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bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Yeah, they can, actually. You are (falsely) assuming that supercharging=parking. They can still do PLENTY to legally make this a living hell, including turning off Supercharger access (this is possible from their end even in disconnected cars like salvage cars, fyi).
I've had to deal with plenty of chargebacks as a business owner, and not even AMEX (the most customer friendly card) would back you on this one.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Tesla is not changing anything about their promise to you for "Free supercharging for life". Nowhere in that promise did Tesla tell you that you could park your car in a Supercharger stall when you are not charging.
Your outrage strikes me as excessive.
Fusion
Member
You are part of the problem. Sounds like you have no problem parking your car and idle holding up the charger while everyone waits behind you even after your car has fully charge.
Blows my mind the entitled BS of some owners, "they are taking away my free this or free that... I can park there as along as I want..."
Let me ask you this: When you went to a gas station with you ICE, did you feel you could park there all day? Park at the pump, and even though your tank was full, did you feel you were entitled to go to a restaurant? go to a movie, or catch a train to work? guarantee if you pulled that crap for your car would have been towed. So why do you feel a SC is any different than a Petrol station?
WTF?
When your car is charged, MOVE YOUR ASS! If you are not charging then you don't belong in the SPOT period anything else you have to say is selfish and total BS. If you can't see past your own nose get a grip on your self entitled nonsense.
Let me ask you this: When you went to a gas station with you ICE, did you feel you could park there all day? Park at the pump, and even though your tank was full, did you feel you were entitled to go to a restaurant? go to a movie, or catch a train to work? guarantee if you pulled that crap for your car would have been towed. So why do you feel a SC is any different than a Petrol station?
WTF?
When your car is charged, MOVE YOUR ASS! If you are not charging then you don't belong in the SPOT period anything else you have to say is selfish and total BS. If you can't see past your own nose get a grip on your self entitled nonsense.
Archimedes
Member
Green1 may have a point. Tesla may not be able to charge him and/or he simply wouldn't legally be required to pay. Perhaps Tesla needs to have an alternate incentive system in place for people like green1. Automatic towing after 15, 20 or 30 minutes to a local storage yard might do the trick. I don't see any legal reason why they couldnt do that. Especially for not paying repeat offenders.
byan1232
Member
So this new system, if I set my charge limit to 80% and it's done charging, does that mean I will start being billed? Or does it mean that I will be billed for idling only at 100%?
In my opinion the new idle fee charges have nothing to do with what you set your charge level to, they kick in from the time your car finishes charging whether you set your charge to 50% or 100%.
green1
Active Member
If you think they can cut off charging for idling, then it is you who doesn't understand.
If you're talking about payment, I won't have to sue, I simply won't pay. It's them that would have to sue to get the payment.
I think you're pretty much full of it with your arguments and attitude about this (well, about more than just this, but let's not go there).
Just for the sake of argument, let's say you're right. Tesla can't really collect fees from you for abusing the supercharger stations and interfering with their use by others. So they add signs saying that cars parked in a supercharger stall and not charging will be towed at the owner's expense. No differentiation between Teslas or any other car parked in the spot. NOW when you're car gets towed, you can argue with the towing company about not paying the towing fee. Then you can try to sue Tesla later to get your money back.
Oh, but with the cable locked into your charging port, they can't tow it, right? Sure. Think Tesla couldn't unlock it remotely?
Yinn
Active Member
Um...you're still getting free unlimited supercharging. As long as you're charging, you're free.
Tesla didn't promise you free unlimited parking. Tesla is merely charging you for parking in the spot.
At this point, Tesla has only stated you will be billed for those fees on your next SC visit. You could try to avoid the SC or sell your car if something breaks. I'm sure there could be debt collection measures implemented as well. At this point, everything else is speculation.
In the end, given the technology in our cars, Tesla potentially has some flexibility and options in dishing back some pain and difficulty to the life of a difficult and painful customer.
In the same token, Tesla has the technology (if they wanted to) to make this easy with automated billing - such as that of a credit card for people who want to choose that option.
