New Supercharger Fair Use Policy

[MP3Mike]

From Electrek: Tesla introduces new ‘Supercharger Fair Use’ policy to focus on long distance travel and deter commercial use

Link to the full policy: Privacy & Legal | Tesla Canada

Essentially you aren't allowed to use a Supercharger if you use your Tesla for commercial purposes, at all. I imagine the this could be a real issue for Real Estate agents. (As well as Taxis, ride-share, etc.)

And it starts with any Tesla sold tomorrow, be it from Tesla or a third-party. (So I assume any Tesla added to, or transferred between Tesla accounts tomorrow are flagged for this new policy.)

Supercharger Fair Use

To help ensure that Superchargers are available for their intended use, we ask that you not charge your vehicle using a Supercharger if your vehicle is being used:

• as a taxi;
• for ridesourcing or ridesharing (through Uber, Lyft or similar services);
• to commercially deliver or transport goods;
• for government purposes; or
• for any other commercial venture.

If you charge your vehicle in a manner that does not comply with this Supercharger Fair Use Policy, we may ask you to modify this behavior. We may also take additional action to protect the availability of Superchargers for their intended purpose, such as limiting or blocking your vehicle’s ability to use Supercharger stations.

This Policy applies to all Superchargers worldwide and all Tesla vehicles purchased, either new or used, whether from Tesla or a third party, after December 15, 2017. Tesla may choose to exclude certain Supercharger stations or occasional trips from the scope of this Policy, such as to accommodate specific local circumstances.
Click to expand...​

So it seems like Tesla is starting this as trusting people to play by the rules, but maybe they will disable Supercharging on any new cars not purchased by an individual.

 

[Yggdrasill]

Poor Tesla-Bjørn.

I'm pretty sure that we'll see the policy being corrected to allow for paid use of the superchargers before long, though. In some form, at least. Tesla could exclude busy airport/central superchargers from paid commercial usage, for instance, and put up some fully commercial supercharger locations instead. It's probably good to keep commercial and personal usage separate to an extent.

 

[Uncle Paul]

Sounds like a reasonable approach.

 

[MP3Mike]

I think they should have taken a different approach and made it no free Supercharging available for commercial use and that the rates for Supercharging were higher than they are for personal use.

 

[MP3Mike]

Poor Tesla-Bjørn.

He shouldn't be impacted unless he buys a new Tesla. He'll have to keep his current X going...

 

[MP3Mike]

I think the biggest impact would be that any Tesla you rent, that was purchased after 12/15/2017, wouldn't be allowed to Supercharge. Which probably makes renting a Tesla a whole lot less feasible. (For both parties.)

 

[Sasmania]

What happened to the "Mission of accelerating the advent of sustainable transport"?

How many millions of people have been turned on to Tesla by Taxi & Uber drivers, etc? How many Gas Powered rides have been replaced by those same Tesla drivers?

And now saying you can't even charge....NOT EVEN for a FEE? This is gone completely overboard. Charge them a bit extra so they can build out more SCs for everyone!

The much worse offenders are the Locals, who have a home charger, but want to save a $ and still clog the chargers. These people are not exposing their Tesla's to new people and not replacing a Gas Powered ride sharing vehicle with a clean EV.

This is just like when someone tweeted to Elon complaining about YouTubers and the Referral Codes. When the much worse offenders were those selling Referral codes on Google Adwords...(providing zero value and gaming the system... which STILL happens today). Yet, for awhile the YouTubers got scolded about referral code usage.

I'm hopeful and confident Tesla will come up with a much better solution than this current new rule.

 

[Yggdrasill]

He shouldn't be impacted unless he buys a new Tesla. He'll have to keep his current X going...

Yeah, I guess he needs to stop doing stuff like this:

 

[TaoJones]

The much worse offenders are the Locals, who have a home charger, but want to save a $ and still clog the chargers. These people are not exposing their Tesla's to new people and not replacing a Gas Powered ride sharing vehicle with a clean EV.

No.

First, a bit of perspective is in order. Of the top 10 busiest SCs, 6 are in CA, 3 in China, and 1 in the Netherlands.

What do at least half the SCs in CA and the 1 in NL have in common? Livery.

Next, non-garaged locals have been welcomed to the SCs by Tesla with open arms since Day 1, unless and until charging can happen at home or at the office.

Which brings us to the mythical free-loading garaged local. With rare exception, how do you tell the difference from the unwashed non-garaged masses? Or the long-distance yet local (hello SoCal) commuter?

Non-garaged locals might visit an SC 1-2x/week. Garaged locals rarely do so. Why? Because people are more lazy than they are cheap, and waking up with a full charge every day is So Easy and the Best Thing Ever.

Livery on the other hand can and do visit SCs up to 4x/day just by doing airport runs from the OC to LAX or SD. I almost always see at least one livery Tesla at an SC (hint: look for the TCP ID).

