A flock of Chevys testing their charging capabilities!

[CyberGus]

It would not be possible for Tesla to make NACS the standard, and then sandbox their own charge network. If they insisted on keeping out 3rd-parties, then charge standards would continue to be fragmented. A single standard was inevitable, and if Tesla didn't push NACS then there was a risk that everyone else would standardize on a lesser solution like CCS.

Every visit to a SuperCharger is an advertisement for Tesla. The ease of use and the owners' beaming smiles are enough to make anyone seriously consider switching to a Tesla vehicle.

Adding more customers is the financial incentive that helps justify adding even more charge locations. The worst thing for the SuperCharger network is to have vast stations sitting empty, which would discourage further investment. Busy is good.

It also works both ways: with NACS as the standard, we get to enjoy charging at non-SC locations such as Rivian's Adventure Network, destination chargers, etc.

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[TyPope]

Also, while I'm at it. Retractible charge cords... They extend when either a Tesla pulls in to charge or a charge session is initiated by a different brand. Don't like retractable cables? How about a cable locker that opens when you approach?

Let the copper theives move on... But, just not to my house again. I don't want to have to replace all the wiring again (I used PVC and PVC/C for the plumbing so they probably won't steel the plastic pipes). Sucks crawling around under the house and in the attic.

 

[Cyberham]

A surreal moment!! The Workman’s Travel Center in Ozark, AR, off I-40 has 8 Tesla Superchargers. I pulled in this afternoon as 5 Chevys pulled up to charge, 4 suvs, maybe Equinox and a Silverado! All had manufacturer tags, they are making a test road trip, from Michigan to Los Angels, testing the charging capabilities. Took them about 12 to 15 minutes to charge and off they flew except for the Silverado which was still charging when I left in my Cybertruck. There was a Rivian there too! My truck was the only Tesla!

I'd call that a gaggle of trucks

 

[Kenneth K.]

i'm sure Tesla only allow non-Tesla to charge at stations that are not busy to generate more income for shareholders..

 

[HaulingAss]

Exactly. It’s like selling cellphones without towers. If Apple owned the cellular network, android could not exist. Why on earth give that up?

It sounds like you've never read Tesla's actual mission statement. It's not "Make as much money as humanly possible", it's "Accelerate the transition to sustainable energies." Not many companies have such noble goals.

This goes back to the Tesla Motors Company's Secret Master Plan of 2006 when Musk stated "the overarching purpose of Tesla Motors...is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy". Of course the "secret" was simply tongue-in-cheek because this plan was widely distributed.

I mean, this is the actual reason the company exists, it has been there from the start and Musk has re-iterated it numerous times in a consistent manner ever since.

And this clearly answers your above question. Your confusion on this matter is simply your refusal to believe why Tesla actually exists in the first place (even though Elon has repeatedly made it as clear as a bell). Granted, the Tesla haters like to pretend that Elon is just greedy, but it's just another fabricated lie as all of his actions clearly show.

I invite you to come to the side of truth, the side that is supported by actual facts. This will dissolve the disconnects and misunderstandings you have about why Tesla would selflessly open they crown jewel of a charging network up to other brands. This is why Elon can make big things happen, he's a big picture kind of guy.

 

[HaulingAss]

i'm sure Tesla only allow non-Tesla to charge at stations that are not busy to generate more income for shareholders..

No, what determines whether other brands can charge at any particular Supercharger is the technology, whether the physical infrastructure can support the CCS standard without physical upgrades. If there are exceptions, they are few and far between. Instead of excluding other brands at a busy location, Tesla expands the number of stalls at the current location (when possible) or builds new Superchargers on the same routes nearby to reduce the load on nearby Superchargers. This benefits Tesla owners by creating more charging options and locations and accelerates the installation of faster Superchargers.

Everything makes sense when you take what Tesla says at face value. It's the Tesla haters that have a disconnect. This is not to say that Tesla doesn't change course when they see a better path, they will always do that, but they have never wavered from their primary mission statement. Even grid scale battery storage, the Tesla Semi, and their newer focus on autonomy, robotaxis, and humanoid robots support this primary mission.

