埃隆·马斯克的增压器混乱可能会减缓电动汽车的转型。但这不是必须的。

特斯拉正在对电动汽车充电踩刹车。行业分析师告诉 InsideEVs，这为竞争对手创造了机会。

美国东部时间 2024 年 5 月 3 日下午5:00

作者：蒂姆·莱文

https://cdn.motor1.com/images/mgl/1ZK6p3/s3/tesla-model-x-supercharger.jpg

本周早些时候，埃隆·马斯克醒悟并选择了暴力。比平时更多。周二，他似乎解雇了特斯拉所有电动汽车充电部门，并表示该汽车制造商将大幅放慢新超级充电站的推出速度。

这让包括高级管理人员在内的数百名员工感到震惊，他们通过一封冷冰冰的深夜电子邮件得知自己被解雇了。这给其他汽车制造商正在进行的计划蒙上了一层不确定性，这些计划是将特斯拉的充电连接器设计集成到他们的汽车中，并让客户能够访问庞大的超级充电网络。这对特斯拉本身来说几乎没有意义，特斯拉长期以来一直以拥有最好的充电网络作为主要卖点。为什么要如此严厉地从一个它轻而易举地占据主导地位、而且它能赚很多钱的行业中撤退呢？ 

 

特斯拉对超级充电踩刹车

本周，埃隆·马斯克突然解雇了特斯拉的整个超级充电部门。特斯拉运营着美国最大、而且据许多人认为最好的电动汽车充电网络。现在，在充电焦虑导致人们不愿购买电动汽车之际，该公司正在放慢新充电站的推出速度。 

原文阅读

Elon Musk’s Supercharger Chaos Could Slow The EV Transition. But It Doesn’t Have To.

Tesla is pumping the brakes on EV charging. That creates opportunities for competitors, industry analysts told InsideEVs.

May 3, 2024 at 5:00pm ET

By: Tim Levin

Earlier this week, Elon Musk woke up and chose violence. More than usual. On Tuesday, he laid off seemingly all of Tesla’s electric vehicle charging division and said the automaker would drastically slow down its rollout of new Supercharger stations.

It came as a shock to hundreds of employees, including top charging executives, who found out they were laid off via a cold, late-night email. It casts a cloud of uncertainty over other automakers’ ongoing plans to integrate Tesla’s charging connector design into their cars and give customers access to the vast Supercharger network. It barely makes sense for Tesla itself, which long boasted the best charging network around as a major selling point. Why retreat so severely from an industry it handily dominates, and one that it makes good money at? 

Get Fully Charged

Tesla pumps the brakes on Supercharging

This week, Elon Musk suddenly laid off Tesla's entire Supercharger division. Tesla operates the largest and, according to many, best EV charging network in the country. Now it's slowing down the rollout of new stations during a time when anxiety around charging is keeping people from buying EVs. 

More broadly, selling the public on EVs necessitates installing more chargers, not fewer. Anxiety around charging—where to do it, how long it takes, etc.—remains one of the top deterrents keeping people from ditching fossil fuels. News that the country’s biggest charging network is pumping the brakes on expansion and cleaning house could give car buyers even more pause, industry analysts say. Especially given that negative headlines around the health of Tesla and the EV industry at large have swirled for months now. 

“It’s just more noise and a reason to say ‘No,’” Loren McDonald, CEO of the EV industry consultancy EVAdoption, told InsideEVs. “In the end, that could be the biggest impact of this.”

But realistically, McDonald says, Tesla slowing down on charger deployment shouldn’t scare away potential EV buyers for a few reasons. 

Were you impacted by Tesla's layoffs?

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If you were impacted by Tesla's recent layoffs, or have information to share, contact the author at tim.levin@insideevs.com from a non-work device. We are happy to speak anonymously and securely.

Tesla isn’t throwing in the towel completely, according to a tweet from Musk. (In a testament to Tesla’s unparalleled weirdness, the billionaire’s X account serves as both a reliable source of right-wing memes and the company’s de facto press office.) Rather, he says Tesla will focus on expanding current station locations over erecting new ones. So there’s still some growth planned, just not nearly as much. 

