Out of Spec did a podcast on this recently. Tom (upper right) summarizes it best, starting around 38:25.
Basically, Applegreen Group put in a bid for
$126,000,000 to basically take
full control of 21 travel plazas in New Jersey. Tesla offered $0, so therefore Tesla lost and they don’t just get make money on another company’s property (so to speak) just because they want to.
Tesla has known this for years, which is why they started building charging locations a long time ago just off the turnpike. Tesla is just trying to score PR points now.
As for politics, this bid was up in 2022, long before all this stuff we’re seeing in 2024/2025.