Free premium Connectivity ending

[Roy W.]

Well in my staycation road trip to Scotland I have tested a week with and week without the premium connectivity features to help decide if I will pay from next month. Two specific factors are leading me to think that I will pay up for at least some of the time:

1) In my experience Music quality from the on board Spotify account is considerably better than when playing music via my phone over Bluetooth (using my Apple Music sub). Perhaps it’s tuned / optimised to use the speakers better? I’m not sure but the quality difference was significant.

2) I appear to be so used to the satellite imagery on sat nav that switching it off dulls the experience down considerably. I much prefer it with the satellite mapping.

Is that worth £9.99 per month? Probably not given the mileage I’m doing right now. I may choose to opt in on a month by month basis when doing longer road trips for holidays etc. Good that we have that flexibility rather than having to sign up for a committed period.

I agree with your conclusions, although I do find the Spotify interface rather clunky. I just think £120 a year is a lot to pay for pretty coloured maps.

The only problem I see with dipping in and out on a month by month basis is cancelling. AFAIK although you can subscribe easily on the app or in the car, cancelling requires contacting customer services. And we all know how that goes...

 

[interbear]

I agree with your conclusions, although I do find the Spotify interface rather clunky. I just think £120 a year is a lot to pay for pretty coloured maps.

The only problem I see with dipping in and out on a month by month basis is cancelling. AFAIK although you can subscribe easily on the app or in the car, cancelling requires contacting customer services. And we all know how that goes...

Yes that’s a very good point on cancelling. Could be more painful that it’s worth.

The Spotify interface is indeed quite clunky but it’s “good enough” now that it finally saves albums and playlists in my “library”. For months that didn’t work so either I was doing it wrong or it kept resetting and losing albums I’ve saved. I was however genuinely surprised at the difference in music quality vs streaming via Bluetooth on my phone. Tested it with several tracks back to back using Spotify then my phone and in each case the conclusion was that the integral Spotify was a much better listening experience.

On maps I do think I’d miss the satellite imagery. I actually find it quite helpful when on a route to get my bearings and point out landmarks etc.

Everything else premium? Netflix was used a few times when charging. It works really well to be fair. But we have iPads for that too. I’m not convinced of the value of the “live traffic visualisation” imagery on the maps, doesn’t change any of my behaviour when driving and as live traffic routing is still included in the basic sat nav I’m not sure I see any value in that.

 

[CMc1]

I’d personally hold off from renewing if people can as I doubt they’ll be any refunds issued should premium connectivity be extended for those that ordered “early”.

Unless you’re not going to miss the £10

 

[interbear]

I’d personally hold off from renewing if people can as I doubt they’ll be any refunds issued should premium connectivity be extended for those that ordered “early”.

Unless you’re not going to miss the £10

I didn’t order early though. Ordered May 2019 and collected Sept 2019. I was fairly sure the premium connectivity was lifetime rather than 12 months but clearly I didn’t pay enough attention to the small print.

 

[KennethS]

I didn’t order early though. Ordered May 2019 and collected Sept 2019. I was fairly sure the premium connectivity was lifetime rather than 12 months but clearly I didn’t pay enough attention to the small print.

Order bookings didn't open until 1 May 2019 in the UK, so I'd say that's pretty early!

 

[MrBadger]

I didn’t order early though. Ordered May 2019 and collected Sept 2019. I was fairly sure the premium connectivity was lifetime rather than 12 months but clearly I didn’t pay enough attention to the small print.

If you ordered May 2019, you are within the window where I believe the subscription was not made clear, if at all. Looks like the clarification occurred sometime in June 2019.

 

[dutchchili]

If they rollout StarLink to every car we can forget about all the fuzz.

 

[m3p_uk]

I've emailed as well but they replied saying the information was available even though I ordered mid last year and definitely remember it was not! Replied back to say as such and see what they say although not holding out much hope

 

[Roy W.]

I've emailed as well but they replied saying the information was available even though I ordered mid last year and definitely remember it was not! Replied back to say as such and see what they say although not holding out much hope

What date did you order?

The “1 Year Included” bit was added to the website by 27 May 2019.

 

[m3p_uk]

What date did you order?

The “1 Year Included” bit was added to the website by 27 May 2019.

Reserved in April but think order went early July. Just checked over paperwork order confirmation/invoice etc. and nothing mentioned in there when I ordered either.
When was the price announced?

 

[Roy W.]

Reserved in April but think order went early July. Just checked over paperwork order confirmation/invoice etc. and nothing mentioned in there when I ordered either.
When was the price announced?

I think it’s the order date that matters, rather than the reservation date, although I’m no lawyer.

I’m not sure when the £10 a month was announced, but even without announcing the price, the “1 Year Included” bit on the website made it clear that it’s not included after a year.

This situation has been made worse by Tesla’s “no brochures” online system, as nobody has a brochure to refer back to!

 

[m3p_uk]

I think it’s the order date that matters, rather than the reservation date, although I’m no lawyer.

I’m not sure when the £10 a month was announced, but even without announcing the price, the “1 Year Included” bit on the website made it clear that it’s not included after a year.

This situation has been made worse by Tesla’s “no brochures” online system, as nobody has a brochure to refer back to!

Cheers but it doesn't have any mention of 1 year only included on my invoice or receipts. Just says premium interior, performance, autopilot, colours etc.
Let's see what they say.

 

[Roy W.]

Cheers but it doesn't have any mention of 1 year only included on my invoice or receipts. Just says premium interior, performance, autopilot, colours etc.
Let's see what they say.

I’ll certainly keep my fingers crossed for you, me and everyone else with the same problem.

 

[chamsters]

Hi all,

Can someone confirm my understanding based on Connectivity

After a year, premium disappears. Let's say I enable wifi tethering on my phone and have the tesla tethering, baiscally all i would lose are the live traffic visualization (no big loss there - routing still takes into account live traffic, like waze?) and satellite view maps (again, no huge loss there - fire open browser, go to google maps.)

Everything else continues to work?

Right?

 

[m3p_uk]

Hi all,

Can someone confirm my understanding based on Connectivity

After a year, premium disappears. Let's say I enable wifi tethering on my phone and have the tesla tethering, baiscally all i would lose are the live traffic visualization (no big loss there - routing still takes into account live traffic, like waze?) and satellite view maps (again, no huge loss there - fire open browser, go to google maps.)

Everything else continues to work?

Right?

Spotify but you could stream via bt from phone

 

[fancealot]

yes but IIRC you'll have to manually reconnect to your hotspot when you go into drive.

 

[chamsters]

Spotify but you could stream via bt from phone

If i have a spotify account though (premium) could I not just log into the account on the tesla and stream using wifi tethering?

 

[chamsters]

yes but IIRC you'll have to manually reconnect to your hotspot when you go into drive.

Ah. does it not automatically connect to any available authorised wifi points? like a PC / phone? Or do you have to explicitly pick a specific signal each time?

 

[Roy W.]

Ah. does it not automatically connect to any available authorised wifi points? like a PC / phone? Or do you have to explicitly pick a specific signal each time?

It does automatically connect to known networks, but every time you select drive the car disconnects WiFi. So you will need to reselect your hotspot every time you switch the car into drive.

 

[chamsters]

It does automatically connect to known networks, but every time you select drive the car disconnects WiFi. So you will need to reselect your hotspot every time you switch the car into drive.

ah, that's annoying...
really the only annoyance would be spotify - presumably there's no 'cache' where i can store my music / playlists offline? so if i want to listen to spotify i'd need to manually connect to wifi each time i drive