Tesla Got Other Automakers To Adopt Its Charger Design, Now It’s Dragging Its Feet On Giving Access

The news that Ford was switching over to Tesla’s simpler NACS charging standard caused a stampede of carmakers to switch over. Pundits, including moi, thought this was great news and looked forward to more consumers getting access to the Supercharger network. It’s been more than a year, and barely any non-Tesla owners can actually use the Supercharger network. An uncharitable person might see more than a coincidence in this.

The theme of this morning’s installment of The Morning Dump is: Transition is painful.

Polestar’s transformation from Volvo-tuner to global EV company has been a rocky one. The product isn’t bad, but the economics are. It’s no surprise then that founding CEO and designer Thomas Ingenlath is being replaced. Hyundai also has great products, but the brand, too, is finding it more and more difficult to transition to an EV-only world, so they are promoting a hybrid strategy to grow sales.

All of these companies will have to continue to find ways to transition their lineups into more affordable ones as car sales continue to face the headwinds of economic uncertainty and higher interest rates.

Is Elon Musk Purposefully Slowing Down Supercharger Access To Non-Tesla OEMs?

Our first dispatch today comes from my local paper, the New York Times, which refuses to come out and claim that Tesla is purposefully slow-rolling access to its Supercharger network in an effort to stem sales losses at the EV automaker. Why? Mostly because it’s extremely difficult to know the truth in this situation.

It was big news last summer when Ford, and then pretty much everyone else, took Tesla up on its offer to switch from the non-Tesla CCS charging standard to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS). The big shift came after Ford CEO Jim Farley had his ‘Road to Damascus’ moment on a trip around the West Coast in a Ford F-150 Lightning. He experienced the same charging issues every non-Tesla owner was quite familiar with.

The promise of an NACS-switch was the promise of Supercharger access. That is, in fact, specifically what Tesla was promoting when it first invited everyone else to hop on board:

Network operators already have plans in motion to incorporate NACS at their chargers, so Tesla owners can look forward to charging at other networks without adapters. Similarly, we look forward to future electric vehicles incorporating the NACS design and charging at Tesla’s North American Supercharging and Destination Charging networks.

How’s that going? From the NYT:

But more than 12 months later, Tesla’s network, with nearly 30,000 fast-charging plugs in the United States and Canada, remains largely inaccessible to most people who don’t drive Teslas because of software delays and hardware shortages.

The delays have fueled speculation that Mr. Musk was having second thoughts about opening up Tesla’s network, possibly because he was worried that access would help other automakers sell battery-powered models and lure customers from Tesla, which has suffered from declining sales.

You won’t get any answers from Tesla, who refused to answer press questions as they pretty much always do, and you won’t get it from other automakers because:

[O]ther automakers have been reluctant to speak in detail, apparently because they do not want to antagonize Tesla and Mr. Musk.

As with all things Tesla and Musk, your interpretation will stem mostly from your preexisting notions of Musk.

IF you think Musk is a genius, then you might see a 5D chess move wherein the CEO persuaded other automakers to adopt his standard with the promise of Supercharger access only to rope-a-dope them and withhold it at the last minute. IF you think Musk is an evil genius, you might see the same thing working here.

There’s some logic to this, as Tesla, while still the overwhelming sales leader, is bleeding share to other automakers and making less money than it used to on its existing cars. Superchargers represent a great “moat” that makes Tesla cars way more appealing, and it’s curious that Tesla decided to just walk away from it. What happens when Superchargers are suddenly overwhelmed by non-Tesla cars?

IF you think Musk is a mercurial dipshit who blusters his way through a series of rash decisions you might just see this as a side effect of Musk firing his whole Supercharger team and then having to slowly hire them back. Could this be one of the reasons why the software integration with other automakers has been so slow?

IF you don’t have any opinions either way, maybe you just think that “Transition is painful,” as one charging expert pointed out. Tesla has to onboard a lot of automakers and spin up a lot of adapters and it’s just hard.

While Tesla didn’t respond to the reporter’s questions, it did the thing where it coincidentally tweeted something that sort of answers the question:

Congrats GFNY team ramping NACS adapter production to 8k units per week – OEMs are also ramping suppliers. pic.twitter.com/BemW2wV9rH

— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) August 23, 2024

That’s not nothing.

Say Hello To Polestar’s New CEO

In theory, making a car designer the CEO of your company sounds like a good idea. They design cars! They’re cool! They get it! In practice, it doesn’t always work out for the best. Volvo designer Thomas Ingelnath was the original CEO of the reimagined Polestar and, while the cars look good, the financial performance of the company has been subpar, with parent/sister company Volvo essentially dumping its investment (both will still work together and both are still owned by Chinese automaker Geely).

