[flurie]

I'd seen some rumors that Tesla has been trying to slow down onboarding of other automakers to their charging network, so it's good to see information to the contrary.

I still struggle to see how this ends up favorable for Tesla in the long run. They did not charge licensing fees for the connector, and even if they charge a premium to charge non-Tesla vehicles, now owners of Tesla vehicles are going to run into situations where a Chevy Bolt has to double park to use a Tesla fast charger at <=50kW, doubly driving down utilization.

[fiftyfifty]

Tesla actually had $1.74 billion in revenue from its charging network in 2023, Bloomberg estimates that they probably made about 10% profits from that or $174 million. They are predicting that to grow to $7.4 billion in revenue by 2030. In my neck of the woods many of the Tesla superchargers I see are empty most of the time, presumably adding 3rd party vehicles is a way for Tesla to increase it's profits on their already built out network. Of course Tesla is still adding to their network but presumably as that investment decreases and the fact that they are charging more for non-Tesla vehicles, their profits will increase. It seems like it's turned into a nice little side business.

https://insideevs.com/news/715644/tesla-supercharger-network...

[hackernewds]

The impact of selling fewer cars due to the chaos of standing in mall lines waiting to charge is going to be a net harm I think to Tesla in the long run

[gpm]

Solved by continuing to expand the network. Just like we have sufficient gas stations, except chargers should be a hell of a lot cheaper to build than gas stations given the latter's environmental constraints.

[JanSolo]

> I still struggle to see how this ends up favorable for Tesla in the long run.

They're expanding their customer-base by maybe 2x or more. Those new customers will be be giving recurring payments to Tesla. For vehicles that Tesla didn't build. How is that not favourable?

[losvedir]

Tesla doesn't break out the details, but I think it's generally understood among investors that they just break even on Supercharger. Their profit comes from their cars, and the Supercharger network was a competitive advantage to get people to buy the cars.

I think they opened up the Supercharger network to ensure that the US didn't establish CCS as the standard and overtake Superchargers, such that Teslas have a competitive dis -advantage, but I don't think they're particularly thrilled to have all these other companies using their chargers.

People seem to think they're raking it in with the Superchargers, but distributing electricity is a low margin business. Same with gas stations where the money mostly comes from the convenience store part of it and such.

[bluGill]

Gas is lower margin than the other things in a convenience store, but they sell enough more gas than anything else that much of the money is there. I haven't checked in 10 years, but at one time I did read the share holders information from a convenience store and for that brand it was about 1/3 gas, 1/3 tobacco, 1/3 everything else. Tobacco is very high margin but very few people buy it. The everything is is a nice high margin, and most people buy, but they don't buy every trip. Gas is what gets people in the doors and often is all people get.

[BurningFrog]

> they just break even on Supercharger

So far, sure, but that can change. When most customers are non Teslas, it makes no sense to keep prices low.

[cbhl]

This goes both ways -- historically the other charging networks were J1772 or CCS (with a few CHAdeMO to support Nissan Leafs), but now Electrify America, EVgo, etc. have been retrofitting or newly installing a mix of CCS and NACS cables onto their L3 chargers. This increases the available charger footprint for Teslas as well.

[metal_am]

Where I’m located, Supercharger prices are ~4x business electric rates. That’s something like $15 profit per charge. No idea on infrastructure costs or usage though.

[secabeen]

Business electric service often has a demand charge in addition to the usage rates; superchargers could easily incur a lot of cost on that element.

[matthewdgreen]

Tesla’s entire business revolves around batteries. They have a huge opportunity to install batteries onsite that spread usage over times when high demand charges don’t apply. There’s some loss in that, but still could make sense if demand charges are really high. I’ve been waiting to see Tesla roll something like this out, but presumably it’s not pressing right now.

[kwhitefoot]

Tesla chargers are CCS. It's just that in the US they use a different plug, in Europe Tesla chargers uses CCS-2 connectors.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> Tesla chargers are CCS.

This is misleading and not entirely true.

