Did Tesla stop warning about Supercharging idle fees?

[shadownddust]

I've been going back and forth with Tesla on this for a few months. I randomly checked my account and noticed I had a ton of idle fees from charging near work in the Cambridge, MA garage. I would get notifications that charging was complete but since I never received any idle fee warnings I didn't always run downstairs to move my car if I was in the middle of a meeting (don't have charging at home, live in a condo, so all charging has to be done there). I sent them a ton of screenshots and timestamps for them to dig into, and even did a few purposeful trials when it was moderately busy to see if I could force an idle fee (it worked, still no notification). They said their engineers are still trying to figure out what was up, but in the meantime they would reverse the charges. A few weeks later, they're still on my account, but theoretically they should come off soon.

This is especially important with their new policy of blocking supercharging until fees are paid, because if you don't even know you're accruing them, you might find one day that you can't charge until you pay and then have to fight about it later.

One other thing I noticed when I was doing the trials was that sometimes they would bill my card immediately instead of adding the charge to my account. I'm not going to fight over that, but it's different than what the policy states, which is frustrating.

Honestly, I appreciate the spirit of the policy, but the implementation has been pretty crappy. Tons of stories of people not getting notified, getting charged when there is less than 50% occupancy, and just overall technical and operational bugs in the system. Just looking forward to the day when my home city installs the few more charging stations I've asked for and I and others can rely less on the superchargers.

 

[Shaggy]

Maybe they could add to the charging is done how many open slots there are...

 

[swegman]

For the past few months I have not gotten any notifications on my iPhone 6 Plus with respect to charging started, charging interrupted, charging completed, or that there is a firmware update waiting to be installed. The only notification I get is that charging is sufficient to proceed to the next destination. Tesla has no idea why I am not getting notifications. I have toggled off and back on the settings in the app but it makes no difference. Thus I have to constantly check the app to see the charging status and level of the charge when supercharging. Hoping that the notifications will start working again once I get my XS Max phone in about a week.

 

[shadownddust]

For the past few months I have not gotten any notifications on my iPhone 6 Plus with respect to charging started, charging interrupted, charging completed, or that there is a firmware update waiting to be installed. The only notification I get is that charging is sufficient to proceed to the next destination. Tesla has no idea why I am not getting notifications. I have toggled off and back on the settings in the app but it makes no difference. Thus I have to constantly check the app to see the charging status and level of the charge when supercharging. Hoping that the notifications will start working again once I get my XS Max phone in about a week.

I hope that fixes it, but realistically if you're getting one notification today, and used to get more before, the notification settings are correct and it's probably something on their end unrelated to the phone.

 

[FlatSix911]

I've been going back and forth with Tesla on this for a few months. I randomly checked my account and noticed I had a ton of idle fees from charging near work in the Cambridge, MA garage. I would get notifications that charging was complete but since I never received any idle fee warnings I didn't always run downstairs to move my car if I was in the middle of a meeting (don't have charging at home, live in a condo, so all charging has to be done there). I sent them a ton of screenshots and timestamps for them to dig into, and even did a few purposeful trials when it was moderately busy to see if I could force an idle fee (it worked, still no notification). They said their engineers are still trying to figure out what was up, but in the meantime they would reverse the charges. A few weeks later, they're still on my account, but theoretically they should come off soon.

So you kept your car in a charging spot after you were notified that charging was complete because you were too lazy to move your car and you did not get an idle fee warning... you may want to rethink that strategy

 

[appleguru]

So you kept your car in a charging spot after you were notified that charging was complete because you were too lazy to move your car and you did not get an idle fee warning... you may want to rethink that strategy

The Cambridge MA superchargers are in a paid garage and are “city” (slower) superchargers. Same for the ones at the Pru in Boston.

Personally, I think tesla should remove all idle fees for these “city” locations.... it’s bad enough to have to pay for parking to charge. And given their location (in prominent shopping malls/office centers), it makes sense to use these chargers more like destination chargers and less like normal superchargers (go to the mall, go shopping, grab lunch, go to a meeting, etc). As it stands now, you barely have enough time to make it inside and back before charging completes (especially if you are set to 90% like I usually am when visiting these chargers, as I am typically not in the middle of a road trip where I would want to possibly charge to 100%).

 

[shadownddust]

So you kept your car in a charging spot after you were notified that charging was complete because you were too lazy to move your car and you did not get an idle fee warning... you may want to rethink that strategy

As I mentioned before, it’s not about being too lazy, it’s about being in a meeting or in my office which is down the block and not always being able to run back right away. The charging estimates are helpful, but not always accurate and I can’t plan my day entirely around charging. Obviously this is not ideal, but I’m happy to pay the fee if I’m notified and can’t make it back. However if I’m not notified that a fee is about to accrue and decide to finish my conversation with my coworker before heading back, that defeats the purpose of the idle fee anyway. The point is to get people to move out the spot immediately *when busy*. Otherwise, they would just levy the fee on all cars that are fully charged.