Ingelnath has resigned from the company, and in his place is an exec you might remember. From Polestar’s release today:

Michael Lohscheller, a seasoned automotive leader with extensive experience in driving operational excellence and strategic growth, will assume the role of CEO. Thomas Ingenlath, who has served as CEO since Polestar’s inception and successfully positioned the brand for its next chapter, has resigned, with the change effective 1 October 2024.

Michael Lohscheller, who has previously served as CEO of Opel, VinFast and Nikola, brings a wealth of expertise in the automotive industry, particularly in navigating competitive markets and scaling businesses. Polestar will be ambitiously expanding its global footprint and its position as a leader in the premium electric vehicle market in the coming years.

Winfried Vahland, Polestar’s incoming Chairman, says: “Polestar has experienced an exceptional start-up phase and with a broader model line-up, Michael Lohscheller is the ideal leader to guide Polestar into its next chapter. His deep industry knowledge, especially in driving operational excellence, developing a coherent product strategy and strengthening the global market presence will be instrumental in the next chapter of Polestar’s growth. With Scandinavian heritage, passion and performance Polestar will set new standards for future individual mobility. Geely remains deeply committed to Polestar’s success, and with Michael at the helm, supported by a dynamic leadership team, we are well-positioned for continued innovation and growth.”

We’ll just gloss over the VinFast and Nikola bits and focus on the Opel part. Here’s why his term there is well-remembered, courtesy of Automotive News:

Lohscheller is credited with ending financial troubles at Opel, which lost nearly a billion dollars a year for two decades under General Motors ownership. Opel showed a 4.7 percent operating profit under Lohscheller’s leadership in 2018, the brand’s first full year under PSA ownership. Opel is now part of Stellantis.

The profit came two years ahead of the goal set in the PACE turnaround plan, which Lohscheller helped to create. He pushed Opel to reduce fixed costs, streamline its product range, prepare for tough emissions targets, and work out agreements on job reductions — with few forced layoffs.

Polestar has some interesting products in the pipeline, so hopefully Lohscheller can get the company pointed in the right direction.

Hyundai: Hybrids Are Becoming The Default Engine Choice

We were excited to see Hyundai offer a high-mpg, lower-cost Elantra Hybrid yesterday. It turns out this is part of a larger move by Hyundai to increase its market share with hybrids.

Per Reuters:

“Recently, the speed of conversion to electric vehicles has been slowing. As a result, demand for hybrids is increasing, and hybrids are becoming a basic option rather than an alternative to internal combustion engines,” said Hyundai Motor President and CEO Jaehoon Chang.

Hyundai said it planned to double its hybrid lineup to 14 models as it expected a surge in hybrid demand, especially in North America. It did not provide a timeline for the release of the new cars.

Year of the Hybrid. Many people are saying it.

Car Sales Still Suppressed By Affordability

Here’s the chart that I’m thinking about today:

It’s a graph of this year’s sales, and you can see they’re still slightly higher, as cars have become slightly more affordable. I think there’s a ton of pent-up demand in the market, and I believe the key factors are interest rates and job uncertainty. Hopefully, post-election we get some better signals on jobs. The Fed has also indicated it’s likely to begin a slow rate-cutting cycle in September.

Until then, I agree with S&P Global Mobility’s take here:

On a volume estimate of 1.42 million units, US light vehicle sales in August are expected to be up more than 7% year over year and grow more than 11% from the month-prior level. This translates to a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 15.2 million units, a moderate reading in a market continuing to wait for sales levels to advance more strongly.

“New vehicle affordability remains the biggest obstacle preventing further advances in the pace of auto sales,” said Chris Hopson, principal analyst at S&P Global Mobility. “The current environment of still-high interest rates and slow-to-recede vehicle prices are translating to still-high monthly payments and little progress for new vehicle demand levels.”

Yup.

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

There’s a funny line in Sabrina Carpenter’s new album about a guy, uh, servicing himself to Leonard Cohen lyrics. It’s meant to be a dig, and it’s a great one, but it did make me wonder what lyrics those might be? I’m going to guess “I’m Your Man.” You can hear the full version of the song here, but I’m partial to the use of the song in Nanni Moretti’s great autobiographical film “Caro Diario.”

The Big Question

We’ve talked about Elon Musk enough, what does Polestar have to do to survive?

Top graphic base image: swisshippo/stock.adobe.com