb gorilla in the room, and they just announced their future domination plans: 20 million vehicles a year.

A whole lot of really good information was put out in the presentation, some of it telegraphing major shifts for the automotive industry when their competitors were just starting to maybe catch up to their tail lights. Switching all low voltage systems to 48 volt lithium may not sound like a lot, but for the engineers and designers in the room, you understand what an earth shaking leap forward this is in the automotive industry.

And that was just one of about 100 really cutting edge things that were announced during that forum. Tesla is eliminating nose-to-tail wiring at a time when others, Ford included, are trying to figure out just how to wire an EV.

Every auto maker in the world is trying to get to where Tesla was. Then Tesla goes and moves the pins.

Happily, those plans now include charging infrastructure for all EVs.
Yup, all
Good points. Their focus on just software and just barely giving in enough to get USG funding is evident on the MagicDock by not extending the cord length. Of course, in doing so, they are only going to be upsetting their own Tesla base when we non-rear-left-hand-side charge port folk show up and block two spots.
I would contend that even with an adapter/extension cord they could still limit us non-Teslas with software. In the end, you still need the app to unlock the charger.
 
Top