The business behind Tesla opening its Supercharger network: Selling “memberships”

I believe Tesla's move to open up its Supercharger network to other automakers will ultimately have a big impact on EV adoption, but it's also a smart business move on Tesla's part.

Here's the business behind Tesla opening its Supercharger network:

Tesla, through no fault of its own, has used its Supercharger network as a moat for the North American EV market.

While most other automakers selling electric vehicles leave the charging experience to third-party charging networks, Tesla has built its own network. This network is now widely recognized as the best, most extensive and reliable network.

It helped Tesla sell electric cars and maintain customer loyalty because Tesla owners could no longer go to another automaker and use the Supercharger network.

But Tesla never intended to use the network as a moat. This simply happened because the company developed its own charging connector early on while other companies in the industry decided to use his substandard CCS connectors.

In 2022, Tesla is set to open its charging connector, now known as NACS, in an effort to make it a new industry standard and North American. Over the last year, all car manufacturers have adopted this standard.

Ford was the first to get the ball rolling, and now Ford EV owners are the first to have access to the Supercharger network. The Supercharger network will soon be available to nearly every EV owner in North America. At first it will use an adapter, but soon he plans to make NACS charging connectors standard on all vehicles.

Tesla Supercharger Network Becomes a Business

It wasn't that long ago that Tesla didn't even charge Tesla owners for using its Supercharger network. This was purely a perk intended to provide a better experience for Tesla owners.

As the fleet expanded, Tesla naturally started charging for Supercharger usage.

Now that Tesla is onboarding Ford EV owners on its network, we're learning more about the business behind it and Tesla's approach.

Not surprisingly, Tesla charges Ford EV owners different rates than Tesla's own EV owners. Looking at the costs of various charging stations in the U.S. and Canada, Tesla appears to be charging Ford EV owners an average premium of about 30% per kWh charged at a Supercharger.

That can get expensive quickly.

Tesla offers a solution. Non-Tesla EV owners, such as Ford EV owners, can pay the same rate per kWh as Tesla owners by paying a $13 per month Supercharger membership.

Not a bad deal. If you use Supercharger more than once a month, you can probably save money by signing up for a Supercharger membership.

How popular will it become?

Electrek's view

There are currently more than 2.5 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads. Most of them are Tesla cars now. So they can forget about their Supercharger membership.

But in any case, that number is expected to exceed 10 million by the end of the decade.

At that point, we'll see that Tesla sells Supercharger memberships to as many as 1 million EVs in North America alone. That would be $13 million a month, or $156 million a year, a fraction of Supercharger's overall revenue, which would be in the billions at that point.

Tesla stands to generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue by the end of the decade from non-Tesla EVs alone using the North American Supercharger network.

Globally, it should be three times that amount. Throw in Tesla's own EVs and the Supercharger network will grow into a $10 billion a year business.

Wedbush estimated last year that Tesla's Supercharger network would be a $10 billion to $20 billion a year business by 2030.