Supercharger price hikes: what's your opinion?

[dark cloud]

Sigh... remind me why i live here?
OH YEAH, the weather...

But This is a typical day at culver city...
Tesla Supercharger network gets a rough test with Thanksgiving travels

This is how it looks all the time at culver city even at 11pm.
You see all those empty parking spaces? Its a large mall, and way past its closing hours.
Westfield Culver City - Wikipedia <--- thats the mall if you want to google satellite it.

During the day imagine of that line is 3 times as long, even extending all the up to the intersection...


I once let a old couple go ahead of me, they came from Virgina, and they ran the car to 3%... YIKES..
(everyone in the line knew the pains of a dead Tesla)
I didnt want there road trip ruined, so me and the others behind went sure... go ahead and enjoy california.

I actually had thoughts of driving down to California.... until I saw this picture.

Why on earth is it that busy? They couldn't all be tourists. Do people not have chargers at home? or are they that cheap they would rather wait for 2 hours to save $5.00? I see some late model S's, and model 3's, they couldn't all have FUSC....

 

[Tic-tac-toe]

IONITY Installs First 50 Ultra Fast Charging Stations - Tesla Motors Club

It does not say in the article where these chargers are located. One reason I decided against the Porsche Taycan was due to questions about where they were going put the chargers. I’ve seen articles about putting the chargers in dealerships. Not kidding. Like with Nissan.

As for electrify, DC has some of these but the chargers are usually located inside parking garages where you pay for parking. Charging is usually free but paying $27 for overnight parking negates any gas savings.

 

[Naekuh]

Why on earth is it that busy? They couldn't all be tourists. Do people not have chargers at home? or are they that cheap they would rather wait for 2 hours to save $5.00? I see some late model S's, and model 3's, they couldn't all have FUSC....

If that tesla had California Plates i would probably be like, sorry pal, there is no senior citizen or handicap line.


Well i guess it would be case by case, but im fairly sure the people behind me would rage entitlement issues if someone cut.

And no, most of the cars i see at that station are all CALIFORNIA plates.
Leave it to us Cali people to use and abuse everything that's offered to them.

You should see all the BIRD juicers fight over the rights to charge a BIRD scooters even.
You think im kidding?
There's a cutthroat turf war behind the race to charge Bay Area scooters

And yes im serious people in CALI like to bicker and fight over little things.

 

[Zooomer]

So, in other words, a series of unsubstantiated assumptions followed by a best case and overly simplistic representation of actual costs.

Got it.

How much does the charging equipment itself cost?

Construction of the site?

Dispatching repair technicians when they break?

Monitoring the network?

Tracking and billing usage?

24/7 telephone support?


How is expansion funded? What is an acceptable “profit” in your mind to divert to the construction of more stalls/sites?

What happens when we start all over again and replace them with units twice as fast?

I could keep going...

You could keep going but you're the one doing exactly what you're accusing me of. You have no evidence, no facts, no data. You're just defending a position by trying to throw random things in the discussion.

As a business owner and developer I do know how much the things you speak of cost.
It's pretty easy to know exact usage of a busy supercharger.
Every state has listed cost of electric on KWH basis.
Everything we're discussing has real numbers and it's pretty easy to have a factual discussion on those numbers if you like. I doubt you want to because you're emotionally sold on your belief.


Truth is my numbers were all conservative because unlike you I'm not trying to exaggerate to prove a point.

1. Industrial cost of electric in CA is 10.5 cents/KWH California Electricity Rates and Tesla now charges an average of 28 cents nationally and 31 cents in CA. I profit of .205. I used .15 which was a lot lower than actual profit.

2. A supercharger with cars in the A & B stalls average 72KW per station. I conservatively said 50.

3. A busy supercharger has lines all day long, 100% use and during the night usage drops off some. I said 18hrs or 75% usage. Truth is that some have lines (as shown in this thread) early til late and then marginal use at wee hours. Probably closer to 85-90% use. I was being conservative.

4. I made calculations citing an 8 stall location. 8 is the smallest station. Most in CA are 16 with some larger than that. My used number is actually half of the CA average.