Also, I'm not familiar with the Canadian agreement, but I have my US one handy; given that I just picked mine up. Mine states "Supercharger Enabled" on the order sheet. It also has a delivery agreement showing that nothing else is promised or implied. I don't have any terms or agreements to whether Tesla will or will not implement any additional fees for utilization or breach of terms. They could have the option to pull an Apple, you can use the free unlimited charging. Prior to charging, you're asked to accept the terms and agreements of SC use, which will include language on idling fees.
Tesla didn't promise you free unlimited parking. Tesla is merely charging you for parking in the spot.
At this point, Tesla has only stated you will be billed for those fees on your next SC visit. You could try to avoid the SC or sell your car if something breaks. I'm sure there could be debt collection measures implemented as well. At this point, everything else is speculation.
In the end, given the technology in our cars, Tesla potentially has some flexibility and options in dishing back some pain and difficulty to the life of a difficult and painful customer.
In the same token, Tesla has the technology (if they wanted to) to make this easy with automated billing - such as that of a credit card for people who want to choose that option.
Also, I'm not familiar with the Canadian agreement, but I have my US one handy; given that I just picked mine up. Mine states "Supercharger Enabled" on the order sheet. It also has a delivery agreement showing that nothing else is promised or implied. I don't have any terms or agreements to whether Tesla will or will not implement any additional fees for utilization or breach of terms. They could have the option to pull an Apple, you can use the free unlimited charging. Prior to charging, you're asked to accept the terms and agreements of SC use, which will include language on idling fees.
green1
Active Member
Wow you people are so deep in the Tesla koolaid it's incredible.
I'm waiting for you to tell me how great it is when Tesla decides to put in a cost per mile driven on your car, maybe $100 or so, I'm sure it's within their rights, after all, they never said you could DRIVE for free!
Or maybe you'll praise them when they block the car from driving at all, after all, they only sold you the car, they never promised it could be used.
I know what I paid for, and what I agreed to. I have documentation to back it up, and I will NOT allow ANYONE to change the deal after the fact in any way. I stand up for my rights. It's too bad that I'm the only one not fully owned by Tesla corporate.
I'm waiting for you to tell me how great it is when Tesla decides to put in a cost per mile driven on your car, maybe $100 or so, I'm sure it's within their rights, after all, they never said you could DRIVE for free!
Or maybe you'll praise them when they block the car from driving at all, after all, they only sold you the car, they never promised it could be used.
I know what I paid for, and what I agreed to. I have documentation to back it up, and I will NOT allow ANYONE to change the deal after the fact in any way. I stand up for my rights. It's too bad that I'm the only one not fully owned by Tesla corporate.
green1 -- at the risk of asking the obvious, do you have a signed contract that offers "free supercharging for life"? Marketing stuff on a website or oral promises are very tough to prove in court. Assuming you do have it in your sales contract (and I suspect you don't) how is Supercharging defined? Again, my suspicion is that it is not defined.
I'm not an expert on Canadian law but it seems to me that contract law there is likely similar to contract law in the US. So here is the scenario -- Tesla implements the idling/penalty fee as currently described (including fact you are to pay it at your next visit to the Service Center). You incur some of those charges. You then go to a service center to get work done and they tell you you need to pay the idling fee. You refuse. They then tell you that they won't do the work on your car.
At some point, Tesla files in court for you to pay the fee. You go to court and argue that you were promised free supercharging for life and thus you shouldn't have to pay it. Tesla argues that (a) you were not charged a fee to supercharge your car and that (b) they charged you after your car was finished charging. Obviously the courts would decide this one, but I suspect you would have a very difficult time proving your case.
I would also point out that there is a long court history about company's changing "for life" things for customers after the fact. The reality is that as years and decades go on, things do change and companies have changed their policies. Customers have taken them to court. Sometimes they have won, other times they have lost. It seems to me that as long as you get free charging, you are going to have a hard time arguing that a fee Tesla is requiring you to pay when the car is charged is a violation a promise of "free supercharging for life."
