Hyundai, Tesla In Spat Over Funding Of Supercharger Network

They're trying to drive a wedge between these companies and their target markets because their own shitty products can't compete on a level playing field.

On the other hand, Tesla IS investing in infrastructure--at least to get the ball rolling if not to support the 40,000 Tesla cars already on the roads.

Yep Xeranar, and that would only happen if the margins justify it. Never will happen in a mass market.

@Vulpine Dust in the wind. Margins and few takers. For massification? Only with government intervention, guidance, call it what you like.

Did Government build gas station infrastructure or railroads? Why Government should build electric car infrastructure, because it is not profitable?

@Inside Looking Out The guys who built the two infrastructures were not called robber barons for nothing. Try that in modern society. Sorry, but LOL.

@Inside Looking Out Seriously? You used railroads? The government gave huge swaths of land away for free which railroads sold for profit. Not to mention speculators drove the railroad industry into financial collapse a dozen times before monopolization by a few magnates who relied on federal concessions of land and taxation to create it. It's a very solid ideal of indirect federal investment. Gas stations in contrast arose from general stores and hardware stores that sold gasoline and kerosene by the jar or bucket. Government road paving and creation drove the market for fueling stations as you could go farther from the local store on a pail of fuel. Infrastructure is infrastructure, Japan is now investing in hydrogen while we complain loudly. The western world is slowly pulling away from us whether we want to admit it or not.

@Xeranar Sheez, Xeranar. You'll bust these guys' bubbles. Gov=bad; priv=good and we hold these truths to be self-evident and all that.

@Xeranar Xeraner, I do not dispute your post about railroads and gas station infrastructure. But if I look at more recent examples in the US, private companies are at the forefront in building infrastructure, more than government. Example 1: Verizon, which built out their 4G network. True enough, they bought spectrum rights auctioned by the Federal government, and are closely regulated, but they built that on their own. Example 2: Starbucks, which put a coffee shop at every major intersection in most cities. In both cases, private companies built the infrastructure in a few years because they had a strong business case, i.e., the financial model was profitable. I think we are a ways from seeing a strong business case for hydrogen or battery charging for cars, so I am pessimistic that this happens on a large scale this decade. Solar energy, on the other hand, is looking ripe. The cost of solar panels has been steadily declining, and is now approaching parity with fossil fuel costs. Places with lots of sun and high electricity costs should expect to see a lot of solar panel installation in the next few years.

@VoGo Don't know the US case, but this kind of thing (Verizon) does involve tax breaks and government oversight of prices and qualities. Example of indirect government intervention. Plus, lots of all this stuff has as its backbone the internetm built by whom? The second case, Starbucks, is that really infrastructure?

@VoGo Example 1 - Those Cell towers were erected as part of a federal grant and incentive program in depopulated areas. The only reason why a cell tower exists in half the country is because the US government paid for infrastructure to be put there otherwise your cell phone would stop working 30 miles outside of any major city. It doesn't mean that private investment is bad, I'm not arguing that at all, I'm pointing out that monopolized industries aren't going to build new innovative infrastructure from the ground up without major incentives. A hydrogen/supercharger grid would look EXACTLY like the cell tower network I described without the US government subsidizing random stations throughout depopulated zones. Major highways would get them for trucks and travel but anywhere off that would all be subsidized. Ex 2 - Starbucks? What are you even trying? Starbucks relies on no actual coffee-based infrastructure. The Federal and State governments built huge ports, docks, and roads to get their damn beans to them. It's not like Starbucks had to erect some maglev coffee train of awesomeness to get those precious beans to their stores. They're basically operating like a normal business chain system and considering starbucks didn't become ubiquitous until nearly 30 years after it was founded is a sign that it acts just like a regular chain. Neither case is 'built in a few years' since the Verizon towers existed and putting up 4G antennas cost money but was more an issue of bandwidth allocation as Cell towers rely on burst technology unlike land lines. Never mind the fact that again, the backbone of the 4G network is actually getting your internet from the tower to a giant copper line in the ground already owned by Verizon. This is why the two land line telecoms have it far cheaper to build out because they're not paying themselves for internet access while T-Mobile & Sprint need to put so much towards land line controls. Starbucks as previously stated spent nearly 20 years being a nobody coffee shop in Seattle and then 10 years getting huge by invading retail spaces that were empty or building out to serve populations that wanted an upscale coffee shop that didn't exist from the late-50s until the 90s. They were re-entering an easily monopolized market at a price of a few dollars a cup. It didn't involve a huge investment from a secondary industry to serve it. I'm pragmatic with you on Hydrogen and electric, but I'm merely pointing out nobody is going to bet a 500 billion dollar build out (currently worth more than all but a handful of companies and touching on 2-3% of our GDP) for profit. The Federal government or states will have to step in to get them started then the private investors will risk a much smaller portion on the system.

