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IDLE Fees questions

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...or they could use the fact that every one of their cars is connected to the internet all the time over the cellular network and just know from a computer lookup in their database which cars were there and charging, without any human presence or interaction.
I think they were being sarcastic. Either that or feel mighty silly now that the app tells you the occupancy!
 
I think they were being sarcastic. Either that or feel mighty silly now that the app tells you the occupancy!

If the app reports the occupancy accurately, then why doesn't the database the sends out the idle fee charges not seem to know the occupancy correctly? I know I got a warning when I was the only car at a station of eight chargers.
 
My first encounter with idle fees in five years went as follows: Pulled into Springfield VA as the 11th of 18 slots, started charging and headed to a restaurant for lunch, set for 90% limit. In the restaurant I was notified that charging was stopped at 80%, and fees would be charged after five minutes. The new thing to me was that your target would be reduced if it is set "too high",

Anyhow, I went out and entered the car, by which time a couple of cars had left, making me 7th of 18 slots. So I restarted the charging, raised the target to 100%, went back to the restaurant, and it got to 98% by the time I left.

Has anyone seen a Tesla statement that charging targets higher than 80% would be disregarded? I'm not complaining, it's just an interesting and understandable approach to keeping the stations as clear as possible.
 
My first encounter with idle fees in five years went as follows: Pulled into Springfield VA as the 11th of 18 slots, started charging and headed to a restaurant for lunch, set for 90% limit. In the restaurant I was notified that charging was stopped at 80%, and fees would be charged after five minutes. The new thing to me was that your target would be reduced if it is set "too high",

Anyhow, I went out and entered the car, by which time a couple of cars had left, making me 7th of 18 slots. So I restarted the charging, raised the target to 100%, went back to the restaurant, and it got to 98% by the time I left.

Has anyone seen a Tesla statement that charging targets higher than 80% would be disregarded? I'm not complaining, it's just an interesting and understandable approach to keeping the stations as clear as possible.

Nope, never seen that or even heard of it before. If it happened to me I would be royally pissed. Today I was on a long trip and twice we were met by friends who picked us up to go to a decent restaurant while the car charged toward 100%. If I had been notified my charging limit was reduced to 80% when 45 minutes into a meal expecting to have nearly an hour and a half that would be a big deal. In fact, I would consider that to be a hack of my automobile and might just look into legal action.

Could you have changed the charging limit through your phone to restart the charging? I know I can do that at home.
 
Could you have changed the charging limit through your phone to restart the charging? I know I can do that at home.

Not sure. I high-tailed it out there and only discovered the option to restart while sitting in the car. Should have tried that, but it depended on some departures having occurred. Others have pointed out the need for the app to provide information about the occupancy of the SC, but that is often very dynamic and could well change during transit to the car, especially if that requires a car ride as yours did.

I have asked Tesla Support for a clarification of what happened. It could not have been a "glitch" since I received a notification about the interruption with an idle fee warning. Unless my limit was actually at 80% instead of where I always leave it? Not likely.
 
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Two things come to mind...

I usually get a message at 80% saying supercharging is almost done, get ready for idle fees if needed (paraphrasing here) regardless of what I set the limit to above 80%. 90%, 100%, doesn't matter. The car keeps charging though to my set point.

The other is that in some thread here someone said that they witnessed the car resetting the limit based on navigation needs to get to the next Supercharger.

Either of those apply?
 
I've not seen my charging limit changed to cut off early based on navigator requirements, but I see the charging time remaining indicate the the navigator need rather than my charging limit only to have the time remaining jump up once the navigator need is passed.

All in all the Teslas are very complex beasts and can be hard to predict what they will do or why they do it.

You have to admit that one thing ICE autos have to their favor is convenience. You turn the key and go where you want without thinking too hard. Driving happens.
 
I've not seen my charging limit changed to cut off early based on navigator requirements, but I see the charging time remaining indicate the the navigator need rather than my charging limit only to have the time remaining jump up once the navigator need is passed.

Yeah, that's my experience as well. When I saw the comment on TMC on the car resetting the limit based on navigation I was sure that was not the case but haven't been on a drive yet since v9 that needed nav and Supercharging to confirm.
 
I have often thought that Tesla makes it easy to avoid idle fees by just turning the limit up to 100%, which takes forever to reach. However, I think Tesla has caught on to that gambit and is taking measures to preclude it. Will report back if they reply to my inquiry or I can otherwise confirm it...
 
I have often thought that Tesla makes it easy to avoid idle fees by just turning the limit up to 100%, which takes forever to reach. However, I think Tesla has caught on to that gambit and is taking measures to preclude it. Will report back if they reply to my inquiry or I can otherwise confirm it...

How could they possibly justify not charging a car to the level set by the owner? I charged as close to 100% as practical twice yesterday because I needed that charge to have confidence in reaching my destination.
 
How could they possibly justify not charging a car to the level set by the owner? I charged as close to 100% as practical twice yesterday because I needed that charge to have confidence in reaching my destination.

I suppose the argument would be that you don't need more charge than it takes to get to your next opportunity, and 80% would arguably do in many if not most places. If they did this at an isolated SC where one needs a full battery, that justification would be moot. But realistically, there are few places left where that is true.

I've been advised by notifications to get moving toward my next charging point at a SOC of 50-60% in the I-95 mid-coast corridor, when charging rates were slow in the heat of summer. There wasn't a threat of idle charges for that case, though.
 
I suppose the argument would be that you don't need more charge than it takes to get to your next opportunity, and 80% would arguably do in many if not most places. If they did this at an isolated SC where one needs a full battery, that justification would be moot. But realistically, there are few places left where that is true.

