On December 5, 2014, I published an article explaining what I thought was wrong with Tesla Motors' (NASDAQ:TSLA) Supercharger accounting. Basically, dividing the amount of revenue that the company has deferred for the service by the number of cars sold gave you about $500 per car - this amount seems extremely inadequate considering the company states "Supercharging is free for the life of Model S."
On December 18, 2014, the SEC contacted Tesla and asked about largely the same issue. Perhaps the SEC decided to inquire about this based on my article - or perhaps not. In any case, Tesla's response is extremely interesting.
Let's go through the most important quotes in that response letter:
Supercharger equipment is depreciated over an estimated useful life of 12 years and infrastructure improvement costs are depreciated over the shorter of the lease term of the Supercharger site or five years.
Not disclosed before or since. Not in the quarterly reports, or the yearly report, or the letters to shareholders or anywhere else - seriously, google it. Nobody except those who happened to read this letter would have a clue as to the depreciation period for the Supercharger network. And seeing that the quote does not appear in any forum or article, it's safe to say virtually nobody had stumbled on this letter.
The $1.6 million of costs incurred during 2013 for the operation, repair and maintenance of the Supercharger network.
This is the first (and so far only) time Tesla has disclosed operating costs for the Superchargers. They have never disclosed capital costs, i.e. depreciation (or amortization as some people call it), which are not included in the $1.6 million they mention here.
You know how much a kilowatt-hour costs in the US? About 13 cents for homes, and significantly less for industrial customers. How much
