They are in no way the "dominant charging provider", probably not even for Tesla's.
What's more likely is that there are so many public and private EV chargers in the Netherlands that the superchargers sit mostly idle and Tesla needs to open them up to try and recoup some of the capex.
[0] https://www.acea.auto/press-release/risk-of-two-track-europe...
Whenever I've plugged my Model 3 in at superchargers in the Netherlands, they're not mostly idle.
Furthermore, the few times I've been to a fast charger they were mostly empty or at least not full. Most of the people at my work (who have Tesla's) also rarely visit them because you can charge pretty much everywhere. No need to for a detour if you can just charge at your destination or at home.
Granted, this is still anecdotal, but would Tesla open their superchargers if they didn't have excess capacity? I think probably not, and therefor my theory seems more likely than trying to build a charging monopoly in the country with the most chargers in the EU.
For a petrol station. There's nothing to cannibalize. They can either watch all the EVs drive past to the next charging + pit stop opportunity or accommodate those customers and have them in their shops, rest rooms, restaurants, etc. Petrol isn't their core business in any case.
Easy choice if you want the business. The rest is just economical Darwinism. Anyone driving a car for work is likely to be switching sooner rather than later; in some countries that process is already pretty far completed with e.g. leasing companies preferring evs for cost and other reasons. EV sales have hit double digit percentages in many countries and the number of countries where that is over 50% is also growing. So, easy choice for most petrol stations. More a question of when and how many than if for most of them.
It’s like saying telecoms won’t provide internet services because it might eat into SMS and phone call fees. So far that hasn’t been true - where I stay at least.
This has definitely happened, worldwide, and it's still happening. Crap mobile internet quotas, for example.
It's probably better to cannibalize your own market share than have the revenue go to a competitor.
Additionally, opening up the network should be beneficial for Tesla's cash flow - not that they'd need it these days, though.
Not only that, but their core business model is pulling a profit anyway.
Cash flow is not a particular concern for Tesla right now, they are cash-rich.
True, but building out the supercharger network is expensive and likely still a loss-leader for Tesla. Opening it means that Tesla can generate more revenue from an expensive asset.
> "Cash flow is not a particular concern for Tesla right now, they are cash-rich."
Cash flow is always a concern. Tesla would not stay "cash rich" for long without positive cashflow.
Their current financial position means they can make much more strategic decisions about long-term profitability rather than just worry about cash flow.
In fact, this is exactly what the market has recently realized separates Tesla from most venture-funded businesses.
Agreed, but they do seem to have over 16 billion $ in cash and other liquid assets (per https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/cash-flow/), and that is after all the expenses they had for the new factories. That's a lot of money to ride out a storm.
Do you have any source for this?
From what I see Ionity (https://ionity.eu/) has around 400 stations and Tesla has around 600. So the difference is not crushing. Plus Ionity has huge backers: https://ionity.eu/en/about.html
"On the other hand, the number of 1,211 chargers"
ionity has 4 stalls per station on average
https://insideevs.com/news/496754/europe-600-tesla-superchar...
"The number of Tesla Supercharging stations in Europe has recently exceeded 600 in 27 countries (with more than 6,000 individual charging stalls). On average, that's 10 stalls per station."
The other thing in practical experience is that tesla superchargers are super reliable and ionity not so much.