How much is "Premium Connectivity" subscription?

[Rothgarr]

I took delivery of my LR AWD Model 3 last month, and I could have sworn the sales guy said that the streaming music came with 1 year included for the streaming music.

But I'm looking at Tesla's site and I see this:

Premium Connectivity (1 year included):

• Satellite maps with live traffic visualization
• In-car internet streaming music and media
• More frequent over-the-air updates via cellular
• Internet browser

So does that mean my satellite and traffic will also go away next year without a subscription? (I don't use the web browser). And what the heck does "more frequent updates" mean?

Anyway, what is the subscription cost if I wanted to keep that stuff?

 

[MP3Mike]

nobody knows yet as Tesla hasn't made the option available.

 

[JHerbY2K]

In theory it will go away once they have a subscription plan available. No one has lost their premium connectivity yet. Its going to cost "around $100 / year".

basically its a more expensive data plan. Which means they can do things like push bigger (usually wifi-only) updates over cellular. If you have WiFi, its sort of a moot point. You'll still get it faster via WiFi.

 

[TyH2009]

My sales guy said free for a year, then around $100 after that, which isn't bad IMO, but then my delivery guy said that he hasn't heard of Tesla charging anyone for it after a year, so as of now it's lifetime.

 

[japhule]

Owners who purchased their car on or after 7/1/2018 get 1 free year. This should start affecting those over the next month or so (factoring in delivery times after order). Guess we'll see if Tesla does start charging the fee around then.

 

[acarney]

In theory it will go away once they have a subscription plan available. No one has lost their premium connectivity yet. Its going to cost "around $100 / year".

basically its a more expensive data plan. Which means they can do things like push bigger (usually wifi-only) updates over cellular. If you have WiFi, its sort of a moot point. You'll still get it faster via WiFi.

It's actually a CHEAP data plan. If you look at adding a stand alone data plan to cars that have WiFI hot spots they all seem to be like $20+/month, and often still limited to 5gigs a month or something. Tesla works out to be less then $9/month, probably pushes large updates over it, and allows unlimited sat view nav and music streaming! If it really is $100, which I hope it is, that's a great value.

 

[M3BlueGeorgia]

Owners who purchased their car on or after 7/1/2018 get 1 free year. This should start affecting those over the next month or so (factoring in delivery times after order). Guess we'll see if Tesla does start charging the fee around then.

Slight correction:
Owners who ORDERED their cars by the end of June 2018 get premium connectivity for "life"

Which means there's a lot of cars ordered on or after July 1st, 2018 in the process of ending their one year of free connectivity.
So starting about now....

 

[OCR1]

Don’t be surprised if Tesla never gets around to charging customers for the subscription. They have never been particularly strong with billing.

 

[acarney]

Don’t be surprised if Tesla never gets around to charging customers for the subscription. They have never been particularly strong with billing.

Good for the ones that have it, bad for the SR+ guys that think it might be worth adding at $100/year down the road

 

[fidodido]

I'm hoping that Tesla forgets to "stop" the premium connectivity service, as mine is set to expire end of August. Tesla supposedly made an option to purchase the service from the console. Can someone with SR+ check if there's an option to purchase it?

Btw, I missed "lifetime" free service by 2 days. I asked Tesla delivery specialist and others when I took the delivery, but they wouldn't/couldn't do anything for me.

 

[Knightshade]

Owners who purchased their car on or after 7/1/2018 get 1 free year. This should start affecting those over the next month or so (factoring in delivery times after order). Guess we'll see if Tesla does start charging the fee around then.

Model S owners began falling out of "free" connectivity January 2018.

To date 0 of them have been billed and the service still works.

Tesla is utterly incompetent with this stuff, so I wouldn't worry too much about anything changing next month.

 

[Petra]

Model S owners began falling out of "free" connectivity January 2018.

To date 0 of them have been billed and the service still works.

Tesla is utterly incompetent with this stuff, so I wouldn't worry too much about anything changing next month.

Yeah, Tesla has kicked the can on this one 3 or 4 times already... As I recall, all of the older Model S and X were included in last year's data plan amnesty announcement.

 

[miimura]

Lots of good answers here. I just came to drop a link to the Tesla Support FAQ on Connectivity which says many of the same things.

Frequently Asked Questions - Connectivity

 

[dragonxt]

Lots of good answers here. I just came to drop a link to the Tesla Support FAQ on Connectivity which says many of the same things.

Frequently Asked Questions - Connectivity

You can tell based on some of the wording that the FAQ has not been updated. But yeah that's all the information we have.

So far, I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla defers this and re-establishes a new deadline for premium connectivity. In the past, things ongoing billing has been an issue Tesla didn't want to allocate resources to set up.

Though with the sheer number of Model 3s sold so far, this would be a good time to stick to their word.

 

[willow_hiller]

can tell based on some of the wording that the FAQ has not been updated. But yeah that's all the information we have.

I think last time I checked archive.org, that page was published around August 2018 and hasn't changed since...

 

[groovidad]

So, a Tesla insider will come to TMC and see this thread and drop dime on those whose subscription expired. Those of you in that boat can expect a loss of service within the next week.

 

[rhaekar]

Don’t be surprised if Tesla never gets around to charging customers for the subscription. They have never been particularly strong with billing.

I remember when people kept posting about, "hey I'm not getting charged for supercharging."

 

[JulienW]

Not a big deal but I bet Tesla ran the numbers and it wasn't worth the small $$$ setting up the billing, writing new software to remove the features and taking the time (their plate is full) to implement the program. Probably just easer to just leave it the way it is, for now anyway.

 

[acarney]

Not a big deal but I bet Tesla ran the numbers and it wasn't worth the small $$$ setting up the billing, writing new software to remove the features and taking the time (their plate is full) to implement the program. Probably just easer to just leave it the way it is, for now anyway.

You forgot that this could capture all the SR and SR+ owners. I bet subscription rates at $100/year would be very high compared to the ~$6k car price difference to get a trim which includes that feature.

 

[Knightshade]

Not a big deal but I bet Tesla ran the numbers and it wasn't worth the small $$$ setting up the billing, writing new software to remove the features and taking the time (their plate is full) to implement the program. Probably just easer to just leave it the way it is, for now anyway.

I remain baffled that a company already set up to bill existing customers for supercharging is incapable of figuring out how to do literally the same thing for connectivity.

Especially when the alternative is to cost the company money supplying it free for the majority of them.

Hell, connectivity should be easier since it's not per-year instead of per-use billing.