Superchargers in Australia

Totally agree with higher charges & don’t mind if they go higher
Petrol isn’t sold at cost, why should electricity?
More profit means more reinvestment into superchargers

 

Because it is approaching the cost of Diesel. In fact for the Model S it's probably cheaper to drive a diesel.

 

Not if you charge at home

 

you cant charge at home if you do lots of long trips.

 

Let’s give away the electricity for free then. Cars too

 

its more than a 150% markup

 

We don't really know that, because we don't know what their fixed overheads are for each site.

 

Musk before said that the superchargers really dont cost tesla very much and this makes sense - they book the sites as an expense and book the electricity as a company loss. It is very cost efficient for tesla to i.e. raise the cost of each tesla by 700 USD and just use that to finance the network.

 

AEMO's Quarterly Energy Dynamics report covering April1 to June 30 2020 notes that

where we're talking here the time average not the volume-weighted average.
Note that the above represents 3 to 4 cents per kWh, so yes Tesla must be paying very high network charges, and with very low usage (i.e. few kWh relative to the size of the connection) over which to amortise (?) the network charge, well, this is what you get. They also, pretty much (at present) have no ability to choose when to be using power, so if cars show up on a hot summer evening, yikes...

 

Still less than 50 bucks for a "full tank".

If I charged my Model 3 at home during peak tariff times, and my PW2 was empty, I'd be paying 57.4 c/kWh - so more than 5c/kWh higher than Tesla's charge. And it would take a lot longer to fill up.

 

• When billing per minute, there are two tiers to account for changes in charging speeds, called “tier 1” and “tier 2”.
• • Tier 1 applies while cars are charging at or below 60 kW and tier 2 applies while cars are charging above 60 kW. Tier 1 is half the cost of tier 2.
  • Tier 1 also applies anytime your vehicle is sharing Supercharger power with another car.

Anyone know what the tier 1 and 2 comments is referring to?

 

The only thing that eases my view of the 0.52c /kWh is the advance in battery tech around the corner. The 4680 battery should get the entire Tesla lineup to significant kilometre range which will minimize your Supercharger needs. Having said that, I still find it eating away at the core of a huge selling point that it's a fraction of the cost to top up the tank.

 

Sure 52c is around petrol price for the distance travelled, but the obvious advantage is you only pay on road trips rather than every day. That's still a huge selling point. And there are cheaper or free chargers out there on the road if you have the right adapter...

 

The "full tank" is a very small tank, only the size of around 25L for diesel.

 

There are some places in the US where Tesla is not allowed by law to charge a flat rate per kwh (because only a utility company is allowed to do that or something) and has to charge per minute.

None of that applies to the Australian superchargers

 

If you look through the drop down boxes the tier system applies in Japan.
Equivalent of 27c below 60kw and 54c above

 

Taking Tesla at their word that the Superchargers are run to break even rather than as a profit centre, the less usage the chargers see the more they'll have to charge per kwh to achieve that (to cover the fixed overheads, which are likely quite high). I don't know about you, but my experience this year has been when I glance at that part of the app, the nearby Superchargers typically have at most one or two bays in use (looking right now, I see one bay in use out of 18).

Perhaps when long distance travel, and hence Supercharger use, picks up again they'll be able to lower the usage charge and still break even.

 

Speaking of Superchargers that don't see a lot of use, this is Narooma this afternoon. There is a bit of work going on finishing off the new carpark and they have decided to use the Superchargers as a depot for landscaping etc.
Two chargers blocked with mulch and a skip but found room to charge.

 

Man, the world is full of dick heads. Glad they left you a bit of room to charge...

 

That's pretty bloody ordinary.