GM Adopting NACS Tesla Charge Ports on Its Vehicles Starting 2025!

[Greshnab]

Your second point " • Federal purchase credit incentives for EVs paid for by all of us (in US), for years" refers
I don't understand the point you are trying to make. The previous incentive to which you refer applied only for the first 200000 vehicles sold. Both GM and Tesla passed this mark many years ago and were therefore excluded from this tax incentive.
We had the absurd situation where your and my tax $ were being spent subsidising non-USA manufacturers to the detriment of USA companies'!!!
I really, really resented that. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!
That was the most absurd situation and thank God the present incentives changed all that.

I believe that is the first 200,000 sold in the US PER MODEL.. not per maker... so for tesla that is what 800,000 cars for the 4 main brands times 7k each.. about 5 billion of funding.

and keep in mind he was responding to someone complaining about how them buying a tesla built out the tesla charging network and they shouldn't have to share with other makes. The point was.. no your Tesla purchase paid for minimum parts of it.. federal and state tax credits paid for most of it.

 

[HaulingAss]

Spectacular news. But, doesn't this mean GM and Ford no longer have any incentive to build out their own charge networks? They can just rely on Tesla for that from here on out.

I suppose that's ok as long as Tesla builds enough new chargers to keep up with total EV sales in NA. To do that affordably, Tesla will need major investment from the Feds, or the OEM's, and/or they'll need to charge a higher rate to non-tesla customers. Wish we knew all the details of how this is all going to shake out.

You are not thinking about this correctly if you think these two deals with Ford and GM will make it difficult for Tesla to build out their Supercharger network quickly enough.

For one, Ford and GM combined only build a small fraction of the EV's Tesla builds so that will not change anything.

Secondly, the first point above is not going to change materially in the foreseeable future because neither GM nor Ford can build EV's profitably (until 2030 by Mary Barra's optimistic guess). It's corporate suicide to ramp to high volume when you lose money on every EV sale. This means Tesla will continue to grow EV production faster than Ford and GM combined. Charging Ford and GM EV's will be a very small percentage of all cars charged so it is hardly a burden on Tesla to accomodate them.

Thirdly, Tesla already has so many more EV's than the other two combined that the additional load is nearly insignificant.

Fourth, Tesla funds the Supercharger Network expansion with "profits" from selling fast charging service. They charge more than the electricity costs so they can continue to expand. The extra EV's from Ford and GM will simply allow them to expand faster.

Fifth, Superchargers are built by subcontractors who bid on the jobs, not Tesla employees. Tesla just needs to put more jobs out to bid. Superchargers are cheap to install compared to third party fast DC chargers (and no comparison to hydrogen filling stations, LOL!).

Tesla does not need federal money to ramp the pace of Supercharger rollouts to accomodate Ford and GM EV's. While Ford and GM EV drivers will pay the same rate as Tesla drivers, you can be sure there is a per vehicle royalty paid by GM and Ford for every EV they sell that is compatible with the Supercharger Network. This should be point #6.

Ford and GM made the right decision to cave in like this but I'm not sure it will be enough to stave off their ultimate failure. The are ill-equipped to sell EV's at a profit for years to come. One of two things will happen;

1) They are able to last until they become profitable with EV sales
2) They are not able to last and go bankrupt and/or are re-organized/bought out under bankruptcy.

In either case, Tesla will have very good margins as legacy struggles to make them efficiently enough to achieve low pricing. The high prices legacy auto will need to charge for EV's just to avoid financial collapse will mean Tesla will still only be competing with gas vehicles, not other EV's Gas vehicles will cost more to produce as sales and production volumes fall so this is not difficult competition.

Tesla is sitting in an enviable position and there is nothing the rest can do to neutralize that. They would like to, but they are woefully under-equipped to do so. It's literally impossible. Mary Barra recently admitted to what I've been saying for years. It will take them years (and that's in the most optimistic scenario that assumes Tesla does not continue to expand and improve efficiencies (which is pretty much a given).

It's funny how people are finally waking up to the fact that it's the large OEMs that are the underdogs, not Tesla. In my opinion, the share prices of GM and Ford stock are still too high for an informed investor to want to take the risk. Tesla has gained their enviable position not by rhetoric, cheating, lying and gamesmanship, no, they gained it by knowledgeable, correct thinking, very hard work and by being the strongest team. Excellent engineering doesn't grow on trees, you have to make it happen. It's long, hard work and you have to know where you are going and how to get there efficiently. Legacy auto, with all their market presence, experience and supossed know-how and other advantages, has has blown it big-time by poor management who made unwarranted assumptions that were not supported by the actual facts.

Legacy auto are the losers and new car buyers are the eventual winners. Change is good when it is based on getting more value for your money. That's how Tesla is winning this game. Only the truely blind cannot see it now. Even Mary Barra can see it now. Farley (Ford) and Diess (ex-VW) could see it years ago but change is harder than you might think.

 

[HaulingAss]

The big three are doing this to out pressure on Tesla from regulators.

Pretty crafty.

No, GM and Ford are doing this because they finally saw the true scope of the challenges their companies face. They are doing it as an act of desperation, their only hope to survive. In football it's called a "Hail Mary". Let's hope Mary can pull it off. I think Farley has a better chance, but you don't want to bet on either of them, at least not with real money.

 

[HaulingAss]

"Tesla better be getting paid adequately for supercharger use by other brands"

Yes they are.
They are getting a fortune in Federal funds to expand the existing charging network.
We are getting the network hugely enlarged by courtesy of Federal funding.
Yes, we will have to share with other brands but there will be hugely more Super Chargers as a result of the Federal funding.