Older Tesla chargers did not use CCS to communicate. My 2019 Model 3 doesn't support CCS at all. When I plug into a Supercharger, it's not using CCS to communicate with the charger, it's using Tesla's proprietary CAN bus protocol. Teslas made before 2021 need an ECU retrofit to support CCS.

[kwhitefoot]

Pretty much all the old Teslas in Norway have been retrofitted to allow them to connect to CCS only chargers as far as I can tell. Had mine (2015 S 70D) done years ago when it became clear that future Tesla chargers would be CCS only.

[linotype]

Almost no Teslas were manufactured pre-2019 vs post-2019.

[_ea1k]

I think between 15 and 20% were build pre-2019. The number of non-CCS is actually on the higher end of this, as component shortages caused quite a few to be built without CCS support in 2020.

[wlesieutre]

The downside is that when people are considering which car to buy, Tesla has enjoyed their charging network as a strong selling point that other automakers don't have

[aniviacat]

But they gain the selling point that charging Teslas is cheaper.

[alamortsubite]

How much will owners of other manufacturers' cars pay for electricity at the Superchargers, compared to those who have Teslas? The article doesn't mention this (or I missed it). I'm curious to know what this adds up to over the life of a car.

[bluGill]

Short term it will likely be the same - Telsa has the most chargers, but they do not have a monopoly and they will be forced to charge the same to all just to compete.

[wlesieutre]

Most places it's not like gas stations where there's 3 on the same block and they all have exactly the same price all the time, people are going to stop at whatever charger is located where they need it and pay whatever the price is as long as it's within reason.

[kelnos]

Something I hope is legislated away in the future. Can you imagine if the norm was that you got a different price for gas at gas stations depending on who owns the gas station and who manufactured your car?

[notpushkin]

If my car comes with a gas station’s loyalty card I don’t really see a problem.

[phkahler]

>> I still struggle to see how this ends up favorable for Tesla in the long run.

This will allow the rest of the charging infrastructure to become Tesla compatible. That may reduce the load on Teslas network, which they only built so their EVs could go cross country.

[bluGill]

More importantly, there are not a lot of chargers. Gas stations are on every important intersections, chargers are much less common and only rarely in places as convenient. (part of this is charging takes longer and there is the expectation the people charging are willing to go a little farther to find someplace where there is something else to do). As electric cars become more common every car manufacture needs to be able to say you can get anywhere with no worries as there are chargers. Tesla can get you across the country but you often have no choice where you stop to charge - if you pass a charger at 25% charge you are likely to run out a long way from any charger, while if you pass a gas station at 25% fuel you can probably pass several dozen more before running out and then are close to a station (more than walking distance, but an easy hitchhike) There are exceptions - I've been in remote areas where gas stations are that far miles apart, but they are rare, while that is still normal for EV charging outside of cities (and inside of a city you are more likely to charge at home and thus not care).

[gwbas1c]

Uhm, that's no longer true. There's a lot of new charging stations.

This summer, I drove from MA to Washington DC and every other rest stop had chargers; sometimes multiple brands. I also drove from MA to Montreal and there were plenty of chargers.

Basically, every time I needed to pee there was a charger 5-10 minutes ahead of me. Plugged in, went to the bathroom, and then I had more than enough charge to go to the next bathroom.

[maxerickson]

There can be enough chargers without them being anywhere as prevalent as gas stations.

In this rural area, there's generally more gas stations near the chargers than there are plugs at the chargers (like within a 1/2 mile or whatever).

[bluGill]

Depends on where you travel, I travel a lot in the west. Gas stations are not as common. I'm glad and not surprised to hear denser parts of the us are getting reasonable charger density as well.

[devilbunny]

... in the most densely-populated area of the country.

Within one mile of my house, I have access to 4+8+12+10+8=42 gas pumps.

There are 129 "public" chargers total in my metro area, and a decent number are at car dealerships (presumably mainly for use for vehicles left there for service) or hotels (overnight stays). I don't know how actually public the chargers are.

[ellisv]

> where a Chevy Bolt has to double park to use a Tesla fast charger at <=50kW, doubly driving down utilization

I’ll have you know my Bolt EUV can get 53, maybe 54 kW, for 5, or maybe 10 minutes, thank you very much.

