Tesla’s charging stations left other manufacturers in the dust

As a Tesla owner, I tried using a third-party charging station once just to see what it was like. I ended up leaving and going to the closest supercharger instead because of how laughably bad the experience was.<p>Tesla has done a phenomenal job making it easy and convenient to own and drive an EV. Other automakers are trying to catch up on range and acceleration, but if they really want to compete they need to consider the entire user experience.

I&#x27;ve said this to loads of people, but the charging infra is 1&#x2F;3 of the Tesla &quot;killer app&quot; EV experience.<p>There were (in my view) three core &quot;problems&quot; facing mass EV adoption that Tesla has engaged with and solved very well.<p>First is the perception that EVs (and their cousins&#x2F;progenitors, hybrids) were slow, terribly boring cards. I think this was largely perpetuated by the rise of the Prius. Tesla solved this by building true performance cars, using the raw torque power of their EVs to assuage any concerns around performance and handling people could have.<p>Second is the concern around &quot;fueling&quot;, especially on road trips. This is obviously addressed by how stupid-easy the supercharging network is to use. I don&#x27;t think any other auto manufacturer will become a true competitor to Tesla until similarly extensive networks are built out by Ford, GM, etc.<p>Third is the paradigm-shift of the minimalist controls and the spaceship-like display. There are absolutely drawbacks to this--Mazda, for one, refuses to have touchscreens in their cars anymore due to safety concerns, and there are instances in my Model 3 where I dearly wish for a physical control. But there&#x27;s something incredible about sitting in a modern vehicle and not being faced with a baffling array of buttons and dials, and having nothing between you and the road.<p>The combination of these makes for a stellar experience with the vehicle, and for EVs in general.

This article leaves out a lot of information.<p>&gt; <i>...none of the major incumbent automakers seems to pose much of a threat to market leader Tesla, which has become nearly synonymous with EVs.</i><p>This is only true in the US. In Europe VW and Renault have cut into Tesla&#x27;s lead, and in some countries VW just overtook Tesla in vehicles sold. In 2020 the Renault Zoe outsold the Tesla Model 3 in Europe.<p>&gt; <i>But imagine if, instead of investing tens of billions of dollars in producing cars with no way to drive long distances individually, Audi, GM, Ford, and the rest each spent just a billion dollars to build a network of supercharging stations.</i><p>They have. BMW, Daimler, Ford, Hyundai, and VW collaborated to build out the IONITY network. VW is also building Electrify America (albeit as a result of Dieselgate). Non-Tesla DCFC stations far outnumber the Tesla Superchargers now.

NEWS FLASH! Tesla pours capital into building infrastructure to deploy vast fleet of BEVs!<p>Details in Harvard Business Review!<p>This would have been news in 2014 or so. That&#x27;s when Tesla&#x27;s efforts to get this right started being obvious. I&#x27;m glad HBR caught up to it, even if they&#x27;re years late to the party.<p>Telsa is getting it right. For their Superchargers, they have excellent location-scouting crews, permitting crews, construction crews, alliance-building crews, and maintenance crews. Not to mention the actual equipment, centrally monitored. It&#x27;s no simple thing to convince rural convenience store operators and building inspectors to install electrical equipment that draws more than a megawatt.<p>Most people other than Tesla customers don&#x27;t know this: they lined up a world-wide network of electricians trained to install those 40a x 240v connectors at peoples&#x27; homes and businesses.<p>They must have imbibed Geoffrey Moore&#x27;s &quot;Crossing the Chasm.&quot; Until the Model 3 started appearing in 2017, their customers were classic early adopters. (I was one.) They managed to turn their early vehicles into Veblen goods (where demand goes up as price goes up). That would not have worked without the infrastructure they built. (I didn&#x27;t buy Ludicrous Mode: it cost an extra US$15K and I would have used it once or twice for the lulz. But I did buy a big battery.)<p>If Tesla&#x27;s mission were merely to sell cars, they would have failed. Many years ago.<p>Today&#x27;s bafflement for me: do electric grid operators understand what&#x27;s happening in the next thirty years? Do they know they&#x27;re going to win almost all the business of fuel stations? Are they preparing for that? If so, they&#x27;re awful quiet about it.

