Ford/Tesla Deal: Access to Superchargers, adapter coming, future EVs will have NACS (Tesla) port

[Joe schmoe]

I got 250kW plus every time I charged my Hummer EV at an EA station on our trip from Detroit to South Florida and back, so no, I wouldn't be surprised. That was before GM bumped up the charge rate on them. 22-25 minutes to put in 90 kWh. We had to skip one station on that trip because two were down and the other two were occupied. It was not a big deal at all because the size of the battery trivialized needing to.

I've driven from Detroit to Memphis, and from Memphis to the Florida panhandle. In the Rivian, less than 1/4 of the 350kw chargers on that route were fully functional. Most were completely dead, two were throttled severely (less than 60 kw).

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[Joe schmoe]

When Tesla said they would be converting the underutilized stations first, everyone could identify it as a money grab.

If by "money grab" you mean providing a valuable service to customers willing to pay for it ;P

 

[scottf200]

1. Today, Tesla should sell the magic dock adapter to people and allow people to charge via Tesla app

then,

2. Work with oems to allow them to access Tesla supercharger APIs, so that oems can integrate supercharger billings through their own oem apps.

This should be universal, regardless of oem brand. If Tesla isn’t doing this, there is something suspicious, which questions Tesla’s motives.

These are businesses not charities. Any earnings build more. See map and supercharge.info on sites going up and how many have 8-40 ports/stalls. (see CCS ports per site).

There is a very large cost involved not only for the equipment but for the human resources to manage them/permits/coordinate with literally 100s of utility companies (300+ per GM).

Calculate the math on how much it cost per port/stall at a Tesla Supercharger. Divide that by what is earned charging per day to see what the ROI and projected new build growth is. We can't pretend like this free and everything should be altruistic.

That network is what sells many Teslas and has for years. People paid a premium for a car that has that network. Many did.

It needs to be done in a 'controlled' manner. You can't take busy ones and open them to anyone.

Ford made a deal over a couple of years (per Farley directly). They had to figure out what would work and Ford certainly has stipulations.

Rivian, GM, Lucid, etc can make the deal. Reasonable/measured/managed business and not a charity.

 

[DuoRivians]

These are businesses not charities. Any earnings build more. See map and supercharge.info on sites going up and how many have 8-40 ports/stalls. (see CCS ports per site).

There is a very large cost involved not only for the equipment but for the human resources to manage them/permits/coordinate with literally 100s of utility companies (300+ per GM).

Calculate the math on how much it cost per port/stall at a Tesla Supercharger. Divide that by what is earned charging per day to see what the ROI and projected new build growth is. We can't pretend like this free and everything should be altruistic.

That network is what sells many Teslas and has for years. People paid a premium for a car that has that network. Many did.

It needs to be done in a 'controlled' manner. You can't take busy ones and open them to anyone.

Ford made a deal over a couple of years (per Farley directly). They had to figure out what would work and Ford certainly has stipulations.

Rivian, GM, Lucid, etc can make the deal. Reasonable/measured/managed business and not a charity.

It costs marginally nothing to open the Tesla supercharger API. It’s software, and the adapter can be sold for a few hundred dollars

 

[scottf200]

It costs marginally nothing to open the Tesla supercharger API. It’s software, and the adapter can be sold for a few hundred dollars

OMG you ignored everything I said. It cost 100s of 1000s of dollars for superchargers vs $200 adapter and X cents per kWh ... and that will support opening of all the new 1000s dollar ones each week. You are clearly missing all the details and being intentionally naive. I will adjust my interaction with you accordingly.

 

[DuoRivians]

OMG you ignored everything I said. It cost 100s of 1000s of dollars for superchargers vs $200 adapter ... and that will support opening of all the new 1000s dollar ones each week. You are clearly missing all the details and being intentionally naive.

No, the point is that Tesla said they’re going to open up the SCs. It was an important term in the negotiations with Biden. And even Elon said so.

Superchargers were never designed to be a moat. Its a profit center. The more people use them, ie any and all cars, the more money Tesla makes.

I’ve owned three Teslas before and never did I think I was paying a premium for Superchargers.

Absolutely not being naive. I’m also not a Tesla simp

 

[sub]

Superchargers were never designed to be a moat. Its a profit center.

So you have evidence to back that up?
Tesla claimed the exact opposite.

https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-our-supercharging-program

our Supercharger Network will never be a profit center.

 

[DuoRivians]

So you have evidence to back that up?
Tesla claimed the exact opposite.

https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-our-supercharging-program

how’s that for evidence?

 

[sub]

how’s that for evidence?

It shows that they are currently profitable, but not what it was designed for.

 

[DuoRivians]

It shows that they are currently profitable, but not what it was designed for.