 

Moreover, Tesla has already built out a vast network of fast chargers where most EV buyers live, McDonald said. Tesla began investing in charging infrastructure more than a decade ago to ensure its earliest customers could conveniently refuel. Today, it dwarfs rival charging networks. 

 

BP is among many companies making large investments in EV charging. 

Tesla’s move could hurt the uptake of electric cars given the public’s hesitancy around charging, said Corey Cantor, an EV analyst at BloombergNEF. But it also creates opportunities for competitors who could never have dreamed of taking on the Supercharger empire before. 

“I think that in the short term, it definitely can harm. In the long term, it doesn't have to,” Cantor said. “It really depends on what people step up and do at these different companies.”

McDonald, who advises charging companies, also sees an opening for Tesla’s rivals. With Tesla seemingly retreating, other charging firms may see better utilization of their new chargers and less competition for prime real estate, he said. Fast-charging is a “horrendous business,” he said, since the up-front investments are so high—he ballparks it at $1 million per station—and it takes four or five years for a location to break even. Tesla backing off retreat could make things that much easier. 

窗体底端

He said it’s possible that other EV charging players will accelerate their investments in the wake of all this. Companies from Walmart to BP to Ionna, a new charging network created by seven large automakers, are already planning big investments in EV charging to meet growing demand. Not to mention, hundreds of the most skilled people in the business are now looking for work. 

Some firms are already swooping in to pick up where Tesla left off. Revel, the ride-hailing and EV infrastructure startup, is considering locations in New York that Tesla recently backed out of. “Tesla has left some really good sites on the table,” Frank Reig, Revel’s CEO and co-founder, told InsideEVs in a recent interview. 

Revel, which operates charging stations in New York City, is looking at sites that Tesla has abandoned. 

McDonald said that one of his clients, which ranks among the country’s largest charging operators, asked him for a list of sites Tesla won funding for through the Biden Administration’s National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program. Tesla could pull out of those projects, releasing millions of dollars in funding. That funding would then go to other bidders.

To be sure, there are also legitimate reasons for concern among EV owners and future buyers. Ex-Tesla employees told InsideEVs that the layoffs could deal a blow to the Supercharger network’s legendary reliability. Non-Tesla chargers are often broken or clunky to use, but Superchargers seem to just work. 

Ford was the first automaker to strike a deal to use Tesla's chargers, and access (via an adapter) opened in March. 

Most automakers have struck deals with Tesla to switch over to the Tesla-designed North American Charging Standard (NACS) for their future vehicles. That would give their customers access to some 15,000 Tesla Supercharger stalls they couldn’t use before. Now that Tesla’s charging division is effectively dissolved, it’s unclear how smooth that transition will be. There are countless software integration hurdles to be cleared there alone. Will Volkswagen, Ford and Chevrolet owners be able to seamlessly use Superchargers in the near term? That new selling point for buying an EV is now a big fat question mark. 

And even if other players step up, filling the vacuum in growth that Tesla is leaving behind will be a massive undertaking. Tesla has consistently installed more plugs than all U.S. rivals combined. BloombergNEF estimates that by 2030 North America will need 400,000 high-powered chargers to serve a fleet of 40 million battery-powered vehicles. The country is nowhere close to that yet, and Tesla’s move certainly doesn’t help.

Contact the author: tim.levin@insideevs.com

 

TOP COMMENTS

EJD4 mai 2024, 12:07

The more I think about Tesla axing the entire Supercharger team, I wonder if it may tie into the Tesla NACS connector being officially standardized by SAE, and now is the J3400. Which is now being installed on new and existing non-Tesla chargers.

Elon may have thought that by allowing GM, Ford, Rivian…. etc. access to their network of chargers, that would eventually make them the only-game-in-town that everyone would need to come to. And now since it has been standardized, all the competitors EVs can go elsewhere. Musk may have thought – “Why should we be investing in all of this, when others can do it with their resources.”

