How Tesla Charges Idle Fees?

[bob_p]

We all need to remember that Tesla is breaking new ground - the first with a long range EV - the first with a high speed charging network. And when you're the first, you learn a lot and things change as you get more experience. When launching the supercharger network, they made some assumptions, and they're not modifying their plans based on actual and projected usage. That's OK - and should not be unexpected. So far, Tesla appears to be using the fees not as a source for new revenue, but primarily to help encourage owners to more effectively use the superchargers - which should be a good thing for every Tesla owner.

Tesla should keep the supercharger fees as simple as possible, something like this:

Charging fee: $.25 per minute (commercial chargers have time-based fees, Tesla should do the same)
Idle parking fee: $.40 per minute, starting 5 minutes after charging completes

Annual free credit: owners get a 240 charging minute credit annually on their purchase anniversary
Credit carryover: unused credits are carried over (but cannot be redeemed for cash)

Supercharger problem reports: Tesla app should be updated to allow drivers to send problem reports to Tesla, indicating any issues with the charging spots, such as cars parked that aren't connected to a charger, spots blocked & inaccessible for use, and any technical problems preventing the chargers from working (damaged cables/connectors, ...)

Any system Tesla picks is going to have challenges. Though adding exceptions (like waiving the idle fee if there's an open charger) makes the program unnecessarily complicated, and opens the door for increased support costs for Tesla to track the exceptions and field the inevitable claims when owners believe they should have had their fees waived.

 

[sdorn]

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%?

If you set your charge limit to 80% it will stop charging when it hits 80% right? I think the fees kick in when you stop charging, regardless of what SOC your car is at when that happens.

So I wonder if a way to sort of game the system and get a little extra time for eating, etc. would be to set your charge limit at say 60%, then a few minutes after it stops charging bump it up to the next level, then rinse and repeat until you get to your actual desired charge (or back to the car). Seems like you could stretch it out an extra 15 or 20 minutes doing that if you really needed to for some reason.

 

[Max*]

I have a legitimate complaint: Tesla didn't inform everyone of this change.

How did I find out? TMC.

There was no email to all owners, no letter send to my house, no new signage at the superchargers, nothing. So when someone who's not a member of TMC shows up to charge, leaves his car there for 2 hours like they usually do, leave their cell phone in the car, and come back to a $50 bill.

There was no grace period (i.e. this new change is starting in 30 days, while we make sure all owners know). It was done as a blog post and a tweet.

 

[byan1232]

If you set your charge limit to 80% it will stop charging when it hits 80% right? I think the fees kick in when you stop charging, regardless of what SOC your car is at when that happens.

So I wonder if a way to sort of game the system and get a little extra time for eating, etc. would be to set your charge limit at say 60%, then a few minutes after it stops charging bump it up to the next level, then rinse and repeat until you get to your actual desired charge (or back to the car). Seems like you could stretch it out an extra 15 or 20 minutes doing that if you really needed to for some reason.

Yeah this is what i was getting to... cuz the charging slows down as you approach your set limit. So if you wanted "extended parking time" you would just keep adjusting your set limit.

I completely agree with what @Max* has said. Tesla DID NOT inform us through either email or mail. I found out through TMC. I do not use Twitter so please don't say I should be following Elon or Tesla Motors on twitter.

 

[ecobon]

I cannot believe that this policy is in full effect as of Tesla's website additions informing owners of the idle fees. Proper notice has not been given so I think it can be safely disputed if one drops by a service center and gets handed a bill for supercharger idle/parking fees.

I am now off to create an inline capacitor for the Tesla power connector that can always take on a small trickle charge and dissipate it out through a heatsink. Calling it the Tesla Premium Parking Kit.

 

[rxlawdude]

Tesla should keep the supercharger fees as simple as possible, something like this:

Charging fee: $.25 per minute (commercial chargers have time-based fees, Tesla should do the same)
Idle parking fee: $.40 per minute, starting 5 minutes after charging completes

Annual free credit: owners get a 240 charging minute credit annually on their purchase anniversary
Credit carryover: unused credits are carried over (but cannot be redeemed for cash)

Um, no. Because the RATE of charge delivered is highly variable, depending on the Supercharger and whether there's a vehicle charging in a paired stall. A per-minute cost while Supercharging thus punishes many who would now be paying for something (e.g., the full 105kW maximum rate) that they may or may not get. And yes, I know about tapering, but that's a different matter not related to maximum charge rates.

