https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/10/toyota-targets-10percent-pro...
But definitely a win for Tesla, since NACS will now be effectively universal (in the US) and Superchargers more popular than ever.
No, Toyota invested heavily in hybrid technology in order to keep their ICE core business alive and then tried to go all in on Hydrogen with heavy lobby to top it off.
They are not lagging behind, they made multiple bad calls, betting on the wrong horses and are now paying the price.
They make cars as fast as they can sell them and have a backlog of orders. "Paying the price" is one thing they are not doing.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/drillinginfo/2016/02/22/debunki...
[0] https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Sti...
The interesting finding presented in the paper are:
[p. 9] "Underpricing of fossil fuels is still pervasive across countries and is often substantial, especially for coal."
[p. 9] 18% of these subsidies go to gasoline
[p. 9] "The power generation sector is the largest recipient of subsidies"
[p. 10] "By region East Asia and the Pacific accounts for 48 percent of total energy subsidies"
[p. 7] China and India together had 3.4 Million premature deaths due to air pollution in 2020 (The USA had 0.1 Million)
From an economic efficiency point of view, I can understand that prices are important, but wouldn't we have to take account of the benefits of using petroleum fuels too? Like allowing developing countries to feed their populations? They clearly can't do this with solar powered agriculture and solar powered shipping.
The no.1 reason people choose Tesla is because of the wide Supercharger network.
Yes, on the margin some people might prefer to buy a non-Tesla car if they know they can use the supercharger network, but the positive experience of the Tesla charger will influence more people to buy a Tesla vehicle.
The only downside is if there are queues at the superchargers because too many non-Teslas are charging too slowly…
But then, as others have said, it just creates an incentive for Tesla to build more chargers and capture more charging infrastructure market share.
But with non-Tesla chargers, half the time they're down or fully occupied because there's one or two stalls, not 4-96 like Superchargers. If you find a free one, you need to download some dinky app and validate your account and punch in your credit card details and then it fails half the time anyway. Gar!
The whole experience was horrible and helped me understand why some people don't think electric cars will ever take off. In fact, I think that the non-Supercharging experience is so bad that it is actively harming EV adoption. So, the sooner that Supercharging can be adopted the better.
NOTE: NACS is a charging standard and not limited to Tesla Superchargers. My hope is that when other companies (ChargePoint, EVAmerica, etc.) adopt the standard and start providing NACS charging locations they won't screw it up as badly as they have with CCS.
Sincerely, non-Tesla EV owner
And Tesla’s ability to do enormous markups only works if they have monopoly pricing power. Perhaps the superchargers, by virtue of being first, will sit at the prime locations, giving Tesla some serious pricing advantages. Or maybe Tesla chargers will be better maintained and overall easier to use, so Tesla may have additional pricing advantages.
But that would fall short of full monopoly-level pricing power, and we see that people have the ability to respond to differentials in fuel prices by driving to cheaper stations. This will be easier in cars that integrate charging prices into navigation.
One thing I would like to know is: will Tesla allow their cars to charge on non-Tesla NACS chargers?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
So yeah, it's a viable pivot.
In western Europe there are Ionity and Fastned networks that are pretty reliable and faster than v3 Superchargers. Non-Tesla charging is generally becoming competitive and usable. Tesla still can offer better UX in areas where they have a good coverage, but other manufacturers are catching up to that too.
So maybe Tesla has realized their advantage won't last forever? Their first trial of opening up Superchargers was in the Netherlands, home of the Fastned network.
They can actually charge for charging (rather than giving it away), and lots of people will pay for it, it also adds to their network effect (more customers for charging = more charging stations they can build).
I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years from now the US government will declare Tesla a charging monopoly and split it away from the car company.
Just asking a stupid question: isn't setting up a charging station relatively easy?
I mean is the barrier to entry not pretty low? Compared to say conventional gas stations, there are fewer dangerous things, etc.