Now would they go to the time and expense of taking you to court for some small idling fees? Every business makes the decision to initiate litigation at a different price point. At the same time, it is reasonable to think that they might refuse to sell you other services (including service on your car) or do other things if you had what they defined as an "overdue balance" for parking at a supercharger when you were not charging.
Clearly you feel differently. Personally, I'm looking forward to hearing how this goes in the months to come. Clearly there are a LOT of people who do abuse superchargers and use them as free parking all day and all night at various locations and they will run afoul of the new policy and all of them have cars purchased with "free supercharging for life." Someone is going to refuse to pay the fee and it will be interesting to see what happens. As for myself, I feel the opinion you're expressing represents just the rude, entitled behavior the new policy was created to address and am hoping that the controls Tesla puts in place do work and alter people's behavior before the roads are flooded with (hopefully) millions of Teslas.
I'm not an expert on Canadian law but it seems to me that contract law there is likely similar to contract law in the US. So here is the scenario -- Tesla implements the idling/penalty fee as currently described (including fact you are to pay it at your next visit to the Service Center). You incur some of those charges. You then go to a service center to get work done and they tell you you need to pay the idling fee. You refuse. They then tell you that they won't do the work on your car.
At some point, Tesla files in court for you to pay the fee. You go to court and argue that you were promised free supercharging for life and thus you shouldn't have to pay it. Tesla argues that (a) you were not charged a fee to supercharge your car and that (b) they charged you after your car was finished charging. Obviously the courts would decide this one, but I suspect you would have a very difficult time proving your case.
I would also point out that there is a long court history about company's changing "for life" things for customers after the fact. The reality is that as years and decades go on, things do change and companies have changed their policies. Customers have taken them to court. Sometimes they have won, other times they have lost. It seems to me that as long as you get free charging, you are going to have a hard time arguing that a fee Tesla is requiring you to pay when the car is charged is a violation a promise of "free supercharging for life."
Now would they go to the time and expense of taking you to court for some small idling fees? Every business makes the decision to initiate litigation at a different price point. At the same time, it is reasonable to think that they might refuse to sell you other services (including service on your car) or do other things if you had what they defined as an "overdue balance" for parking at a supercharger when you were not charging.
Clearly you feel differently. Personally, I'm looking forward to hearing how this goes in the months to come. Clearly there are a LOT of people who do abuse superchargers and use them as free parking all day and all night at various locations and they will run afoul of the new policy and all of them have cars purchased with "free supercharging for life." Someone is going to refuse to pay the fee and it will be interesting to see what happens. As for myself, I feel the opinion you're expressing represents just the rude, entitled behavior the new policy was created to address and am hoping that the controls Tesla puts in place do work and alter people's behavior before the roads are flooded with (hopefully) millions of Teslas.
I have a feeling green1 was the type of guy to buy a small soda and then keep bringing in that cup for the next month until it fell apart because the burger shop said "Free refills". Crazy entitlement is why fast food restaurants have to start putting up signs "Free refills for this visit only" or "Please use water cups only for water".
JeffK
Well-Known Member
Actually there are some states in the US that are proposing this model as taxation.
As for how they will collect the fee
well that's a a service center visit. I'd assume you want your car back right?Supercharger Idle Fee
While the post itself is funny, there is no need to personally attack the character of anyone on this board. green1 is entitled to his opinion.
It's not like his POV is unfounded, not everything Tesla has done historically has been... umn... ethical.
Now back to your regularly scheduled drama.
green1
Active Member
So you are proposing that they will STEAL the car if I don't pay? that will go REALLY well for them! I already had one mechanic try a similar tactic. I'll give you a hint of how that went, I had the car back within an hour, and he didn't get anything in return.As for how they will collect the fee
The law (in my jurisdiction) is crystal clear on this, mechanics are only allowed to charge for services you have authorized. I don't authorize that one.
JeffK
Well-Known Member
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