Supercharger Expansion Observation

[Ulmo]

Oddly, I noticed the spate of SuperChargers being installed increased dramatically suddenly as of late. Maybe it's perspective bias from me since they all (ALL) are useful to me, and none of them are in the areas not in California that seem to have this constant starved reaction to this problem.

I'm still of the opinion that SuperChargers are too free; there ought to be a market-based solution other than one size fits all from the manufacturer. That way, locals could use fast charging for local use, and there would be competition for the cost factor. Tesla can still install their long distance network of SuperChargers, but they could do two things: (a) marketize the local use charging (see below) and (b) stop giving away free SuperCharger access.

Details:

(a) Marketizing the local use charging would require things like charging for the electricity at marginally over cost of procurement, and equipment fractional use, and creating programming systems within the Tesla car software to handle this in an enjoyable fashion for users, and integrating all of that in systems that can be manufactured, bought, and installed by third parties, and seeding each and every one of those categories, without having a stiff shoulder approach to it (think coworker with an attitude who ignores you and interrupts you and treats you like you're the wrong skin color and shouldn't exist -- we've all had one of those). The examples would have to be at rates that a Model 3 user would consider reasonable. (E.g., no $3 per use activation charges, or electricity at or over 200% the cost of solar panel energy.)

(b) New cars sold would no longer have free SuperCharger for life. They would have For Life deals at point of sale of the car (or resale for CPO) which would dictate various costs to use SuperChargers, at very affordable rates, FROM THE OPINION OF A MODEL 3 OWNER. There would be some level of subsidy considered for people going long distance, but those long distances would have to be verified by in-car GPS, showing a minimum usage per day, with a minimum portion of that usage at a minimum distance away from the rest of the use, i.e., going someplace away from home base, and not picking an algorithm that naturally allows any loopholes in the algorithm (such as declaring a home 2,000 miles away in Tesla.Com whenever you have groceries to pick up locally), because then you'd be tempted to red-tape it to death by putting in exceptions, and those never work.

 

[MP3Mike]

(b) stop giving away free SuperCharger access.

But they aren't giving away free Supercharger access, the cost is baked in to the car, just like the cost of seats, A/C, etc.

There is also the issue that some states don't allow you to charge by the kWh unless you are a utility. So Tesla would either have to have a per use/time based charge for the whole country, or the billing would have to be different in different states which would be confusing.

Remember for the Model S 60 it was optional. $2,000 when you ordered your car, or $2,500 to add it later. To make it more clear on a non-supercharging S60 it costs $1,900 to enable the fast charging hardware so you can use other DC fast charge networks like CHAdeMO. So if you take all of that, the cost of every current model S includes: $1,400 for the cost of the super/fast charging hardware plus $600 for use of the Supercharge network. (I assumed that $500 of the $1,900 to enable the hardware is a change order penalty just like enabling Supercharging after you got the car.)

So Tesla has figured out that most people will use less than $600 of electricity in the life of the car. Using their average cost of electricity at $0.12/kWh that is 5,000 kWhs of power. Or ~17,000 miles @ 294 Wh/mile. (They likely pay much less than $0.12/kWh.)

There is also the cost of setting up and maintaining a billing system, collections, etc. It is just a hassle that isn't worth it. (For example the city I live in recently enacted a $35/person/year tax, and they have found it that it costs way more than they thought to administer so they are getting less money to use for the intended purpose.)

Maybe they need to raise the built-in cost of electricity, but it is also possible that they have already done that and we just don't know it. (That they have achieved costs reductions in producing the cars and rather than lower the cost of the cars they moved that "savings" to cover the cost of the Supercharger network.)

And I am sure they have much better data now on how the Supercharger network is used and can make a good decision on how to charge for it with the Model 3.

 

[Pruitt]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Model 3 has a separate fee for enabling supercharging, like the S60 did (the S70 also has that fee, right?).

Could be that the apparent slowdown of new site construction is because of a short-term focus on expansion of choke points like Newark DE and some of the sites in CA.

 

[cpa]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Model 3 has a separate fee for enabling supercharging, like the S60 did (the S70 also has that fee, right?).

Could be that the apparent slowdown of new site construction is because of a short-term focus on expansion of choke points like Newark DE and some of the sites in CA.

Brunton,

All Teslas manufactured today come with Supercharging enabled, regardless of battery size, so the 70kWh battery model has Supercharging enabled.

 

[jimmy_d]

They better get started soon if they plan to build 300 chargers this year. The pace so far is not impressive.

 

[thx1139]

They better get started soon if they plan to build 300 chargers this year. The pace so far is not impressive.

Has picked up as of late in the US at least. Since April 1 in the US 5 have opened and 15 others are under construction and would expect most of them to open by end of June. Also seems people having a harder time finding permits and projects are being discovered under construction and 1 case SC was discovered until it was complete. In the last week Bend, OR, Minor, MO and Augusta, GA were all found to have permits and construction was then discovered a day or 2 later. Looks like 19 known US sites in permit status as well.

 

[grichard]

Why did nothing happen in January-March, and now everything is going at a breakneck pace?

Something to do with Tesla's Q1 financials? Not wanting to do outdoor construction in winter? Model 3 lit a fire under them? What?

 

[mblanshard]

Why did nothing happen in January-March, and now everything is going at a breakneck pace?

Something to do with Tesla's Q1 financials? Not wanting to do outdoor construction in winter? Model 3 lit a fire under them? What?

I'm going to take a stab at it and say a fresh infusion of cash from the M3 pre-orders.

 

[MP3Mike]

I would say it was going at the same pace, it was just all of the behind the scenes stuff that we can't normally see. All of the planning, site scouting, negotiations with the site(s), permitting, contracting, etc.