The only barrier I see is that each charger network might want their own app, etc. Providing a poor UX. But that's entirely fixable, I already see contact-less card payments at gas stations today -- other charging networks could do the same.
What is the moat?
It is noteworthy in this regard that part of the EU mandate for a charger network is "without requiring an app or subscription"... "They must also accept contactless payment and provide full pricing and live charge point availability information through ‘electronic means’ such as an app or sat nav system."
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/88920/electric-car-chargi...
https://www.theverge.com/23806690/eu-ev-fast-charger-60km-la...
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/07/eus-law-mandates-fast...
Unbelievably, half the time when the NFC symbol is available on gas station machines it doesn't even work. About the only time I can reliably expect to pay contactless at the pump in Texas is at huge chains like QT and/or travel stations like Pilot/Flying J
Future behavior not-withstanding, Tesla will (correctly IMO) point at the opening up of NACS standard and the supercharger network as a defining anti-anti-competitive move.
Do you think that for an App Store attached to a phone whether the phone cost $100 or $1,000 matters?
Because everyone related to those App Stores does.
For those that dislike these laws so much they would rather pretend they don't exist, I wish they would spend some time reading and understanding the context under which these laws were passed. These types of arrangements, when allowed to balloon out of proportion unchecked, cause massive amounts of damage to the average american citizen and their individual and collective long term interests.
Lassez Faire style regulation was effectively tried and it was an unmitigated disaster for the citizen, who is, and should be, protected in our Constitution while our corporations must obviously be constrained to subordination by it.
1) government funding to the tune of billions of dollars to build more superchargers
2) lucrative opportunity to sell more kWh at their super premium price point
3) further establish their leadership by forcing everyone else to follow them
When there's a gold rush, you sell shovels and pickaxes.
An EV without a charging network is worthless, so I'm sure that a good charging narrative is important to a potential customer. But, it doesn't stop there. Teslas make very impressive cars and have innovated not just the drive train but how the car is made. For example, the cars do incredibly well in safety tests.
Gas stations (very roughly speaking! lots of Superchargers are colocated at grocery stores, malls, and other places humans can comfortably dwell for 15-30 min) don't want to front the hundreds of thousands of dollars per station for the equipment, so Tesla did. Paid for out of Model S and X margins early on, and more recently through profits from total sales. Remember, fuel sales are razor thin margins, pennies per gallon. The profit is on the snacks in the gas station store. Similar with fast DC charging, it is not a profit center due to demand charges (utility charges for pulling megawatts of power on demand) and charging infra capex [1] [2] [3]. But you must have this network to soothe range anxiety, as non Supercharger networks in the US are frankly garbage (as the Dept of Energy Secretary recently discovered on a PR EV roadtrip [4]).
> “To dive deeper into this sum-of-the-parts valuation, we modeled & projected out Tesla’s supercharger network, taking into account access & revenues from other OEMs using stations across the United States. Ultimately, we estimate that Tesla’s supercharger business will be roughly 3%-6% of total revenues, translating to a $10 billion – $20 billion business by 2030.” [5]
[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/features/mckinsey-center-for-future... ("Can public EV fast-charging stations be profitable in the United States?")
[2] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nearly-all-high-voltage-ev-... ("‘Nearly all’ high voltage EV charging stations lose money: Report")
[3] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4497501-evgo-q4-earnings-no... ("EVgo: Not A Go Yet, Still Bleeding Too Much")
[4] https://www.npr.org/2023/09/10/1187224861/electric-vehicles-... ("Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy")
[5] https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-tsla-20b-revenue-access-supe... ("Tesla set to access up to $20B in revenues from Supercharger deals, Dan Ives says")
This description confuses me...
The DC+, DC-, and GND pins look to correspond. But NACS has 2 other pins. CCS1 has 4 other pins, and CCS2 has 6 other pins.
I assume there is some protocol on the other pins. A supercharger can read the car's VIN, for example. And some power/charge-state negotiation? Is all of this excluded from the NACS spec? Do CSS1 and NACS have compatible negotiation protocols?
