Experience with M3LR as a Company Car

[theotherdave]

As part of our ESG efforts our company is switching company cars over to Teslas. I'm one of the executive sponsors of this program, and hence a "guinea pig" as well. However, some interesting things coming out of the experience. First, our Fleet Manager is the "Primary Driver" on all of our Tesla cars, so each actual driver is an "Approved Driver" or "Secondary Driver" (whatever the correct terminology is). There are implications.

Works ok mostly, except that we have limited visibility in the app, and all of the actual drivers don't seem to be able to pay for their own SuperCharging - it's all charged to one company card. Not so bad when it's work-related driving, but if I take the car on a personal trip I would usually pay for the gas previously if an ICE car. Similarly I want to pay for the Supercharging on a personal trip, but there's no way to do it, so we end up with all kinds of reimbursement gyrations - ewwww.

Further, the company also sponsors home charging costs. I had a JuiceBox in the garage from a previous PHEV we used to have, so at the start I was using that to charge the company Tesla. It was pretty easy to take screencaps of the JuiceNet app, show a cost rate from my electric bill, and put it all into a little Excel spreadsheet to run up the month's tab, and submit for re-imbursement.

But now, the company also sponsored installation of a Tesla Wall Connector. I took the option even though I already had the JuiceBox, mostly because I'm an initial "guinea pig" and want to experience the "whole Monty" as it were, before we roll this out to dozens of employees in our field exec team. Problem is, because I'm not the "Primary Driver" I seem to have zero visibility to charge history on the Tesla App if I use the Tesla charger, so now it looks like we all have to badger our fleet manager to send us out monthly charging stats so we can submit for reimbursement. That's ok for the group of 5 that are the early test group, but we're going to have a lot more people doing this soon if we roll further, and that doesn't seem ideal.

Some questions:

1. Did we do it the "right way" making the fleet manager our "Primary Driver"? We seem to be dealing with quite a few limitations because of this.
2. Is there a way for non-Primary drivers to pay for their own supercharging?
3. Is there a way for non-Primary drivers to get access to their own charging history?
4. Should we try to get Tesla to change "Primary Driver"s to each actual driver of each company car? Is changing Primary Driver even possible?
5. Is there a better way to do this?

We'll consider other options (perhaps Equinox EV or something else) for the larger rollout if we can't get a smooth experience with Tesla. Wondering if anyone else has done this and can comment on their experiences. Is this the usual situation with Tesla company cars? Or did we go about it all wrong?

Thanks for listening.

 

[father_of_6]

I don't see what benefit having the fleet manager as primary driver provides. Is there one? You've already listed the negatives.

I bet it would be easier to just let each employee be the primary driver, then submit all supercharger and home charging costs for reimbursement.

Note though that you may have a hard time getting actual home charging costs. The app (AFAIK) does not account for electricity used to precondition (heat) the battery... so it will report less than what is actually used. If you need good stats, perhaps the Juice box (or something else) would be a better fit for your use case.

 

[theotherdave]

That's kinda why I'm asking the question here, to see if anyone else has been through this before, and if they ended up in the same place, or some other option; and even to check if what we've done is best practice.

I was out of the country on business when the cars showed up, and it took the first couple execs an entire day over at the Tesla Store with our Fleet manager to get the pickup all figured out. By the time they got to me it was 90 minutes and a half-inch-thick folder of papers (power of attorney, insurance, proof of payment, etc) but my understanding is that the Fleet Manager is our Primary Owner because Tesla told us to do it that way.

 

[RTPEV]

Major caveat: I am not commenting as someone with experience with a Tesla as a company car because I don't have that experience. However, as an observer that recently had experiencing adding a second Tesla to our home's "fleet", I think (although I'm not sure) I have some experience with having multiple drivers on a vehicle.

When my wife got her Model Y, I did a bit of research to try to determine whether we should have one Tesla account that we shared, or one Tesla account for each car (one for her, one for me) and then simply invite the other to be a driver of each other's car. No question in the past a single account would have been the way to go, but Tesla seems to be making it easier to manage multiple drivers, and it seems like that's the way they would prefer you handle this situation, so we went with two accounts.

So to address your questions:

1. Did we do it the "right way" making the fleet manager our "Primary Driver"? We seem to be dealing with quite a few limitations because of this.
   
   I guess it depends on how much "control" the company wants. If this were not a Tesla but a regular old car without telematics and such, wouldn't the company just hand you a second key and then you would be on your own for fueling, maintenance, etc. and then just submit expense reports for any covered expenses. It's not like the company had special control over your vehicle (unless they installed some kind of special tracking device). I guess the only drawback I can see of assigning the assignee as the primary driver is that it's a little more difficult to get "ownership" of the car back from the assignee in that you don't just hand the key over, but rather hand the account over.
   