Solarman24 mai 2024, 23:31

Musk may have thought – “Why should we be investing in all of this, when others can do it with their resources.”

I'd call this a 'bad question' and position to ponder. This is coming from a man who has admitted to micro-dosing on Ketamine to calm his mind. There have been "many" great people over the centuries that have had mental and or mental and drug problems. Sooner or later it is about the dope, not the hope. A relatively recent instance would be the life and times of Howard Hughes. This all could play out as legacy auto could go back to the J1772 CCS-1 connector and have an adapter for NACS designed, Ford has already done this and is offering it to customers now.

timlevin4 mai 2024, 23:17

I think this is a big part of it. Now that any charging network can install NACS plugs and any carmaker can use them (someday soon), the incentive to invest heavily in new Superchargers is mostly gone. We may be seeing the consequences of that.Before, installing more Superchargers meant more Teslas would be sold. Now that correlation isn't so clear, so why not let other networks do the building? That doesn't mean you have to lay off the entire division. But that may be part of the logic.

Locke4 mai 2024, 22:47

'14% of 2,000 employees laid off'

 

'Supercharger Chaos'

 

Since InsideEV's is big into hyperbole, I thought I, everyone's good and trusted friend, would help out the writers with more headlines they can use for repeat stories:

 

·  "Tesla Supercharger Chaos: Layoffs Signal Armageddon for Charging Network"

·  "Apocalypse Now: Tesla Supercharger Layoffs Threaten Charging Infrastructure Chaos"

·  "Layoffs Bring Armageddon to Tesla Supercharger Network, Sparks Chaos"

·  "Tesla Supercharger Apocalypse: Layoffs Trigger Chaos in Charging Infrastructure"

·  "Chaos Reigns: Tesla Supercharger Layoffs Signal Armageddon for Electric Vehicle Charging" (this is favorite of mine #1)

·  "Tesla Supercharger Armageddon Unleashed: Layoffs Cause Chaos in Charging Network"

·  "Layoffs Spell Apocalypse for Tesla Supercharger Network, Chaos Ensues" (this is favorite of mine #2)

·  "Armageddon at Tesla Superchargers: Layoffs Spark Chaos in Charging Stations"

·  "Tesla Supercharger Chaos Looms: Layoffs Portend Armageddon for Charging Infrastructure" (here we have 'portend')

·  "Apocalyptic Fallout: Tesla Supercharger Layoffs Throw Charging Network into Chaos"I combined 'chaos apocalypse and armageddon'

timlevin4 mai 2024, 23:21

I'd argue that Tesla laying off hundreds of people suddenly, catching their partners and vendors completely off guard, making the rest of the industry wonder what the heck is going on, and not offering a clear plan or logic behind it counts as "chaos" of some sort.Believe me, I know full well that the media in general leans toward sensational headlines. But I think we're pretty fair here. Thanks for the comment.

Solarman24 mai 2024, 23:07

I combined 'chaos apocalypse and armageddon'

Here's another 'headline', Elon Musk violates the WARN Act and it 'could' cost TESLA $500 million dollars to resolve.

 

Yeah, it's past time for the TESLA Board of Directors to send the company's defacto CEO that has become the DEO (Doper Executive Officer) using a corporate EAP to send little Elon to the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage.

 

Where oh where is that Tom Zhu, number two when you need him?

Gerald Fuerstenberg4 mai 2024, 19:18

I like the move, Most short sighted critics don't understand where Tesla is going. Tesla's ultimate goal is to move away from manufacturing, and move to more Tech based revenue streams. After getting the ball rolling, He'll now let public and private money build out the gas stations of the future. Tesla already has some very profitable charging locations they can expand on, but the focus should be on developing superior AI systems that we will all rely on in the near future.

Solarman24 mai 2024, 23:14

Tesla already has some very profitable charging locations they can expand on, but the focus should be on developing superior AI systems that we will all rely on in the near future.

In (your) mind is this 'really true'? This telegraphs you have an apetite for personal responsibility abrogation and a tendency towards, technicide, Darwin loves you.

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