The CCS1 has the CCS communication pins, a big DC- and DC+ pin, and also three extra pins for AC slow charging (Line 1, Neutral or Line 2, and Protective Earth/communications ground). CCS2 has the DC pins, the communication pins, AC lines 1, 2, and 3, AC neutral, and protective earth/communications ground.
NACS has DC+, DC-, CP, PP, and a ground. Instead of sticking the bulky AC->DC converter in the car, NACS vehicles stick it in the charging station. That means an AC charger can't be as simple (it needs to convert to DC) but also that the car doesn't have to carry around something it only uses while charging.
NACS is slightly more complicated from a car perspective, as it requires the car to switch between DC and AC paths. There is literally no change from a charger perspective besides the handle, as chargers are not ever designed to be multi-purpose DC vs. AC.
> After a decade of being trounced by Tesla Inc., this was supposed to be the year that traditional automakers finally put up a fight for electric cars. General Motors was committing its biggest brands to a new line of electric models; Ford and Volkswagen were ramping up production of EVs designed for the masses. It was, many predicted, time for the automotive world order to re-assert itself.
> Things haven’t turned out that way. Ford’s vaunted F-150 Lightning has been outsold by the R1T from Rivian, a startup that sold its first vehicle just two years ago. GM’s lineup of new EVs has suffered crippling setbacks in battery manufacturing. In July, Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Thomas Schaefer succinctly summarized his own company’s EV competitiveness: “The roof is on fire.”
> With just three months remaining, 2023 has been less a redemption story for legacy automakers than further evidence of their quagmire. In the US, Tesla has been expanding production about as fast as all of its competitors combined. The Austin, Texas-based EV maker accounts for 61% of fully electric cars ever sold in the US, making it more dominant in EVs than Apple is in smartphones.
https://archive.ph/jfnHS | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-05/where-is-... ("Tesla's Year of Price Cuts Exposes Crisis for Legacy Auto")
Additional citations: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-energy-highest-margin-busine... ("Tesla Energy is becoming the company’s highest margin business: Elon Musk")
https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/... ("Tesla Q3 2023 Update")
(2) would have been a terrible outcome for Tesla - all the money invested in existing stations, all existing cars, would have the "wrong" standard.
I dont buy other EVs because of poor charging speed and poor charging network
I will buy a luxury EV in 2025 because of this and look forward to using the existing supercharging network or expanded supercharging station via standard
The customer is captive for 15 minutes somewhere, but you can certainly give him reasons to choose to be captive for 15 minutes at your store.
EV infrastructure is probably easier to deploy than gas, so I'd expect to see a lot of new and smaller-scale charging sites. Instead of four gas stations at the corner with 8-12 pumps each, every store in every strip mall on that corner will have 1 or 2 charging stands each.
Part of me suspects this is why we're seeing an industry-wide attempt to make convenience marts less terrible (i. e. food you'd willingly buy). If you can no longer guarantee traffic from people fueling their vehicles, you have to raise the bar.
> their net profit per gallon is around $0.03-$0.07–after factoring in costs like labor, utilities, insurance, and credit card transaction fees. [1]
Average store sells 3000 gallons per day [2], meaning $90 to $210/day profit.
[1] https://fortune.com/2022/08/09/energy-profit-margins-gas-sta...
[2] https://www.convenience.org/Topics/Fuels/Who-Sells-Americas-...
Given how badly development of the charging infrastructure is lagging, and given Toyota is already making cars as fast as it can sell them, their slow rollout of EVs is probably a good thing for everyone.
Automakers in the UK are flipping out because they recently pushed back their overly ambitious date for eliminating ICE cars, which the automakers were supposedly (I'm skeptical) already tooling up for. You can see how being early comes with its own risks and costs for a traditional automaker making the transition.
None of that justifies Toyota's effort spent farting around with hydrogen, of course.