5. My number of Tesla making 30k at a station was then me rounding the $1080/day down. 30 days x $1080 =$32,400.

Truth is, you could use real numbers and show Tesla now making 100k/month on several locations but I didn't. I said 30k because I wasn't trying to be dramatic. I was factually and conservatively showcasing things for people who didn't want to dig through the math.

Now as far as the question of how much should Tesla be allowed to make? I'm a capitalist. Make whatever you want, just do it honestly. Tesla said they weren't doing superchargers as profit centers. Tesla still advertises the price of their vehicles lower based on gas savings. I'm not upset about paying for electricity, I have FUSFL. I'm upset because I keep seeing dishonest patterns emerge and I'm always going to call that out. I've supported this company and Elon for a long time because I believe in what he's doing. I can't do that when someone isn't honest. The people I convinced to buy Tesla's based on things that aren't true anymore I have to answer to. People asking cost to drive a Tesla, I now have to respond that it costs more than driving an ICE (using SC network). You should know the most common questions you get are how long does it take to charge, how far can you go, and how much does it cost in electric.

And if you want to reply, get factual. Instead of spamming ambiguous notions to defend your incorrect position of SC costs, respond with actual facts, figures and numbers.

 

[ucmndd]

And no, most of the cars i see at that station are all CALIFORNIA plates.
Leave it to us Cali people to use and abuse everything that's offered to them.
.

Not to get in the way of a good rant or anything, but...

I’ve driven 70,000 miles in my Model S, 95% of which in CA. I have free supercharging, used it probably 50-60 times at this point. Again, all within California. ALL to facilitate long distance travel.

It’s kind of a big state. Not sure you can interpret much RE peoples’ intentions based on a license plate.

Are there locals that use the chargers when they don’t need to? Certainly. Is that “abuse”? Hardly. They’re either paying for it, or operating under the terms that were offered to them at the time. If they think that sitting around in a parking lot to save a couple bucks is worth their time, more power to them. The same sort will happily wait in line 20 minutes to save $3 on a tank of gas. Human nature.

 

[ucmndd]

You could keep going but you're the one doing exactly what you're accusing me of. You have no evidence, no facts, no data. You're just defending a position by trying to throw random things in the discussion.

As a business owner and developer I do know how much the things you speak of cost.
It's pretty easy to know exact usage of a busy supercharger.
Every state has listed cost of electric on KWH basis.
Everything we're discussing has real numbers and it's pretty easy to have a factual discussion on those numbers if you like. I doubt you want to because you're emotionally sold on your belief.


Truth is my numbers were all conservative because unlike you I'm not trying to exaggerate to prove a point.

1. Industrial cost of electric in CA is 10.5 cents/KWH California Electricity Rates and Tesla now charges an average of 28 cents nationally and 31 cents in CA. I profit of .205. I used .15 which was a lot lower than actual profit.

2. A supercharger with cars in the A & B stalls average 72KW per station. I conservatively said 50.

3. A busy supercharger has lines all day long, 100% use and during the night usage drops off some. I said 18hrs or 75% usage. Truth is that some have lines (as shown in this thread) early til late and then marginal use at wee hours. Probably closer to 85-90% use. I was being conservative.

4. I made calculations citing an 8 stall location. 8 is the smallest station. Most in CA are 16 with some larger than that. My used number is actually half of the CA average.

5. My number of Tesla making 30k at a station was then me rounding the $1080/day down. 30 days x $1080 =$32,400.

Truth is, you could use real numbers and show Tesla now making 100k/month on several locations but I didn't. I said 30k because I wasn't trying to be dramatic. I was factually and conservatively showcasing things for people who didn't want to dig through the math.

Now as far as the question of how much should Tesla be allowed to make? I'm a capitalist. Make whatever you want, just do it honestly. Tesla said they weren't doing superchargers as profit centers. Tesla still advertises the price of their vehicles lower based on gas savings. I'm not upset about paying for electricity, I have FUSFL. I'm upset because I keep seeing dishonest patterns emerge and I'm always going to call that out. I've supported this company and Elon for a long time because I believe in what he's doing. I can't do that when someone isn't honest. The people I convinced to buy Tesla's based on things that aren't true anymore I have to answer to. People asking cost to drive a Tesla, I now have to respond that it costs more than driving an ICE (using SC network). You should know the most common questions you get are how long does it take to charge, how far can you go, and how much does it cost in electric.

