Why would they be forced to do that? Assuming that they 1. Charge all customers the same price at each super-charger station. (Prices will vary with time of day and different super-charger charger locations.) 2. They open up their network to everyone voluntarily.

I don't see an argument for self favoring or anti-trust. What am I missing? Why do you think that outcome will happen?

In a world where Tesla is one of the biggest auto manufacturer AND holds a quasi monopoly on vehicle charging, I think there will be a point where governments will want Tesla Auto and Tesla Energy to not be the same, as they'll hold too many pieces of the puzzle.

But that's highly speculative of course, and it's just a possible development in a scenario where Tesla ends up being incredibly successful in the way I describe. Which of course is very arguable, as people have done for years.

> This positions Tesla as an energy provider like Shell/Chevron.

And I was worried that the "green revolution" was going to be without rent seeking corporate greed getting involved. Yay?

If there is no reward for making superior products, who will bother making them?

There is. It's a patent. Those expire but Tesla gave it away before that anyways. So, I guess, Tesla?

Anyways.. the idea that selecting a plug would make you somehow positioned to be an "energy provider" ala Shell is just awful to me, let alone, but that anyone would seemingly be thrilled about that outcome brought out my sarcasm.

A patent itself is not a reward, its a cost. The value you extract out of it can be valuable, which brings us back to square one: incentives.

A patent is an asset. An asset is anything that has present or future value to a company. So - being granted the patent is a reward for creating the invention and going through the process of filing the patent.

Right.. and Tesla threw those incentives away. So, are incentives the "end all and be all" of analysis? It seems like it isn't.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Tesla positioned themselves as an "energy provider" by building a ton of locations.

The connector being better is a separate issue. Anyone else can adopt that if they choose to.

Tesla did not position themselves as an "energy provider" ala "Exxon." Exxon owns the _supply_ not the _distribution_. It's an entirely backwards analysis of the situation.

Anyone can buy land and sell electricity on it. You should look _forward_ to that market opportunity.. not stand around pretending that Tesla is the new Exxon. As if more "Exxon" like business are at all a good idea.

And what about people that already own CCS cars?

You get an adapter, per the article on Ford’s plan.

Those are only being made for ford vehicles.

I’m not following what your point is. Since this is a discussion of hypotheticals, it’s safe to assume any change in standards would include adapters becoming available for late-model legacy vehicles.

Adapters?

> This positions Tesla as an energy provider like Shell/Chevron.

No, this positions Tesla to be an energy middleman. They're not finding and distributing energy, just reselling it at a markup.

There is a large firey ball in the sky called the sun. Tesla captures its energy using a technology called solar panels.

You call it middleman, I call it platform. Owning the platform everyone uses for charging their car is not a bad place to be. Add to this that they're working on including house solar+batteries into a national smart grid system, and they're producing their own large scale energy storage and generation technology... they're positioning themselves to be a major player in the energy industry.