Here is a good article on what non Tesla owners face, not just I convince but often higher charges. The final take...<p>&quot; As I wrote in my review, the Mustang Mach-E is one impressive EV, one that stands tall against the Tesla Model Y in most competitive measures. But Tesla’s foresight and investment in its own proprietary network remains a key competitive advantage, right up there with its edge in electric efficiency and range&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.autoblog.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;24&#x2F;2021-ford-mustang-mach-e-chargepoint-electrify-america&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.autoblog.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;24&#x2F;2021-ford-mustang-mach-e...</a>

Is there a reason the current gas stations, that aren&#x27;t integrated with refineries, aren&#x27;t making the investment for charging stations?<p>I don&#x27;t know if this is true or not, but my understanding is that of their revenue, they make a disproportionate amount of the their profits from convenience stores. Keeping vehicles plugged in for extended periods of time would also make EV owners more likely to venture into the store to buy a drink or snack.

I&#x27;m not even a driver so I am a bit clueless. Are EV stations seriously not standardised? i.e. Is it the conventional equivalent of going to any petrol station and having to find a fuel pump that isn&#x27;t leaded&#x2F;unleaded&#x2F;diesel but is more like trying to find the one that matches to your brand of car? This seems absurd.

Serious but maybe a dumb question. I know only Tesla’s can use the Supercharger network at this time. Is this because other EV cars would be damaged by the power of these Superchargers? Are they designed to be charged at such a high rate? I know the V3 pushes 1000 mi&#x2F;hr. A recent v2 I used was pushing in the 300 mi&#x2F;hr range.

I do understand the reporting around Tesla is very distorted to parrot the cult of Tesla, but come on...<p>Yes, Tesla has a huge lead in charging. Yes, Tesla has the best UX for charging. Yes, right now this is an important consideration point when buying an EV, especially in the US market that is lagging in terms of EV choice.<p>Do you really think that the guys at VW and others can&#x27;t figure it out? It just takes a while. Just like it was with cars - they were behind Tesla, now they are in the driving seat in terms of numbers on the markets that are truly developed (in Norway Audi, VW and others are eating Tesla&#x27;s lunch).<p>The chargers will become a commodity in 5 years time and Tesla really needs to figure out something special as the first mover advantage is going away. The chargers (and the fact that it&#x27;s sold out) are the only thing that is currently preventing me to go and buy a Skoda Eniaq IV (size of Tesla X, costs less than Tesla 3). I&#x27;m sure that&#x27;s changing in two years time when my current lease expires.<p>Perhaps it&#x27;s a fully autonomous approach and perhaps they can really make it, but it&#x27;s really hard to see through the PR bullshit Tesla produces. I guess we&#x27;re in a phase where people are valuing Tesla more than all car makers combined (crazy, right?) and this hype obviously reflects in news.

Anecdotally I travel frequently to rural areas in the northeast USA. We stopped recently at a truck stop for gas and lo and behold, among the semis, huge propane&#x2F;oil fuel tanks and farm feed supply store, there was a Supercharging station. Keep in mind this station is hundreds of miles from any substantial city, and maybe 75 miles from a large town.

I&#x27;m now a Model 3 owner, but back when I had the Fiat 500e, I was actually surprised at how widespread Chargepoint chargers were in the Bay Area. The experience with those isn&#x27;t 100% seamless. I&#x27;d wave an RFID card, and most of the time, it would work after a 5-15 second pause. I&#x27;d occasionally encounter a broken charge plug that wouldn&#x27;t release, or an otherwise malfunctioning charger.<p>Even with the piddling 87 mile range of the 500e, I&#x27;d still drive from SF to San Jose on a regular basis. I could pretty much depend on the availability of Chargepoint chargers in the South Bay.<p>I even went to an event near San Rafael once, and found that the charger at the school was <i>free</i>!

