| Revenue. Automakers did not build their own networks, so they must now contribute to have access to something required to encourage EV sales. Gas stations (very roughly speaking! lots of Superchargers are colocated at grocery stores, malls, and other places humans can comfortably dwell for 15-30 min) don't want to front the hundreds of thousands of dollars per station for the equipment, so Tesla did. Paid for out of Model S and X margins early on, and more recently through profits from total sales. Remember, fuel sales are razor thin margins, pennies per gallon. The profit is on the snacks in the gas station store. Similar with fast DC charging, it is not a profit center due to demand charges (utility charges for pulling megawatts of power on demand) and charging infra capex [1] [2] [3]. But you must have this network to soothe range anxiety, as non Supercharger networks in the US are frankly garbage (as the Dept of Energy Secretary recently discovered on a PR EV roadtrip [4]). > “To dive deeper into this sum-of-the-parts valuation, we modeled & projected out Tesla’s supercharger network, taking into account access & revenues from other OEMs using stations across the United States. Ultimately, we estimate that Tesla’s supercharger business will be roughly 3%-6% of total revenues, translating to a $10 billion – $20 billion business by 2030.” [5] [1] https://www.mckinsey.com/features/mckinsey-center-for-future... ("Can public EV fast-charging stations be profitable in the United States?") [2] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nearly-all-high-voltage-ev-... ("‘Nearly all’ high voltage EV charging stations lose money: Report") [3] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4497501-evgo-q4-earnings-no... ("EVgo: Not A Go Yet, Still Bleeding Too Much") [4] https://www.npr.org/2023/09/10/1187224861/electric-vehicles-... ("Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy") [5] https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-tsla-20b-revenue-access-supe... ("Tesla set to access up to $20B in revenues from Supercharger deals, Dan Ives says") |