I've been advised by notifications to get moving toward my next charging point at a SOC of 50-60% in the I-95 mid-coast corridor, when charging rates were slow in the heat of summer. There wasn't a threat of idle charges for that case, though.

How would anyone know what my next opportunity would be for sure? I might have set the navigator to a destination with the intention of taking a side trip rather than a direct path. The navigator is not capable of being set to arrive at a destination with some given amount of charge so you can resume your trip to another destination when there is no charging anywhere along the overall route. So if I set a charging goal, I expect that goal to be met. Anytime the car or company makes a decision in place of my stated intentions, they run the risk of doing harm. They had better have a pretty damn good reason for doing so. Wanting to free up charger time or space is not an adequate reason when it can easily interfere with my personal plans.
 
Wanting to free up charger time or space is not an adequate reason when it can easily interfere with my personal plans.

Spoken like a true American. And I mostly agree, though in practice the only time I actually strike out near 100% is from home, because I'm too impatient to wait for even a supercharger to get to 100% unless I'm having a relaxed meal enroute.
 
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Spoken like a true American. And I mostly agree, though in practice the only time I actually strike out near 100% is from home, because I'm too impatient to wait for even a supercharger to get to 100% unless I'm having a relaxed meal enroute.

My nationality has nothing to do with wanting to use a car in the manner I require. I am surprised you would make such an absurd and rude statement.

For reasons that are important to me I charged to 100% twice yesterday while on a 500 mile drive. As it was, the trip took over 12 hours. If I had needed to fight charging equipment it would have been much longer. I make my plans for reasons that are important to me. If Tesla believes their purposes are more important than my use of my car, then I should have been presented with a statement to that effect before I bought the car. No automotive company has ever told me how much gas I can put in the tank of a car I bought from them. That is left to the government in times of crisis.

I really can't believe I am having this conversation. It is such an obvious thing that Tesla has no effing idea where I intend to drive and so no idea how much charge is ok to put in my battery. The car has controls to indicate how much charge I require and they should work as documented. But then why should the battery charge level be the only thing in the car that works as intended?
 
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My first encounter with idle fees in five years went as follows: Pulled into Springfield VA as the 11th of 18 slots, started charging and headed to a restaurant for lunch, set for 90% limit. In the restaurant I was notified that charging was stopped at 80%, and fees would be charged after five minutes. The new thing to me was that your target would be reduced if it is set "too high",

Anyhow, I went out and entered the car, by which time a couple of cars had left, making me 7th of 18 slots. So I restarted the charging, raised the target to 100%, went back to the restaurant, and it got to 98% by the time I left.

Has anyone seen a Tesla statement that charging targets higher than 80% would be disregarded? I'm not complaining, it's just an interesting and understandable approach to keeping the stations as clear as possible.
I'm guessing it was user error as I've never heard anyone mention this issue before. If you can reproduce it, please do and let us know the steps and exact message you see. Whenever I've Supercharged, if I have a destination set, it tells me when I have enough but will continue charging to whatever limit I've set it to, whether it is 80 or 100%.
 
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I'm guessing it was user error as I've never heard anyone mention this issue before. If you can reproduce it, please do and let us know the steps and exact message you see. Whenever I've Supercharged, if I have a destination set, it tells me when I have enough but will continue charging to whatever limit I've set it to, whether it is 80 or 100%.

I'd be interested in anyone who can test this and can say whether they experienced a change in their charging limit. Please note, however, that this is only going to happen (if at all) at a SC that is full enough (50-100%) to incur idle fees 5 minutes after the charging limit is exceeded. Plenty of people have incurred the fees, so plenty of people should have experience with this. I should think they would have noticed whether their charging limit was adjusted downward by Tesla to generate the notification and the fees, but so far I have no corroboration.
 
I'd be interested in anyone who can test this and can say whether they experienced a change in their charging limit. Please note, however, that this is only going to happen (if at all) at a SC that is full enough (50-100%) to incur idle fees 5 minutes after the charging limit is exceeded. Plenty of people have incurred the fees, so plenty of people should have experience with this. I should think they would have noticed whether their charging limit was adjusted downward by Tesla to generate the notification and the fees, but so far I have no corroboration.

I had it happen at the Barstow, CA supercharger on the Sunday morning of Thanksgiving weekend. The car was set to charge to 90%. We received an alert that our charge was nearing completion. I looked at the app and saw a charge state of something like 78% and thought to myself that the alert was WAY off as the charge limit was set to 90 (and still showed that in the app)

We walked back to the car, maybe 10-15 minutes or so later. The car was no longer charging and showed 80%. I had to unplug/replug to restart charging. We ended up getting 3 minutes of idle charged to us. The charge was waived for 1st offense.

Ever since that occasion I watch the app like a hawk around 80% to make sure it hasn't stopped (if it was my intention to keep it going)
 
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I can understand the concept to reduce charge limit to 80% at Superchargers that are at capacity, then allow you to increase the charge limit if you really need it to continue your trip.

However, this policy should be published and owners made aware of this policy change.
 
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I can understand the concept to reduce charge limit to 80% at Superchargers that are at capacity, then allow you to increase the charge limit if you really need it to continue your trip.

However, this policy should be published and owners made aware of this policy change.

I don't think this is Tesla's policy. If it were, they would do it differently. Instead of letting you set your charge limit, start charging and walk away from the car with an expectation of the car following your clear instructions, only to find some time later that the charge limit has been reset and you now have to return earlier than expected or face idle fees... they would simply tell you at the time that you started charging to please decrease your charging limit and let you override it before you are committed.

Even if this is not obvious to everyone here, I'm sure the intelligent folks at Tesla understand how important it is for the car to behave predictably when charging. The fact that other cars have shown up to charge after you have left your car, expecting it to be appropriately charged up at the predicted time, is not good justification for breaching this expectation.