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How about a single standard plug for EV’s?
CCS2 one format suitable for both AC (typically home and destination chargers) and an extended version suitable for DC (typically ultrafast chargers) for 240, 400 and 800 volt architectures. It is predominantly the US which is being let by a proprietary standard from Tesla that is nowhere near as good.
 
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The overheads of this approach would be crazy.

Terrible for small companies. Such a company manages to produce a device but before they can sell a single one of them, they have to make arrangements to supply chargers and/or discount/refund vouchers.

Any product sold is already required to have stuff like warranty information, etc. etc. So no issue here. They don't have to supply chargers. The company that sells the product (= store) does. And I haven't seen an electronics store that doesn't sell chargers. Also the voucher can be digital, basically an api call. Yeah, there is absolutely no issue here.

Complex when you look at things like USB hubs - many of which have the option to be powered but don't have to be. Do they all have to cost enough to cover the overheads that only some need/want?
If it doesn't require a charger then no voucher is needed.

International sales become ever more complicated by such an approach. Does value of discount get set in USD? Or converted? Or set for each market? With further difficulties if someone buys a device while away from home but needs to use the discount or voucher in their own country.
International sales should have a voucher for the country the product is sold in. Again, the company that sells the products supplies the voucher. If someone imports something internationally (gray import) then they can ofcourse get their money back. The amount should be specified by the government. My € 20 is just an example.

And I have zero need or desire to charge my iPhone at full speed. I've never needed to do that and can't imagine a case where I would need to. (Well aware others do require this.)
Again. Then just take the € 20 discount.

And whenever a manufacturer is involved in supplying chargers, you end up with little choice over things like colour, whether the cable goes up or down from the charger when plugged in, lengths of cables, etc.
CHARGERS. NOT. CABLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And yes, the chargers are going to be very basic. But I absolutely see no issue there. Just like plug/outlet designs, also extremely basic.

Also it doesn't prohibit companies to make chargers. It only requires one (or sevral) companies to supply the government with standard chargers at different power ratings. If you want a fancy charger, then you buy a fancy charger. And take the discount on your product.

Far, far, easier and better to stop all inclusive chargers when feasible. Though I accept there are slightly special circumstances like MacBook Pro Magsafe charger and the iMac power supply including Ethernet.
Again that would increase the price of the chargers drasticly. Without reporcussions for the companies.

It feels like I'm explaining this to an infant here.
 
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YOU MUST USE THIS PLUG!

And, in three years, when some company (likely in the US, because this is where electronics innovations happen) creates a better connector that is smaller with more throughput, you won't be able to use it overseas until the UK and EU change the law once again.

Remember: electronic innovation is always much, much faster than legislation, which moves at a snail's pace.

If you choose to be run by Eurocrats, you will lose out on innovation in favor of "safety" (or whatever notion is possessing the people who run that part of the world these days).
 
You do know that around one third of the word use right hand drive cars, right?
Your data is true but utterly misleading and irrelevant in this context.
More than half of those people are Indians. The Tata Nano, a $1500 car, was considered too expensive for its potential buyers and failed.
Then there's Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, South Africa, countries with massive populations but a GPD per capita ranging from $1500 to $8000.
Now, do you believe Fiat is converting the 500, a $32,500 electric car, to right-hand drive to sell there?
Australia and Japan are the only relevant markets here other than the UK. But, well, there are many example of cars that were converted to right-hand drive but weren't sold there, just in UK, like some generations of Fiesta. Ford, a huge corporation, made big changes to its product (way bigger than, let's say, a different port) just because the UK mandate that.
I rest my case.

Edit: looks like people read this and think I'm attacking poor countries for being poor. I'm absolutely not. I just know for a fact they're not good markets for many expensive mass-produced cars. No judgement, nothing accusatory about it, in fact I'm also too poor for most expensive cars and have no problem with that. Cheerio.
 
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So previously we had several different cables/connectors which performed different tasks such as charging, data transfer and video signal.

The proposed solution is to have a single connector but with different cable performing several different tasks such as charging, data transfer and video signal.


USB-C cable can be any of the following...

  1. Power Delivery but no data
  2. USB 2.0
  3. USB 3.1 Gen 1
  4. USB 3.1 Gen 2
  5. USB 4
  6. Thunderbolt 3
  7. Thunderbolt 4

I have drawer full of USB-C Cables that work with some devices but not others, even though the packaging claims the cable is up to spec.

If the Gov really wanted to cut down on e-waste then they should impose some kind of quality control on the Cheap Chinese Crap that is flooding the market, but that is too simple!
Not as bad as lots of different cables that also may have done different things?
Lot's of USBA specs under the one form factor.
This has the potential to be way less wasteful.
 
