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Is anyone only charging for free at a supercharger?
- Thread starter Right_Said_Fred
- Start date
Important distinctions highlighted above. Wasn't there some study that said on average about 8% of the population would steal if there were no repurcussions? With free SuperCharging there are no repurcussions aside from the possible wrath of a delayed Model S owner.
Face it - without additional incentives to discourage overuse of SuperCharger stalls (whether that is SuperCharging as a "local" or letting the car sit too long when the location is busy), people will continue to abuse them.
Look at how many EV owners people will park in an EV-only parking spot meant for charging but then never plug in! We've seen people sit in their car for an hour just for a free L2 charge on a daily basis!
Free SuperCharging, while a great marketing tool, is not going to scale up beyond another couple years of Model S sales unless Tesla plans on continuously expanding the network at a rate proportional to sales. Maybe they will? Already it's clear that at least a couple locations in California (Hawthorne, Gilroy, Fremont, Folsom based on reports here, and I suspect that Coalinga/Lebec/Atascadero/Barstow also see frequent congestion) need another 6-8 SuperCharger plugs at least. By next year, they'll probably need another 6-8 and other locations will need more as well.
Agreed with you there that it's likely a bigger problem in CA as the placement of SCs are likely near residences and/or workplaces (or on the path to/fro).
Firstly, not everyone thinks in that "my time is worth $x.xx" fashion -- as evidenced by the backlash Tesla has received over their initial cost of ownership calculator. Second, I'm inventing nothing. The stories in this thread and in other places on the board speak for themselves. My post was simply pointing out how the problem could exist (those living nearby see a quick charging opportunity).
Which, btw, I think is perfectly fine. I just wanted to point out that for many these SCs ARE local and convenient. FWIW, I've never pulled up to the DE SC (the only one I've used actually) and had to wait.
Plus, at a gas station, a fillup for an individual car shouldn't take 30-45 minutes.
This was the plan, but I didn't think that it would've been that much of an issue to everyone.
I also thought that the superchargers can take an hour or so to charge fully (looking at Barstow thread)
I'd be planning to charge in very off peak times, and would be happy to leave my info on the dash for me to run back and disconnect.
I don't know if I'd be more inclined to charge less often for a longer time, or to just do quick charges (10-15 mins) more often.
This is only gonna be temporary (1-3 months) while I find a place to live (am gonna be new to USA), my uncle is nice enough to accommodate me for this time, I don't want to abuse it by asking for a garage spot & significant power usage as well.
If the SJC supercharger was not under construction, then I think it would stop me from being able to own the tesla altogether, which is one of the main reasons for me moving to USA in the first place.
If there is 1 of the 6 stalls occupied for just over 60-80 mins, and there are 5 other stalls free, then it don't see it being a significant problem. If I was taking up the last stall then I'd be more inclined to wait with the car, til it's charged rather than leaving it.
Let's see how we go. (Haven't even got to USA let alone my tesla yet. Moving over, end of the month)
Johann Koeber
Happy Owner
This is the reason I have a hard time believing the Model E will have the same SC priviledges as the Model S.
SC capability: yes.
Free for life: no.
Remember: in the long term the model S is the flagship product at a high end price. This justifies the SC deal. Volume will remain relatively small, maybe 25.000 a year in the US?
The Model E needs to be designed with cost constraints.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
The only restriction I can see Tesla enacting is a use/week or month limit that is location specific to prevent locals from "abusing" the system. For example: you can't charge at gilroy >5 times per month without calling customer service. I do think tesla needs to have someway of advertising availability since there are some SCs that are close enough to each other that they could be skipped, this could help with congestion. ~90% of the network can probably already handle a population of 500k+ Teslas ~90% of the time... that last 10% is going to be tricky. It's going to interesting to see how this plays out...
