Forgive my ignorance. I have never owned an EV and my 60 is due to arrive in about 3 weeks. Tesla brags about the charger being onboard. Can someone explain why that's great? They make is sound like this allows you to plug in to a standard outlet, but can't a Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf do that too? You still need the UMC, right?
Long ago, there were battery electric vehicles. The Toyota RAV4EV and the GM EV1 were a couple.
Seems that the manufacturers really did not want electrics to be too convenient, because it was obvious that electric power was vastly superior to gas power. So they told everyone that batteries were horribly expensive and heavy, and so they could only give the car a hundred miles or so of range. Then, to make it even more inconvenient, they devised a way to make sure you could not just fill up anywhere, so they took the charger (the AC to DC inverter) out of the car and made people hard wire them to the grid. This way, you could charge at home, or charge at public chargers, but only a FEW places. These inverters were very heavy: Toyota's charger weighed 80 lb. And it is slow. You might pick up 20 miles per hour of charge, max.
They thought they had made a car that few people would be willing to drive, but people loved them. After accidentally putting them up for sale, Toyota sold a "two year" inventory in 5 months, with virtually no advertising, at 21 dealerships, most of whom did not want to sell RAV4EVs. All other manufacturers kept control of inventory, and in the end, all other EVs were crushed except those sold.
Tesla sort of pushed EV makers into putting the inverter (charger) on the vehicle so ANYone could charge at ANY outlet. The RAV4EV could only charge from a 220 volt outlet, only if someone had made the 80 lb. charger portable, so most RAV4EVs never went very far. Whereas, Tesla drivers have driven around the world with a very few adapters, able to plug into outlets anywhere.
Some EV manufacturers still try to make driving an EV *just a little* inconvenient. They still offer batteries that would be equivalent of a four gallon gas tank on any of their other cars, claiming they are trying to hold down price, and then crying to Air Quality boards that no one wants their cars. They still make it difficult to get a charge anywhere, claiming you must use a several thousand dollar switch between that horrible electricity and your car. Tesla made it possible to use a safety connecting cord that plugs into about any outlet, and now, guess what? Chevy Spark and Leaf can plug into your wall.
Believe me, it wouldn't have happened if somebody didn't have a rope around their neck telling them they had to do it.
So, yeah, it's something to brag about. It's history. It's progress. Due to these little advances, I drove to Canada and back the first month I got my car, before there were any superchargers. With my RAV4EV, I drove 95 miles to Sacramento, charged for 4 hours, and came home.
That's the difference.