Typical post-Brexit idiocy from the UK. I see it in work all the time, whenever the EU puts in place a new Regulation, the UK come trundling along afterwards and put the same laws in place to make sure they are not out of step with the rest of Europe. So much for Brexit!!! It's cost them billions of pounds for nothing!! I say all this as an ardent pro-EU European.
This is exactly why brexit was so stupid. Sadly our political class are too cowardly to properly address it.
 
Allowing consumers to purchase devices without chargers

So again, allowing companies to charge users more when buying products to pay seperately for chargers. The same idiotic version the EU also has.
Only those customers that are charger constrained. Dont know about you but I have more than one charger already.

It’s a win-win. Win for the environment, win for the company, but unfortunately a lose for a small number of customers.
 
The UK is far too small and irrelevant to mandate anything of that magnitude industry-wide, but they need to act as if they are still important to placate the Brexiteers.

People seem to be assuming that this means we're going to be inventing a Great British Charger that is gratuitously different from USB-C (I think the plug would have to be exactly 2/8" wide by 2mm thick to properly reflect UK measurement practices :)) - of course that would be ludicrous.

But think a bit beyond the knee-jerk reaction. The universal charger idea isn't just aimed at what socket the top 3 premium smartphone brands put in their devices (and for whom it made sense to switch to USB-C anyway) nor is it just aimed a phones any more.

The UK is still a significant market, and there are plenty of products - made in the UK or overseas - specifically designed or adapted for the UK market, which currently aren't affected by the EU directive.

That's not to mention products made for the other vast areas of the world that don't follow EU rules and could dump their non-USB-C stuff on the UK market.

Prime example: the Great British Mains Plug (popular topic of internet debate) is already established. That means that every big tech manufacturers already has to make a special power brick (or at least a specific slot-in plug head) for the UK market. The UK could certainly influence the design of power adapters (E.g. I'm not sure that the EU directive forbids adapters with captive USB-C cables - which would probably have been more important than regulating the device end!) Maybe we should stop cheap, bare minimum USB-C adapters being bundled with phones to nudge people to get with the program and buy one charger for all their devices (debate)?

Keyboards with British English key layouts (not the same as International English) are manufactured/adapted specifically for the UK - do we want to leave a loophole that let QWZREZ inc. flood Amazon UK with wireless keyboards, or even cheap laptops, with cheaper barrel plugs?

Also, even Apple regionalise the OS and packaging for UK Macs - so a UK "difference" could, for example, be requiring a particular form of "Charger not included - Requires any USB-C certified Charger supporting 100W or higher" notice on the packaging. Otherwise, sellers will do their level best to convince you that only their premium-priced own brand charger will work. I wouldn't entirely put it past the less scrupulous "large tech companies" to (say) add a nag screen to the OS if you use an off-brand charger while the location is set to "UK" - the EU won't care.

Then there's this:

The big problem in the UK is all the transport infrastructure with USB A at the seats.
Forcing the bus operators and train rolling stock operators to upgrade everything is key to making this happen.
I don't think this is affected by the EU directive, which focusses on rechargeable devices. Certainly wouldn't require existing vehicles to be modified (you can charge perfectly well via a USB-A to C cable). Should it? These trains and busses are already extensively customised for the UK market so it would be perfectly feasible to have our own rule or exemption.
 
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Mandating USB-C remains an example of idiotic bureaucrats thinking they know better than product designers. We’ll never have a better connector because the EU mandated USB-C - thank god they didn’t succeed in doing this when micro-usb was in vogue (they tried to, look it up!).

Why the UK is now making a copycat regulation I have no idea.
 
Only those customers that are charger constrained. Dont know about you but I have more than one charger already.

It’s a win-win. Win for the environment, win for the company, but unfortunately a lose for a small number of customers.

Except when the company keeps increasing the power requirement for their devices. Than it's a big loss for a large number of customers.
 
Allowing consumers to purchase devices without chargers

So again, allowing companies to charge users more when buying products to pay seperately for chargers. The same idiotic version the EU also has.
20W USB-C Power Adapter

1729082796464.png


This is £19. Apple has just reduced the price of the base iPad by £30.

Companies charging more?
 
Although I like standardizing cables, why never do the same for the plugs ever? If they standardized plug types world wide, the cables would less relevant. Cable technology and shapes change more frequently than plug types. At least keep a common plug type all throughout EU and UK if every other region too stubborn.

 
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Problem is people who should know better (I’m looking st you MR) keep referring to Thunderbolt ports as USB ports.
All Thunderbolt 3/4 ports are USB-C ports.
All Thunderbolt 4 ports are USB4 ports - all Thunderbolt 5 ports will be USB4v2 ports.
All USB4 or USB 3.2 ports are USB-C ports.

