Free Supercharging : Now you see it...now you don't

[azred]

It would be nice if Tesla could take a deep breath and decide on a long term Supercharging policy. Instead, they are acting like the Commander in Chief Twitterer. So only a few weeks after telling current owners they would receive free Supercharging on future X or S purchases, they have now said the offer expires December 31. And of course this is just the latest flip flop.

It appears Tesla is in desperation mode to sell X and S. It's not a good look.

 

[calisnow]

Gotta agree with you on this - it's looking kind of stupid at this point.

 

[wesley888]

Yea, one way to push to sell more X and S within this year. Now existing owners who are on the edge of trading in for a new X/S got an extra push.

 

[boofagle]

They need to upgrade their superchargers to V3 asap if they really want people to upgrade (this is assuming current cars won't be able to take advantage of faster charging)

 

[boaterva]

Looks more and more that something big is happening in 2018. If not, seems weird to limit all this. Especially to current owners.

 

[BigD0g]

This is a crock, they really really need to fix their messaging.

 

[wesley888]

They need to upgrade their superchargers to V3 asap if they really want people to upgrade (this is assuming current cars won't be able to take advantage of faster charging)

That would be a big incentive to trade in for a new car to use a newer faster charging.

 

[azred]

Yea, one way to push to sell more X and S within this year. Now existing owners who are on the edge of trading in for a new X/S got an extra push.

That would be a good idea for those folks except you can't believe Tesla. When I bought my car six months ago, December 31, 2016 was the cut off and that has been extended twice. Anyone who would jump now because free Supercharger access is going going gone December 31, 2017 is a fool. History says it will be back in a few weeks or months after December 31 as the need to spur sales arises.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

It would be nice if Tesla could take a deep breath and decide on a long term Supercharging policy. Instead, they are acting like the Commander in Chief Twitterer. So only a few weeks after telling current owners they would receive free Supercharging on future X or S purchases, they have now said the offer expires December 31. And of course this is just the latest flip flop.

It appears Tesla is in desperation mode to sell X and S. It's not a good look.

Tesla has a long-term policy of pay per use, possibly with an upfront fee.
It's the short-term policy that's varying.

 

[jeffro01]

Ah... The joys of communication and Tesla... I often wonder who is making half of the decisions as they seem to be a bit all over the place at times... It's not that this is unheard of with rapidly growing companies but I would have expected Tesla to have a little more consistency by now...

Jeff

 

[BigD0g]

Given their propensity for giving and taking away things, I wonder when they'll simply just remove free super charging. They seem to not care at all what they tell their customers.

 

[xyeahtony]

There's numerous threads on this topic already. But yes lets complain Tesla is giving everyone free supercharging. "tesla doesn't care about their customers" yes shame on them for giving current owners free supercharging for life! What garbage!

smh

 

[MacGreiner]

Looks more and more that something big is happening in 2018. If not, seems weird to limit all this. Especially to current owners.

Yup - this.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Poor management at Tesla, clearly.

The whole philosophy at Tesla is not to take ownership of problems or issues, but to send them downstream and make them someone else's problem. What we observe on this side of the fence is the result of this type of corporate culture. The buck doesn't stop with anyone.

 

[xyeahtony]

Poor management at Tesla, clearly.

The whole philosophy at Tesla is not to take ownership of problems or issues, but to send them downstream and make them someone else's problem. What we observe on this side of the fence is the result of this type of corporate culture. The buck doesn't stop with anyone.

Elon having every worker injury incident being sent to him and doing the task they do on the production line is most certainly not taking ownership of anything.

 

[Uncle Paul]

Believe that Tesla is putting everyone on notice that there is the possibility that free supercharging might be going away.

They will offer it, as an inducement, for as long as they wish to do so, but at some time it will go away.

They are doing the same thing with their data. They are providing it free to everyone so far, but they have put us on notice that it is not going to be forever.

Instead of complaining that they are threatening to take it away, but decided to offer it for a little while longer, we should appreciate it while it lasts.

 

[David99]

It is kind of unprofessional how they change their mind so quickly. Clearly driven by them trying to get the S/X sold quickly. Nothing wrong with that, that's what every business should do, make good sales and be successful, but this change of mind so many times doesn't build long term trust in the brand. Same with the complete 180 on the referral program.

Having said that, the cost of Supercharging is really small. It's roughly as much as you would pay at home, so it's not like you are getting ripped off at a Supercharger. Unless you drive a lot of miles on Superchargers, it's a small expense. I would not decide to buy or not buy a certain car or model year based on that. For example, if I had the choice to get an old car with free Supercharging without AP, or a newer one with AP and paying for Supercharging, I would pick the new one. I think the same will be true for the 2018 Model S/X. It will be a new car with lots of fundamental improvements that are worth more than free Supercharging.

I would also like to add that in the beginning, unlimited Supercharging was $2000. That is the equivalent of 40-60k miles.

 

[azred]

There's numerous threads on this topic already. But yes lets complain Tesla is giving everyone free supercharging. "tesla doesn't care about their customers" yes shame on them for giving current owners free supercharging for life! What garbage!

smh

Last night or this morning they placed the Dec. 31 limit on free Supercharging for S or X owners who purchase additional Ss or Xs. Amazing how those numerous threads popped up so fast. I guess I should have stayed up all night to read them.

Obviously you are confused, but that's not your fault. Like I said above, Tesla seems to be taking lessons from the Twitterer in Chief. Who can possibly keep up? BTW, the policy updated in the last 24 hours wasn't even a month old.

 

[TexasEV]

I would also like to add that in the beginning, unlimited Supercharging was $2000. That is the equivalent of 40-60k miles.

OK, one more time, even though it's been explained dozens of times already--
The $2000 fee was only for 60s, and it was for the supercharging hardware and software IN THE CAR. Elon said it was $1000 each for the DC fast charging hardware and software. Nothing to do with the capital expense of the network or the cost of electricity. Actually if an early 60 owner that didn't activate DC fast charging at purchase just wanted to activate it now for CHAdeMO and not be able to use superchargers, it would cost almost as much as to activate it for supercharging too ($1900 vs. 2500 now).

 

[AnxietyRanger]

This is a crock, they really really need to fix their messaging.

This is not a messaging issue.

This seems to be cultural, this seems to be endemic and this seems to be policy. Tesla has changed after the fact so many policies, over-promised under delivered on so much and bait and switched too many times, as well as seems to have played the quarterly demand lever games in so many ways that depart from their previous word for it to be just bad messaging.

No, I do not buy that anymore as a very likely explanation.

The message about free Supercharging indefinitely was there for a month. A month of end-of-quarter sales needing spicing up. And now they take it away at the end of the quarter?