Fragmented infrastructure benefits no one. Imagine if you could only fill up your ICE vehicle at shell stations because of your vehicle's brand.
Fragmentation of the charging infrastructure puts a hard limit on EV adoption, they will never replace ICE vehicles unless the infrastructure becomes as ubiquitous as gas stations.
It's hard to make direct analogies because unlike gas vehicles, EVs "refuel" at home. You wake up every day with a full tank of gas. Fast DC chargers are mostly for road trips.
And while it's a good thing that everyone has adopted the same charging standard, branding is just as important. Gas at gas stations is fungible. EV chargers are most certainly not. Right now Tesla's charging network is the only option that is fast and reliable.
> unlike gas vehicles, EVs "refuel" at home. You wake up every day with a full tank of gas.
Only for the subset of the population that owns a home with off street parking. People in denser neighborhoods, appartments buildings or who rent their property will be looking to top off while running errands or at work.
If I'm in such situation, I never buy BEV unless charger is installed at my parking. Without home parking charging, it's pure downgrade from gas experience. It will be eventually installed if govt really care about BEV.
> Without home parking charging, it's pure downgrade from gas experience.
That may be your perspective, however I have family members who owned a plugin hybrid, had no at home charging capabilities, and found the experience superior. I suspect this is a use case that will become more prevelant at the regulatory incentives begin ramping up.
> It will be eventually installed if govt really care about BEV.
I don't realistically see us being able to rollout sidewalk chargers on the scale needed to provide home charging at the sidewalk for people without driveways or garages.
So long as the charger supports the same connector they all work - some might be a level2 charger that takes forever, but you plug it into any car.
Gas stations can choose from 3-10 grades of gas (octane, ethanol content, road tax) to sell, and 2-6 grades of diesel (cetane, gel point, road tax) depending on what the distributor offers - no station sells them all (at least not that I'm aware of), and getting the wrong fuel can be fatal. Stations also can choose their own additive package which can make a difference.
Note that in almost all cases there is only one distributor you can buy from. Electric is generally a legal monopoly, while gasoline the closest supplier generally has a pipeline and thus can offer much cheaper prices so while it is legal to buy elsewhere it isn't practical.
It benefits Tesla right now - because people bought Teslas due to their charging network. It'll stop being a big benefit and that's great for competition.
Fragmentation of the charging infrastructure puts a hard limit on EV adoption, they will never replace ICE vehicles unless the infrastructure becomes as ubiquitous as gas stations.