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ZBB · 04-01-2016, 02:22 PM

On Supercharging, nothing says they can't take $1-2k of all future sales and put it towards building/maintaining/operating the Supercharger network. There's a thread a while back where someone looked at what it would take and it really is not all that much, and it scales well with volume growth. For example $2k * 50k sales = $100 million. At 500k sales its $1B per year.

Supercharger site build is estimated to cost ~$150k on average (for a 6-8 stall site). The rent they pay is peanuts -- some site owners say the pitch from Tesla is that hosting a site will bring you customers, so they negotiate minimal rent (literally $1/month). Energy cost is an ongoing cost -- but 100 cars/day adding 50kWh is 150k kWh per month -- at $0.12 average cost is only $18k -- add in some demand charges here and there, and perhaps it costs $250k per year per site in energy use -- and that may be on the high side since many sites may only get 10-20 cars per day, not 100. There are currently just over 500 sites -- so that's $125 million per year to operate. Double that to $250M for 1000 sites (since they announced last night a doubling of superchargers in the next 2 years), and add in another $38M to build 250 new sites a year -- plus some maintenance cost, and the entire network would cost ~$300MM per year.

As for supporting the fleet, they also announced a doubling of sales and service locations in the next 2 years last night... Elon mentioned targeting mid-size cities next -- in North America, Europe and Asia (which so far has included China, Japan and Australia).

As for build quality -- I wouldn't call it "poor". There definitely was a learning curve with the Model S. My VIN is in the 11k range, and there are a couple items on it that I would call build quality issues -- but the only one that required a repair was a chip in the edge of the interior rear-view mirror that they replaced during a scheduled service. The other build issues are more related to my car being more hand-built than current production -- there is a not quite perfect curve on one of the rear headrests, and one of the chrome trip pieces sticks out a bit more than the other side of the car, etc. My car has been mostly rattle free -- its developed a couple here and there, but I only here them because the car is so quiet, and Tesla has been able to address them when in for service. It just developed another one on our road trip last week -- I'll blame the dust that got in the car on our trip (there were high winds and lots of fine dust in the air that got everywhere -- even when just opening the door to get out)...

04-01-2016, 02:22 PM	#142
ZBB Relic Join Date: Oct 2003 Carmudgeonly Ride: A very fast golf cart Location: The Valley of the Sun Posts: 12,821	On Supercharging, nothing says they can't take $1-2k of all future sales and put it towards building/maintaining/operating the Supercharger network. There's a thread a while back where someone looked at what it would take and it really is not all that much, and it scales well with volume growth. For example $2k * 50k sales = $100 million. At 500k sales its $1B per year. Supercharger site build is estimated to cost ~$150k on average (for a 6-8 stall site). The rent they pay is peanuts -- some site owners say the pitch from Tesla is that hosting a site will bring you customers, so they negotiate minimal rent (literally $1/month). Energy cost is an ongoing cost -- but 100 cars/day adding 50kWh is 150k kWh per month -- at $0.12 average cost is only $18k -- add in some demand charges here and there, and perhaps it costs $250k per year per site in energy use -- and that may be on the high side since many sites may only get 10-20 cars per day, not 100. There are currently just over 500 sites -- so that's $125 million per year to operate. Double that to $250M for 1000 sites (since they announced last night a doubling of superchargers in the next 2 years), and add in another $38M to build 250 new sites a year -- plus some maintenance cost, and the entire network would cost ~$300MM per year. As for supporting the fleet, they also announced a doubling of sales and service locations in the next 2 years last night... Elon mentioned targeting mid-size cities next -- in North America, Europe and Asia (which so far has included China, Japan and Australia). As for build quality -- I wouldn't call it "poor". There definitely was a learning curve with the Model S. My VIN is in the 11k range, and there are a couple items on it that I would call build quality issues -- but the only one that required a repair was a chip in the edge of the interior rear-view mirror that they replaced during a scheduled service. The other build issues are more related to my car being more hand-built than current production -- there is a not quite perfect curve on one of the rear headrests, and one of the chrome trip pieces sticks out a bit more than the other side of the car, etc. My car has been mostly rattle free -- its developed a couple here and there, but I only here them because the car is so quiet, and Tesla has been able to address them when in for service. It just developed another one on our road trip last week -- I'll blame the dust that got in the car on our trip (there were high winds and lots of fine dust in the air that got everywhere -- even when just opening the door to get out)... __________________ ZBB