Globally, Tesla has built about 60,000 EV charging stalls at 6,500 stations. How much did this cost? I asked seven different AI models:
- ChatGPT: $5 billion
- Perplexity: $2 billion
- Meta: no answer
- Google Gemini: "billions of dollars"
- Microsoft Copilot: $8 billion
- Claude: "in the billions of dollars range over the past decade"
- Grok: "likely ranging into the billions when considering the global scale"
So if I had to extract an estimate from this, I'd put it at.......$3 billion? I wonder if this is a reasonable guess?
The prompt in all cases was "How much has Tesla spent to build its charging network?"
Here is how to get a reasonable estimate: Call one of the charging networks and find out what they spend on a DC fast charger. Multiply with the number of chargers per site and the number of sites. Bingo!
This is NOT a question for a language model.
Right, it was a math question.
You forgot land and permitting costs.
Yeah there are MANY factors in this. You also need a high capacity grid connection, on site infrastructure above and beyond the chargers themselves, etc. The backlog in getting the grid connection you need is years. The utilities' business models are oddly anti-growth.
"...The utilities' business models are oddly anti-growth."
It's not odd, it's what their regulators want. Hence all the programs for subsidized LED light bulbs and the like.
Musk "charged it" on his credit card
So it cost him just a couple of monthly payments
Soon those payments will be eliminated by the election of Trump as president.
Are you "shocked" by this? The "current" polls have the election too close to call
or are you re"volt"ed by it all?
(Trump's got the power !!!!!!!!!!!!).............s
Ohm let me think about it.
Watts the question, again?
Is this then a leadin to how much more or less expenditure-efficient the infrastructure bill chargers will be?
I'm reminded by this that Donald's two new Best Friends are mainly known for advocating stuff he has been disparaging in no uncertain terms for years: environmental concerns, and electric cars.
It's almost like he has no actual policies of any kind.
Uh, Kevin... you do know that none of those glorified chatbots is a search engine, right? You do know that none of them has the capacity (and, your 1950s-SF fueled fantasies to contrary, probably never will) to evaluate the truth of what they vomit out to users? Go ask any of those bots how many "R"s there are in "strawberry," then see how confident you still feel about those numbers you posted up there.
Perplexity for the win.
how many "R"s there are in "strawberry"
Answer
In the word "strawberry," there are three instances of the letter "R."
Slightly off topic, but I live in Tampa and we just had hurricane Helene come through. Several houses burned to the ground because the Teslas caught fire when the sea water came in contact with car batteries. There were several instances of this (not sure exactly how many) in the area but two of them were basically in my neighborhood. The houses burned to the ground and the families lost everything. The fire department couldn’t get to them because the streets were flooded.
Weird that the "plausible answer/plagiarism machine" didn't have a plausible answer.
It makes no sense to use the websites that are notoriously bad at providing actual information for something like this, what is wrong with Kevin Drum?
Shouldn't this be in the company's annual reports and financial statements?
I know several folks who bought Teslas because the charging infrastructure was in place, and didn't buy nonTeslas due to lack of infrastructure. So Elon got sales on his investment.
PS I bought a nonTesla because Elon is a jerk, so his plan wasn't perfect.