Insurance - Assigning a dollar value to Lifetime Unlimited Supercharging

[studioloft]

Hello,

I was recently involved in a total loss accident of my beloved 2017 Tesla. This car had what I am going to refer to as "Lifetime Unlimited Supercharging" (avoiding the f word, it certainly has a value).

I am currently in the process of attempting to assign a dollar value to my total loss claim with my insurance company. Two items that I am having difficulty portraying the value of is a lifetime of free energy and lifetime of premium connectivity. I suppose you might value a lifetime as the average lifespan of a car but I am not quite sure what that number of years or miles may be. I had a 2017 with 42,000 miles on it.

I am wondering if anyone else in the community has had experience in either insurance claims of a total loss vehicle or obtaining official documentation from Tesla assigning a value. The Sales advisor who I just purchased another 2021 car from said there is a dollar value assigned with this that he saw on orders years ago but he was not willing to disclose this number to me.

Any help would be appreciated! Thank you.

 

[Nosken]

Years ago, Model S's with smaller 60 Kw batteries did not include Unlimited Supercharging. As I recall, it was $2,000 extra when purchasing car and $2,500 afterward. That was the cost. The value is a different story. To me, it is priceless, since free travel encourages me to "just go drive" whenever I feel like it. Lifetime of the car SUC was only cars ordered by Jan 15 and delivered by April 15, 2017. Cars after that, for some time, were only Free SUC to the original owner. They should have different value.
This is one of the main reasons I am waiting to refresh from my 2016 S90D.
Premium connectivity is $10/month, but there is aa additional * on the new builds.

Premium Connectivity, 1 year complimentary​

1. Live traffic visualization
2. Satellite-View Maps
3. Video Streaming with access to Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, Twitch, and more
4. Caraoke
5. Music Streaming
6. Internet Browser
   *New features that become available after delivery may be subject to additional charges.

 

[Need]

I also remember the $2k number when I was reading this forum from old posts. If you are calculating your own value, you could use 8 years as a reasonable life of the supercharging. You already have 4, so that probably means another 42,000 miles. MX P100D with 22" wheel, you probably get about 2 miles per kWh. So take 21000 * avg rate (0.28) = $5880. I seriously doubt that insurance will pay you $6K extra for losing free supercharging though.

 

[cpa]

I'm no lawyer. I'm no insurance adjuster.

I feel that the value of something like this boils down to intrinsic value and extrinsic value. Sorta like Grandma's wedding ring. It may have sentimental and intrinsic value to YOU because it belonged to your beloved grandmother, but to anyone else it is just some precious metal that can be melted and repurposed with some precious gems that can be placed into a new, more modern setting.

Insurance claims ignore intrinsic value. The extrinsic value of free, unlimited, lifetime Supercharging is likely not much to most owners. They charge at home or work, rarely taking their vehicles on the road or utilizing Superchargers that are proximate to local activities that can be fulfilled within 30 minutes or so.

This was a promotion to sell more vehicles and a marketing ploy for Tesla in its early days.

Did you suffer a loss? Yes. But the dollar value ascribed to this loss will not be nearly as much as you would hope for. You can ask your adjuster, and perhaps the company will toss in a couple hundred or a thousand as a goodwill gesture. Good luck!

 

[MP3Mike]

I am currently in the process of attempting to assign a dollar value to my total loss claim with my insurance company.

The most recent direct evaluation I know of is when Elon offered early Model 3 Performance buyers their choice of $5k or FUSC:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1056027905807941632

Or if they received FUSC that Tesla would pay them $5k to turn it off:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1056024539832844288

And in this one he says FUSC was underpriced and again offers $5k to disable it:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1056025032617426945

I think those three Tweets are pretty good evidence that FUSC was worth at least $5,000.

 

[airborne spoon]

I have free lifetime supercharging (2014 P85D) and i have pondered this question because if I ever get into an accident and the car is deemed totaled i will need to find a way to put a dollar value on something like this. I just made this spreadsheet, i cant seem to attach a excel doc to this post. But i made a pic of all the formulas along with the data so if you want to make your own sheet you can.