 

[hemiarch]

All valid points. I hope you all are right.
To your point @HaulingAss, that’s absolutely the original mission and what I signed on for when I invested all those years ago and continued to do so anytime the company was hurting over the years. That was certainly not any kind of altruism. Made tons of money doing it and I don’t feel anybody but me owes a debt of gratitude for that.
I think that mission has been accomplished though. The snowball is rolling down the hill. Even the most conservative have bought into the idea now and see nothing but dollars and cents when they think about electric cars. Shit, imagine if I played a flash forward piece of Fox News advocating for this 7 years ago. It would have been dismissed as a YouTube hoax. Honestly.
The next step is transition towards autonomy and that costs lots and lots of money. So does bringing robotics to the home and turning space flight commercial.
Fine then, guess I’m a Tesla racist Gus. I badly want what you all are saying to be true but I’m concerned the other players in the game don’t have the same purity of motivation we (including Elon) have.
They will not hesitate to fuck us over and that could seriously hurt the mission.

 

[HaulingAss]

It would not be possible for Tesla to make NACS the standard, and then sandbox their own charge network. If they insisted on keeping out 3rd-parties, then charge standards would continue to be fragmented. A single standard was inevitable, and if Tesla didn't push NACS then there was a risk that everyone else would standardize on a lesser solution like CCS.

It wasn't a "risk" that everyone else would standardize on CCS, it was reality. The only recognized standard was CCS, and that went back to 2012 when the rest of the industry thought it would crush Tesla. And, yes, had Tesla not offered up their crown jewel for public consumption, charging standards would continue to be fragmented. Elon fixed it the only way he could.

 

[TheLastStarfighter]

Exactly. It’s like selling cellphones without towers. If Apple owned the cellular network, android could not exist. Why on earth give that up?

There's a couple reasons.

1. Not every one will buy a Tesla. As other EV's get better, most people won't want the same vehicle as everyone else on their street. Tesla's market penetration is limited (it's why GM had multiple brands selling reskinned versions of the same car in their heyday). Gaining revenue from all other cars will one day be more valuable than maximizing Tesla's market share long-term, since that share has a limit.

2. Tesla needed to ensure that their charge port became industry standard. The government was pushing for a standard like with Cell phones, and part of Tesla winning that war was to allow other vehicles to use their chargers. Failing to do so would have resulted in missed gov contracts and install location opportunities. Even worse, if the government mandated a different tech as the standard at some point, it could be disastrous for Tesla. They saw where things were headed and adapted accordingly.

 

[HaulingAss]

I think that mission has been accomplished though. The snowball is rolling down the hill. Even the most conservative have bought into the idea now and see nothing but dollars and cents when they think about electric cars.

I agree, with Tesla's huge successes to date, the transition to sustainable energies is a given. And I would say that the transition has always been inevitable (because we don't have a choice, unsustainable energy means it cannot continue forever). But look at the mission statement. It doesn't say "accelerate the transition at first", it's obviously a continuing process, and Tesla will continue to accelerate it.

Fine then, guess I’m a Tesla racist Gus. I badly want what you all are saying to be true but I’m concerned the other players in the game don’t have the same purity of motivation we (including Elon) have.
They will not hesitate to fuck us over and that could seriously hurt the mission.

Obviously, the other players in the game, including the biggest DCFC networks, do NOT have the same purity of motivation. And that's all the reason Tesla needs to keep their foot on the accelerator. But your concern about getting screwed over by the other players is not a real concern. Here's why:

Elon's plan never relied on the other players playing nice. He knew they would screw him over every chance they were given. The only plan that could possibly succeed was the plan that didn't depend upon the other players playing "nice". First principles thinking will tell you the framework of that plan:

Make a better product at a lower price. Fulfill motorists needs in a more convenient, more reliable and more cost-effective manner. To do that required Tesla to become better at everything. Become more efficient at manufacturing more reliable cars, more efficient at building charging infrastructure, more efficient at building factories, more efficient at building servicing and delivery infrastructure, etc. Every step of the way Elon had to use first-principles thinking to make the correct decision.

