Tesla's LA Diner: Charging Future or Gimmick? | Fast Five Shorts
This week on the Omni Talk Retail Fast Five podcast, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Simbe, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and Clear Demand, we explore Tesla's ambitious Supercharger diner concept in Los Angeles.
Chris and Anne debate whether this 80-charger location with movie screens and 24/7 dining represents the future of EV charging or just an expensive marketing stunt. Get insights on what this means for the evolution of transportation retail and charging infrastructure.
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For the full episode head here: https://youtu.be/A11X6MXWL9U
#tesla #supercharger #evcharging #electricvehicles #innovation #transportation #retailexperience
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Transcript
Tesla's Supercharger Diner has officially opened according to Teslarati.com and did you know there was a site Teslarati.com I did not.
Speaker B:Know this existed, but yeah, there's a lot of Tesla content out there.
Speaker B:Should one be interested in diving in?
Speaker A:No doubt.
Speaker A:I'm actually a little scared to talk about this story to be honest with you, but Tesla has officially opened its Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles to the public for the first time.
Speaker A:It is an 80 supercharger lot with two movie screens and a full service 24.7diner that serves a wide variety of locally sourced food for patrons while they charge or even just stop by and not coincidentally.
Speaker A:Ann, I'm curious to get your take on this too.
Speaker A:The Diner opened at 4:20pm because of course, why not?
Speaker A:Because of the significance of 4:20, which did not dawn on me until about 20 minutes after reading that headline.
Speaker A:And are you buying or selling the idea of Tesla Supercharger Diners populating the national landscape?
Speaker B:I'm going to go ahead and sell this one.
Speaker A:Are you?
Speaker B:I'm not hedging.
Speaker A:You'd go the other way?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker A:Like no hedging?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Just going to full on sell.
Speaker B:Now should convenience store retailers and fueling station retailers be thinking about the future of the fueling station 100%.
Speaker B:That is something that we've been talking about.
Speaker B:I remember two years ago at Shop Talk Europe, I was talking to the head of BP Europe about this exact thing.
Speaker B:What, what do you do when people start spending more time if they're going to be charging?
Speaker B:I think it's this concept though is purely a marketing play.
Speaker B:I think it's just trying to get people to engaged with Tesla during a time that the brand is not doing so well and you have some questionable behavior by its founder.
Speaker B:I think that is something that is, is the real focus here and I think a way to maybe try to maintain some brand advocacy for the Tesla founders who are still very positively Tesla.
Speaker B:I, I just don't see this as a concept that's going to go throughout the country, especially like this location right on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Speaker B:And I don't know if you saw the pictures, but I encourage people to go to teslarati.
Speaker B:They put up giant screens, screens in front of people's patios.
Speaker B:So there's apartment buildings that are now like there's not even more than a meter between the, the screen, now the back of the screen and these people's condos, condo building.
Speaker B:So I, I would not be surprised if we see this thing drastically reduced or shut down in the next couple months.
Speaker B:And it was.
Speaker B:It's looked at as, hey, we just wanted to distract people with this big marketing ploy.
Speaker B:The timing seems really interesting given what's going on with the brand right now.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So I'm selling it.
Speaker B:Keep thinking about how you're going to engage consumers in the fueling station, but not with this concept.
Speaker B:But what about you?
Speaker A:Yeah, well, I'm actually, I'm not as hard on it as you are.
Speaker A:I'm so.
Speaker A:I am.
Speaker A:I am selling it in its current iteration.
Speaker B:You know, iteration.
Speaker B:The UFO iteration, whatever the hell you.
Speaker A:Want to call it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, as an L. A tourist attraction, sure, fine.
Speaker A:And, you know, I'm not surprised.
Speaker A:It feels a little overblown, overstated.
Speaker A:But that's typical of first experiments because you can always scale them back, too.
Speaker A:But the one misgiving I have about it that I think particularly is not going to work when you think about it from a user design perspective, is the movie theater.
Speaker A:Like, the whole thing seems to be way souped up more than it needs to be.
Speaker A:And the movie theater means the trip has to be planned, like, and so the trip is going to take a ton of time.
Speaker A:So why do I want to introduce that friction into my life with EV charging?
Speaker A:That seems really tough.
Speaker A:So as I look.
Speaker A:And then the other point about this too is we look to the evolution of EV charging, too.
Speaker A:It's going to get faster, it's going to get quicker.
Speaker A:So, like, I'm not going to watch.
Speaker B:It may go away altogether.
Speaker B:I mean, you look at like hydrogen charging or whatever this is too.
Speaker A:Like, I'm opening my skis on that one.
Speaker A:I'm not going there.
Speaker A:But, like, they're going to make it faster where you're not going to want to watch a whole movie while you're getting your car charged.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker A:And nobody wants to sit and watch in their car and watch a movie anyway, because that's gone away too, you know, and that technology has been a lot better over the years.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So, you know, but the dining component of it, sure, yeah, I think that could work.
Speaker A:And maybe.
Speaker A:So that's why when I think about national scale, like, I think if they went more still, like the roadside Flying J market rather than the tourist attraction, and they tried to populate those throughout the country because, yes, if you're going to take your car on the road, you need reliable charging stations.
Speaker A:That's where I think this potentially still could go.
Speaker A:But yeah, as a current intercarnation, I'm just like, whatever, dude.
Speaker A:Total tourist attraction.
Speaker A:Get your 420 stuff.
Speaker A:Take another hit on that 420 bog and whatever and scale this sucker back, is what I'm thinking.
