That’s a better option than laying off the Supercharger team. Teslas rarely need their brakes, but the charging is super important.
I say that semi-tongue in cheek.
I like this analysis from Out of Spec Reviews where the guy is totally baffled by the decision and draws out a bunch of long term ramifications. The biggest one is that it puts the NACS transition in question as car companies might reneg and continue with CCS because they can’t rely on engineering support from Tesla.
- There is no network. A network implies that there’s some advantage to having a larger system. That’s not true. Charging stations are interchangeable and the owner is just a coloration difference.
- Tesla doesn’t have a monopoly. The charger is an open standard and, by law, cannot be monopolized.
Thank you, Mr Pedantic. Do you think relying on dictionary definitions somehow bolster some sort of relevant point?
Fine then, if some specific words touched you in a bad place, Tesla is in a dominant position with facilities already widely established in major population centers and along major automotive travel corridors and have, through years of trial and error, figured out service and implementation issues (not just the nuts and bolts of charging!) it would take newcomers years to figure out. And that includes the charger itself - NACS does not have to be this specific charger and can change in future - which other companies have largely accepted primarily due to those years of experience and large number of established facilities, and can easily renege on if said company were to dump it.
Deep pocketed companies do not wish to take on companies that already have a dominant position in a given market just for shits and grins. That’s just throwing good money away when it can instead be used for stock buybacks and dividends. If it is indeed the case that the future of that market is so questionable Tesla has cut all staff from it, that’s even more evidence other large companies should not invest heavily in it simply to compete. If they do enter that market, it means Elon was wrong - there’s money to be made from maintaining that division.
Worse than that, if a company already has a profitable division doing something - it doesn’t especially matter what that is - the thing they don’t do is cut ALL staff from that division. Sure, trim some staff bit by bit if you somehow believe the entrails augur poor fortune, but you don’t just cut EVERYBODY while there’s money to be made from them. That’s still insane.
You have some really good points mixed in with some bad ones.
Tesla is the dominant player, but it’s not like everyone else is a newcomer. Electrify America, EVgo, and ChargePoint have significant numbers of Level 3 charging stations, and there are many smaller players. The biggest barrier to entry has been access to Tesla cars, and Tesla software that directs the car to a station. These other players can now build a station that can serve any EV on the road, and take advantage of the population of Teslas that will drive themselves to that station.
What? Deep pocketed companies take on established companies all the time. That’s the standard business model for many companies: let someone else establish the market, then come in and undercut them.
Tesla gets ridiculous margins and P/E ratio because they were doing things no one else was doing. In the case of charging, that meant a monopoly on fast-charging Tesla cars. If Tesla settles for doing something because it can make money, they could still be a very profitable company yet see their stock price plummet. Their stock price and business model has been based on being innovative and unique, not doing something a little more efficiently or cheaper than someone else. If you have one division making a 10% margin and another at 50%, keeping that lower-margin group might mean a little more total profit, but it hurts the overall margin of the company and therefore drags down the stock price.
Rightly or wrongly, Musk has decided he doesn’t want to compete with other companies trying to undercut him now that Tesla’s competitive advantage of the Supercharger network has been lost. He feels focusing on autonomous driving is the better path to keeping that separation between Tesla and others. And while he’s wrong about more things than I can count, he’s right that the barrier to entry in the autonomous driving market is massive compared to charging.
I’m in full agreement on this.
There’s a business argument that can be made for scaling down the charging group. I think it was premature and probably dumb, but there’s an argument for it. But cutting the entire group like this is peak stupidity, and was probably done entirely for petty ketamine-fueled reasons.
Yeah, I could have made this point better, but the idea I was responding to was that the legacy companies with existing real estate footprints and offshore manufacturing, not newcomers, would swoop in and “doom” Tesla.
If they’re “doomed” in charging as claimed, it will be in favor of the EVGo’s or Electrify Americas or ChargePoints or some other companies, not the Shell’s or Chevron’s that were explicitly mentioned.
The legacy oil companies might also come in and try to get a piece of the action but there’s no guarantee or likelihood they will dominate in charging, for reasons mentioned earlier. And their shareholders will want better than “we’ll just put chargers in existing gas stations”.
As above, it may also have been to throw his weight around and show everybody he’s in charge. Which is also petty and stupid.
I’ll push back against this. The Tesla charging network is a network in the same sense that Bank of America ATMs are a network. Electrical power is fungible like dollar bills are. But their networks aren’t just delivering a fungible good. The provider manages access, price, maintenance, branding, marketing, etc. All of those services can be amortized across all the sites, so there can be cost advantages at scale.
Now, there could be a business case that Tesla is not well positioned to compete at scale in the charging market. But that doesn’t make it not a network, it means Tesla should not be in the charging network business. A smart executive would spin off that division to capture its current value and pass future risks to new owners. Needless to say, Musk is not that.
“Rightsize” the Tesla workforce… That’s some nice fucking talk!
Honey, I didn’t get fired! We were on the wrong side of the Rightsize!
Just to put the size of the Tesla supercharging network in perspective, these are some numbers from the US government’s Alternative Fuels Data Center.
DC fast charging in the US
| Network | Locations | Ports |
|---|---|---|
| All | 11,870 | 47,119 |
| Tesla | 2,479 | 27,628 |
| not-Tesla | 9,391 | 19,491 |
| Electrify America | 931 | 4,182 |
| EVgo | 963 | 3,114 |
| ChargePoint | 3,034 | 3,159 |
ChargePoint is the largest network when counting level 2, but for the number of actual DC fast charging EVSE ports, Tesla has more than everyone else combined with about 58% of all ports.
We’ve been crapping on that term for 30 years. Just say you’re laying people off for criminy’s sake.
Mr. Free Speech Absolutist wants American citizens to be exiled if they speak in a way he disapproves of.
Let me check I understand this proposal before I ridicule it. On my next trip to America, I don’t need to buy a return ticket? I just need to pack a Union Jack in my luggage and the American taxpayers will pay for my return leg? I think I’m broadly in favour.
Nah, clearly the ones from places Trump called “shithole countries”. I’m pretty sure Elon had certain skin tones in mind to qualify.
I hate to ask Mr. Musk this complicated question, but if I choose to rip down a US flag, and fly instead the Confederate flag, to where will I be deported?
It’s worth a try.
Why should you foreigners reap all the benefits? I’ve been wanting to visit Thailand. Can I hoist a Thai flag and get a free trip? I’ll pay for my return.
Can I book a free multi-stop tour by raising multiple flags?
I agree, I’m kind of liking this law.
I’d throw in Laos and Cambodia while you are there, Vietnam is pretty awesome too.
I think, though, that Mr Musk is suggesting a single ticket out.
Which gives those of us who are not “out” a chance to fly the rainbow LGBT pride flag.
I’d do it even though I am hetero and live in a completely different country.
Fuck Elon Musk. He is a disgusting shame on all South Africans (of which, I am one)
You’ll have to travel by Musk’s Mars ship.
Are you sure?
Alabama. In 1863.
Everyone who wants to go to Thailand is a child molester. (According to Musk.)