Making profit means it’s a profit center, especially at 10%. That link you provided is from 2017 or something like that

 

[SeaGeo]

OMG you ignored everything I said. It cost 100s of 1000s of dollars for superchargers vs $200 adapter and X cents per kWh ... and that will support opening of all the new 1000s dollar ones each week. You are clearly missing all the details and being intentionally naive. I will adjust my interaction with you accordingly.

He's not. The logic of your post isn't actually all that clear, though I suspect your argument is you think other manufacturers should pony up money to help install SC and that they should only have access to less busy SC so as not to impede on the "rights" of existing Tesla owners.

Which is silly. Tesla thinks they can make money off the SC. Elon has sai for years they will open it. They have yet to actually do it other than in Europe. This would just be following through with his claims.

Opening it up with an adapter makes the most sense to me financially. Make some money on selling them, and then charge enough to make money on the electrons. Retrofitting them with magic docks has never made much sense to me.

 

[scottf200]

your argument is you think other manufacturers should pony up money to help install SC and that they should only have access to less busy SC so as not to impede on the "rights" of existing Tesla owners.

Two types:
1) Ford is contributing to the expansion of the SC network. They get access to ALL v3+ superchargers (which have advanced balancing as documented). 12K is the number being mentioned and mathematically corresponds to v3+ ones.

2) The magic dock was ~7.5K so a subset with most guessing it was for the aforementioned reasons.

If it cost Tesla millions and millions of dollars and then everyone wants them for nothing (1 time adapter fee and small charge per kWh) that does not come close to covering cost of maintenance and expansion of all the sites and resources (human and otherwise). How many $200 adapters and $20 charges does it take to cover millions and millions $ worth of supercharger. Seriously show me the calculations. Use the supercharge.info changes or chart page for expansion estimations.

The give it to me for virtually free argument makes no common sense or business sense. Much has changed in 7+ years in the planning and more rapid expansion of the Supercharger network.

Ford understands the environment. I'm a big Rivian vehicle fan (in running for my next BEV) but these are business expenses. GM, Rivian, etc BEV truck makers may likely lose customers over this.

Illogical or non-business explanations without genuine responses just get the appropriate forum settings option usages applied. This forum is nice as it has the option to leave a tag or make the posters & post disappear completely. No time to waste on people that are not actually serious and don't understand the basic business sense.

Aside: I make plenty of criticism at many places about Tesla, Musk, etc but I appreciate how they made the revolution happen and made it way easier for others to follow. Would the Lighting, R1T, etc exist without the past several year revolution. Investor day demonstrated all the people behind the scenes and what they are doing in all parts of the business.

supercharge.info -- trajectory and planning changes in the past 3 yrs (vs 7 yrs ago)

Back to planning stays on my multi-state cross country no charging hassle BEV trip to see family.

 

[SANZC02]

Two types:
1) Ford is contributing to the expansion of the SC network. They get access to ALL v3+ superchargers (which have advanced balancing as documented). 12K is the number being mentioned and mathematically corresponds to v3+ ones.

2) The magic dock was ~7.5K so a subset with most guessing it was for the aforementioned reasons.

If it cost Tesla millions and millions of dollars and then everyone wants them for nothing (1 time adapter fee and small charge per kWh) that does not come close to covering cost of maintenance and expansion of all the sites and resources (human and otherwise). How many $200 adapters and $20 charges does it take to cover millions and millions $ worth of supercharger. Seriously show me the calculations. Use the supercharge.info changes or chart page for expansion estimations.

The give it to me for virtually free argument makes no common sense or business sense. Much has changed in 7+ years in the planning and more rapid expansion of the Supercharger network.

Ford understands the environment. I'm a big Rivian vehicle fan (in running for my next BEV) but these are business expenses. GM, Rivian, etc BEV truck makers may likely lose customers over this.

Illogical or non-business explanations without genuine responses just get the appropriate forum settings option usages applied. This forum is nice as it has the option to leave a tag or make the posters & post disappear completely. No time to waste on people that are not actually serious and don't understand the basic business sense.

Aside: I make plenty of criticism at many places about Tesla, Musk, etc but I appreciate how they made the revolution happen and made it way easier for others to follow. Would the Lighting, R1T, etc exist without the past several year resolution. Investor day demonstrated all the people behind the scenes and what they are doing in all parts of the business.

supercharge.info -- trajectory and planning changes in the past 3 yrs (vs 7 yrs ago)

Back to planning stays on my multi-state cross country no charging hassle BEV trip to see family.

Actually opening them up to other car companies, especially in under utilized areas is exactly what Tesla would want.