Everyone knows that at some point non Tesla charging stations will catch up.<p>But I&#x27;m still surprised it has not happened yet.<p>Volkswagen is starting to sell lots of long distance capable EV like id.3 and id.4 (at least in Europe) with absolutely zero visible&#x2F;working plan to provide their customer reliable fast charging everywhere they need (directly or via a partner network).<p>And Renault still hasn&#x27;t made a car with more than 50 kW charging (and even that is a paying option...). Well at least their customer don&#x27;t need long distance fast charging network ...

Maybe I&#x27;m an oddity but I&#x27;m 26 single and I don&#x27;t drive much, maybe 2000 miles a year. I order food, grocery and almost everything online. I don&#x27;t see myself owning an electric car. Here in Wisconsin it gets so cold that my gas barely starts. I don&#x27;t think an electric car or any type of battery will last.

In California, the main issue seems to be that there’s no money in these charging networks. Most non car company chargers I’ve seen are laughably expensive (sometimes exceeding the price of gas per mile) and slow. Despite being so expensive, it’s hard for me to believe that they make more than $10&#x2F;day. It’s a few dollars per hour to charge, and most of the time they’re empty. And that excludes the maintenance cost. So you end up with many broken chargers. I’m guessing there’s some sort of state subsidy that helps establish these chargers in parking lots? It all feels like a money laundering operation.

I need to replace my car in the next year. I was thinking of either going with a hybrid (Rav 4), because of price&#x2F;range + extra hp. Or going with a something like a new corvette, because I figure these will become a collectible once the switch to electric is made on mass. Range anxiety, and having to worry about recharging is the biggest thing stopping me from pure electric. Plus I think they should be much cheaper, since its a simpler car to build (fewer mech parts), less interior space, worse interior and so on.

As an owner of a car I paid a lot of money I don’t want other brands occupy my charger spot, sharing with other brands is a very bad idea. LA owners will confirm :)

Imagine being the CEO of a company whose capital structure has IC related debt that amortizes over 10 years, having to report next quarter to shareholders, and your tenure is measured in quarters not years, if you cannot deliver on the topline.<p>How can you responds to requests to buy into a charging network when your response to market forces is existentially reptilian?<p>That is how IC inertia has allowed an innovator like Tesla to come into being.

There is regulatory risk in Tesla&#x27;s charging network. The example with ICE fuel networks working is because they&#x27;re heavily regulated - the type of fuel, octane rating, testing, bowser types. is all set by government bodies.<p>I expect at some point the EU will step in and open up the Tesla network much in the same way they have with everything from regular fuelling stations to phone chargers.

One thing I don&#x27;t understand is why car makers are having hard time building charging network. They already have one, it&#x27;s called dealerships! Give dealerships incentive to build charging stations for their EV cars right on their properties. Then add charging stations by highways, gas stations. Oil companies will likely join the movement to offer incentives to gas station.

Not surprising given they spent all their energy arguing that hydrogen fuel was the future like muppets while Tesla stuck to its plan.

Tesla cult writes articles devoid of any valid criticism and upvotes their own biased view by populating all relevant comment boards typically.<p>The fact that Tesla is avoiding standardization is to prevent competition just like famous single cup coffee machine maker. They want to make this a service that they can only profit from.<p>Tesla cult is knowingly naive.