The best thing I've come up with is pulling the data from the car about how much you've used SC in the life of the car, I'm currently at 21,647kWH of DC charging over 120k miles in almost 4 years. I expect to keep the car forever but that is an unmeasurable number so lets say i plan to have it another 10 years and do the math on that to calculate an average and put a value to it.

So that's 82 miles per day i drive on average

That's 300,000 miles in 10 years, which seems low IMO but lets keep going with the maths

Which is 180WH per mile if only SC was used but it’s a mix of DC and AC charging so we have to add the 22,723kWH of AC charging to the total now at 44,370kWH

So its 369Wh per mile which is about my average so i know the maths were done right so far.

That comes out to 110,925kWH over the next 10 years.

but now we have to account for AC charging, which right now is about 51% of all my charging. But that number has shifted over the last 3 years it used to be 85% was AC but in my current house my only option is to charge via 120V outlet so i tend to do A LOT more SC than i did before.

So for the sake of argument I'll say my SC rate is 70% of the total kWH for supercharging over the next 10 years is about 77,647kWH

now that needs to be converted into a tangible dollar value

I don't know the exact price for supercharging because it’s free and thus doesn’t display the prices on my screen like it does for others. I will use CA as my example as that’s where i currently live. I have heard prices range from .20 to .43 so i will split the difference and call it .33 for my equation, if it’s wrong then someone please let me know so i can edit and change the formula.

Using all the values above it comes out to $25,623 over the next 10 years supercharging would cost me if i were to get a new tesla that doesn't include free SC anymore.

Now $25k is pretty extreme and no insurance company will ever pay that out. But if you can prove the maths you can at least make a strong valid argument for increasing the value a good bit.

In my case free SC came with the car when i bought it as a CPO from Tesla as it was part of their early adoption incentive and was one of the reasons i got the car in the first place besides the raw power it puts to the ground. So since there was no additional fee for free SC when i bought the car, it was included as part of it then i have the argument that the $25k is part of the value of the car when i bought it.

What i dont know how to calculate is the free premium connectivity. I have an enterprise loaner right now and it doesn't have premium connectivity and it sucks ass but i cant place a dollar value on something being a PITA yet.

 

[AW9nineteen]

I really wish it stuck with the owner..

 

[ucmndd]

I’d argue the value of these features is already represented and included in the market value analysis of your car.

Other cars trading hands with these features right now create comparable sales that the insurance company uses to determine fair value. That’s really about all there is to it.

You can of course argue and negotiate with the insurance company to try and maximize your return, but I don’t think you’re going to recover anywhere near what you seem to be implying these features are worth.

 

[MP3Mike]

Other cars trading hands with these features right now create comparable sales that the insurance company uses to determine fair value. That’s really about all there is to it.

A lot of cars have non-transferable FUSC so the value wouldn't be included...

 

[ucmndd]

A lot of cars have non-transferable FUSC so the value wouldn't be included...

But the ones that do would obviously represent comparable sales. A good insurance adjuster could figure this out. The market dictates the price either way. I think @cpa ’s thoughts and analysis makes a lot of sense.

 

[jlv1]

My personal opinion is that FUSC is worth about $2-3K ('to me').

I can back that up with numbers from TeslaFi (which if you don't use, I suggest you should! See this post for some reasons why: Best Tesla Apps? -- my TMC username works as a referral code gets you a 4 week trial).

Here's a sample of data from TeslaFi:

I pulled into this table some numbers from charging history on our Model S (pre 4/2017 FUSC) and my Model X (post 4/2017 FUSC, only for as long as we own it). While all 30K miles on the X are in TeslaFi, we didn't start recording data on the S for until it was 6 months old and had 11K on the odo, so these numbers cover just the last 37K miles.

kWh added via:	Model S	Model X
Level 2 charging	11,837 kWh	9,084 kWh
Supercharging	3,222 kWh	4,267 kWh
Miles total on odo for above	37243	30170
SuC % (L2 / SuC added)	27.2%	47.0%
SuC miles (Miles * %)	10137	14171
SuC cost (as per TeslaFi (*))	$776	$1025

(*) Even though I don't pay for SuperCharging, TeslaFi Shows me how much it would have cost according to Tesla's current rates for those locations.

