Tesla says SC are not for profit, but way more expensive than for profit EA chargers

[JulienW]

Tesla says the Supercharger network is not to make a profit. However Electrify America and EVGo are far, far cheaper to use despite being for profit companies and buying their hardware from 3ed parties . What is the reasoning why Tesla SC are so much more expensive?

Also don't see much of problem opening up to other CCS EV's. They will only use Tesla SCs when there is no Electrify America for them to use since Tesla is so expensive.

Crazily in GA (we are stuck with by the minute) all Tesla SCs have different prices (used to be all the same) while all Electrify America have the same MUCH LOWER price.

Here are just a couple of examples.

 

[MP3Mike]

However Electrify America and EVGo are far, far cheaper to use despite being for profit companies

They may be for profit companies, but are they actually making a profit at this point? (I think they are both still losing money.)

What is the reasoning why Tesla SC are so much more expensive?

In some cases it is Tesla managing demand, but that is more in states other than GA, where the price changes based on time of the day.

Tesla's per minute pricing seems high, but isn't directly comparable to EA's rates.

Also don't see much of problem opening up to other CCS EV's. They will only use Tesla SCs when there is no Electrify America for them to use since Tesla is so expensive.

Some people would choose the Tesla Superchargers because of their reliability...

Crazily in GA (we are stuck with by the minute) all Tesla SCs have different prices (used to be all the same) while all Electrify America have the same MUCH LOWER price.

EA pricing has it's own problems. Like it is based upon the maximum charge rate your vehicle can accept, not based on what you are using. So for a Tesla you would always be charged the 1-350kW rate for your full session regardless of how many kW you actually draw.

So say you start charging at 95kW you would be paying Tesla 29-34 cents/min until your rate drops below 60kW then you would pay 15-18 cent/min. With EA you would be charged the full 24/32 cents/min for your entire charge session.

Here is a made up example; 61-95kW: 15 minutes, under 60kW: 30 minutes, at the most expensive rates:

• EA: $14.40 ($10.80 if you pay for their $4/month plan.)
• Tesla: $10.50 ($8.85 at the cheapest station you listed.)

Huh. What do you know, it can actually be cheaper to charge with Tesla's higher rates.

To get the cheapest charge:

• For EA you would want to come in, preconditioned, with the lowest SoC possible and stop charging when your rate starts to taper too much.
• For Tesla you want to come in with a higher SoC to avoid the higher rate buckets. (i.e. you have to pay more if you want the fastest charging possible.)

Tesla is sort of encouraging slower charging, which I think is a bad idea. You should apply pressure to your regulators to make it so Tesla can charge per kWh to eliminate this issue.

 

[dgodfrey]

The SuC Network either does currently or is intended to be profitable. Marginally though. Net target profit of 10%.

Musk: Tesla's supercharger business target gross profit margin is 30% - Real Mi Central

The world's richest man tweeted in response to a post exploring the value details of Tesla's Supercharger network.

www.realmicentral.com

 

[MP3Mike]

The SuC Network either does currently or is intended to be profitable. Marginally though. Net target profit of 10%.

Musk: Tesla's supercharger business target gross profit margin is 30% - Real Mi Central

The world's richest man tweeted in response to a post exploring the value details of Tesla's Supercharger network.

www.realmicentral.com

Yep, and I think it was Drew that recently said that the Superchargers are tracked as separate line of business with its own profit/loss calculation.

 

[jeremymc7]

Would be interesting to see Tesla offer a paid unlimited charge "PLAN" on say an annual basis.

Or perhaps the ability to buy discounted Supercharger credits in advance. Maybe something like the USPS Forever stamp. You buy the credits (IE kWh) at a discounted current rate and you use at your leisure. If prices go up you're locked in until credit is used up.

 

[RTPEV]

I'll add to @MP3Mike's excellent response that another difference between Tesla and EA is that Tesla is building out sites that are appropriately sized so that peak demand is usually met, meaning you are going to have a lot of times when a site is not at 100% utilization. This kills the financials, but provides a much better user experience as you don't usually end up having to wait for a stall to open up, or if a stall is broken/damaged/down, it's not as big an impact. EA on the other hand specializes in 4-stall sites, and from first-hand experience I can say that some of those are WELL below the size they should be, resulting in lengthy queues (even without a significant number of EVs on the road using them yet). From EA's perspective, this provides much healthier financials (revenue) from the stations as the utilization is always very high. But it's a crappy user experience.

