Then, one day in April, CEO Elon Musk axed the entire division, even though it was profitable last year.
With more than 25,000 charging ports in the U.S. and over 50,000 worldwide, the Supercharger network is the undisputed king of EV fast charging. Widespread, well-maintained and fast, the network has transformed the way people viewed EVs, assuaging concerns about range anxiety for wide swaths of the car-buying public. But with the recent layoffs, Musk cast a cloud over the private infrastructure project.
While some people expected layoffs to hit the Supercharger division, few thought it would be eliminated.
“We built the best network in the world,” according to the former Tesla employee who spoke to TechCrunch. “We were minding the ship. Nothing was frivolous.” (...)
On Friday, Musk said that Tesla will spend $500 million on expanding and upgrading the Supercharger network. But as insider knowledge shows, it will be hard to hit that target without a team to oversee the work.
Before the layoffs, the Supercharger network appeared poised to extend its lead over competitors. (...)
Tesla was previously in a strong position to win awards through the federally funded National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which has $5 billion to disburse to build a robust nationwide network of fast chargers.
The company had also been focusing its expansion plans on places with high demand, they added. Where the federal government was interested in improving coverage on a certain route and demand hadn’t yet materialized, Tesla’s policy team would prioritize winning NEVI funding for the site, according to the source.
“Everything was purposeful. Everything had a target,” one source told TechCrunch..
Often that meant building Superchargers at new sites, which are more straightforward to develop. Expanding existing ones is incredibly challenging, the source said, because leases often need to be renegotiated, utility upgrades coordinated and existing infrastructure worked around, all while continuing to serve existing customers. “Your cost per stall is exponentially higher than a fresh site.”
Analysts have long speculated that the Supercharger network could easily become a profit center, much like Amazon did when it opened its cloud services to other companies. But there, Tesla had Amazon beat: The Supercharger team was told that the network was profitable, the source said, even before other automakers gained access.
How the Supercharger network came to be
Tesla opened the first Supercharger station in September 2012 as the first examples of the Model S prowled the streets. Early models could deliver 100 kW, which was a big number at the time: CHAdeMO, a competing standard used by the Nissan Leaf, maxed out at 62.5 kW at the time, and the Combined Charging System (CCS) was still in the prototype phase.
The first stations opened in California, and soon more started sprouting up along highways on the East Coast, then the Midwest and Texas. Within a year, the company upgraded the equipment, bumping maximum power to 120 kW. And within three years, Tesla had a network that spanned the U.S., making coast-to-coast electric travel possible. As the company entered Europe, China and other countries, it added Superchargers there, too. Today, the network supports nearly 60,000 charging stalls on four continents.
Why the Supercharger network is considered the best
In the early years, Tesla Model S and X owners enjoyed unlimited charging at the stations — an incentive aimed at winning over new customers. When the Model 3 rolled out, the company started billing new owners for charging sessions, though the process was far easier than what competitors offered. Drivers simply had to plug the car in, and Tesla would bill a credit card on file.
Today’s Supercharger posts support up to 250 kW charging speeds. Other networks top out at 350 kW, but they aren’t nearly as reliable. Tesla says its network’s uptime is 99.95%, far better than its competitors. Real-world usage suggests that’s not far from the truth: A University of California–Berkeley survey of EV drivers in the San Francisco Bay Area found that while 25% of non-Tesla drivers experienced major problems with public chargers, only 4% of Tesla drivers did at Superchargers.
Can other EVs use Superchargers?
For over a decade, Superchargers were available only to Tesla owners. Because charge sessions had to be initiated by a handshake between the vehicle and the charger, and because billing happened behind the scenes, Tesla had tight control over who could use them. The company’s proprietary plug design didn’t hurt, either.
That started to change in the fall of 2022, when the company made the details of its plug design available to other automakers. (By that point, Tesla was already using the same communications protocol as CCS when charging.) Then, in May 2023, Ford announced that it would adopt Tesla’s plug design, known as the North American Charging Standard, and that its customers would gain access to 12,000 Superchargers across the U.S. and Canada. Soon, the floodgates opened, and GM, Rivian, Volvo and others followed suit. Today, all major automakers selling in the U.S. have adopted the NACS.
by Tim De Chant, TechCrunch | Read more:
While some people expected layoffs to hit the Supercharger division, few thought it would be eliminated.
