For some reason in 2014 Elon Musk decided to promise the world that Tesla would deliver robotic charging cables, which were called a “snake“.

They never happened, despite a shameless Tesla PR stunt posting a video in 2015 claiming they were real.

In 2016 some people tried very hard not to forget a “snake” was ever promised to them.

So then… nothing. No “snake” but in 2020 Elon Musk promised them again, more emphatically lying by saying their “snake” concept was real and even would enable cars with no humans to drive across America.

Yes.

Of course there’s no “snake” at all and Tesla was incredibly stupid to not use a socket design for charging stations.

Here we are a decade later.

Snake? No.

The significance of this robot can’t be understated. It is the kind of robot that is manifestly simpler than an entire car being driverless. Tesla couldn’t figure out the “snake” so it really sets the context for all these other CEO promises of something far more complicated during the same exact period.

• 2015 December 22: “I think we will have complete autonomy in approximately two years.“
• 2016 January 11: “In ~2 years, summon should work anywhere, connected by land & not blocked by borders.“
• 2016 June 02: “I really consider autonomous driving a solved problem. I think we are less than two years away from complete autonomy.“
• 2016 October 20: “By the end of next year, said Musk, Tesla would demonstrate a fully autonomous drive from, say, a home in L.A., to Times Square… without the need for a single touch, including the charging.“
• 2017 April 30: “I think that [time to deliver technology to allow Tesla drivers to fall asleep] is about two years.“
• 2018 November 15: “Probably technically be able to [have Tesla cars drive themselves to new customers for delivery] in about a year.“
• 2019 February 20: “We will be feature complete full self driving this year. The car will be able to find you in a parking lot, pick you up, take you all the way to your destination without an intervention this year. I’m certain of that.“
• 2020 July 09: “I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for level five autonomy complete this year. There are no fundamental challenges remaining.“
• 2020 December 05: “I’m extremely confident that Tesla will have level five next year, extremely confident, 100%.“

None of that was true. None of it. Complete autonomy? Level five? Tesla can’t even get their “snake” to work.

Do you see why failing to deliver a basic robot to automate charging, while claiming to be on the road to do so much more in automation, really stands out as testament to why Tesla can’t deliver?

During the Q1 Earnings Call in 2020, Musk described his idea for the Robotaxi’s imminent rollout in 2021.

Without fraud there would be no Tesla.

I’ve said it for years and I’ll say it again, electric vehicle charging should primarily be done with sockets. Make the owner of a car bring a cable. It’s basic electricity infrastructure design, and sockets are 100 years old, as old as electric cars.

Reports like this AP hyperventilation one completely miss the point, that we don’t need giant cables dangling around in public spaces to be damaged or stolen.

Two men, one with a light strapped to his head, got out. A security camera recorded them pulling out bolt cutters. One man snipped several charging cables; the other loaded them into the truck. In under 2½ minutes, they were gone.

Replace the cable with a socket. People bring their own cable.

Problem solved.

How many years of cables being stolen, oooh scary, do Americans have to read about before charging station journalism just gets a basic clue?

For reference, cable theft is an extremely well known problem, which begs the obvious question who in America was allowed to design charging stations with vulnerable cables dangling all over the place?

The estimated loss due to cable theft in the United States is between $1.5 billion and $2 billion per year. This includes the cost of replacing stolen cables, the cost of lost productivity, and the cost of damage to property.

Tesla bothered to invent their own plug, to push the country to adapt to their charging station design, but ignored the actual problems that would destroy it all? The sheer stupidity of Tesla engineering management never ceases to amaze me.

To make an even finer point. Tesla literally took the Mennekes products, switched them to permanent cables that could be stolen or damaged, and slapped a Tesla logo on top when deploying centralized stations ripe for crime. The American electric vehicle market would be far better off without any Tesla.

Recently I pointed out that US charging station cable theft has been a growing problem for years.

And core to that story is the simple analysis that cables are unnecessary for charging stations. EV owners should bring their own cables to plug into a socket.

A new Gravity announcement proves the problem, with a design that illustrates tone-deafness on multiple levels.

Tree? A lynching tree maybe. Looks like a haunting gallows design to me.

They are asking cities to pour even more money down the mounted cable mindset, and not even addressing a rising decade of threats, let alone the historical significance of promoting a “hanging tree” design from the 1830s.

Notably the rather cruel Gravity illustration shows their new pole is to be injected into sidewalks to further reduce pedestrian space.

Bad idea for cities.

While some might be impressed the huge long cable is dangling up high, making it harder to cut, that’s also why it brings a much higher (no pun intended) cost to replace amd repair. And because it’s a much longer cable, it’s even more likely to be targeted.

The company could have just mounted sockets in existing utility poles.

Sockets in existing poles just make so much more sense, instead of adding more poles and creating extra sidewalk hazards, which reduce pedestrian space and probably just end up with cut power cables anyway.