I’m surprised that Tesla didn’t simply decide to charge livery as they will M3 owners. On the other hand, it’s not as simple as it appears. So what they’re probably doing is monitoring usage and will at some point do exactly that. This sounds like a reasonable first step.

M3 owners who travel locally will quickly find that their efficiency and costs will be no better than efficient hybrids (e.g., it will cost more than they think, at least in CA @ $0.20/kW). Put another way, you can lose 40% of rated by puttering about. Yes, you’ll get all of rated on flat mild point to point highway legs. That’s not the point.

Finally, every Tesla at every SC is an advertisement for EVs. Doesn’t matter in the slightest whether the ambassador behind the wheel is a garaged local or a traveler. Everyone has a story to tell about their Tesla and it usually comes with a persistent grin.

 

[J1mbo]

I wonder if this was the tipping point. If you look at the mileage of this fleet and consider that at least 90% of that was paid for by Tesla whilst the Taxi firm took the profit ...

 

[ChadS]

I wonder how this will apply to vehicles that have already been ordered, but not delivered yet. Like my wife's X, which we ordered in November and will pick up next week. They say it applies to vehicles "purchased" after Dec 15; usually they mean delivery date.

But that means if we had intended for use my wife's X for ride-sharing...we could be in a bad spot now. (I am sure my wife will not allow that, so this is not a real problem for me, just working through all the cases...)

Frankly I am surprised they ever allowed commercial use without charging for it. I agree that charging for it makes more sense than disallowing it. Well, it makes more sense to me...but if Tesla is really only charging users for the price of energy, but commercial use forces more capex to expand capacity, I guess I can see where charging for it might not be enough for Tesla. But, they could have a second pricing tier for commercial use.

 

[MP3Mike]

I wonder how this will apply to vehicles that have already been ordered, but not delivered yet. Like my wife's X, which we ordered in November and will pick up next week.

Well you haven't "purchased" the vehicle until you have a signed MVPA. And since it even applies to private party sales after 12/15/2017 I assume that any car added to a Tesla account after 12/15/2017 will be flagged as being subject to this new "fair use" policy. (I think the point of this is that it prevents commercial operators from buying slightly used cars that had been bought before 12/16/2017 to run their operation. i.e. this nips the problem in the bud and stops the hemorrhaging.)

It also prevents cars sold before 12/17/2017 from getting a bump in value because they could be re-sold and used for commercial purposes. (Free Supercharging could be worth something like $15,000/year for a busy Taxi right?)

 

[ChadS]

I agree with Tesla having a cutoff date to keep commercial users from having a loophole to accumulate exempt cars. That makes perfect sense.

I am just wondering about people who agreed to a purchase under one set of rules, but are getting the car delivered under another. Sure they could refuse the car if the new terms don't meet their needs, but then they lose their deposit.

 

[MP3Mike]

I agree with Tesla having a cutoff date to keep commercial users from having a loophole to accumulate exempt cars. That makes perfect sense.

I am just wondering about people who agreed to a purchase under one set of rules, but are getting the car delivered under another. Sure they could refuse the car if the new terms don't meet their needs, but then they lose their deposit.

Do we know when Tesla actually published this change? (It was probably today, but do we really know they didn't publish it a couple months ago?)

 

[jelloslug]

I wonder if this was the tipping point. If you look at the mileage of this fleet and consider that at least 90% of that was paid for by Tesla whilst the Taxi firm took the profit ...

I think that company has their own Superchargers.

 

[gene]

I think they should have taken a different approach and made it no free Supercharging available for commercial use and that the rates for Supercharging were higher than they are for personal use.

My guess is that once Tesla states greater detail, your assumption will be correct.

 

[Johann Koeber]

I was always surprised that commercial use was covered.

A 85 kWh battery goes through 170,000 kWh after 2,000 cycles. And these batteries last a lot longer than than.

In Germany that is about 50,000 Euros of electricity. About half the price of a nicely equipped MS.

Some of the taxis or delivery cars probably use almost 100% supercharger power - paid by Tesla. This was clearly not sustainable.

 

[Tam]

...ride-share...

Being banned from Supercharger is not a very good news for those who plan to buy Full Self-Driving to make money in ride-sharing Tesla Network.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Being banned from Supercharger is not a very good news for those who plan to buy Full Self-Driving to make money in ride-sharing Tesla Network.

Said network doesn't exist yet. You can be sure that it'll be exempt when it does.

 

[flyhigh123]

the issue is there are just not enough superchargers. with the incoming tesla 3, they are trying to avoid future bad press stating charge stations are always full etc....

tesla is selling cars much faster than they can build their infrastructure to support it.

once they have enough stations, they will open it back up.

Does this mean companies like "tesloop" are screwed?