Model 3 Supercharging Capable Discussion

[Red Sage]

Other states are charging extra registration fees for EVs too. I believe Washington raised the fee to $150 in 2015, not this year.

What Washington is charging for EVs is very regressive. You pay a high rate regardless of how many miles you drive a year. You pay the equivalent tax as you would for 337 gallons of gas a year. Some people buy that much, but I don't.

Yeah. That isn't fair, because when an EV has 88-to-100 MPGe, and replaces a vehicle that would be 19-to-21 MPG, that should be taken into consideration. If there were an 88-to-100 MPG gas guzzler in the Large Luxury segment, it would be using far less fuel over 12,000-to-15,000 miles per year than a BMW 7-Series, Porsche Panamera, or AUDI A8 L. As such, the gasoline tax revenue would be much lower, even if it wasn't nonexistent. Making a Tesla owner pay for two or three gas guzzler's worth of road taxes is not fair at all.

 

[wdolson]

I just really hope that Tesla Motors will not have an early, knee jerk reaction that leads them to put restrictions in place that stay there, without review, for years on end, punishing everyone for the poor actions of an absolute minority.

I hope not either, but Tesla does seem to be fairly good at doing balanced reactions instead of over correcting.

By the way, the analogy to Alan Greenspan's myopia was very well done. Still, I see it a little differently. I think Mr. Greenspan simply trusted the financial industry to police itself. He believed the presence of governmental regulation was the 'real' problem, and honestly felt that left to their own devices, investment banks would always do 'the right thing', without interference from regulators. He believed that their own sense of self preservation would prevent them from making such big mistakes. He was completely wrong.

Assuming people will act wisely en masse is always a mistake. Even if most do, enough won't to destabilize any system with no controls.

What surprised him was that when the 98% saw the profit margins that the 2% were making, they decided to follow suit with similar loan strategies and tactics. He had not realized how dependence upon quarterly performance as a metric to determine bonuses and promotions led the decision making process for investment brokers. He had no idea that literally no one on Wall Street bothered to look beyond their own noses anymore, and no one shared either 'the long view' or 'conservative investment' as virtues at all.

Greed can lead to poor decisions when those who are already making money hand over fist decide to go after someone else's market. The more conservative companies in the 98% would have been just fine, and so would have been the market as a whole, if they had just stuck to the measured practices they knew best. The disaster took place when they chose to pursue the very sort of Customers they had previously turned away as being too risky. Oops.

I once saw an interview with someone who actually read Adam Smith and he said Smith was actually writing a warning that if economic systems don't have controls, they will oscillate between boom and bust. He said people who had only read some of Adam Smith interpreted what he said in the opposite way he intended.

Much the same happened to Sears, Target, and JC Penney, when they decided to go after Walmart. The mistake they made was that they looked at Walmart's profits, but not their business methods. They thought that by lowering prices they could bring in more people. But no matter how low their prices were, they couldn't match Walmart profitably. Their companies were already making money with a bird in the hand, loyal Customers that always came to them. They drove away their own core Customers, who didn't want to shop elbow-to-elbow with the Walmart crowd. And ultimately, both groups decided to just go to Walmart instead. Walmart's biggest strategy is based upon their distribution. None of the others copied that distribution method, having distribution centers in place before the stores, with deliveries made within twelve hours using their own trucks to each store as needed to keep shelves stocked. The others relied upon distributors for their vendors getting merchandise to their stores instead.

Or they went to Amazon.

 

[wdolson]

Yeah. That isn't fair, because when an EV has 88-to-100 MPGe, and replaces a vehicle that would be 19-to-21 MPG, that should be taken into consideration. If there were an 88-to-100 MPG gas guzzler in the Large Luxury segment, it would be using far less fuel over 12,000-to-15,000 miles per year than a BMW 7-Series, Porsche Panamera, or AUDI A8 L. As such, the gasoline tax revenue would be much lower, even if it wasn't nonexistent. Making a Tesla owner pay for two or three gas guzzler's worth of road taxes is not fair at all.

To make it worse, I don't think there is a surcharge for driving a Prius, only for pure EVs.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

In Georgia as I understand it, which I have not yet done a ton of research on, there is a $200 tax on EVs to offset the lost gas taxes that go for infrastructure growth and maintenance. My understanding is that this is only for EVs and not, for instance, my Volt.

Dan

 

[AZ Desert Driver]

Yeah. That isn't fair, because when an EV has 88-to-100 MPGe, and replaces a vehicle that would be 19-to-21 MPG, that should be taken into consideration. If there were an 88-to-100 MPG gas guzzler in the Large Luxury segment, it would be using far less fuel over 12,000-to-15,000 miles per year than a BMW 7-Series, Porsche Panamera, or AUDI A8 L. As such, the gasoline tax revenue would be much lower, even if it wasn't nonexistent. Making a Tesla owner pay for two or three gas guzzler's worth of road taxes is not fair at all.