I can estimate that the total SuC cost on my Model S would have been about $776 * 48/37 = $1006 - that's for 4 years of ownership and 48K miles. And I consider that we drive long distance often.

I personally discount using SuC in lieu of home charging. There are two nearby SuC in the above list that we've used a bit, but only because we were shopping there while charging. Together they add up to $75 (300 kWh), or about 10% of the total of my Model S. If I was paying for SuC I probably wouldn't have charged at either location, so having FUSC on the cars did let me take advantage of them.

Based upon this usage, over 8 years I'll get about $2K of value from FUSC on my Model S, and about $3200 of value from FUSC on my Model X.

We basically only use SuC on trips; if you use it in lieu of home charging, then your numbers will be very different.

 

[DerbyDave]

The loss to the insured is not just the value of the car. The purpose of insurance and liability is to make the insured whole from the loss, and for the insured to recover amounts that he would lose from the use of the total-loss car. This would include optional and paid extended service agreements or maintenance plans that can no longer be used, as well as a prorated share of the taxes/registration paid during the year of loss. The loss should include any amounts, besides normal maintenance and upkeep, that are not included in the book value of the car that the insured has lost. Full Self Driving is an option, and would be calculated as such in the value of the car at loss, like all factory options. It is unusual to have free energy plans, but that must be considered and add value as well.

 

[dark cloud]

I had never thought about this before; claiming this FUSC value in the event of the car getting written off. Plenty of good numbers and information in here to hopefully prove as evidence of value should it be required.

Going to bookmark this thread

 

[Need]

The loss to the insured is not just the value of the car. The purpose of insurance and liability is to make the insured whole from the loss, and for the insured to recover amounts that he would lose from the use of the total-loss car. This would include optional and paid extended service agreements or maintenance plans that can no longer be used, as well as a prorated share of the taxes/registration paid during the year of loss. The loss should include any amounts, besides normal maintenance and upkeep, that are not included in the book value of the car that the insured has lost. Full Self Driving is an option, and would be calculated as such in the value of the car at loss, like all factory options. It is unusual to have free energy plans, but that must be considered and add value as well.

I don't think anyone disagrees on that, but the problem with free supercharging is "how much is the value?". Just on this thread, someone said it could be as much as $25K. Another said it is $2K-3K. For me, I only supercharge on trips. I don't think I have used over $500 in the last 4 years. Maybe OP could come back later and tell us how much he got for it.

 

[wwu123]

I have FUSC (transferable) on my 2016 refresh, so is an interesting discussion were I to get into a total loss situation. Though even with complete TeslaFi records of all my supercharging, I'm skeptical one would get much agreed value via one's own comprehensive policy coverage; from another party at fault though, perhaps as folks suggest any loss of value or utility might be on the other party's liability...

Which begs a converse question, what would be the insurance/replacement value ascribed to something that has a very tangible price, but no actual utility - namely FSD? Esp for most EAP owners, it provides no actual past or present benefit, and perhaps none going into the expected lifetime of the car? Perhaps that helps answer the original question, whether the value is tied more to the depreciated price, or the actual benefit.

 

[DerbyDave]

I don't think FSD value is an issue. It is an option on the car and adds to value directly because of that, just like options on all cars add value, like option interior packages, special paint colors, auto-dimming headlights and auto-sensing wipers (which are standard on the Tesla and add value to the base value of the car).

 

[Loap]

Hanging just lost my 2020 Model S to a major pileup, Geico took the position that because it was not transferrable on my car, it was worth $0, since that is what it would add to resale value. Fought them on it for a week but looks like my only chance of getting anything would be to go to court, which would cost more than it's worth...

 

[jlv1]

Hanging just lost my 2020 Model S to a major pileup

Sorry to hear that... but you had FUSC on a 2020?

 

[DerbyDave]

Up until near the end of May, 2020, the Model S had FUSC. I think it began earlier that year as a promotion during the first of COVID to help sales which bottomed. Tesla removes free Supercharging on Model S and Model X

 

[jlv1]

Oh, right. I knew that. They've eliminated it so many times I've forgotten!