Report: Tesla lays off entire Supercharger team! [Update: Elon Musk says supercharger growth will continue]

[Cybertruck2024]

So if your phone is broken or has no network, you're stranded.

So if you can't have a credit cars on file with Tesla, you're stranded.

So if you're out of money and need your buddy to pay, you're stranded.

So if your car ages out of network support, you're stranded.

-Crissa

I can't buy my parents tickets to sporting events anymore, they can't figure out mobile ticketing. Rather if my parents are going to an event, I need to go with them.

If gas pumps didn't have a card swipe, my parents wouldn't ever be able to drive again. Just imagine how much backlash there'd be if tomorrow they took away the ability to swipe a card at gas pumps, there'd be riots.

 

[fritter63]

I can't buy my parents tickets to sporting events anymore, they can't figure out mobile ticketing. Rather if my parents are going to an event, I need to go with them.

If gas pumps didn't have a card swipe, my parents wouldn't ever be able to drive again. Just imagine how much backlash there'd be if tomorrow they took away the ability to swipe a card at gas pumps, there'd be riots.

LOL. Had to get gas for the ride on mower yesterday (pretty much the only gas powered thing left in the household). Took me multiple attempts with multiple cards to remember how to insert it correctly.....

 

[Idea Of The Day]

Probably unrelated but here’s an anecdote that had me thinking the management of the Supercharger network could be better: About 14 months ago on Staten Island, a borough of 500k people with only one other 12-stall network, I saw 12 new chargers installed by a major supermarket and highway. It has been inactive the entire time — it never opened. One would think it would be a far shorter amount of time between installation and activation.

Yes... Nor have hey opened the 2 DC chargers in the same lot.

As you know, there are virtually no commercial DC chargers on the Island, just the ones from the Parks Department at the beach.

Looking forward to seeing your CT parked next to my truck for a photo op.

 

[CTforTC]

Yes... Nor have hey opened the 2 DC chargers in the same lot.

As you know, there are virtually no commercial DC chargers on the Island, just the ones from the Parks Department at the beach.

Looking forward to seeing your CT parked next to my truck for a photo op.

Certainly we could use better infrastructure, JC!

 

[JBee]

Is anyone asking the logical questions?

Are Superchargers profitable at all?

There are two elements to this:

1) return on investment
2) power puchase costs

If its low margin, and Tesla is boarding up the windows for a hard time ahead, wouldn't you focus of trimming the least profitable parts of your organisation?

I done a mini study a while ago, and numbers are thin, hence prevalent government subsidies are required to install chargers at all.

Most charging in kWh and $ is done at home, not on the street on a long trip.

It's a weak business model best left for others to do.

 

[TwiztOG43]

Is anyone asking the logical questions?

Are Superchargers profitable at all?

There are two elements to this:

1) return on investment
2) power puchase costs

If its low margin, and Tesla is boarding up the windows for a hard time ahead, wouldn't you focus of trimming the least profitable parts of your organisation?

I done a mini study a while ago, and numbers are thin, hence prevalent government subsidies are required to install chargers at all.

Most charging in kWh and $ is done at home, not on the street on a long trip.

It's a weak business model best left for others to do.

No it’s not. Superchargers should be seen as a loss leader. Besides the tech in the cars itself, the only reason I have bought teslas, recommended them to friends and family is because of the supercharger network. Let’s face it, majority of the fear in EVs is range anxiety.

Sure most of the time you will be charging at home, but majority of the time people will stress about the couple times a year they will road trip, or the few times they forget to charge at home and knowing that there are plenty of super chargers near by to recharge gets rid of that anxiety. It’s just like the specs of the truck, such as towing capacity/range. Only needed for a few occasions, besides the outliers.

If you leave it to other companies such as electrify America, what do you think the user experience will be like? I have used them, and they are not as streamlined as Tesla superchargers. Some outright don’t work, finicky connections, heavy cables and shitty locations in a Walmart parking lot where you might have been blocked off by someone who thinks it’s okay to park there.

Superchargers should not be seen as a profit margin but a loss leader, similar to Costco rotisserie chickens or the hotdog. It may not be making a profit directly, but it will keep customers from going with something else knowing the infrastructure is there to support the product your buying.

And when you fire the whole damn team, you cannot say you are expanding because you want to be more “hardcore”. Just look at what a dumpster fire and echo chamber Twitter “X” has become.

Furthermore, sure I get layoffs are necessary, but to what extent? Of course you want to appease Wall Street, but I would think twice about working for Tesla in the future knowing you have no job security regardless if you are valued asset to the team, since the whole team was cut anyway.

 

[JBee]

No it’s not. Superchargers should be seen as a loss leader. Besides the tech in the cars itself, the only reason I have bought teslas, recommended them to friends and family is because of the supercharger network. Let’s face it, majority of the fear in EVs is range anxiety.

Sure most of the time you will be charging at home, but majority of the time people will stress about the couple times a year they will road trip, or the few times they forget to charge at home and knowing that there are plenty of super chargers near by to recharge gets rid of that anxiety. It’s just like the specs of the truck, such as towing capacity/range. Only needed for a few occasions, besides the outliers.

If you leave it to other companies such as electrify America, what do you think the user experience will be like? I have used them, and they are not as streamlined as Tesla superchargers. Some outright don’t work, finicky connections, heavy cables and shitty locations in a Walmart parking lot where you might have been blocked off by someone who thinks it’s okay to park there.

