Supercharger price hikes: what's your opinion?

[Uncle Paul]

Would you rather have cheaper charging or less congestion at Superchargers.

I see people lining up for long waits to save a few cents/gallon at Costco gas stations. Believe the below market pricing at Superchargers has contributed to the posts about congestion at Urban Superchargers.

Raising prices will allow Tesla to pay off some debts, finance the V3 faster Superchargers and reduce unwanted congestion and over use.

The German manufacturers have often commented that providing charging at below cost pricing is unsustainable.

 

[Dutchie]

I am starting to doubt the whole business model. The superchargers were supposed to be powered by the sun. Once the starting cost would have been recouped, the use should be (close to) free. This is not happening.
The margin on the cars would be 25% - 30% even for the lower end M3 cars. Yet, Elon hinted that the fourth quarter would have less profit than the third quarter despite having delivered more cars. Even now, the price has been lowered by $2000, eating away the margin even further.
Things are going in the wrong direction.

 

[brkaus]

Not going to bother answering. The choices do not come close to my answer.

 

[BigTonyTones]

Would you rather have cheaper charging or less congestion at Superchargers.

I see people lining up for long waits to save a few cents/gallon at Costco gas stations. Believe the below market pricing at Superchargers has contributed to the posts about congestion at Urban Superchargers.

Raising prices will allow Tesla to pay off some debts, finance the V3 faster Superchargers and reduce unwanted congestion and over use.

The German manufacturers have often commented that providing charging at below cost pricing is unsustainable.

Costco gas example is a great one! People wait 20 minutes just to save a few bucks.

 

[rsg123]

I have free supercharging for life but usually only supercharge on trips. I agree with the rate hike because 1) I’d like to see it fund more supercharger locations and 2) it may decrease supercharger congestion. Nothing like adding 30 minutes to your 8 hour trip because of supercharger lines.

 

[BigTonyTones]

I am starting to doubt the whole business model. The superchargers were supposed to be powered by the sun. Once the starting cost would have been recouped, the use should be (close to) free. This is not happening.
The margin on the cars would be 25% - 30% even for the lower end M3 cars. Yet, Elon hinted that the fourth quarter would have less profit than the third quarter despite having delivered more cars. Even now, the price has been lowered by $2000, eating away the margin even further.
Things are going in the wrong direction.

I dont see how solar panels can ever fully power the supercharging network. I suspect tesla supercharging rates might even go up further. They will start licensing it out to other car manufacturers.

 

[StealthP3D]

I am starting to doubt the whole business model. The superchargers were supposed to be powered by the sun. Once the starting cost would have been recouped, the use should be (close to) free. This is not happening.

I think you underestimate the amount of investment it would require to convert all the SC's to solar. That's money Tesla doesn't have right now because they need to invest in further production to achieve economies of scale. Personally, I wish Misk hadn't projected profitablitity for every future quarter. I wish he said this is a capital intensive business and we're going to invest as much as necessary to reach our 10 year goal, even if it requires some dilution/interest expense.

 

[TMeister]

The German manufacturers have often commented that providing charging at below cost pricing is unsustainable.

They actually have stated that charging a Taycan will be equivalent to the cost of gasoline. So from Porsche's perspective there can be no energy advantage for an EV.

I do fall into the free bucket on the Tesla and this was certainly a factor in buying the car for me. 90% of our Tesla driving is cross country travel. I would have gladly paid the extra $2K for it but it was already included in the price of the car. We held off on buying until there was a sufficient Supercharger network for that kind of travel. So my use case is probably not the norm.

Look at it like supply and demand and trying to find the equilibrium point. I would say that Tesla are trying to find out if Supercharging is elastic. The previous experiments; Idle charges, 40 minute limits, no more zero cost charging, price increases are all testing the elasticity of this product. The test is, when will the cost (via many measurements) be high enough for consumers to find another supply? That's the test.

Demand has increased due to many new cars with 6 months free, supply hasn't moved much so what's left? Raise the price to balance supply and demand.

 

[Nick B]

If you think charging networks are so lucrative, I'm pretty confident Tesla would let you get some like-minded investors together and create your own for-profit SC network. Tesla would probably sell you the necessary equipment at close to cost and help your new for profit company with technical matters. It wouldn't bother Tesla one bit if you tried to undercut them on price either. They might require you to build out in a useable manner, across the continent, so you weren't just soaking up the customers from the highest volume stations.