I think the Big Auto has found an Achilles heel - they can TAX at any rate they can push through the State legislators. Who said "the power to tax is the power to kill". Does not have to be fair or logical, just legal. yuck

 

[T3SLA3]

So Elon has stated 'free for life' supercharging will be an optional extra for Tesla Model 3 to keep the base price at $35k USD.
24 Tesla Shareholder Meeting Highlights — My Notes

Hopefully the optional cost will not be too much as I would like to 'buy in'.

 

[Garlan Garner]

The Verge has Elon's quote from the meeting here:
Elon Musk suggests Tesla Model 3 won't get free Supercharger use

Unfortunately I think that Elon (as usual) didn't choose the best words when he spoke. He said that "something" would be cheaper than gasoline. If he meant Supercharging in particular, the only way that would be true is if the up-front cost to get "free" supercharging is very cheap ($500 or less), or if the M3 owner used Superchargers on a VERY regular basis, like for local charging. For the rest, who only use Superchargers for long trips, once or twice per year, Supercharging will be far more expensive than gasoline.

I personally believe this is perfect. Free once you buy the package.
I think people in this forum think that because you don't pay every time you use an SC then its free.
If there is a $2500 charge upfront...then how is it free?
I paid for it, and now I'm using it. That's not free - and its fair.
Thats probably why Tesla folks say - use it as much as you like.

 

[mhan00]

Insistence won't make a nonexistent problem appear either.

Nonexistent problem? They're already having issues now during peak travel times. It was enough of an issue that Elon felt he had to not only walk back his language about super charger access being free for all to being "mainly for long distance travel with the occasional local charge maybe" and start sending emails asking people abusing local charging to please stop. His recent comments also seem to strongly point to a pay per use model or something similar.

 

[mhan00]

I personally believe this is perfect. Free once you buy the package.
I think people in this forum think that because you don't pay every time you use an SC then its free.
If there is a $2500 charge upfront...then how is it free?
I paid for it, and now I'm using it. That's not free.
Thats probably why Tesla folks say - use it as much as you like.

The problem with an upfront charge is that it won't stop people from charger camping. It could actually cause them to camp MORE, because as you yourself said, they'll feel that they paid for it so they use it. It's like people who starve themselves before going to a buffet and then stuff themselves sick to "get their money's worth", enjoyment or satisfaction or practicality be damned. If Tesla goes with a "package" that enables unlimited free supercharging for the Model 3, then they're going to need something else to ensure cars keep moving out of the spaces, otherwise there will be issues.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Nonexistent problem? They're already having issues now during peak travel times. It was enough of an issue that Elon felt he had to not only walk back his language about super charger access being free for all to being "mainly for long distance travel with the occasional local charge maybe" and start sending emails asking people abusing local charging to please stop. His recent comments also seem to strongly point to a pay per use model or something similar.

There is already a purchase option on the Tesla Website. Once you purchase it....then you can use it as much as you like.

 

[Garlan Garner]

The problem with an upfront charge is that it won't stop people from charger camping. It could actually cause them to camp MORE, because as you yourself said, they'll feel that they paid for it so they use it. It's like people who starve themselves before going to a buffet and then stuff themselves sick to "get their money's worth", enjoyment or satisfaction or practicality be damned. If Tesla goes with a "package" that enables unlimited free supercharging for the Model 3, then they're going to need something else to ensure cars keep moving out of the spaces, otherwise there will be issues.

Although I agree that it won't stop charger camping - It is the perfect response to those who keep using the "free" word. SC isn't free. The camping issue is another separate issue altogether.

One answer to the camping issue would be for more people to purchase the SC option which allows for more SC's to be installed. Maybe folks don't know that there are a lot more options than SC'ing. It is quite possible that folks would use other options if they knew they were out there...such as EV Trip Planner. If there were one SC for every car...then a lot fewer people would be complaining about camping because there would be more room for the campers. What if there were 500 SC's at each site...then would there be campers? Why not accommodate them and install more? Like gas stations in the US. There are millions upon millions of pumps. What's wrong with that? Everybody wins.

I'm ready for the chastisement.

 

[mhan00]

There is already a purchase option on the Tesla Website. Once you purchase it....then you can use it as much as you like.

For the Model S. Which is a considerably more expensive car with a higher margin built into it, and will also be a fraction of the volume they're expecting and hoping for for the Model 3.

 

[Garlan Garner]

For the Model S. Which is a considerably more expensive car with a higher margin built into it, and will also be a fraction of the volume they're expecting and hoping for for the Model 3.

Understood, however its my vote to make the $2500 charge a simple Tesla charge for Supercharging no matter what model you have. Like gasoline. Its the same price for everyone no matter what car you drive. Bugatti's pay the same amount per gallon than Chevys.

