This is balanced by much lower utilization (much more empty stalls). The other charge networks are sized to be occupied most of the time, Tesla isn't. Tesla also does more maintenance to have high uptime, while other charge networks can let equipment languish for weeks, if not months, unfixed.
That revenue has costs: leasing the sites (which from the leaks, they do), electricity and other utility costs, costs of maintenance (the equipment very much does not last decades). Charge networks in general are a net money loser once this is accounted for, which is why most try to find other sources of revenue (like subscriptions) or for subsidies (government grants, penalties like VW funding EA, or private investments like Ionna).
As above, high demand for a money losing product isn't necessarily a good thing. Also doing investments too well in advance of actual demand may have you reporting losses or reduced profits in your quarterly reports, which seems to be the primary concern of Elon at the moment.
The utilities have little interest in running charging stations, they have pretty much guaranteed profits from being a utility and charge networks have not been proven as profitable. What is more likely is government grants like the NEVI funding.
There happens to be NEMA 14-50 receptacles at a local trail that I exercise at every day after work. There are also a few other free-to-me charging locations within walking distance of places I eat and shop around town. If I see a penny on the ground, I'm going to pick it up.
Well, there's this.Probably the next move is to eliminate the HR department. Sounds like one of those useless entities like PR, communications, investor relations, real estate development for superchargers, new product development, software engineering etc. Robo HR, Robo taxis, Robo FSD and Robo product design FTW!
Unless the issue with product demand is directly related to the fact that traditional consumers - your future customers since the early adopters have been saturated - won't buy your product unless and until the two primary blockers have been sufficiently remediated in the minds of those prospective customers - range anxiety and readily available and easily accessible public charging stations. Even for the early adopters - without the Tesla SC network - many of those customers would not have purchased Tesla vehicles. The SC network is almost definitively one the primary reasons that Tesla has been able to enjoy the success it has enjoyed to date - without it their success story would look very different over the past ten years. One investment precludes another. When you pull back on investments in the pre-requisite SC network that in turn enhances demand for your vehicles - especially to the next tranches of future customers:
You forgot marketing.Probably the next move is to eliminate the HR department. Sounds like one of those useless entities like PR, communications, investor relations, real estate development for superchargers, new product development, software engineering etc. Robo HR, Robo taxis, Robo FSD and Robo product design FTW!
Elon does not appear to believe that people will even own personal cars once robotaxis are a thing. So he clearly does not care anymore about selling cars and about increasing BEV adoption, because he does not think there is a future in private car ownership. Of course this is all madness, but it is what his actions are consistent with. And yeah, I am thinking NACS adoption now has a decent chance of failure. It is a good standard though, so it has that going for it, and is thankfully not under the control of Tesla any longer.
It would've been nice to have a department to take advantage of that, no?
As much as I enjoy driving sometimes, most of the time I'd rather be driven to my destination.
I get that - in a previous post I all but said - do both. It's too risky to bet the entire business on a singular vision. Even if FSD were to somehow become L4/L5 capable next year - it will still take years for any robotaxi network to be built out and to replace personally owned and human driven vehicles. Likely many years. People aren't simply going to give up their existing personally owned vehicles overnight. Over a period of a couple decades - we would likely see a transition from personally owned vehicles to TaaS - but that would start in heavy urban areas where car ownership isn't as common to begin with - and it would take quite a while to spread across the entire country. Even with that, personally owned vehicles would still be a thing, just like classic cars are today. It's never going to go away completely. I almost get the sense that Musk is placating his investors - telling them what they want to hear - which is a nice way of saying he's lying - about future development of new models - meanwhile he's going all-in on robotaxi/TaaS. Do both. It's way too risky for a $100bb company to take any other approach IMHO.
'Quality Is Going To Deteriorate': Laid-Off Tesla Employees On Superchargers' Future
Yes my reference was in reaction to this news someone had just shared earlier on this forum.
It's far easier to believe Elon flipped his gourd. The Tesla Superchargers are widely and universally regarded as the gold standard for EV charging and responsible in large part for Tesla's pace of adoption so far. There's an external benchmark for success here that we all can see ... and it does not warrant an entire purge of the team. And it would be one thing if this was just some big bet that went south. But no ... supercharging is a bedrock fundamental reason why people decide on Tesla. Any appearance of pulling the rug on that is foolhardy and a massive unforced error.