That's not the point. Elon always said superchargers were supposed to be set up in a way to cover basic running costs and that their goal would not be to generate profit. Granted, he says a lot of things but still this increase in price (and in particular the way it was done) does not fit with Tesla's philosophy.

 

[maximizese]

I have unlimited Supercharging...well until I don't, but think a progressive rate system would work. It's important for Tesla to juggle customer satisfaction, costs, profits, growth, and infrastructure goals. We often view things from a consumer's perspective based on how much we get from a product or producer while neglecting to understand the perspective from the producer/servicer. For instance, many employees feel they are under-compensated based on their earned income without realizing how expensive they are to the employer who pays payroll tax, insurance, benefits, PTO, etc. In Tesla's case, a blended model to reduce Supercharger costs, congestion, and enhance user experience would be the sweet spot.

My proposal would be a slide-scale of cost for new buyers. Every new Tesla owner will accumulate 100kWh per quarter, a base rate of $.10 per minute and $.10 per kWh for the next 100kWh, then $.13 per kWh for the next 100kWh, etc. The base rate of $.10 per minute would encourage folks to optimize charging speeds discourage them from "topping-off" deep into the taper and idling. Keep the idle fee but it progressive based on duration and offer a waived idle fee once a year (unexpected stuff happens to everyone). Maybe adding a HPWC with a lower pricing structure to some Supercharging stations could allow some to top-off without hogging a Supercharging stall.

 

[Nick B]

I am sorry, but I have no sympathy for a Quebecor complaining about electricity rates knowing that Quebec rapes another province for their electricity. (Is it okay to say rape on a forum? )



That is good point. There is a level 2 charger across the parking lot from Kamloops superchargers. It is free. Imagine a guy with a Bolt/Leaf pulling in and seeing a Tesla charging at the level 2 charger while the superchargers are unoccupied. I wouldn't want to be the Tesla owner having that conversation.

Just to make things clear, I'm not complaining about our electricity prices (which are very low but have necessited a lot of investments by our society in the past to build dams and so on - but that is a mostly political choice - other provinces could decide to invest in other renewable energies). And by the way, in case you didn't know, our tax rate on consumption and income is the highest in America so we're paying for that low electricity cost indirectly.

In any case, I have free unlimited supercharging and only use a supercharger once or twice a year so this doesn't really affect me. I'm just sharing my point of vue on how some new model 3/S/X owners could see the picture.

 

[dark cloud]

I wonder how many people who replied in this thread have super charging for life, and just venting, because they like to vent. :X

As for price hikes... im in the group that has super charging for life, so if someone else has to pay for it, then so be it, as long as my super charging for life doesn't go away.

But i am not going to be happy if Tesla can no longer support even supercharging for life, because of all the M3 owners, and we are forced to pay.

So as rude as it may sound, if i dont need to pay because i was promised i wouldnt, and someone else has to pay because they bought their car late, then so be it. Nothing in the world is fair, and someone always ends up having to pay for it.
.

The tone in this post just doesn't match the avatar.

 

[cpa]

From a real, not fictitious, person.

We are in the free for life Supercharging on our Model S. We have a Model 3 that we purchased a year ago. So, we are on both sides of the street.

There have been a number of threads and comments over the years about chronic decreased Supercharging rates, vandalism at a number of locations in the West, broken equipment, worn out equipment, reduced service, and collateral damage from people crashing off the freeways or backing up too far and demolishing one or more stalls. These repairs take time and money. Tesla does not have a cadre of technicians available at a moment's notice to look into and repair locations with one or more defective stalls. These technicians cover a lot of real estate for Tesla. These costs are above the fees assessed by the utilities for the electricity. Moreover, Tesla likely has ongoing overhead to pay with unsecured property taxes, and perhaps even some minimal rent at certain spots.

Tesla needs to recoup a large percentage of these recurring costs. Just how much is open to debate. I do not think that for one moment that 31 cents/kWh covers more than about 60% (it might be about half) of the total costs across the entire network when you add in repairs, maintenance, labor, and overhead. And some locations will be more expensive to operate than others for a number of reasons.

So, yes, a price increase is necessary. Perhaps an additional increase will be necessary once Tesla starts getting data on revenue generated/increase or decrease in sales/ and costs.

After all this prolixity, I feel that Tesla should charge more for Superchargers near a person's registered address (i.e., local) charging. Perhaps tack on a dime or so for any Supercharger within a 25-mile radius of our homes. But this might be a nightmare to program into their systems. It might dissuade the masses with no home or workplace charging from buying a Tesla.