 

[Az_Rael]

I cannot believe that this policy is in full effect as of Tesla's website additions informing owners of the idle fees. Proper notice has not been given so I think it can be safely disputed if one drops by a service center and gets handed a bill for supercharger idle/parking fees.

For this reason, I expect folks' first visit to a service center with idle fees, will have the fees forgiven. Then the person will be "officially" informed of the policy.

I have no idea why an email didn't go out, though. That is not hard.

 

[mspohr]

They won't get a single cent out of me for it, That I can guarantee.

They can feel free to change the deal for new customers. But they have no legal right to make retroactive changes to existing customers. That's not how the law works.

They promised you free supercharging. You're still getting free supercharging.
They didn't promise you free parking. You're now getting charged for parking.

 

[wabbit]

It's yet another case of Tesla breaking their promises. My car came with free supercharging for life. There were no restrictions placed on it. They can feel free to send me a bill, and I can feel free to ignore it. If they block my supercharging, they're breaking their contract with me. If they bill a credit card without authorization, I will reverse the charges.

Free charging is not the same as free parking. If you ignore the time limit how sure are you that no one will vandalize your car while it takes up a space? The whole fee is waved if you don't overstay. It's purpose is to get space hogs to move not make money. And this is likely a temporary solution until automated vehicle moving and charging is introduced.

 

[wabbit]

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.

Does this mean you are going to be the test dummy? Look forward to reading about the results in a couple of weeks.

 

[ecobon]

I agree that most infractions will be "forgiven" at the first service center visit. Then the owner will probably need to sign off that they now know of the changes and willing to accept the charges the next time around--some education and hypotheticals provided by the nice service center staff. Maybe some paperwork showing what not to do at a supercharger, etc.

Smart supercharging with a smart queue would make all of this quite simple for the end user. Once the grace period for the charge level has been confirmed, simply draw back the electrons and redistribute them to the other stalls. Whenever there is a queue, the MCC knows which stall is unplugged and directs a specific VIN to that particular stall for the next charging event (within 5 mins then direct next VIN in the queue). Adding a VIN to the queue needs to be done within the geofenced area as to avoid reservation holders and no-shows. This way there are no arguments and congestion near the supercharger. There have been issues at congested spaces where Tesla owners blocked ICE vehicles by creating a line (queue) to the supercharger. So what's it called when and ICE gets blocked like that? BEV'd? We need something better than that!

** The automated snake cord supercharger system with retractable cord will put an end to all this queue stuff as well. Just park in a open stall and the cord comes to you!

Supercharger Premium Package (includes Premium Parking Adapter) will allow for reservations to be held at a nearby charger to make your long distance trip as seamless as possible!

 

[wabbit]

I cannot believe that this policy is in full effect as of Tesla's website additions informing owners of the idle fees. Proper notice has not been given so I think it can be safely disputed if one drops by a service center and gets handed a bill for supercharger idle/parking fees.

I am now off to create an inline capacitor for the Tesla power connector that can always take on a small trickle charge and dissipate it out through a heatsink. Calling it the Tesla Premium Parking Kit.

Sounds good. Make a few thousand and put it on eBay. Oops - Have you got a license to use the copyrighted trademark?

 

[ecobon]

\
Tesla should keep the supercharger fees as simple as possible, something like this:

Charging fee: $.25 per minute (commercial chargers have time-based fees, Tesla should do the same)
Idle parking fee: $.40 per minute, starting 5 minutes after charging completes

Sounds good and it works for lots of those commercial L2 chargers out there because there is no charge rate taper when connected to them like fast DC chargers such as Tesla and CHAdeMO. Basically time can be a consistent meter for total electrons passed into your battery on the L2 charging platform and through that logic the purveyor traverses the regulations passed onto utility companies.

Billing by kWh used will subject Tesla to become a registered (and regulated) utility company in many places in the US.