And if you want to reply, get factual. Instead of spamming ambiguous notions to defend your incorrect position of SC costs, respond with actual facts, figures and numbers.

It all comes down to your perception of dishonesty. You’ve chosen the position that Tesla selling electricity for more than their wholesale cost per kWh is making the supercharger network a “profit center”, and thus dishonest.

I think that’s silly, and vastly underestimates the costs associated with running such an enterprise.

I’m good with leaving it at that, and the math an exercise for the reader.

 

[Zooomer]

It all comes down to your perception of dishonesty. You’ve chosen the position that Tesla selling electricity for more than their wholesale cost per kWh is making the supercharger network a “profit center”, and thus dishonest.

I think that’s silly, and vastly underestimates the costs associated with running such an enterprise.

I’m good with leaving it at that, and the math an exercise for the reader.

From Tesla's site "Tesla is committed to ensuring that Supercharger will never be a profit center."
Notice the word 'never'. My assertion is that if this changed, it would make Tesla dishonest. I'm not sure how you could see it otherwise.

Now if you want to define the costs of running a supercharger center, we can discuss that all day.
When you say 'you don't know how much it costs', you're simply engaging in a cop out. The numbers are there.
Cost of electric is known. Cost of a supercharger stall is known. Cost of land is known.
Cost of running a call center is known. (have you ever called? no one is there)
Nearly all of the numbers are known. If you take the position of 'you don't know' it's an attempt to kill the discussion. Tesla could then literally charge any price and you're position wouldn't change.

I think it's humorous your changed the wording from cost of maintaining supercharger station to 'running an enterprise'. LOL.
Now we have to pay for all of Tesla's costs of operation...hehe

The silly part is, this investigation has been done by several digging through Tesla's financials and Elon has made statements about it.
Motley Fool Investigates Financials Of Tesla's Supercharger Network
The costs are known, you're just pretending they aren't to religiously hold onto your belief.

--The only concession I will make, that you didn't even bring up, is that people paying are probably paying for the people like me who don't pay. I only use the network a few times a year when traveling but there are costs associated with ~150,000 vehicles on the road with FUSFL. Perhaps Tesla is now paying for them with high fees to payers and will someday lower prices as the ratio of payers to non payers continues to increase...

To that same effect, my profit calculations did not include the very high all profit charges for idle fees. I got hit with that once and it cost more than a full charge.

 

[claudelaval]

Prices should be increased, even more - higher than utility rates to reflect the price of the infrastructure. Even consider pricing based on demand - ie higher prices at locations and times when the facility is near 100 percent in use.
Supercharger convenience has not been priced into their use - and definitely needs to be done.
EV public charging needs a sustainable model - free or under market pricing is not sustainable. In fact, just like Tesla looks forward to EV competition, we should all be looking forward to public EV competition that is sustainable from a market perspective..

one of the founding block to buy an EV is to save money from gas. With the low price in the USA charging more and more will kill EV market

 

[claudelaval]

It's sad. In many areas the cost of driving a Tesla and filling at a station is now considerably higher than driving ICE and filling with gas.

Being that Tesla's site bragged over and over about the gas savings and it now costs more, I don't know what to think other than adoption will surely slow. I don't think people want to pay more per mile than driving their old car. I already do charging at home here in MI (.18). Costs me $18 to "fill" and I would get 170 miles range (winter). Gas is $2/gal. I only need 8 gallons $16 to drive that far in a full size car.

and not only that during the cold winter time you "spilled" at least 50% of the electricity...

 

[claudelaval]

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.

YOU have free SC so it's easy for YOU to agree with the hike...

 

[boonedocks]

YOU have free SC so it's easy for YOU to agree with the hike...

I have free SC and I agree with the price hike. It’s not why you may think tho. It’s because I charge at home and will continue to charge at home. SC’s should pay for themselves and then some so that they can continue to be expanded. My .33 worth

 

[cpa]

From Tesla's site "Tesla is committed to ensuring that Supercharger will never be a profit center."
Notice the word 'never'. My assertion is that if this changed, it would make Tesla dishonest. I'm not sure how you could see it otherwise.

