Written by | Little devil
Buying a mobile phone to send a charger and buying an electric car to send a charging plug seems to have always been a consensus between the industry and consumers.
However, in the mobile phone circle, Apple was the first to jump out and break this consensus.
Beginning with the release of the iPhone 13, it suddenly announced that it would no longer provide charging plugs for mobile phones as a giveaway, requiring consumers to spend money to buy.
In this regard, its explanation is that most users have excess charging heads at home, and there is no need to continue to come with gifts, which can be more "environmentally friendly".
In the automotive industry, there are also some car companies that have chosen a similar approach to Apple – such as Tesla.
The electric vehicle company, which is highly sought after by consumers around the world, recently abruptly changed its long-standing car buying policy, announcing that it will no longer equip new electric vehicles with portable charging devices.
Portable Charging Kit with NEMA 14-50 Plug As Standard (240V)
Portable Charging Kit with NEMA 5-15 Plug As Standard (120V)
Instead , Tesla began selling a $400 (domestic price of 4775 yuan) 240V mobile charging connector (standard NEMA 14-50 plug) and a $275 (domestic price of 2950 yuan) 120V mobile charging connector (equipped with NEMA 5-15 plug) on its own website.
That's right, if you want portable charging equipment, new owners have to pay for it themselves!
Of course, Elon Musk also made a not very "plausible" explanation for Tesla's behavior, saying that through their background data, it was found that Tesla owners' use of portable charging equipment was too low to be worth providing such a supporting accessory when each new car was delivered.
He tweeted: "(Portable chargers) usage statistics are super low, so it looks wasteful. In terms of benefits, we will have more plug adapters in the portable charging kit. ”
Well, if Apple can use its buyer's phone or Apple's electronic devices, and the charging plug has a surplus as an excuse, this is not the case for Tesla buyers.
Electric vehicles as a bulk consumer goods, the average person can not buy several in the garage conditions, whether at home or abroad, Tesla can even be regarded as the first electric vehicle experience of many people.
Tesla's incident this time, from the perspective of consumers, is naturally not very authentic, and the excuse it gives is also very clumsy.
After all, until 2022, every electric vehicle produced worldwide will offer some sort of charging device as standard.
Yes, even if you buy a Wuling Hongguang Mini EV that costs only more than 30,000 yuan, it will also equip the user with a charging plug.
In fact, in the early days of electric vehicles on the market, most of the vehicles were equipped with simple portable charging cables, which made it easier for car owners to carry out emergency charging.
In the United States, the birthplace of Tesla, because its standard voltage is 120V, the cables and connection plugs provided by car companies to users support 120V voltage.
Later, with the advancement of technology, many manufacturers introduced dual-voltage portable charging devices, so that users can charge between 120V and 240V by switching different plug adapters.
Tesla was the same at the beginning, as a leader in the electric vehicle industry, and it also first used a dual-voltage portable charging kit as a standard for its vehicles. Car buyers receive a portable charging kit consisting of a charging cable with a NEMA 14-50 (Level 2) connection plug and a NEMA 5-15 (Level 1) connection plug.
Later, for unknown reasons, Tesla no longer provided NEMA 14-50 connection plugs, and only ordinary NEMA 5-15 connection plugs were left with standard accessories, and the Level 2 plug needed to be purchased separately by the owner.
Although unhappy, new owners can also reluctantly accept, after all, ordinary plugs can also support a maximum charging power of 1.3kW, which can charge 4.8-8 kilometers per hour. Not much, but better than nothing, and it is more suitable for those who have the habit of charging overnight.
But now, even such basic benefits Tesla does not intend to provide free to car owners.
For new car owners who have just placed an order and are still waiting for delivery, this policy can be described as very unfriendly, because it means that they must buy charging equipment before picking up the car, otherwise there is no way to charge it when they go home.
Of course, if you have to be more serious, using Tesla's public charging network, the supercharger pile, to replenish the new car is also an alternative. But if you catch up with the peak charging period, you may have to look at some luck if you can't grab the charging pile.
Portable charging kits that don't seem to be of much use (Musk says usage statistics are very low) are important to both new and existing owners.
For users who are electric vehicle owners for the first time, before considering the permanent charging scheme that suits them, that is, how much power to install the charging wall box, they could have charged in this way without spending extra money at home, or they could have used this method forever to save themselves money.
And in addition to using portable charging devices for daily charging, for most electric vehicle owners, putting a portable charging kit in the trunk for emergency will also make them more at ease.
Both portable charging kits show out-of-stock
Now, whether reasonable or unreasonable, new owners can only reluctantly accept this policy, and if they need portable charging equipment, they have to go to the official website to buy.
But for them, the most unfortunate thing is not the problem of spending money, but that even if you want to spend money, you may not be able to buy it. At least on its official website in the United States, the two portable charging kits mentioned earlier are not currently in stock.
Therefore, some media have also speculated that Tesla's sudden announcement that it will no longer provide portable charging devices as standard is because it itself encounters supply chain problems with charging devices?
Perhaps there are too many people who buy Tesla cars, resulting in the supply chain of charging equipment can not keep up, so Tesla simply chose the simplest and most rude method, the portable charging equipment from the standard list (but also to further reduce the cost of the vehicle).
Perhaps in response to the general dissatisfaction of users.
Musk also said on his social platform that Tesla will reduce the price of portable charging kits to $200, but for consumers who can't buy it at all, this price adjustment will not solve their urgent needs.
It should be pointed out that Tesla is actually not the only car company to cancel portable charging equipment in the standard list, and the Kia EV6, which was just launched in North America this year, did not provide it.
Perhaps after the cost of electric vehicles has risen generally due to the price increase of raw materials, there will be more and more car companies that want to maintain cost balance by reducing allocation, and the reduction of portable charging equipment that seems to be "dispensable" will become a major trend, after all, Kia and Tesla have taken the lead in doing so.
But for the consumer market where the acceptance of electric vehicles is not so high, we really do not think that it is a good idea for car companies to reduce the allocation of portable charging equipment, because this behavior is very capable of ruining the favorability of electric vehicles that have been hard to establish in consumers, and greatly increases the complexity of buying electric vehicles.
For now, providing new owners with a way to charge their vehicles on the first day they own, rather than requiring them to buy and install charging equipment beforehand, remains a positive policy in the promotion of electric vehicles.
Maybe when most people are using their second or third electric vehicles, there will be no need to equip each car with portable charging equipment, but that will also be more than a decade later, after electric vehicles have driven fuel vehicles off the stage.
Then again, if you were about to become an electric vehicle owner, would you choose one that doesn't come standard with portable charging equipment? 【iDailycar】