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I view this as very RIM/Blackberry like, only Tesla has learned from history. Eventually the competitor charging networks were going to be "good enough" - Tesl

by tw04 3y ago

I view this as very RIM/Blackberry like, only Tesla has learned from history. Eventually the competitor charging networks were going to be "good enough" - Tesla had the option of working with Ford or GM, or letting them dump their combined resources into a competitor (and every other MFG). Sure in the short-term this will make them more vulnerable to competition, but if your only moat was the charging network you were doomed to fail anyway. Had RIM opened up BES/BBM to the iphone early on, they might still be around today.

speed_spread 3y ago
BES was possibly a more significant part of RIM's than the charger infrastructure is to Tesla. Opening the charger infrastructure is just them defining their moat, really. Tesla will still sell cars but more importantly they'll keep collecting usage data that they'll resell to the highest bidder.
- sebzim4500 3y ago
  When Tesla sells someone a car for $50k, what do you think is the value of the data on how often they charge it? $20? Surely it can never be a significant revenue stream.
  - mattmaroon 3y ago
    Well they’ll have data on non-Tesla users now too. The current market leader in the US has about 17% share, so even if Tesla eventually becomes the biggest auto maker, you’d still expect at least 75% of cars to not be made by them. They now have charging data on those 75%. More profitable than the data though will be selling the charges. The rates they’re charging at Tesla Superchargers are far in excess of what they’re paying for the electricity.
  - chung8123 3y ago
    That is an interesting question. If Tesla has a network of cars collecting real world data that can be used to train ML I suspect it might be more than $20 per Tesla in the future (they can sell models to other manufacturers). Maybe not right now but more a future thing.
  - speed_spread 3y ago
    It's not just charging data obviously, it's all the car usage data. Where you go, how fast, with who... And yes, after a few years, the value of that data is worth more than the original profit they made selling the car itself. Its also recurring revenue, they don't even need to sell you a new car to keep making money. There's a reason the Ford CEO declared a few years back that Ford was to become "a data company". Tesla is only showing the way. https://threatpost.com/ford-eyes-use-of-customers-personal-data-to-boost-profits/139209/ https://threatpost.com/ford-eyes-use-of-customers-personal-d... Margins on hardware are so slim, it doesn't take much surveillance to double or triple the profit a manufacturer makes over the lifespan of an object. You thought IoT was about customer convenience? It's not science fiction. Smart Televisions already report on what you're watching, in real-time. https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/insights/ https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/insights/
    - cyberax 3y ago
      > Where you go, how fast, with who.. Where you go can not be inferred from the charging sessions. You can kinda infer the speed, by looking at the state of charger between two sessions. You can't infer with whom you're travelling. Honestly, people always overinflate the usefulness of "data".
      - grepfru_it 3y ago
        Ford will track your entire drive, how you used your car, even the radio station that was playing. All of this data is uploaded when you take your car in for servicing if you do not have a connected car. OnStar recently (2-3 years ago now?) started feeding 100gbps of telematics data on every single GM car back to GM in an effort to determine better pricing on used cars. Data includes every sensor change on the car and even details from the onboard wireless entertainment system (your wifi device) These are projects I have worked on. They have an overabundance of data on you and 99% of you fit the model of usefulness
        cyberax 3y ago
        Eh, and so what? My phone carrier has most of this info. Google has most of this info (in addition to my emails). Ford is in for rude awakening if they think that this data is going to seriously help them.
  - somerandomqaguy 3y ago
    GM is scrapping Android Auto and Apple Carplay, building it's own native operating system to get access to that customer data that Google and Apple won't share with them. To be fair, GM expects $20 billion to $25 billion a year in revenue by 2030. Who knows how much customer data is worth but they seem to think it's worth the expense.

by tw04 3y ago

speed_spread 3y ago

BES was possibly a more significant part of RIM's than the charger infrastructure is to Tesla. Opening the charger infrastructure is just them defining their moat, really. Tesla will still sell cars but more importantly they'll keep collecting usage data that they'll resell to the highest bidder.

sebzim4500 3y ago
When Tesla sells someone a car for $50k, what do you think is the value of the data on how often they charge it? $20? Surely it can never be a significant revenue stream.
- mattmaroon 3y ago
  Well they’ll have data on non-Tesla users now too. The current market leader in the US has about 17% share, so even if Tesla eventually becomes the biggest auto maker, you’d still expect at least 75% of cars to not be made by them. They now have charging data on those 75%. More profitable than the data though will be selling the charges. The rates they’re charging at Tesla Superchargers are far in excess of what they’re paying for the electricity.
- chung8123 3y ago
  That is an interesting question. If Tesla has a network of cars collecting real world data that can be used to train ML I suspect it might be more than $20 per Tesla in the future (they can sell models to other manufacturers). Maybe not right now but more a future thing.
- speed_spread 3y ago
  It's not just charging data obviously, it's all the car usage data. Where you go, how fast, with who... And yes, after a few years, the value of that data is worth more than the original profit they made selling the car itself. Its also recurring revenue, they don't even need to sell you a new car to keep making money. There's a reason the Ford CEO declared a few years back that Ford was to become "a data company". Tesla is only showing the way. https://threatpost.com/ford-eyes-use-of-customers-personal-data-to-boost-profits/139209/ https://threatpost.com/ford-eyes-use-of-customers-personal-d... Margins on hardware are so slim, it doesn't take much surveillance to double or triple the profit a manufacturer makes over the lifespan of an object. You thought IoT was about customer convenience? It's not science fiction. Smart Televisions already report on what you're watching, in real-time. https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/insights/ https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/insights/
  - cyberax 3y ago
    > Where you go, how fast, with who.. Where you go can not be inferred from the charging sessions. You can kinda infer the speed, by looking at the state of charger between two sessions. You can't infer with whom you're travelling. Honestly, people always overinflate the usefulness of "data".
    - grepfru_it 3y ago
      Ford will track your entire drive, how you used your car, even the radio station that was playing. All of this data is uploaded when you take your car in for servicing if you do not have a connected car. OnStar recently (2-3 years ago now?) started feeding 100gbps of telematics data on every single GM car back to GM in an effort to determine better pricing on used cars. Data includes every sensor change on the car and even details from the onboard wireless entertainment system (your wifi device) These are projects I have worked on. They have an overabundance of data on you and 99% of you fit the model of usefulness
      - cyberax 3y ago
        Eh, and so what? My phone carrier has most of this info. Google has most of this info (in addition to my emails). Ford is in for rude awakening if they think that this data is going to seriously help them.
- somerandomqaguy 3y ago
  GM is scrapping Android Auto and Apple Carplay, building it's own native operating system to get access to that customer data that Google and Apple won't share with them. To be fair, GM expects $20 billion to $25 billion a year in revenue by 2030. Who knows how much customer data is worth but they seem to think it's worth the expense.