But seriously while the max Bolt charge speed is rather slow I rarely ever fast charge. We recently took a road trip that required multiple charging stops and it was fine.

I understand it could be inconvenient for drivers who have cars that with a higher charge speed who could have to wait but I’ve never encountered this.

[flurie]

I'm on my third (long story) Bolt, I would pick it three more times if I could, and I'm certain that I've sold more Bolts than most GM salesmen, so my comment was more familiar snark than anything. I have done the trips into minimally friendly locales and spent longer than is wise at a Tilted Kilt with small children in order to ensure a healthy buffer for a trip home. This news is nothing but upside for me personally. Perhaps we will encounter one another at a Tesla charging station one day!

[peutetre]

> I'd seen some rumors that Tesla has been trying to slow down onboarding of other automakers to their charging network

It's more simple. The delays have been because Musk threw a tantrum and fired the whole supercharging team:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/inside...

> I still struggle to see how this ends up favorable for Tesla in the long run

Standardization gives Teslas more access to more chargers. It will also drive up utilization of Tesla's charging network because more cars will use more of Tesla's chargers more of the time.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/28/22596337/tesla-supercharg...

Tesla's chargers have been open to all brands for a long time in Europe. Here's a Kia charging on a V4 charger with no app and no Tesla account just as Nature intended:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yflZN0dLT8s

Tesla is just one charge point operator among many in Europe. Tesla's chargers are behind the state of the art. They still don't work well for 800 volt cars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJ2KtzMeh8

The Cybertruck is an 800 volt platform and charges faster on Electrify America than on Tesla's own chargers:

https://x.com/itskyleconner/status/1775014705222070331

EV charging standardization in Europe has driven investment in and deployment of charging infrastructure. The US has 193,000 public AC and DC charge points:

https://www.carscoops.com/2024/09/americas-ev-charging-infra...

Europe has over 900,000:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41466853

[rootusrootus]

Europe still hasn’t solved the need-another-app-for-every-charger problem.

Probably more effective than standardization is Europe’s love of pigovian taxes on gasoline.

[peutetre]

Contactless payment is mandated going forward. There's an example of no app, no subscription payment in my previous comment. It's being implemented in the field now.

EU regulations: https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/new-energies/europe/article/f...

UK regulations: https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/electric-...

[itsyogesh]

The secret lies in the route planning and not the chargers. EV Charging is a discoverability problem, not an infrastructure one. Tesla knows this very well, and just giving access to this infra isn't going to take away anything from them.

[IncreasePosts]

No licensing fees, but they are charging a premium for non-Teslas to use the superchargers.

[wlesieutre]

No licensing fees to use the connector but do we know they didn't pay any fees for access to Tesla's chargers?

EDIT - at least in Ford's case they've stated that they aren't https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/29/ford-tesla-supercharging-par...

[LargeWu]

As a non-Tesla EV owner, I would happily pay surcharges for charging on Tesla's network if it meant I could reliably use my vehicle on extended trips out of town. Tesla charging network has a very good reputation for reliability, which is a primary concern if I'm traveling on the highway. It's not something I do often, so paying a premium once in a while to use my EV instead of my ICE vehicle seems like a decent tradeoff.

[Sohcahtoa82]

There was someone on a EV Road Tripping group on Facebook mentioning how they took an EV from Florida to New Jersey and talked about how awful it was.

The top comment said something that every EV enthusiast knows. There are two wildly different charging experiences: Tesla, and everyone else.

Can you have a good experience with a non-Tesla? Sure! But with a Tesla, having a good experience is nearly guaranteed. With anyone else, it's a gamble.

You go to a Electrify America or some other charging network location, and you'll likely find only 2-4 stalls, and likely 1 or more of them are broken. Go to a Tesla Supercharger, and there's usually 8-16 chargers, all working. Even with a broken stall (It happens), you've got more available. And with so many stalls, and so many locations, it's exceptionally rare to get to a charging location and finding all of them in use.

This last week I took a road trip in my Model 3 from Portland to San Diego. 2,400 miles round trip. Never ran into a charging issue. I did see that a couple locations had a stall that was out of order, but with so many stalls, it wasn't an issue at all.

