[nelsonic]

Tesla can become the de facto charging station for all EVs which at a 100% markup on each kWh sold is a substantially higher margin than selling vehicles. Think of how profitable the oil companies with gas stations are. Tesla SuperChargers are miles better than the competition. If people are already going to buy and EV from the legacy automaker because of design or brand loyalty, etc. Tesla might as well make recurring revenue on selling them the energy to charge.

Yes, on the margin some people might prefer to buy a non-Tesla car if they know they can use the supercharger network, but the positive experience of the Tesla charger will influence more people to buy a Tesla vehicle.

The only downside is if there are queues at the superchargers because too many non-Teslas are charging too slowly…

But then, as others have said, it just creates an incentive for Tesla to build more chargers and capture more charging infrastructure market share.

[resolutebat]

+1 to all that. Having experimented both with non-Tesla chargers and non-Tesla EVs, the Supercharger experience is just head and shoulders better. With a Tesla, plug in and go; with a non-Tesla at a Supercharger, select the bay from the app, plug in and go.

But with non-Tesla chargers, half the time they're down or fully occupied because there's one or two stalls, not 4-96 like Superchargers. If you find a free one, you need to download some dinky app and validate your account and punch in your credit card details and then it fails half the time anyway. Gar!

[Corrado]

Your experience mirrors mine. On a recent trip to the UK we rented a Tesla Model 3 and the Supercharging experience was a breeze; no trouble at all. However, there was not a Supercharger near the hotel so I had to use another vendor and the experience was terrible. Not only did I have to download yet another app, I had to pre-load the account with money. That was even before having to find the charger, activate it, make sure it worked, change to the other one when it didn't work, etc.

The whole experience was horrible and helped me understand why some people don't think electric cars will ever take off. In fact, I think that the non-Supercharging experience is so bad that it is actively harming EV adoption. So, the sooner that Supercharging can be adopted the better.

NOTE: NACS is a charging standard and not limited to Tesla Superchargers. My hope is that when other companies (ChargePoint, EVAmerica, etc.) adopt the standard and start providing NACS charging locations they won't screw it up as badly as they have with CCS.

[coryrc]

Electronics-wise there's little difference with NACS. I promise they'll find a way to fuck it up.

Sincerely, non-Tesla EV owner

[blake1]

The standard works on the other side as well. A Toyota with a NACS plug can charge on the supercharger network, but also other networks that are also adopting the NACS standard. A non-Tesla car that charges on a non-Tesla network doesn’t generate any obvious revenue for Tesla, unless there are licensing fees. We have not seen the agreements, but I have to assume Tesla gets something.

And Tesla’s ability to do enormous markups only works if they have monopoly pricing power. Perhaps the superchargers, by virtue of being first, will sit at the prime locations, giving Tesla some serious pricing advantages. Or maybe Tesla chargers will be better maintained and overall easier to use, so Tesla may have additional pricing advantages.

But that would fall short of full monopoly-level pricing power, and we see that people have the ability to respond to differentials in fuel prices by driving to cheaper stations. This will be easier in cars that integrate charging prices into navigation.

One thing I would like to know is: will Tesla allow their cars to charge on non-Tesla NACS chargers?

[foxyv]

But if more chargers support NACS then Tesla cars can charge at more places. A rising tide lifts all boats. Tesla, as an exclusively electric car company, will only benefit from an increase in EV infrastructure usability.