This process explains the panel gap variations of 2018 (that continued to a relatively minor degree into the Cybertruck due to the different panel technology). It was simply too expensive, and took too much time, to have mm precision on every panel. This is the kind of problem that can be fixed as time went on, like Toyota and Honda did, it was not the kind of problem that would kill sales or balloon warranty expenses in the way that failed gear reductions or failed inverters could.

People who have never manufactured cars cannot understand how much it would have cost Tesla to insist every car they delivered had to have perfect panel gaps. Elon's brilliance was understanding that the cost of the product, the reliability, and the convenience is what would lead to success, not having perfect panel gaps, that was a problem they could work into the refreshes and new production lines. It was something they had to improve on, but it was not a "make or break" priority to fix it before selling each car with slight panel gap variances.

That's a tangent I probably shouldn't have opened up, but just know that Elon wins because he thinks about these kinds of issues logically and correctly, he threads the needle. He knows that the common sense answer is not always the answer that will best position his company. A more traditional CEO would say "we have to fix that, no matter the costs". That could have bankrupt Tesla in 2018, Elon was trying to get the company to be sustainable. And he did it correctly, he threaded the needle of reality and the proof is he succeeded. It was not luck or happenstance, Elon did not come to America with a pocketful of cash and big credit lines, he came as a nobody, with no money and few contacts.

Now, Tesla has such a huge advantage in terms of cost to produce, AKA "pricing power", the other companies cannot screw Tesla over, all they can hope to do is to continue to gradually improve their technology, the designs of their battery architectures, their thermal management systems, their software environments, to improve the products while simultaneously lowering the costs of production and delivery to be competitive with Tesla. Most new car buyers are not stupid, that's why Tesla has the best-selling car in the world, and it's a pure electric. And it's quite profitable, even in this environment.

Some car buyers are not as smart, that's how Ford is able to sell their Mach-e and Lightning without losing even more than they already do. Ford and the rest will price their EVs as low as necessary to move them. That's not pricing power because it relies on selling their ICE vehicles at enough profit to make up for their EV losses. This is what drives all the anti-EV narratives, even big oil gets in on trashing EVs (anonymously, of course). They are trying to fool the new car buyers into continuing to support ICE. It only works on the less intelligent consumers. Keep in mind, intelligence has a very low correlation to education, it's about a person's ability to parse information and ferret out the BS. It has to do with how good a person's "BS detector" is. And some people have a very low ability to ferret out BS, I call them "gullible". Everyone is gullible in specific instances but some people are always gullible, they consume the mainstream media without being able to see that it's all a carefully crafted narrative to maintain power and influence and relevance. The media does not care about you or the actual truth, they care about their position in the world, their ability to bend the truth to create value for those companies who fund them. The value of a media empire long ago ceased to be about advertising revenue, it's about the value of influence. Influence over who you vote for and how you spend your money. The value of the advertising revenue is small in comparison. Power is money.

The one takeaway from this should be the huge lead Tesla has built in terms of being able to bring value to the consumer, to businesses, to utilities, etc. It's the quality of the product, for the cost to produce, as opposed to the price they are sold at (selling at a loss is not possible or sustainable in high volumes). Other companies would love to be able to offer the kind of value Tesla can, but they cannot. They actually lose money when they finally put the price low enough that you will buy their EV. And, in my seat of the pants observation, the gap between Tesla and the rest is widening (all the while the media constantly tries to drill into your head the gap is narrowing, or that others have surpassed Tesla). The gap is widening because Tesla is improving faster than the legacy companies (or companies like Rivian for that matter). The next 4-5 years will be a stark reminder of this. Those who disagree with this are simply too gullible to mainstream media narratives to see what is actually happening in the real world. It's a tough pill to swallow, for a gullible person to admit they are gullible and have been brainwashed by a constant barrage of false narratives, so must gullible people will never admit it to themselves. And that is generally to their own detriment, and those around them.

