Why do Nashville and Memphis economics differ?

Both are local distributors of the federal Tennessee Valley Authority and buy power at the same wholesale price, but they structure retail rates differently. Nashville Electric Service offers an EV-exclusive flat rate with no demand charge; MLGW in Memphis bills a lower energy rate plus a per-kW demand charge. The difference is retail design, not generation cost.

Does Tennessee tax a charging business if it has no income tax?

Tennessee has no general personal income tax, but its Franchise & Excise tax — 0.25% of net worth plus 6.5% of income — applies at the entity level to an LLC operating a charging site. The model carries the fixed franchise floor; the income component is disclosure-only, like state income tax generally.

ForgeAsset / Supercharger ROI / Tennessee

Tesla Supercharger ROI in Tennessee

In Tennessee, which city serves a site changes its economics — Nashville's utility offers a flat EV rate with no demand charge, while Memphis bills a demand charge — even though both buy power from the same federal wholesaler. ForgeAsset models Nashville Electric Service's Schedule EVC and MLGW's GSA Part 3 against Tennessee's tax stack, with the 7% electricity sales tax folded in.

Model a Tennessee site

What makes Tennessee economics distinct

Same wholesale power, two retail designs

Both Nashville Electric Service and MLGW are local distributors of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federal utility that sets a common wholesale price and resets it each October with a monthly fuel adjustment. On top of that identical input, Nashville offers an EV-exclusive flat rate with no demand charge, while Memphis bills a lower energy rate plus a per-kW demand charge — the two are shown in the rate table below. The divergence is retail design, not generation cost.

The Franchise & Excise tax reaches LLCs

Tennessee has no general personal income tax, but its entity-level Franchise & Excise tax — 0.25% of net worth plus 6.5% of income — applies to an LLC operating a charging site. A 2024 change removed the alternative property-value base, so the franchise tax is now net-worth-only, which simplifies the calculation for a capital-intensive asset. The income component is disclosure-only in the engine, like state income tax generally.

A charging tax proposed and declined

A bill to add a 3¢-per-kilowatt-hour excise on public charging, effective 2027, with an operator license, was assigned to a Senate subcommittee in early 2026 and died there by April — the legislature considered a charging tax and declined to advance it, a more specific claim than a plain absence.

A battery-manufacturing corridor, cooling at the margin

Tennessee's I-40 corridor holds major EV and battery investment — Ford's West Tennessee campus, Volkswagen in Chattanooga, and a GM battery-cell conversion in Spring Hill. As of mid-2026 the near-term momentum is mixed: the battery-cell work is advancing while some vehicle lines have shifted, so the manufacturing base is real but the near-term EV-demand signal is uneven.

Utilities and tariffs modeled in Tennessee

Utility & tariff	Energy	Demand
Nashville Electric EVC	26.3¢/kWh flat	none (energy-only)
MLGW GSA Part 3The filed rate book for this territory records no EV-specific commercial rate, so the modeled cost is the standard schedule. Demand follows the model's conservative convention — 150 kW per stall billed every month, the worst-case coincident peak — so a site whose metered peak runs below that would see a lower demand line. Memphis Light, Gas and Water has not adopted TVA's EV charging rate.	9.7¢/kWh flat	$18.47/kW of monthly peak

Rates are digit-verified against each utility's own filed sheets and update within two weeks of any revision. Full derivations are on the methodology page.

See Tennessee in the US Supercharger Economics Map — every US Supercharger over utility territories colored by the derived effective electricity cost per dispensed kWh.

Tennessee tax profile

Sales tax on hardware: 7.05%
Business personal property tax: 0.84% of equipment value (example rate)
Clean-fuels credit: no program
Per-kWh charging excise: none

Tennessee tax defaults applied: no clean-fuels credit program exists in Tennessee (the LCFS revenue line is $0), entity costs carry the $300/yr annual report plus the $100 Franchise & Excise minimum — the franchise tax scales at 0.25% of net worth, and the excise tax (6.5% of Tennessee taxable income) is not modeled, like state income tax generally — plus a business-tax estimate near $1,900/yr at default revenue. The property-tax default uses the Nashville rate (about 0.8% of equipment value in year one; Memphis runs near 1.6%), and both tax fields are editable in later steps. Tennessee's 7% sales tax on electricity is already included in the NES and MLGW tariff rates. A bill proposing a 3¢/kWh public-charging fee remains in committee, not law, as of July 2026.

Tennessee programs and incentives

TVA-standard EV rate (Nashville Electric Service)

NES's Schedule EVC is a TVA-standard, EV-exclusive flat rate with no demand charge. TVA sets the wholesale price common to all its local distributors and resets it each October with a monthly fuel adjustment.

MLGW GSA Part 3 (Memphis)

A traditional large-general-service schedule with a per-kW demand charge — the demand-charged alternative to Nashville's flat EV rate, on the same TVA wholesale power.

NEVI (federal, TDOT-administered)

Around $88 million over five years along I-24, I-40, I-65, and I-75; an early award round funded 30 locations, with private funding exceeding the required match.

Tennessee charging market

Tennessee carries roughly 43 Supercharger stations along I-40, I-24, and I-65 and in the Nashville and Memphis metros. Its economics are distinguished by a within-state split — Nashville's flat no-demand EV rate versus Memphis's demand-charged schedule — on shared federal wholesale power.

Tennessee Supercharger ROI — questions

Why do Nashville and Memphis economics differ?: Both are local distributors of the federal Tennessee Valley Authority and buy power at the same wholesale price, but they structure retail rates differently. Nashville Electric Service offers an EV-exclusive flat rate with no demand charge; MLGW in Memphis bills a lower energy rate plus a per-kW demand charge. The difference is retail design, not generation cost.
Does Tennessee tax a charging business if it has no income tax?: Tennessee has no general personal income tax, but its Franchise & Excise tax — 0.25% of net worth plus 6.5% of income — applies at the entity level to an LLC operating a charging site. The model carries the fixed franchise floor; the income component is disclosure-only, like state income tax generally.
Does Tennessee tax public EV charging per kilowatt-hour?: No. A bill proposing a 3¢-per-kilowatt-hour charging excise for 2027 was assigned to a Senate subcommittee in early 2026 and died there by April. The state's 7% electricity sales tax is already folded into the modeled NES and MLGW rates.

Sources

Model a Tesla V4 Supercharger site in Tennessee — payback, NPV, IRR, and a 15-year cash flow from your own inputs.

Run a Tennessee scenario

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ForgeAsset is software, not investment, tax, or legal advice — outputs are model estimates from your inputs, not guarantees. Rates and programs current as of research; verify current terms with each source before committing capital.