Getting billed for using a normal looking wall connector?

[techzelle]

At an apartment complex, there are a bunch of wall connectors (like what is in the tesla store).
They were free to charge on them for a few months.

On my last visit, I was billed $1.50 to my Tesla account. Apparently these wall connectors are "destination chargers" now capable of billing.
This is apparently a new feature of Tesla. That is fine to do, but there was no notification of billing or rates.

There were no signs about billing (bad apartment owner),
but more importantly, there was no indication on the wall connector itself or on the car display saying you are going to be billed (bad on Tesla's part).

I find it shady that it is possible for a normal-looking wall charger to be able to automatically bill drivers without notification.
I have no idea what rate I was charged, and since there is auto-acceptance, it seems the apartment could have charged whatever they wanted.
If that's the case, I'd like to move my wall connector closer to the street, and auto-bill at $100 per hour.

This should be fixed - the car display should pop up a message. "This wall connector bills at a rate of $1 per kwh. Do you want to continue?" YES button, NO button.

Until then, be wary of charging on someone else's wall connector.

 

[KJD]

At an apartment complex, there are a bunch of wall connectors (like what is in the tesla store).
They were free to charge on them for a few months.

On my last visit, I was billed $1.50 to my Tesla account. Apparently these wall connectors are "destination chargers" now capable of billing.
This is apparently a new feature of Tesla. That is fine to do, but there was no notification of billing or rates.

There were no signs about billing (bad apartment owner),
but more importantly, there was no indication on the wall connector itself or on the car display saying you are going to be billed (bad on Tesla's part).

I find it shady that it is possible for a normal-looking wall charger to be able to automatically bill drivers without notification.
I have no idea what rate I was charged, and since there is auto-acceptance, it seems the apartment could have charged whatever they wanted.
If that's the case, I'd like to move my wall connector closer to the street, and auto-bill at $100 per hour.

This should be fixed - the car display should pop up a message. "This wall connector bills at a rate of $1 per kwh. Do you want to continue?" YES button, NO button.

Until then, be wary of charging on someone else's wall connector.

Do you live in this apartment complex ?

 

[Rocky_H]

Wow. Thank you for letting us know this is happening now. We had heard this was something Tesla was looking into and probably planning to do, but I had not heard there was an implementation of it yet. I find it confusing/angering that they rolled out this software feature before circuit sharing!!

But yes, that is definitely wrong to have auto-billing without any form of notification with a choice to accept or decline.

 

[DSolie]

Was it billing for usage, or idling?

 

[Uncle Paul]

Sounds like you were hopeful to get your charging energy for free, but are now going to be getting it almost free ($1.50)

Agree you should have some notification of your costs incurred.

 

[Big Dog]

Do you live in this apartment complex ?

And did you contact the Manager to inquire about the practice? If you don't live in the apartment complex, why would you think the chargers are open to non-residents?

(I visit Sunnyvale frequently and there are several SuperChargers available in area.)

 

[MP3Mike]

At an apartment complex, there are a bunch of wall connectors (like what is in the tesla store).

Are these the new gen 3 white wall connectors?

 

[Big Dog]

This should be fixed - the car display should pop up a message.

The car display already has a 'message' and its in teh NAV where it shows available Chargers. Just hit the button on the screen and available Chargers pop up on the map.

 

[techzelle]

And did you contact the Manager to inquire about the practice? If you don't live in the apartment complex, why would you think the chargers are open to non-residents?

(I visit Sunnyvale frequently and there are several SuperChargers available in area.)

This apartment complex has other wall connectors behind the locked parking gate for residents. The wall connector I used was in the open parking area, labelled Guest EV Parking. I am a guest, and it was free for at least 3-4 months. I wasn't even aware that a that home wall charger unit could be capable of billing.

I don't visit very often, and it's not that important to me to spend time complaining to the manager about putting up signs or whatever.

 

[techzelle]

Are these the new gen 3 white wall connectors?

Yes, these are the same ones that are in the Tesla Store today - white, wifi enabled...

 

[techzelle]

The car display already has a 'message' and its in teh NAV where it shows available Chargers. Just hit the button on the screen and available Chargers pop up on the map.

This does not show up as available chargers on the map. I only found out because I was a guest, and when I went to the guest parking there were a few wall chargers there.

 

[techzelle]

FYI: this is an article describing the ability to charge using gen 3 wall connectors..

The problem is there is no way to distinguish between wall connectors that are free and those that bill automatically.
Nor is there a way to see the rates - like with all other non-tesla chargers.

The Queens County Citizen

Queens Citizen - breaking Canadian news & current Canadian news headlines; World News, money news and business news on queenscitizen.ca

queenscitizen.ca

 

[CanadaGoose]

Abit late, but do you mind sharing a breakdown of the billing?

Is it 0.29 c / kwh?

 

[Rocky_H]

Is it 0.29 c / kwh?

*facepalm* I am sure it's not THAT low.

 

[techzelle]

Abit late, but do you mind sharing a breakdown of the billing?

Is it 0.29 c / kwh?

It was 25 cents per "something", then 6 of those, for $1.50 total.


It doesn't specify the "something", I guess it's Kwh?

 

[MP3Mike]

It was 25 cents per "something", then 6 of those, for $1.50 total.


It doesn't specify the "something", I guess it's Kwh?

How long were you connected? Could it have been 6 hours? or 6 minutes?

 

[techzelle]

How long were you connected? Could it have been 6 hours? or 6 minutes?

it was about an hour, so if it were time, it would be 10 minute chunks.

 

[Rocky_H]

kWh would be about right even if it's not time. A lot of these would be on 30A circuits, so that's around 6kW power level, so it would deliver 6 kWh of energy in 1 hour.

 

[Mardak]

If this is indeed still in development, perhaps you've stumbled upon a Tesla Engineer's test installation. It wouldn't be too surprising for a development prototype installed "at home" especially given the current work-from-home. Maybe the engineer forgot to switch off the configuration after some testing or maybe they're doing a live test.

 

[ngng]

At an apartment complex, there are a bunch of wall connectors (like what is in the tesla store).
They were free to charge on them for a few months.

On my last visit, I was billed $1.50 to my Tesla account. Apparently these wall connectors are "destination chargers" now capable of billing.
This is apparently a new feature of Tesla. That is fine to do, but there was no notification of billing or rates.

There were no signs about billing (bad apartment owner),
but more importantly, there was no indication on the wall connector itself or on the car display saying you are going to be billed (bad on Tesla's part).

I find it shady that it is possible for a normal-looking wall charger to be able to automatically bill drivers without notification.
I have no idea what rate I was charged, and since there is auto-acceptance, it seems the apartment could have charged whatever they wanted.
If that's the case, I'd like to move my wall connector closer to the street, and auto-bill at $100 per hour.

This should be fixed - the car display should pop up a message. "This wall connector bills at a rate of $1 per kwh. Do you want to continue?" YES button, NO button.

Until then, be wary of charging on someone else's wall connector.

huh? you're complaining because you plugged your car into some random connector and were charged for it?