“We built the best network in the world,” according to the former Tesla employee who spoke to TechCrunch. “We were minding the ship. Nothing was frivolous.” (...)
On Friday, Musk said that Tesla will spend $500 million on expanding and upgrading the Supercharger network. But as insider knowledge shows, it will be hard to hit that target without a team to oversee the work.
Before the layoffs, the Supercharger network appeared poised to extend its lead over competitors. (...)
Tesla was previously in a strong position to win awards through the federally funded National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which has $5 billion to disburse to build a robust nationwide network of fast chargers.
The company had also been focusing its expansion plans on places with high demand, they added. Where the federal government was interested in improving coverage on a certain route and demand hadn’t yet materialized, Tesla’s policy team would prioritize winning NEVI funding for the site, according to the source.
“Everything was purposeful. Everything had a target,” one source told TechCrunch..
Often that meant building Superchargers at new sites, which are more straightforward to develop. Expanding existing ones is incredibly challenging, the source said, because leases often need to be renegotiated, utility upgrades coordinated and existing infrastructure worked around, all while continuing to serve existing customers. “Your cost per stall is exponentially higher than a fresh site.”
Analysts have long speculated that the Supercharger network could easily become a profit center, much like Amazon did when it opened its cloud services to other companies. But there, Tesla had Amazon beat: The Supercharger team was told that the network was profitable, the source said, even before other automakers gained access.
How the Supercharger network came to be
Tesla opened the first Supercharger station in September 2012 as the first examples of the Model S prowled the streets. Early models could deliver 100 kW, which was a big number at the time: CHAdeMO, a competing standard used by the Nissan Leaf, maxed out at 62.5 kW at the time, and the Combined Charging System (CCS) was still in the prototype phase.
The first stations opened in California, and soon more started sprouting up along highways on the East Coast, then the Midwest and Texas. Within a year, the company upgraded the equipment, bumping maximum power to 120 kW. And within three years, Tesla had a network that spanned the U.S., making coast-to-coast electric travel possible. As the company entered Europe, China and other countries, it added Superchargers there, too. Today, the network supports nearly 60,000 charging stalls on four continents.
Why the Supercharger network is considered the best
In the early years, Tesla Model S and X owners enjoyed unlimited charging at the stations — an incentive aimed at winning over new customers. When the Model 3 rolled out, the company started billing new owners for charging sessions, though the process was far easier than what competitors offered. Drivers simply had to plug the car in, and Tesla would bill a credit card on file.
Today’s Supercharger posts support up to 250 kW charging speeds. Other networks top out at 350 kW, but they aren’t nearly as reliable. Tesla says its network’s uptime is 99.95%, far better than its competitors. Real-world usage suggests that’s not far from the truth: A University of California–Berkeley survey of EV drivers in the San Francisco Bay Area found that while 25% of non-Tesla drivers experienced major problems with public chargers, only 4% of Tesla drivers did at Superchargers.
Can other EVs use Superchargers?
For over a decade, Superchargers were available only to Tesla owners. Because charge sessions had to be initiated by a handshake between the vehicle and the charger, and because billing happened behind the scenes, Tesla had tight control over who could use them. The company’s proprietary plug design didn’t hurt, either.
That started to change in the fall of 2022, when the company made the details of its plug design available to other automakers. (By that point, Tesla was already using the same communications protocol as CCS when charging.) Then, in May 2023, Ford announced that it would adopt Tesla’s plug design, known as the North American Charging Standard, and that its customers would gain access to 12,000 Superchargers across the U.S. and Canada. Soon, the floodgates opened, and GM, Rivian, Volvo and others followed suit. Today, all major automakers selling in the U.S. have adopted the NACS.
by Tim De Chant, TechCrunch | Read more:
Image: Tesla
[ed. Good summary.]
