We are not new to EVs in Norway. We have quite extensive experience with EVs for a long time. Other brands of EVs don't have these problems with charging. Model S seems to be very fussy about what kind of electricity it gets fed with. And it's not like it was a total surprise for Tesla that large parts of the Norwegian electricity grid is unique and grounding is challenging.
One thing I noticed immediately when I got the car, long before winter started, was that charging won't always start, and you can't trust the charging port LEDs. That's a bug in my opinion. Even though the LEDs glow green, the screen may say "Charging will start momentarily" and the amps will not count up. I always check the screen to see if the car is actually charging. If it doesn't I unplug the UMC again and again until it starts to charge. Not very satisfactory to have to do this on a premium car.
When using the UMC, after charging is finished the LEDs sometimes are red. For many Norwegians, the LEDs are always red after charging. When the LEDs are red, it seems the 12V battery is being drained. This means Norwegians who use the UMC have to make sure to unplug quickly after the car is finished charging, to avoid 12V problems.
When the weather forcast says it'll get freezing, I've learned to take the UMC indoors to warm up before charging. On my other EV, a Mitsubishi i-Miev, I've never had to do anything like that. The i-Miev will charge in -25 C without any problems. When the temperature is stable below freezing, the UMC seems to be OK outside.
I have set up three 16A schuko sockets and two 32A blue sockets for charging my car at home, to be able to have parking flexibility. One of these sockets have grounding problems in wet weather, and the UMC is noticably more unstable when using that socket. I think many Norwegians may have similar problems with their outdoor sockets without them knowing, and this may be part of the problem people have with charging when the temperature is around 0 C.
One of my colleagues says the latest software causes his charging current to fluctuate down and up. He thinks voltage fluctuations on the local power grid caused by the stress winter heating places on the grid, triggers the latest Model S software to think there's something wrong with his power, causing current to be reduced.
Freezing charge ports are always frustrating. It's a problem on other EVs, and it's a problem with Model S also. The credit card trick doesn't work when the temperature is colder than -5 C, so I've started to thaw the charging port with a plastic bag filled with hot water for a few minutes until the charging port opens. On the Norwegian forum there have been reports of people who have an hair dryer with them in the car, to be able to thaw the charging port while on the road. Maybe there should have been a built in charge port heater, or a more elegant way to force the charge port lid open? It's not that easy to fill a plastic bag with hot water everywhere when charging on the road.
I'm sad to say Tesla isn't exactly living by "underpromise and overdeliver" in Norway. It's more like "overpromise and underdeliver" actually.
Tesla didn't deliver the winter wheels at the time of delivery as is customary, nor by the winter wheel changeover deadline November 1st. Worse, they did not answer any questions regarding winters wheels by phone, email or even face to face in the shops. Very frustrating to deal with that kind of behaviour from a car dealer. It wouldn't have been difficult for them to send out emails to their customers. Rumour has it (I don't know if it's true) Tesla Norway bought 1000 sets of rims(!) for winter wheels with wrong dimensions, totally unusable. And Tesla didn't secure their order for winter tyres from the Nokian distributor properly, as other older Nokian customers had delivery priority over Tesla, causing shortages in the market. Afterwards, Tesla has reportedly been threatening to refuse warranty cover to those who bought third party rims.
It took months before the Tesla iPhone and android app became available in the app stores. The app was available in the app stores of all of the EU (minus UK and Ireland) plus Switzerland and Iceland, but not in Norway. After a while it became kinda insulting to see that the app was available in the Romanian app store, but not in their largest European market.
Most Norwegian Model S customers have not yet received anything but the slowest UMC-adapter, the 3kW schuko socket adapter. Most of us has not yet received the adapter for blue 32A sockets (7kW) and the adapter for red 3x16A sockets (11kW), even after 3-4 months. This kind of limits the usability of the UMC. No communication from Tesla about when we can expect to get the adapters. They could have sent an email to their customers about the status for these due items. Many Norwegians who drive longer distances daily have had to buy third party charging solutions to be able to use the car in the way they intended. Now Tesla is reported to be telling customers that they may refuse warranty cover to those who use third party charging solutions!
When I got the car in September I could charge at mode3 type2 charging stations at 3x32A. These charging stations are created to supply 3x32A safely. Now the car is lobotomized to only charge at 3x26A. So much for the car getting better and better with every software update.
We have DAB digital radio in Norway, and FM is supposed to be switched off in 2017. DAB digital radio in the Model S is a mess. The user interface is hopeless. The name of DAB frequency blocks are completely uninteresting for the radio user, and should be completely hidden from the user. Having to select a channel from a pulldown meny is not very good user interface in a car. Worse, the DAB radio channel will randomly jump to another channel every couple of minutes. Even worse, if you have been using DAB on a trip but give up due to the annoying channel jumping, and start to listen to music from your iphone instead, the car will randomly jump back to DAB digital radio from time to time. (I really wish I could get Spotify integrated in the media player. It's kinda dangerous to change playlists on the little iPhone screen on the phone while driving.)
The first and most important part of good customer service is to actually deliver the products the customer ordered on time, and make sure they work reliably. Tesla Norway sell more cars than most Tesla stores in the world, which is bound to test the organization, workflows, scalability of their IT systems/CRMs, customer communication etc. If Tesla actually starts to refuse warranty cover I'll start to warn people about buying Teslas.