No matter what Tesla has done or will do regarding Supercharging, they are in an untenable spot.

 

[JLFORBES]

Would you rather have cheaper charging or less congestion at Superchargers.

I see people lining up for long waits to save a few cents/gallon at Costco gas stations. Believe the below market pricing at Superchargers has contributed to the posts about congestion at Urban Superchargers.

Raising prices will allow Tesla to pay off some debts, finance the V3 faster Superchargers and reduce unwanted congestion and over use.

The German manufacturers have often commented that providing charging at below cost pricing is unsustainable.

I charge at home and have solar panels so that is my primary charging source. My understanding was that SuperCharging was primarily to be used for long distance traveling, not to be used as primary charging. I don't mind the price increases if that will help rolling out additional SuperChargers, but what about a type of geo-fencing rate? For example, a cheaper rate to charge if you are more than X miles from your residence? If you were on a long trip than maybe get the current rate, and get charged the higher price if I am charging close to my house.

 

[Tic-tac-toe]

The free supercharging offer that ended 9/16/18 was the incentive that made us buy the car on 9/15. If it wasn’t for that we would still be waiting for something better... like actual FSD aka years or more likely ended up with a Porsche or Audi ICE car. I expect to have free supercharging for as long as we own the SP100D since that carrot is the main reason we bought when we did.

Also, we don’t have home charging and never will. We live in a 100+ yr old row house without parking which is a short walk to a Tesla showroom. Obviously Tesla has no problem selling their cars to urban dwellers w/o home charging.

That said, it’s obvious Tesla is preparing for the future and all those sales of M3s. The Superchargers need to at least pay for themselves. In my area, I’ve never had to wait to SC but there are no Superchargers within DC itself unlike Manhattan, Philly, Baltimore, etc. I hope Tesla builds some SC in DC like every other major East Coast City!

 

[happyzod]

That is indeed quite an increase. Model 3 is selling like hot cakes and I bet Tesla is faced with a dilemma. Superchargers are packed and I dont think its cost beneficial for them to add more. I suspect superchargers are quite costly to install. Im sure they have done the math.

Still $15 is cheaper than a gas vehicle.

It costs 300K to install a normal station (8-12 stalls) based on info from investors. Musk previously said it was 150K.

 

[StealthP3D]

That's not the point. Elon always said superchargers were supposed to be set up in a way to cover basic running costs and that their goal would not be to generate profit. Granted, he says a lot of things but still this increase in price (and in particular the way it was done) does not fit with Tesla's philosophy.

I think it is the point. In other words, I don't think the current price hike will generate a profit on SC'ing. Remember, most charges are less than $10 and Tesla has to cover the expense of every single SC, even ones in the middle of the country that don't get much use. That was the point of my post.

 

[Dublin 'Eer]

$2 a gallon! Must be nice lol
Try almost $4 in Los Angeles

$1.669/gallon at some stations here in Columbus Ohio. At those prices and in the winter cold, there is no cost benefit to driving an EV on a trip with the new price increases. It doesn’t affect me, but for those on the fence about stretching their budgets to buy an EV, this will definitely have a detrimental outcome.

 

[maratd]

there are no Superchargers within DC itself unlike Manhattan, Philly, Baltimore, etc. I hope Tesla builds some SC in DC like every other major East Coast City!

When looking at the map, it does look like there are a few superchargers in Manhattan. All of those are inside of paid parking garages. They are not cheap.

 

[StealthP3D]

$1.669/gallon at some stations here in Columbus Ohio. At those prices and in the winter cold, there is no cost benefit to driving an EV on a trip with the new price increases.

And the irony here is that EV's decrease demand for gasoline and lower the prices. So all those angry people who are bitching and moaning about how they are paying for "rich" people to drive EV's, are actually saving a good deal of money themselves due to lower demand for gasoline.

And the double irony is that the increased electrical demand has a natural price lowering effect on electrical rates as well. That's because EV's can charge when the rates are lowest thus maximizing the efficiency of a utilities investment in the local distribution grids. So the utility will increase sales while using the same infrastructure (which will just be more fully utilized during the night hours).

Ultimately, years down the road, demand for gasoline will be so small the price will actually go up due to low volume inefficiencies. But for the forseeable future gasoline prices should stay relatively low as demand wanes (barring any supply shocks caused by war or natural disasters).