[kelnos]

Ugh, please don't take this stance.

Gas stations don't charge different amounts for gas depending on the type of car, and EV charging stations shouldn't be permitted to do so either.

I don't have an EV, but I agree that Tesla has a much much better reputation for reliable, working charging stations in the US. If people will actually pay more for that experience, then sure, Tesla can charge more than a competing charging company. But they should be required to charge the same amount regardless of vehicle.

The only exception to that, I think, is that they should be able to charge differently based on charging speed, which is related to the type of vehicl. All gas cars will fill up at more or less the same rate, but with EVs it depends on the battery technology and the car's electrical system. Taking up space at a charging station for a longer amount of time to consume the same amount of energy is a cost to the operator (and an annoyance for anyone waiting in line), and it seems reasonable to charge for that. So I think it would be fair to charge $X/kWh + $Y/min.

[LargeWu]

It's not at all about how much is being charged.

The difference with gas stations, and it can't be underestimated, is that I can typically stop at a minimum every 30 miles and refuel at a gas pump. It's almost guaranteed. Sure, driving through sparsely populated areas on a remote highway might be different, but every interstate highway is going to have reliable fueling infrastructure for ICE's. I don't have to worry if the pump is broken, I don't have to worry about waiting 45 minutes for a pump, and I certainly don't have to worry about if there will be a pump at all.

[infecto]

I’m not so sure. One of Tesla’s big selling points is access to its charging network, which is a night-and-day difference from others. If Tesla is subsidizing that network but not raising prices for its own vehicles, it makes sense to charge non-Tesla vehicles a higher rate. It’s similar to how I get a significant discount on gas at Costco because I’m a member, while non-members pay more at the station across the street.

How can you have such a strong opinion when you don’t even own an EV?

[idontwantthis]

Do you have a source showing they are charging higher prices for non Teslas?

[emilecantin]

This is common knowledge. I don't have a link to send you, but I've just looked up the closest supercharger on the Tesla website and it charges 0.55$ / kWh for NACS vehicles, while in my Tesla app the same supercharger shows 0.42$ / kWh.

[connicpu]

I feel bad for people who can't charge at home. I get to charge at my residential 11.5¢/kWh. Though I don't go far from home very often so I've never charged anywhere else. If I wasn't getting this rate the savings over gas would get a lot narrower.

[Sohcahtoa82]

As much of an EV enthusiast as I am, I tell people that if they can't charge at home, don't get an EV.

I'm in a similar boat, my electricity is I think 11 cents/kWh. $8.25 to completely charge my battery, which will then get me ~250 miles. The cost-per-mile is equivalent to getting over 125 mpg.

[dabinat]

I’ve been driving EVs for six years now and I do not have the ability to charge at home or work. It’s been a non-issue. I charge late at night and it’s about $0.18/kWh which is still way less than gas.

Obviously it’s more convenient if you can charge at home or work, but I disagree that such a thing is mandatory to own an EV.

[coryrc]

The price usually varies over the day; in the morning (until ~10am IIRC) and late at night here in the Seattle area it's 14¢/kWh for supercharging and my residential electricity is around 11¢/kWh.

But, if you can't charge at work nor at home, EV car isn't worth it.

[rstupek]

My electric plan has free evenings so I charge for free!

[foobazgt]

Ditto

[IncreasePosts]

I'm surprised crypto bros haven't bought every house in your neighborhood

[rconti]

Here in the bay area, my at home charging costs are very close to a supercharger. something like 35c vs 40c.

[fuzzythinker]

It's actually cheaper at supercharger, $.26 after midnight, but ~$.50 during off peak at home after all extra fees in SJ, even after selecting EV charging plan.

[Peanuts99]

Seems strange, in Europe where Tesla chargers are open to all CCS2 vehicles, the prices are the same for everyone. On most chargers you can just tap your payment card to start the charge, although I think you can get cheaper rates as a member too.

[rsynnott]

I mean, the EU and the US have _extremely_ different views on competition regulation (or, at least, different enthusiasms for it; the actual philosophy isn't that different, but the FTC has been basically moribund since the late 90s, whereas the EC is if anything getting more aggressive lately).