Superchargers should not be seen as a profit margin but a loss leader, similar to Costco rotisserie chickens or the hotdog. It may not be making a profit directly, but it will keep customers from going with something else knowing the infrastructure is there to support the product your buying.

And when you fire the whole damn team, you cannot say you are expanding because you want to be more “hardcore”. Just look at what a dumpster fire and echo chamber Twitter “X” has become.

Furthermore, sure I get layoffs are necessary, but to what extent? Of course you want to appease Wall Street, but I would think twice about working for Tesla in the future knowing you have no job security regardless if you are valued asset to the team, since the whole team was cut anyway.

I don't have a problem with the illogical fear of range anxiety, and I live in Australia where there are a lot less SC. Sure having the "best" charger network is a selling point, but how long would it take for Tesla to lose that title? When are there "enough" chargers?

But there are a few things inside of this, that people are just glossing over.

There is a real position that there are "enough" chargers, for now at least, to still sell Teslas, so increasing the number SC's is not a priority to increase demand. Sure "advertising" abandoning the charging division, is not smart, but in the end, that doesn't change the underlying numbers.

The points here are that chargers are not that cheap to manufacture, but even more importantly, chargers are notoriously high peak demand, which means that the rate of return on the network connection capacity is poor to begin with, and only gets worse with poor TOU.

Network connections are also not getting cheaper, neither are transformers, copper, locations, let alone peak electricity, so electrical networks are not particularly interested in promoting the headache they cause for network balancing, especially when they are expected to increase the charge rates to v4.

This leads to the high electrical costs being charged, which also means that clients are less inclined to use a SC in the first place and avoid them as much as they can.

The combination of these leads to a regressive downwards spiral, in that the less people use public chargers, meaning they become even less profitable. Increasing EV ranges also means less chargers are required.

Tesla opening their chargers to other EV manufacturers might actually be because they needed to improve Tesla charger utilization, and offset some cost.

And that means laying off the charging team and reducing the SC deployments could well be a simple fiscal consequence of cutting out a un-profitable department and to avoid rising costs, especially considering we're heading full steam into a serious global market correction.

 

[Sjohnson20]

The superchargers for sure aren’t profitable. But yeah Tesla got big partly because they had the superchargers. I can say for me it was one of the factors in buying a Tesla. But I also think at this point there are enough locations. Of course there’s probably some areas not covered. But when I got my Model 3, there was 1 that was 20 miles away. Now there’s probably more than 10 locations near me.

 

[CyberGus]

So if your phone is broken or has no network, you're stranded.

So if you can't have a credit cars on file with Tesla, you're stranded.

So if you're out of money and need your buddy to pay, you're stranded.

So if your car ages out of network support, you're stranded.

-Crissa

I don't think anyone is arguing against POS terminals as a concept, but Tesla does not need to be the one to implement it. Virtually all the other charge networks have on-site payment, so there are options.

That said, it seems to me that implementing POS payment for Superchargers should be simple. A single kiosk per site would be able to accept payment and activate the appropriate stall, basically a Coke machine that dispenses kW. It could probably be an actual Coke machine lol.


P.S. Now that you mention it, I should probably add another payment method to my Tesla account. If I must report my card stolen/missing, it is invalidated for all attached services until a new one is issued.

 

[pricedm]

LOL. Had to get gas for the ride on mower yesterday (pretty much the only gas powered thing left in the household). Took me multiple attempts with multiple cards to remember how to insert it correctly.....

LOL...I left my Tesla at my parents' house so I could drive my dad's ICE truck back to my home (400 mile trip). I was in a panic looking for my credit card as I was about to depart on my gasoline-fueled trip.

Ditch the gas mower! Ego or Ryobi are awesome.

 

[pricedm]

Colorado NEVI funding 2024Q1: $22 million for 46 charging stations.
Average cost non-Tesla DC chargers: $121,323 per port (24 200 kw or less and 6 350 kw)
Average cost Tesla DC chargers: $41,183 per port (all 250 kw).

This is why Tesla needs to continue leading in the fast charging space.

 

[JBee]

Colorado NEVI funding 2024Q1: $22 million for 46 charging stations.
Average cost non-Tesla DC chargers: $121,323 per port (24 200 kw or less and 6 350 kw)
Average cost Tesla DC chargers: $41,183 per port (all 250 kw).

This is why Tesla needs to continue leading in the fast charging space.

Is that for everything, including the network connection and transformers? Or is that just for the Tesla side charge stations etc?

Because MW scale network connections and transformers are not that cheap.

 

[HaulingAss]

That reporting was accurate. It did not say the vehicle was being cancelled. It said the vehicle was being deprioritized in favor of the robotaxi (which was true). Musk reversed himself after the stock got pulverized and reprioritized it.

Musk didn't reverse himself, he said the original report was a lie from the get-go. And his actions since the report came out make the report look like the fiction it always was.

 

[SSonnentag]

Payment kiosks are essential to support older vehicles, especially ones that are out of manufacturer support, and ones owned by people who are locked out of having credit.

I can't agree with the need for payment kiosks. Older vehicles require an adapter that could do the handshake identification in cases where the vehicle isn't capable. Kiosks are notorious for needing frequent maintenance.

 

[HaulingAss]

I too disagree with Crissa here. “Musk needs go” is a silly emotional reaction we see far too often online.

Exactly. There are two categories of people that want Musk out of the picture:

1) Those who want to slow down electrification
2) Those who have been convinced by #1 (above) that Elon is slowing down electrification.

No single person has done more, and is doing more, to transition us away from fossil fuels than Elon Musk. That's why they want him gone. The fake noise is becoming deafening.