EA better get their stuff together regarding gaps in the network and site maintenance.
The Ioniq 5 is very impressive.
RE: @beneddeto I’m just one guy, hoping for one perpetual motion machine to work out.
@IAC, my money is on EVGO to pick up the slack from EA and turn it into the greatest opportunity of our lives.
Had to brace myself for a monday Jalopnik read, and almost stopped reading at ‘Tesla is basically what American luxury looks like’…but my interest in EV6 made me power through it. Author’s name is Shilling, I kid you not.
What’s funny is that Tesla could very quickly pick up that slack by putting in new CCS sites and retrofitting the Tesla fleet for compatibility at the owner’s choice and expense.
I’d give $500 to enable CCS and receive an adapter at the service center.
Tesla has to enable CCS in order to compete with EVGO.
Say, for argument’s sake, it costs $500k per stall to install a Supercharger or single CCS DCFC stall.
Up until this point, Tesla has been pretty much responsible for that entire sum.
Now, enter companies like EVGO and EA, that are eligible to receive local, state, county, municipal, etc funding.
Most of those grants require the CCS connector so that the grant money is not exclusive to Tesla owners.
Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, NJ has a $200k state incentive per pair of stalls.
In that scenario, if EVGO wants to install 2 DCFC stalls and Tesla wants to install 2 Supercharger stalls, EVGO will be able to do it for $100k cheaper (per stall) than Tesla.
Assume both companies get really good at rollouts and have their costs optimized as much as possible, and the company that charges all cars (versus just Tesla) can come in 20% cheaper.
As the number of new sites that need to built grow, it will get prohibitively expensive for Tesla to front the full cost of each new site, when competitors can literally do it for half (depending on the locale).
EVGO is the only non-Tesla DCFC that displays their EVGO logo on the Dash of a Tesla while charging. Tesla already knows that they can’t solve their charging problem on their own.
Tesla Supercharger needs to be able to charge any car if Tesla wants to claim government incentives to build out more Superchargers. It’s that simple.
“Technology improvements” can’t get installation costs down much, as a lot of that expense is just straight up wire (and have you seen Copper prices lately?!).
See I’ve been looking for EV6 or Ioniq 5 (prefer the Kia styling). Anyways, the problem is, for like the mid-level WIND trim, dealers are regularly asking $8-12k on top of MSRP. Some do $5k, but most are way above that. That puts EV6’s price ABOVE Tesla Model3. True that the Kia would get the $7500 Fed credit, but since it’s likely to have a much higher depreciation compared to Tesla, the value proposition just disappears.
Kia/Hyundai really need to reel in their dealers. A close friend of mine really wanted a EV6 but after talking to a dozen dealers in the state, he ended up just going with ordering M3.
I’m trying, so hard, to reel them in. Lots of laws protect dealerships, so it’s hard for Hyundai/Kia Corporate to do much.
A huge part of making these cars succeed and overtake Tesla will have to do with individuals that make the shopping experience closer to what buyers want.
I went into a Kia dealership for testing driving a EV6. THis was a Wednesday morning mind you, and they weren’t busy at all. Salesman THROWS me the keys, and tells me come back whenever Im done. Didn’t bother introducing himself, what features cars have etc. I know these sell themselves and require no input, but that experience was really shitty. And then ask for $5k on top
Same when I tested a Toyota G86 a while back…I actually appreciated it, since I had the wife along, and it’s a rather small car.
I mean, I can get you an Ioniq 5 at MSRP without the hassle. There is another way.
The first Ioniq I ever leased was a real hair-pulling experience. There’s no hiding that most walk-in Kia/Hyundai dealer experiences leave something to be desired. I wouldn’t be here today if I had a pleasant experience walking through Hyundai Route 46’s doors.
Rt.46 dealers are like Rt.22 dealers are like Rt.1/9 dealers.
Trash.