Kraken
Member
As for the my time is worth so much argument.... The general population probably has a different philosophy. But think about it this way. Based on my monthly payment, I'm guessing people with a bare bones 60 probably have as low as an $800/month payment. If that person was spending $400/month on gas.... They have effectively saved half the price of the vehicle by charging locally. It probably has made the model s financially feasible. So they are getting a model s for their time, not just cost savings.
get used to it. This won't go away, and in most locations this wont be an issue.
the first two times I went to Folsom, I saw locals charging. All spots were full, but someone was leaving within minutes. Other than that, I've never seen a full supercharger. Since then, I've seen Folsom with open spots about 5 times, so I've determined it is a rarity there too. Most likely the recent stories are a result of the holiday shopping season providing extra incentives for locals to go to that mall and use it. precisely why the mall corporations partnered with tesla... This is what they want... This is how tesla sold it to them... This is probably what tesla wants (locals charging regularly) so it helps seal the deal on more locations because they can show how locals are more drawn to that mall...
Roseville will help alleviate this situation for Folsom.
This isn't going away an time soon. I'd start expecting it to become common, especially as superchargers are put near cities. Think about people in apartments with no garage parking in busy cities. They have been clamoring for superchargers to alleviate this situation.
further, as for paying for it, it'll happen soon. Tesla wants to become the standard other cars use. The will keep expanding until these superchargers are nearly as common as gas stations. They will make a mint off of other cars charging there, so much, I'm sure that their incentive to purchase a tesla over the competitors is that you get free charging. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if eventually tesla stopped selling cars and became the replacement to the oil industry. They'd have it made, and at that point they would want people to charge locally as it would make them more money.
there is a reason that elon wants other companies to start doing more evs... So their customers can be purchasing tesla power....
get used to it. This won't go away, and in most locations this wont be an issue.
the first two times I went to Folsom, I saw locals charging. All spots were full, but someone was leaving within minutes. Other than that, I've never seen a full supercharger. Since then, I've seen Folsom with open spots about 5 times, so I've determined it is a rarity there too. Most likely the recent stories are a result of the holiday shopping season providing extra incentives for locals to go to that mall and use it. precisely why the mall corporations partnered with tesla... This is what they want... This is how tesla sold it to them... This is probably what tesla wants (locals charging regularly) so it helps seal the deal on more locations because they can show how locals are more drawn to that mall...
Roseville will help alleviate this situation for Folsom.
This isn't going away an time soon. I'd start expecting it to become common, especially as superchargers are put near cities. Think about people in apartments with no garage parking in busy cities. They have been clamoring for superchargers to alleviate this situation.
further, as for paying for it, it'll happen soon. Tesla wants to become the standard other cars use. The will keep expanding until these superchargers are nearly as common as gas stations. They will make a mint off of other cars charging there, so much, I'm sure that their incentive to purchase a tesla over the competitors is that you get free charging. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if eventually tesla stopped selling cars and became the replacement to the oil industry. They'd have it made, and at that point they would want people to charge locally as it would make them more money.
there is a reason that elon wants other companies to start doing more evs... So their customers can be purchasing tesla power....
While you may assert that, I'm not sure what it's based in.
There are roughly 50 superchargers today, with an average # of bays around 6. That's 300 charging bays. The Supercharger map shows the build out completed in 2 years with what appears to be about 4X the number of locations. That implies 1200 ~bays at the end of 2015.
There were roughly 20K cars sold in 2013. They are ramping up production. Selling 25K in 2014 is not unreasonable. In 2015 they could be at ~40K. In addition the model X is slated for release in early 2015. Not being an entirely new vehicle and production process, they could sell 30K of those the first year as well.
Thus, at the end of 2015, the supercharger scale out (new US locations) will be largely complete, and there could be 115,000+ Teslas on the road capable of supercharging.
That means it would take just 5% of drivers who decide to supercharge to tie up the supercharger network completely for during commute times, competing with "normal" usage. And this is while there are still relatively few Teslas on the road.
Now certainly
What happens at the end of year 5? Certainly Tesla will also scale up (more bays at existing locations), but there will be limits as to how far they can take that. And yes, not
Do folks expect that Tesla will continue to build more and more Superchargers just for folks who don't want to arrange for daily charging?
I suspect you're wrong on this. Further, even if you're right I suspect many people don't do the math (properly) to realize that. Finally, people often make unusual decisions and take unusual actions when the word "free" is involved -- even when you say something absurd like "free after you spend 8 million dollars". The human mind often goes odd directions; it's an imperfect algorithm container.
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