Sorry for what I'm sure is a duplicate thread, but has anyone been through the application/approval process? I'm just curious how stringent they are, or if they look for certain property attributes. I have a good friend that owns a restaurant and I've persuaded him to fill out the application, but I'm trying to bump up his chances of being chosen if possible. Ironically a Tesla owner (unfortunately I'm not one myself but have been actively following the company since 2010) was in his restaurant the other day and was excited about possibly having chargers at his restaurant. Would it be a good idea just to have current owners send emails to the destination team? Thanks for the help!
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Destination Charging Application
- Thread starter airj1012
- Start date
ww73
Member
Here's some info. Not sure what's "electric jen's" handle is here.
Recruiting for Tesla Destination Charging Locations
Becoming a Tesla Destination Charging Participant
Recruiting for Tesla Destination Charging Locations
Becoming a Tesla Destination Charging Participant
ICEBreaker
Member
I'd be happy to share my small experience so far. My parents own and operate a restaurant in a small colorado town. A while ago I convinced them to apply for the destination chargers. After giving them a small brief about the history of Tesla and its main goal, they were on board. About a month after we submitted we got an email from a Tesla rep letting us know we had been approved for 3 chargers!
A little about us so you can gauge characteristics. We are a small family run restaurant, with about 30 tables. We have our own parking lot (which in our town is very limited). The town only has one other charging station, but its not a Tesla. The nearest Tesla charger is about an hour away. The town is right at the base of rocky mountain national park, and the last stop before crossing the continental divide. While our restaurant is nice, it most certainly is a family owned and run business. Compared side by side to a chain we obviously lack "corporate" money. So my impression is that Tesla is far more concerned with location/logical places than who exactly is applying.
Hope that offers some insight!
A little about us so you can gauge characteristics. We are a small family run restaurant, with about 30 tables. We have our own parking lot (which in our town is very limited). The town only has one other charging station, but its not a Tesla. The nearest Tesla charger is about an hour away. The town is right at the base of rocky mountain national park, and the last stop before crossing the continental divide. While our restaurant is nice, it most certainly is a family owned and run business. Compared side by side to a chain we obviously lack "corporate" money. So my impression is that Tesla is far more concerned with location/logical places than who exactly is applying.
Hope that offers some insight!
Great, thanks for the information. My friend is in a similar situation: family owned, small town, just not the last stop before an energy desert! My friend actually has a call with another restaurant in the area that was recently award destination chargers to learn about the process from them as well.
FYI: "My friend" is not code for myself, haha. It's taken many years for my friends to understand why I've been so passionate about Tesla, but at least they're finally coming around to the idea and mission.
FYI: "My friend" is not code for myself, haha. It's taken many years for my friends to understand why I've been so passionate about Tesla, but at least they're finally coming around to the idea and mission.
ICEBreaker
Member
Just wondering what the usage has been so far with your chargers? How often do you get Tesla's utilizing them? Are they only for customers or are they open to everyone? If open to everyone, how often do people plug in to charge but not utilize the restaurant?
How much did Tesla kick down for the installation? Did they cover everything? Obviously you cover the power, how much has that been so far?
I only ask so many questions as I'm trying to convince my boss to apply for the chargers at his Gym/Spa. I work for a different business he owns, but I get to use the gyms for free as part of my deal working at the other un-related business. As a (soon to be) Tesla owner I would love to be able to charge up while working out.
His main argument so far is that even if Tesla pays for the chargers and installation, he's on the hook for the power. Even though I tell him it probably would average out to $3-5 a day MAX, probably $1 a day he still thinks it's too much. There are a handful of members with Tesla's, I just can't track down who they are.
For someone who is making on average $75 a month from every single member, he could easily handle the power bill, but in addition to the power costs he claims he just doesn't have the need, or use for them since no one but me (who doesn't actually pay for a membership) is calling for the gym to put them in.
If he doesn't think paying a few dollars/day for electricity is worth the marketing benefit of having the destination charging, what Tesla covers of the installation cost is really irrelevant. For a gym that likely just attracts members who live within a few miles of it, I probably would agree with him.
True, but having Tesla cover the costs of installation certainly helped my argument. My thought being that A: free advertising on the Tesla charging website/in car navigation. And B: if he gets even one additional paying member from the chargers, his electricity costs are more then covered every month.
The town owned Rec center/gym is about to install chargers, so perhaps he will be more attentive to putting them in if he see's the competition also doing it.
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Is this the town that has a couple of charging stations adjacent to the library? When we were there in May it was the only option besides an RV park. I emailed the city manager letting him know that we spent 2 nights in town since we were able to charge in the municipal parking lot.
