[ggreer]

Both of those companies have much higher costs per charger than Tesla. Kempower doesn't make their prices public, but the cheapest I could find was $50,000 for a 1 port 50kW charger. A dual port 200kW charger was almost $200,000. Alptronic's chargers are $50,000 for a 1 port 75kW charger and $90,000 for a 2 port charger with 300kW total output. Those numbers are just for the hardware. That doesn't include costs for installation, land, or grid connection. My best estimate of Tesla costs is around $41,000 per plug, and that includes all of those extra expenses.[1]

Sadly, the graveyard of failed companies is full of ones that made amazing products. Kempower's revenue has been going down over the past year, and they've burned through half of their cash reserves in the past few quarters. They've decreased headcount to reduce costs. I hope they pull out of this dive, as more competition is great for consumers. But it really is the case that fancier chargers are significantly more expensive. So much so that it's hard to make them profitable.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42344230