   Maybe a hybrid solution is to create an account for each car that both the assignee and the fleet manager have access to so that in the event that the car needs to be turned in, the fleet manager does retain the ability to manage the car, but the assignee also has full access as the "primary".
   
   
2. Is there a way for non-Primary drivers to pay for their own supercharging?
   
   No, other than the reverse reimbursement gyrations you speak of. However, once they open up Superchargers to CCS vehicles, there may be a way for you to activate a Supercharger using a second account (with a second credit card), but of course that's just speculation, in the future, and may be more expensive.
   
   With that said, the company is already willing to pay for home charging costs, and while it's nice that you are willing to pay for personal trips, maybe the company would consider picking up Supercharging costs as well as a benefit, not unlike the fact that they are essentially picking up the cost of your use of the vehicle itself on those trips. While Supercharging has become more expensive lately, it's still not the same as buying gas, so given that, maybe the company would be open to including Supercharging costs (perhaps up to an annual limit?).
   
   The other question I have, however, is how much Supercharging would be needed for company business anyway? Would ALL Supercharging likely to be personal? If so, maybe the credit card attached to the account should be your personal credit card anyway. That would also protect the company from someone purchasing performance upgrades and FSD on the company's card.
   
   
3. Is there a way for non-Primary drivers to get access to their own charging history?
   
   You could look at using a third-party app like TeslaFi.com, but that carries a cost, so if all you're worried about is tracking home charging costs, it might not be worth it. There might be other solutions.
   
   
4. Should we try to get Tesla to change "Primary Driver"s to each actual driver of each company car? Is changing Primary Driver even possible?
   
   Sure. This happens every time a vehicle is sold. The company can "transfer" the car to anyone they wish, i.e. the assignee.
   
   
5. Is there a better way to do this?
   
   Suggestions given above.

Good luck!

 

[cypho]

Even if you were the primary driver, it is not really practical to use different credit card depending on personal business use. You still will not have a way to quickly toggle between multiple payment methods.

As suggested above, I wouldn't bother billing my employee for the electricity.

Wear and tear on the car from personal use is probably costing the company 5x as much as the electricity. If they aren't charging you for the wear and tear, no point charging you for the electricity.

 

[theotherdave]

Hmmmm... TeslaFi - thx for that - should find what I need and more there.

 

[SalisburySam]

Hmmmm... TeslaFi - thx for that - should find what I need and more there.

I’ve had TeslaFi access since purchasing my Model 3 in July, 2018. The information is thorough, fascinating, and easily seen in the many charts/graphs/tables presented. There are several such services today, but when I first subscribed that was not the case. I’ve looked at several and still feel TeslaFi holds its own against them. One factor: there is really no way to convert data from one service to another so you’re likely going to want to stick with the one you pick for the lifetime of your vehicle’s ownership. They do offer data exports in csv formats but no real import mechanism. You may wish to investigate any embedded tools to help with fleet ownership. I only have the one Tesla so have not inquired.

Good luck with your choices, and please share your decisions.

 

[father_of_6]

Hmmmm... TeslaFi - thx for that - should find what I need and more there.

Worth noting that third-party data collection software like TeslaFi (there are others) come with downsides. Namely, they can prevent the car from sleeping, which can drastically increase vampire drain.

Since you're talking about a fleet of vehicles, TeslaFi may create more problems than it solves (technical ones).

I would suggest the company just pay for all supercharging and get home chargers that provide good reporting.

 

[SalisburySam]

Worth noting that third-party data collection software like TeslaFi (there are others) come with downsides. Namely, they can prevent the car from sleeping, which can drastically increase vampire drain.

Early-on problem years ago, no longer the case.

 

[RTPEV]

Worth noting that third-party data collection software like TeslaFi (there are others) come with downsides. Namely, they can prevent the car from sleeping, which can drastically increase vampire drain.

They can, but at least in the case of TeslaFi there are controls (that in my experience) work very well to allow the car to go to sleep just fine.

Since you're talking about a fleet of vehicles, TeslaFi may create more problems than it solves (technical ones).

TeslaFi does have a fleet management mode that works nicely, although there is no discount (at least for my "fleet" of 2). Maybe if the fleet was larger they might be willing to offer a deal. But like I said, it's probably not worth it just for charge cost tracking. They'd want to get additional data from it to make it worth the cost.

 

[father_of_6]

Early-on problem years ago, no longer the case.

This is good to know. Every time a new thread pops up about someone's vampire drain, the first response is usually "are you using any third-party data collection software?"

 

[RTPEV]

This is good to know. Every time a new thread pops up about someone's vampire drain, the first response is usually "are you using any third-party data collection software?"

In general, that's a likely culprit, but TeslaFi specifically handles it very well.

 

[Watts_Up]

I wonder if a type of software recording who is driving based on the user profile used to open and unlock the car and also keep the profile information when the car get charged.

This was basically what remtal companies, like Hertz, seem to be doing and apply the charging cost when the driver return the car.