ICEBreaker
Member
Wow this thread blew up a little lol! So I hope I did not mislead anyone in this thread. We have yet to install our three chargers for two reasons. A) Wall chargers where on back order for a while but should be shipping to us in the next few weeks. B) We are in a tourist town. Surprisingly all of our business comes in the summer time, not winter (what small colorado mountain town doesn't have a ski resort??
). So if for any reason we had to close down for the installation we could potentially lose a lot of revenue.As of now I cannot comment on our electric costs or how many people have used them, but ill keep you updated as the process continues! Here is how the cost breaks down. Telsa said they will send the wall chargers as a donation. No cost to us, as wells as no contract about the usage. However they ask that the chargers be available as much as possible and not to limit the usage for our customers only. But so far we have yet to sign anything, so from a legal stand point we could do what ever we want? (not sure if this is exactly true, but nothing to the contrary yet) Not that we would deny people the ability to charge or anything like that. It seems to be more of a "good faith" kind of thing at this point.
Tesla has told us they will cover $1500/charger of installation. so for 3 chargers they will cover $4500. We contacted a Tesla recommended electrician and they came out to give us a quote. We do not have the best layout to place the charges in a convenient place, so the quote ended up a little on the higher side. To top of that we are springing a little extra money to backfill some of our parking lot out to put in concrete barriers to protect the charging pedestals. All said and done installation was quoted at $5958. Even with Tesla's help, we will still be paying $1500 out of pocket.
Ok Opinion time
Right now at this point in time, will having destination chargers make your business money? No, I don't think so. The Model S community is just too small to see any real return. Sure you will get a lot of free publicity via being on the Tesla website, but I don't think rural towns have enough Tesla traffic to really benefit. While plenty of Tesla owners will use you to plan their trips and daily activities, I don't think there are enough of them to bring in much revenue. Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean I don't want to offer charging for them, I just don't expect my business to make any additional money.
That said, will having destination chargers benefit you in the long run? Absolutely! I think that the destination chargers are in the long game. Any smart business owner could see the potential of having a destination charger available to their customers. Once the M3 starts hitting the streets we will see a lot more around towns. But what makes it truly worth the time and investment is the ability to align yourself with the Tesla brand. You have an opportunity (until the destination charger program ends) to get FREE Telsa brand chargers. Not generic, not off shoot, but Tesla... and in my opinion they are the ONLY manufacture worth investing your time into. Where is GM's network of chargers? how about BMW? No one else seems to be taking the EV game seriously. To me, being able to represent Tesla at this early stage in the game is huge. Please remember that this paragraph is pure opinion!
I think the marketing benefit is definitely there now, but I don't think many businesses will see the financial benefits until the M3 rolls out and we see more cars on the road. A gym is an interesting place to have a charger. I agree that it probably only attracts people who live near by, so it might not make the most sense.
I believe that is the correct town!
I don't want to disclose our business name or location until we are actually in the process on installing the chargers. But I hope your stay was nice!If we come back to the town, we will dine at the restaurant that has the destination chargers. For this kind of investment, what would be a reasonable return on investment? I am fairly certain your investment will pay off in less than a year with the Tesla subsidy. We did see another Tesla in town while we were there. Check out plugshare.com, there are electric car owners using what little charging resources are available.
ICEBreaker
Member
Thanks for the link! The EV community is awesome, and ill spend some time looking over the map
.To be honest I'm not sure what kind of ROI we would be looking for in an investment like that. Maybe 33% (sounds like a reasonable return for a year's time right?) So here is how I'm thinking of the numbers. Im sure there are many factors that could change it, but a rough guess.
OoPC (Out of pocket cost) = $1500.
If our average customer spends $18.80 with us per visit. I would say only 1/3rd of that is actual money on the table after food costs and other expenses. 18.80 / 3 = $6.26 per person. OoPC / 6.26 = 239.6 So we would need 240 customers to pay for the OoPC. Not crazy to do. But lets assume we only to cover the OoPC from people who drive Teslas. So that is 240 tesla drivers, but lets also assume that two people arrive in a single Model S. So that is now 120 cars. 120cars / 52weeks = 2.3 cars/week.
So to completely cover the Out of Pocket cost we would need 2.3 Teslas in the parking lot every week. Not an insane amount, but might be difficult in the winter time for us. Now a 33% ROI would be $500/1500, so to grab that extra $500 in profit we would need an additional 80 Tesla Drivers, or 40 cars. 40car / 52 weeks = .7cars/week.
So all said and done, to pay for install and make a 33% ROI we would need 3 Teslas charging a week. And that is making the assumption that all the drivers will dine with us, and also ignoring the cost of electricity for the chargers.
Overall I don't think it would be to hard to get your costs covered, but I think (at least where we are located at) we wont see a better ROI until the model 3 is out and there are a lot more Teslas on the road. Does this math look sound? or am I missing something lol?
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