&gt; In North America, that amount would finance approximately 1,000 locations with 10 charging stalls each.<p>I don’t think this author lives in the USA. 10,000 charging stalls for a population of 330 million spread over millions of square miles is.... pathetic.<p>There would be perpetual lines to use v these 10,000 stalls

It should be noted that is is a US only&#x2F;mostly story. A fair analogy is Uber - dominant in US and some other markets, but clear loser in China, India, Africa and many European markets

Unfortunately I believe that the article is a Tesla pump because it also pumps the self driving yet pie in the sky feature to be that is not available for review.<p>Tesla had to provide charging stations to sell their cars and California provided them with subsidy.<p>Charging stations should eventually converge to support all electric cars to allow for independent operators rather than a price gauging opportunity to prevent captive consumers in future.

Tesla currently advertises having more than 20,000 Supercharger stations (across 2000 locations). I think that is the global number.<p>That represents a substantial lead, and as others are commenting, they combine it with a nice user experience. I don&#x27;t see how it will be particularly durable though, there isn&#x27;t really a bottleneck for deployments of other charge stations, just not a lot of investment in it. Fixing the experience is harder, but gas stations provide a hint that other parties will at least get it down to swiping a card.

seems to be missing one important thing, all the EV owners have chargers at home, someone just needs to leverage this network to make it easy to book a charge at any owner&#x27;s place that available and convenient - if you supply, you can consume, everyone benefits.

Seems like it would be wise for government to kick in with some recommendations or standards. I&#x27;d personally like to see something that would allow robotic battery pack swap outs. Basically run your car through something like a carwash and then come out the other side with a new battery pack.

Cool now just stop using a non standard connector if you actually cared about the environment. Tesla&#x27;s sold in Europe come with CCS2, let&#x27;s just make a standard that all electric cars have the change charge port.

Makes it double sad that Chevy Volt got discontinued and no similar designs were made.

I guess we will never have a common standard for charging EVs. So much for good of environment.

Obligatory<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Ec-LrW1tSHQ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Ec-LrW1tSHQ</a>

That&#x27;s what they said about project BetterPlace.<p>Tesla is a bad joke cult company at this price. IMO it&#x27;s worth $75.

I think they can do even better. Stop charging the car. Keep is as an option, but make it something people only do at home with their solar power and leisure time. Make the battery modules hot swappable. Even better, make it so I can drive over a thing, the batteries swap while I am moving. This means I stop owning batteries and as batteries improve, my car gets automatic upgrades. I bet Elon can not only do this, but can probably even one-up this idea.

I am not sure how big of a deal this is.<p>The main use case for EV is short distance daily trips where you can charge at home.<p>Going on a long distance trip, a gas powered vehicle is superior. With gas, especially with cell phone gps, you basically need no planning or forethought. You just drive, and if you think you are runnning low, you just look for a gas station along your route.<p>So yes, Tesla has a vastly superior charging network compared to to the others, but it is still vastly inferior to the gas station network.

&gt; <i>Yet, despite investments that add up to many billions of dollars, none of the major incumbent automakers seems to pose much of a threat to market leader Tesla</i><p>It depends where you&#x27;re talking about. Here are BEV sales figures for Europe (currently the world&#x27;s biggest plug-in market i.e. BEVs and PHEVs) for December and 2020 in total:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ev-sales.blogspot.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;europe-december-2020.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ev-sales.blogspot.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;europe-december-2020.h...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;insideevs.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;482202&#x2F;europe-world-biggest-plugin-electric-car-market-2020&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;insideevs.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;482202&#x2F;europe-world-biggest-plugi...</a><p>In 2020 in Europe the Renault Zoe was the best selling model and Volkwswagen Group was the biggest BEV manufacturer (VW owns 12 automotive brands: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.volkswagenag.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;brands-and-models.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.volkswagenag.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;brands-and-models.html</a>).<p>&gt; <i>The reason why consumers still choose Teslas over products like Audi’s eTron</i><p>The Audi e-Tron was the best selling BEV in its category in Europe and the best selling BEV overall in markets like Norway:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ev-sales.blogspot.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;norway-december-2020.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ev-sales.blogspot.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;norway-december-2020.h...</a><p>Different markets prefer different cars.