Not all USB-C ports are Thunderbolt ports.

Arguably, they're all "USB ports" along with USB-A, USB-B, Mini A/B, Micro A/B and the USB 3 variants thereof...

The problem is that - esp. since USB 3.1 and USB-C - the USB-IF are lousy at picking names that consistently distinguish physical port designs and the various protocol stacks they can carry, and Intel aren't helping by throwing Thunderbolt branding into the mix. Since TB4, Thunderbolt is really just USB4 with more of the "optional" boxes ticked.
 
Your data is true but utterly misleading and irrelevant in this context.
More than half of those people are Indians. The Tata Nano, a $1500 car, was considered too expensive for its potential buyers and failed.
Then there's Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, South Africa, countries with massive populations but a GPD per capita ranging from $1500 to $8000.

The data is definitely not misleading. In fact that market is actually 2.5B and therefore ludicrously bigger than the UK. Do you really think the UK would get specially engineered high tech products for their mere 66M people?

The fact you would dismiss a third of the world's population as "irrelevant" just because they are ... poor?... speaks for itself. Most of these live in markets with huge growth rates. Even when you only count the rich people among them, the UK is a tiny little speck in comparison. Those are the facts. The empire is gone. Nobody in the rest of the world cares.
 
20W USB-C Power Adapter

View attachment 2438094

This is £19. Apple has just reduced the price of the base iPad by £30.

Companies charging more?
And I would keep my £19 because I already have several ways of charging USB-C devices - and if I did get a new charger I'd get a multi-port one that could charge my headphones etc. at the same time.

...and also note the big, honking UK-only three pin mains plug that Apple makes specifically for the UK market. The UK won't change what socket Apple puts in the iPad, but could absolutely accept/reject/tweak the surrounding rules for bundling & selling chargers, product labelling etc.
 
It seems unnecessary at this point frankly. Even the motorized laser I bought for my cat uses USB-C to charge. Now that Apple has been forced to give up Lightning, what's left using proprietary chargers, at least in the tech space?
I have at least three devices that have USB-C sockets on them - but will not charge from any USB-C charger I have.

A shaver
A hair trimmer
And something else I can't remember

All three need to use a USB-A to USB-C cable to charge - and they are all relatively recent. (Though pretty new, they were 'acquired' rather than purchased.) All three came with such cables - albeit very short ones.

It would actually be pretty good if such things were no longer made and distributed.

(Yes - I know the comment said "at least in the tech space" and acknowledge that might well be the case.)
 
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20W USB-C Power Adapter

View attachment 2438094

This is £19. Apple has just reduced the price of the base iPad by £30.

Companies charging more?
People would have to be insane to buy the Apple plug at £19 when much cheaper equivalents exist for half to a third of the cost in fairness.
 
Any product sold is already required to have stuff like warranty information, etc. etc. So no issue here. They don't have to supply chargers. The company that sells the product (= store) does. And I haven't seen an electronics store that doesn't sell chargers. Also the voucher can be digital, basically an api call. Yeah, there is absolutely no issue here.


If it doesn't require a charger then no voucher is needed.


International sales should have a voucher for the country the product is sold in. Again, the company that sells the products supplies the voucher. If someone imports something internationally (gray import) then they can ofcourse get their money back. The amount should be specified by the government. My € 20 is just an example.


Again. Then just take the € 20 discount.


CHARGERS. NOT. CABLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And yes, the chargers are going to be very basic. But I absolutely see no issue there. Just like plug/outlet designs, also extremely basic.

Also it doesn't prohibit companies to make chargers. It only requires one (or sevral) companies to supply the government with standard chargers at different power ratings. If you want a fancy charger, then you buy a fancy charger. And take the discount on your product.


Again that would increase the price of the chargers drasticly. Without reporcussions for the companies.

It feels like I'm explaining this to an infant here.
This seems unnecessarily complicated for a solved problem. We already have a perfectly functional system where you can buy a charger if you need it; there’s no need for government intervention to facilitate that.
 
Although I like standardizing cables, why never do the same for the plugs ever? If they standardized plug types world wide, the cables would less relevant. Cable technology and shapes change more frequently than plug types. At least keep a common plug type all throughout EU and UK if every other region too stubborn.


You know who'd love that... socket manufacturers and electricians. $$$$$$$

The UK Type G is technically the best plug and socket but over engineered and expensive... the worst is the USA Type A.
 
Kinda too late to the party 😂

Also, does this mean no new interface allowed in future then?
 
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