I don't think Tesla's $2500 is related to the model. Or at least IMHO it shouldn't be.

 

[mhan00]

Although I agree that it won't stop charger camping - It is the perfect response to those who keep using the "free" word. SC isn't free. The camping issue is another separate issue altogether.

One answer to the camping issue would be for more people to purchase the SC option which allows for more SC's to be installed. Maybe folks don't know that there are a lot more options than SC'ing. It is quite possible that folks would use other options if they knew they were out there...such as EV Trip Planner. If there were one SC for every car...then a lot fewer people would be complaining about camping because there would be more room for the campers. What if there were 500 SC's at each site...then would there be campers? Why not accommodate them and install more? Like gas stations in the US. There are millions upon millions of pumps. What's wrong with that? Everybody wins.

I'm ready for the chastisement.

Well, the problem is one of infrastructure and land. There is quite a bit of negotiating with the owners of the parking lots that has to be done for Tesla to install the Chargers they do have. The mall or supermarket or restaurant or rest stop probably doesn't want 500 super chargers at their location because each super charger spot is a spot that non Tesla drivers aren't supposed to be using. Sure, you can argue that Tesla owners are more affluent so they may spend more than the average customer, but that is speculation with no publicly available numbers to back it up. And if Tesla owners are going specifically for a charge, how many end up just sitting there with their car without spending money at their business because they didn't go there intending to spend money?

And that's to say nothing about the power requirements 500 super chargers would require. Each one is capable of sucking down a ton of power, and their current infrastructures can only carry so much.

 

[Lukas99]

I tend to agree that if you buy Supercharging for life, then it is gonna move these subcribers to use SC heavily. It is primarily a value for money consideration... Lets say hypothetically, one recharge in pay as you go model will be 10USD. For 2000USD, to get "your money back", you need to do minimum 200 recharges. Assuming a range of 200miles, this takes 40.000miles/64.000kms just to break even kind of... And that assumes that 100% of recharging happend via the SC network.

Paying 2000 USD only for long-distance purpose (lets say 10% of all charges), then this fee is a non-sense purely from rational point of view. So if someone pays 2000 USD for the right, it is absolutely natural and common sense that they will try get maximum return on the investement. And nobody can blame anybody.

For me, the more I am thinking about it. Pay As You Go model makes much more sense financially, moreover since only the first SC is opening in Czech Republic in June or so

 

[Garlan Garner]

Well, the problem is one of infrastructure and land. There is quite a bit of negotiating with the owners of the parking lots that has to be done for Tesla to install the Chargers they do have. The mall or supermarket or restaurant or rest stop probably doesn't want 500 super chargers at their location because each super charger spot is a spot that non Tesla drivers aren't supposed to be using. Sure, you can argue that Tesla owners are more affluent so they may spend more than the average customer, but that is speculation with no publicly available numbers to back it up. And if Tesla owners are going specifically for a charge, how many end up just sitting there with their car without spending money at their business because they didn't go there intending to spend money?

And that's to say nothing about the power requirements 500 super chargers would require. Each one is capable of sucking down a to of power, and their current infrastructures can only carry so much.

LOL. No matter what I say...there is going to be pushback - isn't there.

500 SC's was just an example for the conversation. LOL.

I'm going to just pay to e $2500 and leave the infrastructure logistics to Tesla. Elon and the sales team has already stated that they are attempting to double ( or something like that ) the number of SC's. I don't really care where they put them or anything...just that they are out there. 20 SC's in the back of each Cracker Barrel in the USA would yield tons of SC's LOL.

 

[mhan00]

Where they put them is HUGE. It's a bigger deal than the number of chargers, by far. One of the big failures of the current EV charging infrastructure is the haphazard way it's been deployed by other companies. Tesla has been pretty masterful at planning where to out their chargers to give it a purpose: enabling their drivers to extend their range easily with set intervals.

 

[mhan00]

and the point wasn't about 500 super chargers specifically, it was that expanding the chargers isn't just something they can rubber stamp and easily do infinitely. They don't have carte Blanche to do whatever they want; they need to work with the businesses and land owners.

 

[Garlan Garner]

and the point wasn't about 500 super chargers specifically, it was that expanding the chargers isn't just something they can rubber stamp and easily do infinitely. They don't have carte Blanche to do whatever they want; they need to work with the businesses and land owners.

That's exactly what I believe Tesla is doing. They are working with businesses and land owners. You have already complimented Tesla on their planning and infrastructure which includes working with businesses and land owners. I don't know why they would change what has impressed you.

 

[davidc18]

Elon Musk suggests Tesla Model 3 won't get free Supercharger use
Unless you 'purchase that package'

Elon Musk suggests Tesla Model 3 won't get free Supercharger use