You don’t have cables coming out of your walls, you have outlets to plug into. It’s perhaps obvious that this is how the EV market should also work.

Yet, for some odd design reason in America, EV chargers always have cables permanently attached… which in reality means octopus-like chargers are damaged when their ugly, long and floppy cables are stolen.

It begs the question why an EV isn’t designed for a retractable cable like every other major electrical appliance (e.g. oven or dryer). Or have a cable that detaches on both ends, like everyone’s laptop or phone.

In fact, in the EU everyone uses the outlet and brings a cable, meaning anyone can pull their EV up to a light pole on the street and plug in. Easy, reliable, no mess, plus far less risk of failure to charge because a socket design on existing light poles is so much simpler to secure from damage.

The EU will completely outpace the US on EV infrastructure because of such intelligence in quiet and almost hidden distributed power, reflecting the lack of any need for America to slowly roll out large wasteful concentrated “stations” covered in advertisements.

Given 2 lbs of copper runs in a large charging cable, and the rush of copper theft, it makes even less sense that Tesla has been building centralized ugly zones where an attacker can quickly hit a strangely numbered 88 of their cables, to recycle them at around $10-20 each.

Concentrated charging stations into a single area, is a truly dumb concept. Why did anyone ever think this made any sense at all? Centralizing charging stations with all their expensive delicate cables to be dangling and damaged, instead of spreading out simple reliable sockets, are even dumber. Outlets are the future like it’s 1924 again.

Electricity runs practically everywhere today. Trying to undo Westinghouse and go back to Edison’s dream of limited reach is peak ignorance in American history. And what could be more ironic than a company named Tesla doing the exact opposite of what Westinghouse would do?

Westinghouse was horrified by the reports of Kemmler’s execution [by Edison’s cruel designs]. “It has been a brutal affair,” he said. “They could have done better with an ax.”

Even more to the point, Tesla unnecessarily modified EU charging equipment made by Mennekes to put their brand on it. They could have left it a standard Mennekes product instead.

Terrible concepts, terrible designs, terrible operations… that’s the T now in Tesla.

The Houston Police Department tells KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding that 18 of the 19 charging stations had their cables stolen, according to a report that was filed by a Tesla service technician on Monday.

Kind of them to leave one cable behind, I guess? Here’s another case with local analysis included.

Thieves are targeting high-powered Tesla and other EV charging stations and stealing the heavy cable for the copper metal inside. In Vallejo, someone cut cables from nine charging stations…

“You know, they left five charging stations. I’m pretty sure after they racked up, I don’t know what the quantity was, but almost 20 cables with the nozzles. Those are extremely heavy, so I’m imagining that’s all they could haul at one given time,” [retired Marine and former investigator] Beckler said.

This has been going on for years already, with far too little discussion about the basic risk economics. The plug end and cable typically are the most expensive parts of a level 2 EVSE. Here’s the big news from 2022:

…a Tesla Supercharger at a Meijer grocery store in Cincinnati, Ohio, had its cables cut. The post notes that a Tesla mobile technician arrived to repair the cut cables and reportedly told people that this was the third time in a week that cables were cut at the Supercharger station.

So you think Tesla should just keep putting cables back on repeatedly, at huge expense in time and materials, to be cut again? With no changes in design?

Ugh. Enough already.

Two obvious fixes for this, which can rapidly advance the safety and security of EV charging.

1. Switch regulations so the US moves away from fixed cables and to an open socket design. Drivers bring their own cables, always (with liquid-cooled DC extreme chargers perhaps being an exception). Have a simple secure door covering the socket, which can be tied to payment. Have a simple electromag cable locking mechanism during charge.
2. Switch regulations so the US rapidly pushes charging sockets into existing infrastructure. Light poles on streets and in parking lots, and especially at gas stations, should have standard EV charging sockets. Every gas station should be mandated to provide at least two high speed charging sockets, like how they already have been forced to provide the public restrooms, air and water.

Come on people, this is not that hard to solve. Blink even announced US light pole charging in 2020. Why is every city in America not jumping in this option already?

The pole mounting system is also beneficial in communities transitioning their streetlights into power-efficient LED systems. These LED system lights allow the excess power to operate the pole-mounted EV charging station, turning every streetlight into a potential charging destination.

Get rid of the cables and any light pole is an EV outlet!

Tesla (with the real Tesla rolling in his grave) is doing the Edison thing with EV chargers because they were trying to get everyone stuck into their centrally planned, centrally controlled system of scarcity to enrich one man. That’s more Edison than anything, opposite of the real Tesla.

Of course the Tesla plan, in its ahistorical backwards thinking, is going to fall apart from the most basic known threats. We’ve known since the time of Egyptian pharaohs.

It’s way past time for America to move on step up and get serious about EV infrastructure.