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by mattmaroon 561 days ago
I think the answer has to be yes. They can easily pull in a few grand a month from the electricity. They generally exist rent-free. They don’t cost that much to install.

Maintenance doesn’t seem to be even half the issue for Tesla that it is for the rest but they could also just care more. I suspect it’s both.
2 comments
ac29 559 days ago
> They don’t cost that much to install.

DC fast chargers are >$100k to install in the US.

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NotSammyHagar 559 days ago
tesla has a factory that makes their chargers and equipment. They have standardized chargers, mass production can lead to refining the design, fixing common pain points. Most other companies seem to have taken the pc organ bank strategy where they made it out of almost careless combination of available parts - EA is the poster child.

I'm sure careful people tried to make a plan but they all ended up being such a dumpster fire of failures and low quality with no visible plan to fix them it's hard to understand.

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mattmaroon 554 days ago
Yeah, I assume their chargers are better engineered than the competition. And also that since they've got a national footprint they're better able to respond when one goes down. They DO go down, I've seen it, but with EA it seems there's always at least one inoperable in any bank of them.

You'd think now that Tesla is under 50% of EV sales here (and under 20% globally) that this problem will be solved soon, but I really don't know.

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