Um. I did say, “Building more superchargers.”
Admittedly, Ford and GM will be paying into the party. But the “Not a profit center” comment I take as Tesla neither gaining nor losing money on Superchargers.
So.. For this part of the business, they take in payments, pay salaries to workers, build hardware, pay utilities, repair stuff. Net should be zero.
Add Ford and GM: I’d guess a dollop of capital to build more SCs to prime the pump. But the additional users will be funding the expansion and such, just like now.
From Ford’s and GM’s perspective.. well, Tesla’s competitors in the EV DC space are all for-profit companies. In principle, they all have to do what Tesla’s doing and generate a profit to keep investors happy as well. Tesla’s not doing profits.. so, given the resulting shortage of cash, is it any surprise that they’re all having trouble keeping their hardware running?
Word gets out that the likes of EA chargers are unreliable. So, GM and Ford either have to put a serious slug of capital into all these companies to get the chargers more reliable (which would likely be ongoing); live with reduced adoptation and reduced sales for years; or both of the former; while their BEV-buying clients pay higher rates than Tesla once the VC money runs out; or.. pay some money to Tesla now to help fund the immediate expansion, then stop paying generally. No-brainer time. Cheaper, better, faster, what’s not to like?
The only problem in the long term might be that the Supercharger business might blow its competitors out of the water, seeing as they can provide the network at more-or-less cost. If the only option is an SC, there’ll be issues with them becoming a monopoly. In which case spinning the business off with its own BOD or something might be an option.
We’ll see.