Operating a Cyber Truck Fleet

Crissa

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That's why you do your business model on renting or hiring the vehicles with drivers so that the sheets are balanced either way.

-Crissa
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OCS12

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That's why you do your business model on renting or hiring the vehicles with drivers so that the sheets are balanced either way.

-Crissa
I 100% agree. Having built up and sold off two small businesses (both for a nice little profit), I’m trying to point out the risks and flaws. I’m pretty sure you’re doing the same. I’m not trying to be a naysayer, but I don’t want to see someone who’s got a good start in life have things go downhill fast. I go back to what I recommended earlier and say manage risks with just a few vehicles.
 

firsttruck

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......
I vaguely remember the build out costs for a Tesla 8 stall 4 charger v3 being $250K. It came out in some public documents with some city contractor.
-------------------------

$400 Tesla Wall Connector 240V 48 amp
https://shop.tesla.com/product/wall-connector?sku=1457768-02-G

Wall Connector is the most convenient charging solution for houses, apartments, hospitality properties and workplaces.

With up to 44 miles of range added per hour of charging of Model 3 (30 mph Model X), a 24 foot cable length, multiple power settings, and a versatile indoor/outdoor design, Wall Connector provides unparalleled convenience.

Wall Connectors can power-share to maximize existing electrical capacity, automatically distributing power to charge multiple cars simultaneously.

-------------------------

$8,200 is cost for twenty (20) Tesla Wall Connectors.
Need to add some wiring, breakers, electrical cabinets, mounting posts, professional installation, etc.

How do you get to $250K?

Is that $250K for a 4-port Supercharger (400V 250Amp) without installation?

Use Tesla public Supercharger for occasional times when a specific robotaxi needs a little juice before the overnight break.


For multiple short trip distances and overall daily total in most city/suburban areas, wouldn't a private Supercharger be overkill?


-------------------------

Tesla’s Supercharger cost revealed to be just one-fifth of the competition in losing home state (Texas) bid
By Fred Lambert
Apr. 15th 2022
https://electrek.co/2022/04/15/tesla-cost-deploy-superchargers-revealed-one-fifth-competition/

.....
Tesla was asking for only ~$30,000 per charger

-------------------------
 
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charliemagpie

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A SWOT analysis is in order.

Calculating ROI over a period could prove to be difficult. A guess as much as anything.

Initially, I suspect Tesla will not undercut the opposition by too much. With relatively few cars to start with, Tesla would be 100% busy if it charged 10% less. This could make for a cosy relationship.

What happens in 3 years, say 2027... Tesla starts rolling out 1 million Robotaxis a year. It is now undercutting traditional ride-share by 80 % and its cars are 75% utilised. OPEX must be finely tuned.

I might have the volume or year wrong, but there's a shifting sand effect here, to the extent that even a new disruptive business can be quickly disrupted.

In some situations, I'd stick with what I know.
 

firsttruck

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A SWOT analysis is in order.

Calculating ROI over a period could prove to be difficult. A guess as much as anything.

Initially, I suspect Tesla will not undercut the opposition by too much. With relatively few cars to start with, Tesla would be 100% busy if it charged 10% less. This could make for a cosy relationship.

What happens in 3 years, say 2027... Tesla starts rolling out 1 million Robotaxis a year. It is now undercutting traditional ride-share by 80 % and its cars are 75% utilised. OPEX must be finely tuned.

I might have the volume or year wrong, but there's a shifting sand effect here, to the extent that even a new disruptive business can be quickly disrupted.

In some situations, I'd stick with what I know.

65-75 milion cars and trucks are sold globally every year.

1 million robotaxis a year is still small. Maybe be 10 years ( or 3 million annually over 5 years) before saturation effects cause robotaxi prices to start declining?
 


Throwcomputer

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-------------------------

$400 Tesla Wall Connector 240V 48 amp
https://shop.tesla.com/product/wall-connector?sku=1457768-02-G

Wall Connector is the most convenient charging solution for houses, apartments, hospitality properties and workplaces.

With up to 44 miles of range added per hour of charging of Model 3 (30 mph Model X), a 24 foot cable length, multiple power settings, and a versatile indoor/outdoor design, Wall Connector provides unparalleled convenience.

Wall Connectors can power-share to maximize existing electrical capacity, automatically distributing power to charge multiple cars simultaneously.

-------------------------

$8,200 is cost for twenty (20) Tesla Wall Connectors.
Need to add some wiring, breakers, electrical cabinets, mounting posts, professional installation, etc.