I agree. This would be disingenuous of Tesla to make Supercharging a profit center in the future.

Now if you want to define the costs of running a supercharger center, we can discuss that all day.
When you say 'you don't know how much it costs', you're simply engaging in a cop out. The numbers are there.
Cost of electric is known. Cost of a supercharger stall is known. Cost of land is known.
Cost of running a call center is known. (have you ever called? no one is there)
Nearly all of the numbers are known. If you take the position of 'you don't know' it's an attempt to kill the discussion. Tesla could then literally charge any price and you're position wouldn't change.

You are a business person and developer. You know how much your overhead costs you, both on a specific project and overall costs that benefit all projects. (Not a personal accusation!) But it is pretty easy to allocate overhead any way a person deems reasonable under the circumstances and the inherent bias associated with a particular contract or industry practice.

We do not know any of the actual costs that you assert are known. We may have a good idea on the cost of electricity. We may have a good idea on the construction costs and any land costs. We can amortize the construction costs over 7/8/10 years too. But we do not know how much a pedestal costs. How much the cable and plug costs. How much the equipment in the charging stack costs. (There was a time about 3 years ago that vandals/thieves broke into the charging stack and stole the circuit breakers from about six Supercharger locations. I believe that each breaker cost close to $10,000 purchased online.) How much the technician costs. How much his transportation and lodging/food costs. (A Tesla employee told me that there is one technician to repair all Superchargers on the West Coast. I suspect that he travels a lot.) We do not know how often these parts need replacement or repair. We do not know how much the temporary pedestals cost to manufacture, deliver, and set up. We do not know how much the unsecured property taxes are for all Superchargers or the possessory interest taxes are for Superchargers located on government-owned real estate.

In short, Zooomer, there is a lot of overhead that has been omitted from this discussion. Are they immaterial to Tesla as a whole? Sure--no question. Are they immaterial to just the Supercharging department? I kinda doubt it.

An honest hypothetical question for you: If your company were to own Supercharger sites at your developments with the promotion that Supercharging would never be a profit center, what would you use to calculate how much each station costs to operate, and what discount would you apply to keep these Superchargers from ever being a profit center?

 

[Frank Neal]

We paid a premium to get free super charging like we had in the model S. That’s the deal we made and we continue to enjoy our relationship with this great company and their products.

 

[ucmndd]

From Tesla's site "Tesla is committed to ensuring that Supercharger will never be a profit center."
Notice the word 'never'. My assertion is that if this changed, it would make Tesla dishonest. I'm not sure how you could see it otherwise.

Again (and finally, no sense repeating it further): I don't disagree.

I do disagree with your opinion that Tesla charging ~2-3x the average wholesale cost of energy is making the Supercharger network a "profit center". That seems entirely within any reasonable estimate of the overhead associated with running and building out the network.

 

[Zooomer]

We do not know any of the actual costs that you assert are known. We may have a good idea on the cost of electricity. We may have a good idea on the construction costs and any land costs. We can amortize the construction costs over 7/8/10 years too. But we do not know how much a pedestal costs. How much the cable and plug costs. How much the equipment in the charging stack costs. (There was a time about 3 years ago that vandals/thieves broke into the charging stack and stole the circuit breakers from about six Supercharger locations. I believe that each breaker cost close to $10,000 purchased online.) How much the technician costs. How much his transportation and lodging/food costs. (A Tesla employee told me that there is one technician to repair all Superchargers on the West Coast. I suspect that he travels a lot.) We do not know how often these parts need replacement or repair. We do not know how much the temporary pedestals cost to manufacture, deliver, and set up. We do not know how much the unsecured property taxes are for all Superchargers or the possessory interest taxes are for Superchargers located on government-owned real estate.

In short, Zooomer, there is a lot of overhead that has been omitted from this discussion. Are they immaterial to Tesla as a whole? Sure--no question. Are they immaterial to just the Supercharging department? I kinda doubt it.

