Not sure where you’re getting your numbers. Depending on complexity, 8 stall Superchargers vary in cost but can be as little as $200,000 for the whole site. A far cry from $200,000
per stall. Also, I’ve seen some information (lease templates) suggesting that quite a few sites are leased for a token amount (basically free), not 25% of the charging session.
Maybe that’s what other charging providers pay…
The profit killers are sites with high demand charges but low monthly throughput. With low traffic, a site can’t amortize the demand fee across as many sessions. Low traffic sites are loss leaders and high traffic sites probably turn a bit of profit, the average being break-even at best, but more likely an overall loss considering the massive network expansion that’s underway.
And yes, EV charging is a tough gig. Tesla is going to crush the competition when they start opening access to other EVs.
Another data point for Supercharger costs is the recent Tesla Supercharger installs in BC and Alberta which have Natural Resources Canada funding.
The NRCan funding covers up to 50% of the total project costs. While most of the other charging networks maxed out their funding on the projects at the maximum level (mostly $50000 for <100 kW chargers), Tesla averaged less than this, even after their chargers are much faster than the 100 kW level and would have been eligible for more if their costs were more.
Note that the funding required non-Tesla charging as well, so these include the Tesla Superchargers plus the additional non-Tesla DC charging equipment. The Superchargers seem to be significantly less than the non-Supercharger equipment used (since the funding program that had proportionally less non-Tesla chargers averaged less per stall). A Tesla only solution would likely be less than the ZEVIF program costs below (which has only one non-Tesla DC charger per eight Superchargers), but at least this would put an upper limit on costs of a typical installation.
Note that pricing is in Canadian dollars (CAD). You can use a CAD to USD conversion to convert to USD funds.
Electric Vehicle and Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Deployment:
1. About
www.nrcan.gc.ca
BC: 78 electric vehicle charging stations ($3,090,000 funding for 58 Superchargers + 20 Flo AddEnergie SmartDC Fast charging stations), $39515 CAD per stall funding, $79231 CAD per stall full cost if funding was 50%. Current exchange is about $63200 USD per stall.
BC+Alberta+SK: 51 electric vehicle charging stations ($2,012,500 funding for 38 Superchargers +13 Flo AddEnergie SmartDC Fast charging stations), $39460 CAD per stall funding, $78921 CAD full cost if funding was 50%. At current exchange this is $62991 USD per stall.
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Zero Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Program
www.nrcan.gc.ca
27 Electric vehicle chargers ($794,459 funding for 24 Superchargers with 8 each on 3 sites + 3 Flo Addenergie SmartDC Fast charging stations with one for each of the 3 sites), $29424 CAD per stall funding, $58849 CAD full cost per stall if funding was 50%. This is $46964 USD per stall.
Note that the funding provided for up to $75000 per charger for fast chargers 100 kW and above, and Tesla requested less than half that value (although the 3 non-Tesla chargers were only 50 kW so the maximum funding for them is $50000 per stall).
Also note that BC Hydro which is using the same non-Tesla DC fast charger as Tesla requested the maximum $50000 per stall in the Electric Vehicle and Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Deployment funding, although their overhead costs would have been higher since their installations were one or two stalls per site rather than 8 or more with the Tesla funding, so the fixed (transformer, installation) costs per stall would be higher with the non-Tesla projects.