How do you get to $250K?

Is that $250K for a 4-port Supercharger (400V 250Amp) without installation?

Use Tesla public Supercharger for occasional times when a specific robotaxi needs a little juice before the overnight break.


For multiple short trip distances and overall daily total in most city/suburban areas, wouldn't a private Supercharger be overkill?


-------------------------

Tesla’s Supercharger cost revealed to be just one-fifth of the competition in losing home state (Texas) bid
By Fred Lambert
Apr. 15th 2022
https://electrek.co/2022/04/15/tesla-cost-deploy-superchargers-revealed-one-fifth-competition/

.....
Tesla was asking for only ~$30,000 per charger

-------------------------

Tesla wall chargers would not work for any form of taxi services with EVs.

I take car service almost every night 8 months out of the year from work, paid for by my work.

I know those drivers and talk to them a lot. They all own their own cars but the only way they can turn a profit on them once you take out the car service percentage, Uber, Lyft etc fees, insurance, tlc fees and everything else involved... Is by sharing their car with a family member who also drives for hire. They work in shifts of 12 hours. One will fill up on the way home to hand off the car to the other family member who is starting their shift.

Using EVs for hire such as this means you cannot spend 6-10 hours charging on a wall charger at home because that is 6-10 hours the car is not earning income. The more you are charging them the less they earn... And if you are working on shifts to keep the car earning as much as possible then you are charging less.. Which means you have less range throughout the day for fares. These guys drive around 250-350 miles a day most days. It would bea real business killer to take a fare who happens to be beyond your remaining range and ask them to wait the 30-60 minutes to find, get to, then charge at a super charger, while the fare is on their way home or to a meeting or something.

No car service would ever survive even now if they made customers wait to fill up on gas. 8 years of riding almost daily and I've never once had a car need to stop for gas while on a job. And sure there are long distance trips that only lunatics hire to drive multiple hours which requires filling up, but you expect that when you hire a car for a long distance trip. Anything else you are not getting away with detouring who knows how far out of the fares way to find a super charger plus the time it takes to charge just to complete that fare which they are expecting to take only the minimum amount of time to get from point a to point b.

Every chance I get, I talk to these drivers about fuel economy, gas prices, electric vehicles and talk to them about switching over to Teslas when they replace their cars (which is about every 3-4 years due to the mileage they put on them). Almost all of them would love to replace with an electric vehicle, but say they cannot due to the down time of charging preventing them from earning enough money.. even with savings on gas. Their margin for earnings over cost is very slim.

If you are planning on running a for hire car service fleet with a Tesla, you must include installation of the appropriate number of super chargers for wherever your stable will be stored in your cost analysis otherwise you are fooling yourself that you are ready for this type of business.

My belief is that out of all the people on here discussing purchasing for robo taxi fleets... Maybe 1 person actually does it. The rest 99.99% don't.
 
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Crissa

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$8,200 is cost for twenty (20) Tesla Wall Connectors.
Need to add some wiring, breakers, electrical cabinets, mounting posts, professional installation, etc.
How do you get to $250K?
Urban parking spots often cost from $50k to $100k each in building, siting, permitting, etc.

A parking spot takes the room that you would normally put a small apartment in, but adds in a bunch of safety costs as cars need much stronger buildings and fire resistance and access to air than apartments do. It also needs ground level access which means moving other things, which is also a cost.

So it can add up, quick, even if the actual electrical and pavement is cheap.

-Crissa
 

Ogre

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I know those drivers and talk to them a lot. They all own their own cars but the only way they can turn a profit on them once you take out the car service percentage, Uber, Lyft etc fees, insurance, tlc fees and everything else involved... Is by sharing their car with a family member who also drives for hire. They work in shifts of 12 hours. One will fill up on the way home to hand off the car to the other family member who is starting their shift.
I’ve met one Uber/ Lyft driver and he bought a Tesla in order to run his business. He claimed that running a Tesla was about the only way to make a profit doing it. He used the cheapest Supercharger in the Sacramento area ($0.22/ kWh just a few months ago!!) and puts massive mileage on his car.

I don’t think he shared the car with others, just drove the crap out of it. But because he drove all day long, he used Superchargers a lot. I’m guessing while he slept he charged up as well. But as I said, the SC he used has ridiculously low rates so probably didn’t make a difference.

As a side note, crazy to me that SC rates vary so much. Imagine how crazy a gas station would be if it had 40% lower prices than any other station in a metro area.
 

