I think this is the key. We can speculate on all kinds of possibilities, but the key issue is that Musk has done the firing without giving us a clue about what now!
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The tech may be better than you think. Los Angeles is deploying a portable grid-independent solar EV charging unit that can simultaneously charge 6 vehicles for total of 265 e-miles/day. Sustainable EV Charging, Lowest TCO and Fastest to Deploy | Beam Global
That strikes me as representing sizable solar contribution from a relatively small number of panels.
Iâm not an expert but other sources disagree. This is from the Henry Ford Museum:
By 1920, gasoline retailers determined that âislandâ gas pumps, which drivers could approach from either side, provided the most efficient station layout. They also realized that profits werenât made on the gasoline itself. Retailers instead made money by servicing and repairing cars, or by offering amenities like the âauto laundryâ car wash at this station in Washington, D.C. Gas Stations - The Henry Ford
It sounds like even during the early years of the evolution of the gas station, gas retail sales were barely profitable with most profits coming instead from service and repairs.
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Do they? Serious question. Electrify America was created by Volkswagen as part of their penance for the dieselgate scandal. Iâm sure they hope to make money someday, but Iâd be surprised if they are making money now. They have to spend a boatload of money on charging infrastructure or go to jail. Plus the German tax code is structured such that it is hard to take money out of a company. For that reason, German companies have very high rates of re-investment. I think VW is okay losing money for a decade or so if it helps support their investments in EVsâwhich are also part of their penance for dieselgate.
Iâm a big EV proponent, but I think charging is going to be a significant challenge. I donât really see how the C-store gas station model works with EV charging. Weâve recycled this topic a few times over the years and my opinion that EV charging is such a low margin business it almost isnât a business. There are solutions to this problem, but I think it will be variety of solutions, and probably some things we havenât thought of.
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Looks that way. Serious answer. A couple of years ago, Electrify America bought a number of Tesla powerpacks for battery storage at 160 of their EV charging stations. Here is their news release, though they donât mention Tesla. Electrify America Unveils Its First Application of Megawatt-Level Energy Storage to Enhance Customer Experience - Electrify America NEWSROOM
Here is an earlier news release where they announce the Tesla purchase. Electrify America Adds Tesla Battery Storage To More Than 100 New Charging Stations - Electrify America NEWSROOM
And here is a 2023 article about how Electrify America appears to be hiding the Tesla batteries. EV owners poke fun at Electrify Americaâs âsecretâ Tesla batteries
VW/Electrify America may or may not be serious about rolling out a charging network, but IMO I donât think they would be giving money to one of their biggest competitors unless they are serious and believe the Tesla Powerpacks will help them.
Retail gasoline is probably even lower margin than EV charging so if the WaWa model works for gas, why not for EVs?
You are just pointing to links that show Electrify America is spending lots of money. They are required by court order to spend lots of money.
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I have now read a couple of Tesla forums and some of the people there are upset, to say the least. They say they bought a Tesla with the understanding that the charger network was the best, was expanding, and would continue to get bigger and better. Now, within the space of a few months, itâs open to most other EVs, wonât be expanding at nearly the same pace, and, well, (my words:) Twitter.
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Yup, I would say it was not a popular decision, which may make Muskâs compensation vote a lot more interesting. Owning Tesla stock is always exciting.
I am just pointing out that VW spent lots of money helping its competition. One would think this would not be in VWâs best interests. It strongly suggests to me that tesla batteries provide a benefit to Electrify Americaâs charging stations significant enough to justify helping Teslaâs bottom line.
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Iâm just pointing out that VW is required by court order to spend lots of money helping its competition.
Unless VW execs enjoy spending time in jail, it is in their best interests.
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I doubt VW was ordered by the court to buy Tesla batteries.
You seem to be suggesting that Electrify America bought Tesla batteries for no reason other than they had to spend money. Iâm arguing they bought the batteries because it improved the functioning of their charging stations. Electrify America even say the batteries improve the function of their charging stations.
I donât understand why Electrify America would say that Tesla batteries improved the performance of their charging station unless it was true. Why would they lie about that?
Rather than speculate you should check to see what actual apartment complexes are installing.
Mike
My understanding is that theyâre mostly not installing much at all. Thatâs the problem. As noted in the below article, the public charging companies like Chargepoint arenât going into multifamily residential buildings for exactly the reasons described upthread - itâs expensive to put a smart charging station into a place where youâll only get a single, overnight charge. So EV charging is mostly not available in multi-family buildings, which is why even controlling for income EV adoption among renters is a fraction of that for SFH residents.