Meanwhile, Tesla is continuing to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy. GM and Stellantis are cancelling EV and battery projects left and right, while simultaneously ramping up the anti-EV rhetoric. They will fight for their right to continue to mislead consumers and sell them ICE cars. That has slowed down the mission. Like I admitted previously, they will screw Tesla any way they can. Years ago I said that legacy auto's EV push was just a front to keep regulators off their backs. Time has proven me right on this. The oil and gas interests are so deeply entrenched, so monied, and so threatened that they have captured both major political parties. That's how Mary Barra got our last President to proclaim that she had led the entire industry to electrification. In reality, Tesla led Mary, kicking and screaming the whole way. It's not going to end well for the legacy players.

 

[hemiarch]

I’ve trusted this company and associated leadership for a long time and continue to do so. For the most part that hasn’t disappointed except for some recent antics that had more to do with Elon personally than with Tesla or the mission.
I’m just having trouble seeing clearly through this decision. Don’t take that to mean I’m no longer on the same team. Just have my doubts.

 

[HaulingAss]

I’ve trusted this company and associated leadership for a long time and continue to do so. For the most part that hasn’t disappointed except for some recent antics that had more to do with Elon personally than with Tesla or the mission.
I’m just having trouble seeing clearly through this decision. Don’t take that to mean I’m no longer on the same team. Just have my doubts.

I'm not following you. It sounds like you are saying you are not convinced that establishing a single, unified charging standard, and inviting all other brands to use the Supercharger Network, will accelerate the transition to EVs?

What exactly are you doubting?

 

[hemiarch]

I'm not following you. It sounds like you are saying you are not convinced that establishing a single, unified charging standard, and inviting all other brands to use the Supercharger Network, will accelerate the transition to EVs?

What exactly are you doubting?

I’m doubting that this will leave Tesla as the clear undisputed winner in this race and therefore allow it less leverage to make decisions on behalf of the EV community. I don’t trust the other players enough to put the mission first. Different perspective I guess.

 

[HaulingAss]

I’m doubting that this will leave Tesla as the clear undisputed winner in this race and therefore allow it less leverage to make decisions on behalf of the EV community. I don’t trust the other players enough to put the mission first. Different perspective I guess.

No doubt having one unified DCFC standard will be beneficial for EV adoption overall (help accelerate the transition to sustainable energy).

And, to be clear, I wasn't saying that opening the Supercharger Network to all brands is what will make Tesla the undisputed winner, I was saying that Tesla's other strengths, their efficient production and delivery, and their lead in engineering EVs to be affordable, is what will guarantee their ability to outsell every other competitor, and do it at higher margins. That advantage is what allowed them to open their network to all without jeopardizing their competitive positioning. Legacy auto can only dream about being as good as Tesla when it comes to producing high quality EVs at low prices. Never mistake the selling price for the cost to produce, many manufacturers are selling below their actual cost of production. The selling price tells you more about how much the market is willing to pay for that vehicle than it tells you how much it costs them to produce it.

In other words, Tesla's position was (and is) so strong, they could afford to open their Supercharger Network to all the rest without it threatening their position and, hopefully, this will allow some competitors who would have otherwise failed, to make it. Tesla cannot produce all the EVs necessary to complete the transition, they need other manufacturers to produce EVs too.

 

[sjarriel]

In the long run this is a win for TSLA and us owners. I would love to see the faster chargers that get installed be somehow prioritized for Teslas though. Maybe a higher $ rate for non Teslas.

If you look at the rates shown on the Tesla website, there is a rate for non-Tesla vehicles that varies with time of day sometimes, but it's usually about 40% more than what Teslas are charged, at least in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. I usually see stated rates of $0.50-0.55/kwhr for non-Tesla vehicles, and $0.32-0.34 for Teslas.

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