Throwcomputer

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I’ve met one Uber/ Lyft driver and he bought a Tesla in order to run his business. He claimed that running a Tesla was about the only way to make a profit doing it. He used the cheapest Supercharger in the Sacramento area ($0.22/ kWh just a few months ago!!) and puts massive mileage on his car.

I don’t think he shared the car with others, just drove the crap out of it. But because he drove all day long, he used Superchargers a lot. I’m guessing while he slept he charged up as well. But as I said, the SC he used has ridiculously low rates so probably didn’t make a difference.

As a side note, crazy to me that SC rates vary so much. Imagine how crazy a gas station would be if it had 40% lower prices than any other station in a metro area.
There are always some people who can make it work. I've met a few Uber drivers who also drove Tesla's and made it work, but Uber was more a filler job between work or school for them and not their sole income. They were basically using their personal car as Uber to help pay off the payments on it, not to make a sole living off it.

So not exactly a direct comparison to what is being discussed here. People are talking about running robotaxi fleets fully dedicated to 100% business for income and livelihood. Down time is the killer of fleets. There is more down time to fleet EVs when depending on non super chargers. I'm sure there will be some car service companies that will see the value in creating a fleet of EVs but they will almost definitely be including installation of super chargers at their fleet hub for maintaining maximum on the clock time.

Here people are suggesting they will buy a couple and run a fleet robotaxi service no sweat from out of their house and scrooge McDuck roll around their piles of cash generated.

But maybe if they do that..6 months down the line someone can pick ups cheap second hand cyber truck on auction from repo man!

Yet, who am I to talk someone out of an idea. It's your money do what you want with it. I'm just trying to put some sense into the nonsense to help someone who doesn't drive a cab or run a car service understand the extra costs involved. We didn't have an increase in cab and Uber driver suicides the last three or four years cause it's an easy business.
 


SparkChaser

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There is an app called gas buddy that provides a map for the prices at stations. I used it a lot when driving my diesel VW. I hope there will be something similar for charging. There may be one already.
 

Ogre

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There are always some people who can make it work. I've met a few Uber drivers who also drove Tesla's and made it work, but Uber was more a filler job between work or school for them and not their sole income. They were basically using their personal car as Uber to help pay off the payments on it, not to make a sole living off it.
I’m pretty sure the guy I was talking to made his living as a driver exclusively. But it was a casual conversation at a Supercharger so I didn’t dig in too deep.

Running a fleet from your home would definitely be quite different and likely not as hands-off as many people think. These vehicles can clock a *lot* of miles.

I suspect nightly charging would work ok, simply because there is little demand for cars between midnight and 6am.
 

firsttruck

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.....

I suspect nightly charging would work ok, simply because there is little demand for cars between midnight and 6am.
I agree.

Local electrical networks commonly have several demand vs usage peaks and valleys of various heights, depths and lengths. Taxis, ridesahare (Uber, Lyft, etc), robotaxis have several demand vs usage peaks and valleys of various heights, depths, lengths plus locations.

Even during the day not all cars will be 100% with customer every minute and every mile.

The robotaxis that spent all its time in city center might have lower daily total mileage than the robotaxi that make commuter trips from suburb to city center.

The expensive city center will only have a few superchargers and parking. Most robotaxis will park and charge in mid-center to suburb where parking is cheaper.

------------------------

Demand and Consumer Surplus in the On-demand Economy: the Case of Ride Sharing
By
Chungsang Tom Lam, Clemson University
Meng Liu, MIT Sloan
October 11, 2017
https://ide.mit.edu/sites/default/files/publications/SSRN-id2997190.pdf

Tesla Cybertruck Operating a Cyber Truck Fleet uber-hour-Screenshot_20220512_133755
 
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Ogre

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Not sure anyone has mentioned this, but 20 trucks is a lot of parking. This isn’t a business you can run from your home unless you have significant property with a massive power service. If you don’t, expect to pay $50,000+ just getting your power situation sorted.

I happen to own 4+ acres just outside the city limits, but I only have 400 AMP service (I might even have to add another panel to access the full 400A). If you assume my house is going need ~100A, that means I have 300A for a business.

I think a Model 3/Y fleet would be more practical. I could probably run half again as many cars. Maybe a mixed fleet with 1-2 Cybertrucks and the rest lighter vehicles which use less power.
 

Crissa

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There is an app called gas buddy that provides a map for the prices at stations. I used it a lot when driving my diesel VW. I hope there will be something similar for charging. There may be one already.
Plugshare.

Tho speed of charging is usually more important than price.

-Crissa
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