An honest hypothetical question for you: If your company were to own Supercharger sites at your developments with the promotion that Supercharging would never be a profit center, what would you use to calculate how much each station costs to operate, and what discount would you apply to keep these Superchargers from ever being a profit center?

-I'm not sure how you can post that there is one technician for the entire west cost and then assert that since we have no idea what it costs to employ him, we can't say that 30 grand a month for each SC station in profit may not cover him. There's 100 stations in CA. That's 3M in profit a month. How much do you think they pay this dude!!? LOL (info avail on glass door)

At current rates Tesla could open the network for investors like me to build out stations. Cost is pretty low from an investment standpoint. Call it 500 grand. A loan on that is 3k a month. If electric profit was even 5k a month it would be a great investment. A service tech call is rare and would cost a few thousand depending on what he replaced. We'd have a SC station on nearly every corner. It's like owning a gas station w/o having employees. But alas, the network is closed. You are not allowed to open a private station. Why? hmmm....
Hell, a call to any major gas station and they would install at least one SC station at every gas station (if they could keep the profit). Way more profit than a gas pump where they make a few cents a gallon.

In GR we have a SC that has been partially broken for a year. I've called, others have called. No answer. I've emailed. I spoke to my contact at service, they emailed me my Tesla was broken and needed to go to chicago. That's funny, both my Teslas are broken and only on 4 stalls and only in GR? Pretty easy to calculate maintenance cost in 2018 there. Zero.

 

[RandyS]

Zoomer, I work for the utility in San Diego, and I can tell you that your "industrial rate " estimate of 10 cents per kWh is way way under the total actual cost for the energy required to fast charge vehicles...You're leaving out the demand component of the equation...

 

[houstonian]

Apologies to all if I missed it earlier in the thread but is there a quick primer on the cost increase? Saw it was going up by ~30% then Tesla reduced it back to ~10%?

As for the poll options, whoever set them up you need to expand the offerings to get meaningful data. Example:

1. I DO have unlimited supercharging and view the price increase as GOOD.
2. I DO have unlimited supercharging and view the price increase as NETURAL.
3. I DO have unlimited supercharging and view the price increase as BAD.
4. I do NOT have unlimited supercharging and view the price increase as GOOD.
5. I do NOT have unlimited supercharging and view the price increase as NETURAL.
6. I do NOT have unlimited supercharging and view the price increase as BAD.
7. I do NOT OWN a Tesla and the increase in supercharger pricing WILL make me buy an alternative car.
8. I do NOT OWN a Tesla and the increase in supercharger pricing will NOT affect my decision to buy a Tesla.

 

[Zooomer]

Zoomer, I work for the utility in San Diego, and I can tell you that your "industrial rate " estimate of 10 cents per kWh is way way under the total actual cost for the energy required to fast charge vehicles...You're leaving out the demand component of the equation...

care to break down all the costs and rates for electric then?

My rate came directly from a state site.

 

[Shock-On-T]

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

Poorly chosen survey answers (missing a number obvious choices, one example being "I charge at superchargers and think it's reasonable"). Also, survey aimed at the wrong audience - most Model S owners have free supercharging today.

Garbage-in => garbage out. Bad survey => meaningless results.

My 2 cents.
- Terrible survey. The majority of surveys are similar but this is worse than average.

The survey is useless, so i won't vote.

I agree ... what the **** does the answer "Fictitious" person even mean?

Apologies to all if I missed it earlier in the thread but is there a quick primer on the cost increase? Saw it was going up by ~30% then Tesla reduced it back to ~10%?

As for the poll options, whoever set them up you need to expand the offerings to get meaningful data.

The poll was meant to be an ironic observation that people are predominantly self-interested.
Apologies for any time wasted, I really must stop posting while inebriated...

 

[whitex]

The poll was meant to be an ironic observation that people are predominantly self-interested.

You only observed than recently? I suggest looking-up a theory by a guy named Charles Darwin.
People are always motivated by self interest. Most "selfless" ideas are usually about what other people should do, or how to spend other people's money (which is why the "rich should pay for the poor" crowd popularized by today's left, if you ask them individually, each defines "rich" as "anyone who has more than me").