> On most chargers you can just tap your payment card to start the charge

This will be mandatory as of next year.

> although I think you can get cheaper rates as a member too.

AIUI this will no longer be permitted as of next year.

[IncreasePosts]

From the article: GM is also updating its brand apps to allow customers to search for available Superchargers, check station status, initiate a charge, and pay for charging sessions. Tesla has said that non-Tesla owners would have to pay a little more to charge their vehicles than Tesla owners.

[kwhitefoot]

In Europe Tesla offer a subscription that gives you the same prices as Teslas get. Otherwise you pay more. Of course Tesla then makes a profit on the subscription cost.

[tencentshill]

It's in the article: "Tesla has said that non-Tesla owners would have to pay a little more to charge their vehicles than Tesla owners."

[bradgessler]

Tesla bills themselves as an energy company. In theory, they could back their charging network with solar and battery storage and offer power cheaper/cleaner than competitors.

[mensetmanusman]

Tesla go was to speed the adoption of EVs. They succeeded.

[partitioned]

Most places most chargers are empty.

[tensor]

Yeah, I can't see how it's great for Tesla other than I guess extra revenue from charging. But the infrastructure already is somewhat constrained, so yes there will be more lines now at superchargers.

On the other hand, I'm happy we're not heading down the path of shitty walled gardens of charging, eventually Tesla owners will also benefit from being able to charge more easily at 3rd party chargers. For humanity this is a good thing, and increases overall efficiency of infrastructure greatly.

[MBCook]

They had to open their chargers to get some of the benefits from that big bill a year or two ago (build back better?).

That may be why. In low use areas it may be a nice ROI.

I’ve heard in high use areas things could already be bad from the increase in Teslas sold and piling Fords, GMs, and Rivians in isn’t going to lighten the load any.

[jauntywundrkind]

Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, https://driveelectric.gov/news/new-cfi-funding-released

> This funding opportunity is made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s signature EV charging investments: the $2.5 billion Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Discretionary Grant Program and funds from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program that are set aside for strategic grants to states and local governments to deploy EV chargers.

It seems like Tesla's behavior has been much better in Europe, and I'm not sure what explains the discrepancy.

[MBCook]

They didn’t have a choice. My understand is the EU dictated all cars have the IEC Type 2(?) connector to sell, so Tesla complied. No mess like the US.

The US had no such law and has refused to make one. We’ve gone with the traditional carrot approach where they wouldn’t get funds to built more superchargers without doing this due to the infrastructure law. But it was their choice and they didn’t have to.

[rpmisms]

Seems like the US free market approach is winning yet again, where the superior product is becoming the standard, and the inventor of the superior product is profiting.

[MBCook]

I don’t know.

They could have given away their connector 10 years ago and saved everyone a huge and expensive mess. But that’s in their interest. So instead dozens of companies wasted huge amounts of monies installing a bunch of cables that all have to be replaced.

Or the government could have seen that they had a better option and simply taken it and said it was the standard. But of course that wouldn’t be the American way.

So we suffered through a giant mess instead wasting time and money.

Tesla chose not to fix this until the damage was done and their benefit was small enough to be worth giving up.

[Symbiote]

The standard connector in Europe supports three phase connections, which are very common here. Even houses in many countries have this.

Tesla's own connector does not.

[rsynnott]

It's a difference between EU and US philosophies on regulation, particularly regulation of _competition_ issues. Broadly, the US's attitude is "please, companies, consider doing this, look at this big sack of subsidies", whereas the EU's attitude is "do this".

(This wasn't always the case, and in fact at one time the US was tougher on competition law than Europe was, but since the late 90s the US has been largely asleep at the wheel on competition.)

[jauntywundrkind]

And the US only established a national charging standard that it can incentive in February 2023 at that. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/02/28/2023-03...

Great stuff too, imo. Not just about charging plugs, but specifying standards for how cars communicate with chargers, mandating open APIs to show real time availability info (how many stations providing what charge outputs are available right now?); a full suite of requirements to make sure people can find working chargers & that cars can work with them.