I don't think that's true. The Federal funding came with strings attached. I think these two agreements change everything. The federal funding rules might have to be re-written to accomodate the changed landscape.

In any case, to date, Tesla has largely built out the Supercharger network with their own funds. Yes, it requires investment, but Tesla knows it is not lost investment, it will pay for itself over time (from Supercharging profits) and then some. These deals accelerate that somewjhat by increasing the user base slightly above what it would have been. It remains to be seen if Tesla will be able to harvest substantial federal money in addition.

 

[HaulingAss]

I believe that is the first 200,000 sold in the US PER MODEL.. not per maker... so for tesla that is what 800,000 cars for the 4 main brands times 7k each.. about 5 billion of funding.

and keep in mind he was responding to someone complaining about how them buying a tesla built out the tesla charging network and they shouldn't have to share with other makes. The point was.. no your Tesla purchase paid for minimum parts of it.. federal and state tax credits paid for most of it.

This is very wrong. The original federal tax credits for the purchase of EV's had a cutoff defined by the sale of 200,000 EV's PER MANUFACTURER, not per model.

And, interestingly enough, Tesla did not become strongly profitable until their volumes rose high enough that Tesla's received zero federal tax credits. Tesla has made many more cars that didn't qualify for the $7,500 credit, than those that did.

Of course now the credits are back in a new form and Tesla is well-positioned to take excellent advantage of them. But know this - Tesla did not lobby for the credits to be re-instated, in fact, Elon believes there should be no EV tax credits, that free market capitalism should be allowed to play out without governmental distortions. But he's not stupid, so he's going to optimize the production to take maximum advantage of the existing credits, just as he did with the credits that expired.

 

[Greshnab]

This is very wrong. The original federal tax credits for the purchase of EV's had a cutoff defined by the sale of 200,000 EV's PER MANUFACTURER, not per model.

And, interestingly enough, Tesla did not become strongly profitable until their volumes rose high enough that Tesla's received zero federal tax credits. Tesla has made many more cars that didn't qualify for the $7,500 credit, than those that did.

Of course now the credits are back in a new form and Tesla is well-positioned to take excellent advantage of them. But know this - Tesla did not lobby for the credits to be re-instated, in fact, Elon believes there should be no EV tax credits, that free market capitalism should be allowed to play out without governmental distortions. But he's not stupid, so he's going to optimize the production to take maximum advantage of the existing credits, just as he did with the credits that expired.

original which took em awhile.. then they extended it several times.. bottom line the model Y i buy this yea is STILL eligible even thought it is the fastest selling vehicle in the world.

 

[HaulingAss]

original which took em awhile.. then they extended it several times.. bottom line the model Y i buy this yea is STILL eligible even thought it is the fastest selling vehicle in the world.

That's what I said. It's not Tesla's fault the federal government is throwing money at Tesla to do what they would be doing anyway!

 

[Luke42]

I want assurances they will not become a parasitic brand of the Tesla supercharger network. With the money they've been giving to the MSM and dealer networks over the years, they could've already built their own supercharger networks and more EV progress to rival Tesla's by now, so I still see some potential problems with trust in these 'partnerships'.

Look no further than the per-kWh charges at Superchargers.

The majority of my Supercharging has been at $0.44/kWh.

My home electricity costs about 1/3rd that, so Tesla's markup can be as high as 200% (300% of their costs), assuming they're paying retail prices for electricity -- but they're likely paying industrial rates instead.

While I don't know what Tesla's fixed costs for Superchargers look like, their marginal costs give them plenty of room to work with.

Tesla will be fine here.

I'm more worried about the Tesla car brand being destroyed by the CEO picking political fights with his core customers than I am about whether the charging network will be profitable.

 

[charliemagpie]

maybe not the best adjective

The sinking of TOYOTA 2032

 

[FarAway]

This HAD to happen.

Can you imagine the mess if you could only fill up your GM vehicles at Exxon and your Fords at Shell stations because each auto manufacturer required different pump nozzles?

It will be interesting to see how long before the other manufacturers adopt the default TESLA standard; and if it can happen without a government mandate.

 

[ÆCIII]

"You did it Mary!" ?‍? "You led!" (following from behind Ford ?) "...and it mattered!" ?

- ÆCIII

 

[cvalue13]

The previous incentive to which you refer applied only for the first 200000 vehicles sold. Both GM and Tesla passed this mark many years ago and were therefore excluded from this tax incentive.

I’m referring to those 200,000 vehicles

the 200,000th vehicle sold (July 2018), plus the 6months of trailing incentives of FY sales thereafter (through Dec 31 2018), plus the subsequent phase-down year (to end of 2019) = the first ~10 years of Tesla’s existence


Arguably some mission-critical years.

 

[Richard V.]

"You did it Mary!" ?‍? "You led!" (from behind ?) "...and it mattered!" ?

- ÆCIII

 

[Crimson_Fate]

, with giving Ford and GM access to Tesla prices for charging. It could make the other charging networks play nice on pricing.

My Bet is that Ford and GM will have access to Tesla Prices but because it will flow through their interface they will take a small "Service fee per KW"

 

[rudedawg78]

My Bet is that Ford and GM will have access to Tesla Prices but because it will flow through their interface they will take a small "Service fee per KW"

In August, Tesla announced a "membership program" for non-tesla EVs. If they become a member, then they will have a lower price per kWh.