One potential described solution is the one I discussed - âdumbâ chargers with assigned parking spaces that are leased to the owner, which recreates the SFH charging experience. The problem is thatâs expensive, and probably not scalable. It also describes the problem with a small number of âdumb but sharedâ charging stations, which is that people donât disconnect. Building managers can fine the residents, as described in the article - but I canât see that being a practical solution that could be scaled either, since neither the landlords nor tenants will find that enjoyable.
I mean, it may end up being that the equilibrium outcome is that there isnât much multifamily residential charging: pure EVâs remain only a segment of the market, and end up being owned almost entirely by people who are either in SFH or have access to charging at work.
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If charging became a widespread issue, then local laws could be changed to require one EV charging space for each apartment in a complex. Because it impacts all landlords equally, it is reasonably non-biased against any one particular group of owners.
Thatâs not so easy to do. As a general matter, existing buildings are generally grandfathered against later-adopted requirements like this. There are exceptions and qualifications, and Iâm sure it varies from state to state - but for the most part, itâs pretty hard to force buildings that comply with the law at the time theyâre built to make these types of changes.
And it would be pretty expensive for most buildings to comply with a 1:1 charging requirement - or even a 1:10 requirement. Their garages wonât be wired for it, and their electrical systems are not likely to have been built to handle that kind of load. Plus, the cost of the chargers themselves.
You could impose the requirement just on new buildings more easilyâŚbut thatâs at a time when the areas most likely to be appealing to EV drivers (denser urbanized metros) are facing housing crises and are desperately trying to encourage new affordable multifamily buildings.
And finally, itâs the chicken and the egg problem again. If you donât have a lot of EV adoption among people likely to rent, there wonât be much political will to get the local politicians to change the laws. But if you donât have widespread charging in apartments, EV adoption wonât spread to the people who live in apartments.
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My understanding is that roughly 35% of Americans live in multi-unit housing. I suspect most of these are in urban areas where public EV chargers tend to be more plentiful.
For a more European perspective on this issue: Do People in Apartment Blocks Need EV Chargers? | Current
If I owned a larger multi-unit complex I would be tempted to talk to neighboring landlords and businesses to jointly host a Tesla supercharger station. Almost guaranteed high volume use. https://www.tesla.com/host-a-supercharger
Yeah, I know Tesla fired the team, but the site is still active so they havenât abandoned the business yet.
On that point, I read over the weekend about another one of largest individual stockholders who telling others (on X no less) to vote no:
KoGuan, who has invested approximately $3.5 billion for a 0.8% stake in Tesla, termed Muskâs request for more voting control as a ârobbery attempt.â
âPaid $3.5 billion for measly 0.8% of Tesla in the market. What is your skin in Tesla? Whereas the Magician is minus -$39 billion and already got 13.4% of Tesla,â he posted on X. âRobbery of ten thousand years! But he wanted 10% more. Brainless SUCKERS cluelessly are assisting this robbery attempt.â
Guy kind of has a point. If not for Muskâs misadventures with Twitter - and selling Tesla to fund the purchase - he would be a lot closer to his desired percentage of ownership.
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Rather clog up the board with another thread Iâll just put this here:
Tesla announced even more layoffs last evening (Sunday night.)
Tesla Sends Layoff Notices for 4th Week in a Row.
Tesla sends out another wave of layoff notices as employees enter 4th week of job cuts
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That is probably true in most of the country, so far. Clearly Silicon Valley is an outlier since most every new complex seems to have chargers as far as I can tell.
And they donât need one charger (dumb or not) to handle the load. We know that people are going to use fast DC chargers when on road trips. But for daily use more than half of commuters need only 50 miles or less, so most people can get by with 2 hrs of charging per day or just one or two overnight charges per week.
IMO, the only way to make this work though is to bill per kwh and/or to charge for extreme idle (non-charging) time plugged in, perhaps with a nighttime exception. The easy way for landlords to manage this and make it fair is by using smart chargers. And since this gives them a monthly report (I assume) of usage, idle times, etc. they can know when/if they need to install more chargers, modify the policy, repair them, etc.
Mike
Interesting read on what might be going on behind what is now a 4th week in a row of layoffs. Whatâs happening at Tesla? Hereâs what experts think. | Ars Technica
The AI robotaxis will maintain them. Itâs all part of a genius well-thought-out plan.
One solutionânot very scalable unfortunatelyâis just to provide dumb Level 2 chargers and lease the parking spaces.