Based on the applications Tesla submitted for the Texas rebates it cost them about 43k to install a supercharger unit. If they averaged 50 kW a charge, 8 charges a day, and 5 cents profit per kW they would payback the initial cost of the station in 6 years.

Any of those numbers change for instance if they were able to make 10 cents per kW and averaged 12 charges a day they bring the payback down to 2 years.

Sure there are other cost associated like maintenance, leasing the locations, any interest on the installation but clearly increasing utilization by opening the chargers to other vehicles does have a cost advantage that could make the network a profit center.

 

[DuoRivians]

Two types:
1) Ford is contributing to the expansion of the SC network. They get access to ALL v3+ superchargers (which have advanced balancing as documented). 12K is the number being mentioned and mathematically corresponds to v3+ ones.

2) The magic dock was ~7.5K so a subset with most guessing it was for the aforementioned reasons.

If it cost Tesla millions and millions of dollars and then everyone wants them for nothing (1 time adapter fee and small charge per kWh) that does not come close to covering cost of maintenance and expansion of all the sites and resources (human and otherwise). How many $200 adapters and $20 charges does it take to cover millions and millions $ worth of supercharger. Seriously show me the calculations. Use the supercharge.info changes or chart page for expansion estimations.

The give it to me for virtually free argument makes no common sense or business sense. Much has changed in 7+ years in the planning and more rapid expansion of the Supercharger network.

Ford understands the environment. I'm a big Rivian vehicle fan (in running for my next BEV) but these are business expenses. GM, Rivian, etc BEV truck makers may likely lose customers over this.

Illogical or non-business explanations without genuine responses just get the appropriate forum settings option usages applied. This forum is nice as it has the option to leave a tag or make the posters & post disappear completely. No time to waste on people that are not actually serious and don't understand the basic business sense.

Aside: I make plenty of criticism at many places about Tesla, Musk, etc but I appreciate how they made the revolution happen and made it way easier for others to follow. Would the Lighting, R1T, etc exist without the past several year resolution. Investor day demonstrated all the people behind the scenes and what they are doing in all parts of the business.

supercharge.info -- trajectory and planning changes in the past 3 yrs (vs 7 yrs ago)

Back to planning stays on my multi-state cross country no charging hassle BEV trip to see family.

It’s rare to see so many words, without coherence or well reasoned structure. It’s just lots of words, graphs, and random numbers without evidence.

There is no word whatsoever on the financial details of the arrangement between Ford and Tesla. Yet, you claim “Ford is contributing to the expansion of the SC network.”

It reads as if you took random Tesla fanboy tweets and tried to create an essay from them.

Let’s say that it costs “millions and millions” to build superchargers, as you say. Well, once they’ve been paid, it’s a fixed sunk cost. The only way to get return on capital at this point is to increase utilization of them. Tesla makes money on the electrons sold. Tesla doesn’t and shouldn’t care to whom those electrons are sold to, because they make profit per kWh. And selling more kwh is the only way to make their fixed cost investments back.

Sell kwh to Tesla, Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, to all EVs, all the time to maximize utilization. (Personally, I don’t care if Tesla charges a premium surcharge to non-Teslas.)

So, yes, selling NACS to CCS adapters (like the razerblade business model) makes sense. Sell the adapters (razerblade handles), so more and more EVs come back to buy more kwh (eg more razer blades).

 

[scottf200]

Actually opening them up to other car companies, especially in under utilized areas is exactly what Tesla would want.

Based on the applications Tesla submitted for the Texas rebates it cost them about 43k to install a supercharger unit. If they averaged 50 kW a charge, 8 charges a day, and 5 cents profit per kW they would payback the initial cost of the station in 6 years.

Any of those numbers change for instance if they were able to make 10 cents per kW and averaged 12 charges a day they bring the payback down to 2 years.

Sure there are other cost associated like maintenance, leasing the locations, any interest on the installation but clearly increasing utilization by opening the chargers to other vehicles does have a cost advantage that could make the network a profit center.

Thanks for your input. I agree in underutilized locations *today* having more car charge is a good thing.

Keep in mind for some vehicles the charge port does not allow them to utilize a Supercharger stall as intended for Teslas with the left rear plug. That means some non-Teslas will use 2 stalls essentially. Picture below of a Rivian example.

There are some that are full regularly and fortunately, Tesla tracks that and adds more if they can find suitable spaces. I saw problems in Naples, FL as one example this summer. Equipment, electricity, and ongoing lease cost. Wonder how much leases cost? Electricity often comes with demand charges if overutilized. Some of these numbers I've read are off the chart.

It is unclear the cost for each increment of 4 pedestals + charging cabinet. You can see on supercharge.info/changes they are installing 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, etc ones in places they can get the lease space.

Your 50 kWh may be a little high for road trippers. An example from some of my March travels.

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