The net is, Tesla may have to have higher prices to break even, while EA can have lower costs because they are not investing in the same amount of hardware and getting a much higher utilization factor at their sites.

 

[Jeremy3292]

The SuC Network either does currently or is intended to be profitable. Marginally though. Net target profit of 10%.

Musk: Tesla's supercharger business target gross profit margin is 30% - Real Mi Central

The world's richest man tweeted in response to a post exploring the value details of Tesla's Supercharger network.

www.realmicentral.com

Exactly.

At 10% PM they are basically just trying to break even. That 10% PM is also very likely funneled back into R&D, expansions, etc.

 

[glide]

Tesla says the Supercharger network is not to make a profit. However Electrify America and EVGo are far, far cheaper to use despite being for profit companies and buying their hardware from 3ed parties . What is the reasoning why Tesla SC are so much more expensive?

Also don't see much of problem opening up to other CCS EV's. They will only use Tesla SCs when there is no Electrify America for them to use since Tesla is so expensive.

Crazily in GA (we are stuck with by the minute) all Tesla SCs have different prices (used to be all the same) while all Electrify America have the same MUCH LOWER price.

Here are just a couple of examples.

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Tesla’s dirty little secret: everything they do is for-profit.

This is a publicly traded company. They are not in business to lose money in any area of their operations.

 

[Mockingbird]

Tesla says the Supercharger network is not to make a profit.

When Tesla said that anything isn't for profit, you can roll your eyes.

Tesla is a for profit company and everything is for profit.

 

[ambudriver03]

EA pricing has it's own problems. Like it is based upon the maximum charge rate your vehicle can accept, not based on what you are using. So for a Tesla you would always be charged the 1-350kW rate for your full session regardless of how many kW you actually draw.

So say you start charging at 95kW you would be paying Tesla 29-34 cents/min until your rate drops below 60kW then you would pay 15-18 cent/min. With EA you would be charged the full 24/32 cents/min for your entire charge session.

Here is a made up example; 61-95kW: 15 minutes, under 60kW: 30 minutes, at the most expensive rates:

• EA: $14.40 ($10.80 if you pay for their $4/month plan.)
• Tesla: $10.50 ($8.85 at the cheapest station you listed.)

Huh. What do you know, it can actually be cheaper to charge with Tesla's higher rates.

To get the cheapest charge:

• For EA you would want to come in, preconditioned, with the lowest SoC possible and stop charging when your rate starts to taper too much.
• For Tesla you want to come in with a higher SoC to avoid the higher rate buckets. (i.e. you have to pay more if you want the fastest charging possible.)

Tesla is sort of encouraging slower charging, which I think is a bad idea. You should apply pressure to your regulators to make it so Tesla can charge per kWh to eliminate this issue.

EA's reliability is garbage.

However....

I drove 2400 miles from Los Angeles to Cincinatti, and then to Knoxville.

I charged probably 70/30 Supercharger vs EA.

in every single instance EA was cheaper. In some cases it broke down to around 10-14c/kwh.

but, the reliability was atrocious. I didn't encounter a time where I couldn't charge, but did encounter units with station faults and power limitations (one opportunistic charge maxed at 37kw)

216 kW dispensed from Electrify America, the rest from Tesla Superchargers.

 

[theothertom]

Did Tesla recently raise supercharging prices about the same time gas prices went up? Or did I just dream that they did......

 

[RTPEV]

Did Tesla recently raise supercharging prices about the same time gas prices went up? Or did I just dream that they did......

Yes, but that may have been partly coincidental.

I think a lot of the increases were noticed when Tesla went to a new 4-tier pricing scheme at pay-per-minute sites. This did end up making Supercharger visits at this sites more expensive, but I think the reality is that the previous system was effectively undercharging. The switch to 4-tiers attempted to more closely replicate the per-kWh pricing scheme used elsewhere, but the free lunch was then over.