 

[4SUPER9]

Sounds good and it works for lots of those commercial L2 chargers out there because there is no charge rate taper when connected to them like fast DC chargers such as Tesla and CHAdeMO. Basically time can be a consistent meter for total electrons passed into your battery on the L2 charging platform and through that logic the purveyor traverses the regulations passed onto utility companies.

Billing by kWh used will subject Tesla to become a registered (and regulated) utility company in many places in the US.

Agreed. So then, how does Tesla get to offer a 400 kWh annual credit? It seems to me that this would fall into this category.

 

[ecobon]

Agreed. So then, how does Tesla get to offer a 400 kWh annual credit? It seems to me that this would fall into this category.

I also think they fall into this category as well...

 

[Ulmo]

It's yet another case of Tesla breaking their promises. My car came with free supercharging for life. There were no restrictions placed on it. They can feel free to send me a bill, and I can feel free to ignore it. If they block my supercharging, they're breaking their contract with me. If they bill a credit card without authorization, I will reverse the charges.

As a consummate quibbler myself, I quibble with your quibble. They said free SuperCharging for life. They said nothing about free hogging of SuperCharger sites while not actually SuperCharging, even if that hogging of that spot happened while doing absolutely nothing after your free for life SuperCharge session. I think they are legally very OK. This isn't even gray area.

Them being wrong would be if they starting charging fees for being idle after only 0 seconds, and then their software locks their charger cable into your car for 5 minutes, racking up huge idle bills, while you futility try to unplug their cord from your car, but the system keeps refusing.

Also, it would be wrong if they charge an idle fee for you plugged into a SuperCharger that isn't actually charging your car because the SuperCharger is broken and you didn't know that.

Also, it would be wrong if they charge you idle fee because the SuperCharger decided to stop charging before you were fully charged (to your specified limit), for whatever reason (not under your control, of course).

 

[RAW84]

This has quite an entertaining thread, sad I missed it on Monday.

While I don't agree with green1's assertion that the promise of free supercharging for life would means they can't charge fees for idling, I find it troubling how many people are saying 'show me where they promised they promised free super charging in your purchase agreement'. I hope you guys wouldn't take the same stance if they actually did revoke free super charging for pre-2017 owners.

 

[GWord]

This has quite an entertaining thread, sad I missed it on Monday.

While I don't agree with green1's assertion that the promise of free supercharging for life would means they can't charge fees for idling, I find it troubling how many people are saying 'show me where they promised they promised free super charging in your purchase agreement'. I hope you guys wouldn't take the same stance if they actually did revoke free super charging for pre-2017 owners.

Are you asking if we would take the stance that it is included in our purchase agreement? (It is not mentioned in mine at all)

I think almost all of us would be upset at your hypothetical scenario and feel like it was done in bad faith, but only the most delusional members of our community would claim that it was somehow explicitly included in our purchase agreement.

 

[RAW84]

Are you asking if we would take the stance that it is included in our purchase agreement? (It is not mentioned in mine at all)

I think almost all of us would be upset at your hypothetical scenario and feel like it was done in bad faith, but only the most delusional members of our community would claim that it was somehow explicitly included in our purchase agreement.

I'm asking if you guys would accept Tesla ending free super charging because it's not explicitly included in the purchase agreement.

 

[sdorn]

Are you asking if we would take the stance that it is included in our purchase agreement? (It is not mentioned in mine at all)

I think almost all of us would be upset at your hypothetical scenario and feel like it was done in bad faith, but only the most delusional members of our community would claim that it was somehow explicitly included in our purchase agreement.

I could make an argument that it is explicitly covered. My purchase agreement states the following:

Below is my "Vehicle Configuration" from the purchase agreement.

The description of the standard features of the car on their website contains the following:

Based on those facts I wouldn't have any trouble making an argument to a court that the purchase agreement expressly provided that my car would be "Supercharger Enabled" and that the description of what that meant on Tesla's website was that it would include free Supercharging for long distance travel. The website doesn't go into more detail as to what "long distance travel" means, so the fact-finder (either the jury or the judge depending on whether you have a jury trial or not) would have to decide what that meant (Tesla certainly wouldn't be able to unilaterally make that determination). The rest I think a court would accept as being the agreement that was expressly reached and documented in the purchase agreement.