@Marcelo de Vasconcellos I'm always appreciative of getting some positive feedback. I'm not actually anti-private business, I just don't believe it has any interest in solving our problems. Human greed cannot be channeled for good purposes without a tight leash of control

@Marcelo de Vasconcellos "I’m not actually anti-private business, I just don’t believe it has any interest in solving our problems." -- There are exceptions, but they tend to prove the rule BY their exception. They get accused of being the worst of the lot despite the fact that they offer the better product. "Human greed cannot be channeled for good purposes without a tight leash of control." -- And this is why those few companies are the exception. Despite popular opinion, they put a tight leash on the "greed" and look far enough ahead to say, "we can make more by taking our time and doing it right." Tesla is one of these exceptions because there is no legislation REQUIRING them to build out that infrastructure--they're doing it on their own. Yes, I'll acknowledge that they're taking advantage of available benefits, but its the exact same benefits that all other EV producers have available. If a city says, "we want a Supercharger location and we'll give you the real estate", that's not a regulator saying, "you have to put one here". You see, Tesla knows that to make a BEV truly practical, it has to be able to go anywhere in the country that's served by proper roads. As such, the Supercharger stations are currently placed so that over 90% of the nation's population is within the listed range of the base Model S from their homes. Within the next year that figure is supposed to reach 99%. What that means is that TESLA has strategically chosen certain locations specifically to reach those more remote people you're talking about. It does mean that some of those locations seem out of the way if you're planning to drive cross country, but several Tesla owners have already proven it's possible to drive from Boston to Los Angeles using nothing but the Supercharger stations and Tesla themselves drove LA to NY this past winter through a dust storm and two blizzards in just 4 days using only Supercharger stations. In fact, one of Tesla's ICE support vans had to be abandoned in one of those blizzards while the cars kept on going. The point is that Tesla is not like Verizon or Starbucks--yet. They're doing what they're doing to ensure that they can develop the market for BEVs. Greed may be involved, but it's a "smart" greed, that realizes you have to provide support for your product if you really want to sell that product. If you don't, you're just a flash in the pan.

@Marcelo de Vasconcellos Vulpine, you seem like a genuinely nice person, I'm really interested in buying the argument that Tesla isn't just another company seeking to be greedy, but the supercharger strategy argument isn't a great place to go with it. Not particularly because you can get to NY from LA by just using them but because their theoretical service range is within 90% of the population doesn't make them effective. I'm fairly sure they're right in a strictly scientific and mathematical sense, but just because I can drive to one location within a vast city doesn't mean it actually is practical to charge there. This is why their plan is great because it is a self-perpetuating objective, their own greed dictates the need for supercharging stations nationwide for their cars to be successful as you pointed out. But they aren't going to have the funds to double, triple, or quadruple the numbers of stations which is what is needed to make them practical places instead of mathematical. Tesla seems more ethical at this time which is a welcome change from our traditional businesses though, I'll give you that.

VoGo, thanks for the balanced and well written response. Lots of times this kind of debate drops to levels that leads to nothing. As to Verizon, I see your point and agree with you up to a point. But without your federal government's intervention it wouldn't happen so quickly or comprehensibly. This kind of investment is actually a partnership nowadays. Both governments and companies work together to get it off the ground. The government doing it by itself would lead to the inevitable inefficiencies, while if companies went at it alone, NYC would have a 10 G while most more isolated regions would be happy if they even got half a G (to exaggerate and make a point). The model would just not work were it not for tax breaks and the internet. BTW, it was your government and the UK's that developed the model (that has run into great problems and backlash in less developed parts of the world as a private monopoly will be inherently more unfair than a state one). In other words, you need both and we are looking at the same thing from different angles. The scope and size of the US market frres up the government to let corporations run freer, while smaller markets will never get this kind of thing unless under government sponsorship. As to Starbucks it is a true private investment as it should be. I don't really have much to comment on that. I don't have all of the answers either. I just don't believe that any extreme position has any merit whatsoever. As always, I believe the the truth is somewhere in the middle.

@Marcelo de Vasconcellos Marcelo, I have been a big fan of yours for quite a while -- you offer a unique, sophisticated perspective, and always keep your cool. And, you really like cars! I think you are right about Verizon -- a lot of my fellow Americans may not want to admit it, but the federal government plays an important role, often a critical role, in developing new markets or infrastructure. Boa noite!