That said, I think there have also been recent price increases tied to recent inflationary price increases (not just gas).

 

[avs007]

It depends on your region... I drove from California to Canada and back... In California, EA was cheaper than supercharging... But in Oregon and Washington, Supercharging was cheaper than EA.

 

[roblab]

I would guess that "not for profit" might mean that the money collected goes to maintain the charging infrastructure. All that equipment isn't cheap, and without money coming in to keep it in repair, it wouldn't be there.

But, OF COURSE, Tesla makes money. They have to. Every Tesla has a markup of around 25%, and nobody complains, even though that makes Teslas quite expensive. Without it, Tesla would have folded years ago and we'd all be driving diesel pickups or some such.

 

[Earl]

Tesla Superchargers are reliable and expanding to meet the needs, in places where we need them. This costs money. The money comes from usage.
EA is unreliable and few use it. They may become unsustainable if anyone actually starts producing a lot of road-trip viable EVs.
You pay for having a Supercharger available, working, and where you need it, that's what costs money, not the price of the basic commodity electricity that flows through them.
Whether, by some bean-counting game, they're profitable or not is basically irrelevant. Building out 50 and 80 stall sites is not cheap? It is needed to meet our demand. How many is EA building? Does anyone even care enough to track it?

 

[RayK]

Building out 50 and 80 stall sites is not cheap? It is needed to meet our demand. How many is EA building? Does anyone even care enough to track it?

From the electrifyamerica.com site today (7/8/2022):

Coming soon sites:

 

[Earl]

From the electrifyamerica.com site today (7/8/2022):

View attachment 826452

Coming soon sites:
View attachment 826453

Cool, not particularly impressive though.
Does their # of chargers count 2 connectors sharing 1 parking space? From those who famously cheated on diesel emissions, this data is suspect.
Don't get me wrong, I hope for a good charging infrastructure other than Tesla but if EA's antics are our hope, we're in bad shape.

 

[RayK]

@Earl Don't know; just presented the information from the "horse's mouth". Take it for what it's worth.

I have used the EA CHAdeMO stations in my area a couple of times, when they offered holiday free charging without any major problems (screen was difficult to read as it faced west during the afternoon). The last time I was interested in using an EA station was several weeks ago but my favorite one was offline (CHAdeMO was down but CCS was okay). Plugshare currently says it's operational again.

 

[Mockingbird]

Tesla can charge what it wants at the Supercharger because it is a de facto monopoly.

Very few Tesla drivers (with people in this forum being the outliers) are going to jump through hoops to get CCS support that would let them charge elsewhere.

 

[cwerdna]

Tesla Superchargers are reliable and expanding to meet the needs, in places where we need them. This costs money. The money comes from usage.
EA is unreliable and few use it. They may become unsustainable if anyone actually starts producing a lot of road-trip viable EVs.
You pay for having a Supercharger available, working, and where you need it, that's what costs money, not the price of the basic commodity electricity that flows through them.
Whether, by some bean-counting game, they're profitable or not is basically irrelevant. Building out 50 and 80 stall sites is not cheap? It is needed to meet our demand. How many is EA building? Does anyone even care enough to track it?

As for few, Electrify America claims more than five times the charging sessions in 2021 vs. 2020 claims "The company said in a press release that it provided 1.45 million charging sessions in 2021, which is more than five times the 268,000 charging sessions reported for 2020.

Electrify America dispensed 41.4 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2021, which the company said powered 145 million miles of EV driving and offset 5.7 million gallons of gasoline."

and

"The current network includes 800 sites, with more than 3,500 individual chargers open or under construction, according to Electrify America. The company plans to double the size of its network, with plans for 1,800 DC fast-charging stations and a total of 10,000 individual connectors in the United States and Canada by the end of 2025."

I've used them a bunch of times w/my native CCS cars. I check Plugshare but although some stations or handles are busted, as long as there's an open charger, I've always been able to charge on another one there. Most of my EV juice from them has been for free, both announced and unannounced.