My VIN is 1527, and my car supercharges at a maximum of 90 kW. Unlike many of you, I do not believe that I was promised 120 kW supercharging at the time I finalized the contract on my car in August of 2012. I certainly did not expect it at that time. I was promised that supercharging hardware would be "included" in the vehicle, but I expected to pay for the electricity. The rate of supercharging, the taper curve, the cost of supercharging -- all were unspecified. Vague statements like "almost 100 kW" and "potentially more" do not rise to the level of a promise. I agreed to buy a car with supercharging hardware, and that's what I got.
When the supercharger improvements were announced in the spring of 2013, I did expect that my car would charge at 120 kW. The 90 kW limitation was not mentioned in what was admittedly a poor job of communication. However, I was never promised 120 kW supercharging, at least not in the legal sense. I have read through the statements cited in this thread, and none of them clearly promise that every Model S will charge at 120 kW. The superchargers are capable of putting out 120 kW, but that doesn't mean every car will achieve that rate. These statements are not too different from the claim that the Model S travels 300 miles on a charge, or that it charges from a 240 V wall socket at 31 miles per hour of charge, or, for that matter, the claim that my cellular broadband provider can achieve data rates of "up to" 58 Mbps. I view this as puffery, not a contractual obligation.
Even if 120 kW charging had been a promise, there was no consideration to support it. Without consideration, any promise would be unenforceable. So I have to conclude that all the talk of a class action suit or fraudulent misrepresentation is simply going nowhere. To the best of my knowledge, the purchase contracts for all of the supercharge-limited cars were finalized before Tesla Motors made any promises regarding 120 kW supercharging. Could somebody sue? Of course. But as one of my teachers used to say, I can sue you for refusing to marry me; it doesn't mean I'll win.
A company that seeks to innovate rapidly will inevitably leave the early adopters behind. Indeed, it will leave every purchaser behind, because something newer will always come along. A company simply can't afford always to retrofit older cars with innovations developed for future cars. Imagine, for example, that Tesla Motors today develops a more efficient bolt pattern for attaching its batteries (i.e., an innovation that reduces the cost and increases the speed of production). Would we expect them to forgo the implementation of this change simply because it would preclude rapid battery swapping on older cars? Battery swapping has been announced, but has it been clearly promised that every Model S will be able to use the swapping stations? I think not. I believe the most we should expect is that the company will be honest with us, and will note (and explain the reason for) the limitations if and when the swapping stations are actually rolled out.
If we step back, it's hard not to conclude that our expectations for Tesla Motors have been too high. So why all the emotion, the bitterness, the intense feeling of betrayal? I believe it is because the early adopters (and I include myself in this) came to believe that Tesla Motors is a different breed of company. It doesn't engage in puffery. It makes things right, even if it has no contractual obligation to do so. It makes very few mistakes, and those are quickly corrected. Why else would we have put down $40,000 or $5,000 based on a distant promise by a company with a very short track record? I may not believe that I have a right to have this problem corrected, but I am pretty pissed to learn that the emperor has no clothes.
When the supercharger improvements were announced in the spring of 2013, I did expect that my car would charge at 120 kW. The 90 kW limitation was not mentioned in what was admittedly a poor job of communication. However, I was never promised 120 kW supercharging, at least not in the legal sense. I have read through the statements cited in this thread, and none of them clearly promise that every Model S will charge at 120 kW. The superchargers are capable of putting out 120 kW, but that doesn't mean every car will achieve that rate. These statements are not too different from the claim that the Model S travels 300 miles on a charge, or that it charges from a 240 V wall socket at 31 miles per hour of charge, or, for that matter, the claim that my cellular broadband provider can achieve data rates of "up to" 58 Mbps. I view this as puffery, not a contractual obligation.
Even if 120 kW charging had been a promise, there was no consideration to support it. Without consideration, any promise would be unenforceable. So I have to conclude that all the talk of a class action suit or fraudulent misrepresentation is simply going nowhere. To the best of my knowledge, the purchase contracts for all of the supercharge-limited cars were finalized before Tesla Motors made any promises regarding 120 kW supercharging. Could somebody sue? Of course. But as one of my teachers used to say, I can sue you for refusing to marry me; it doesn't mean I'll win.
A company that seeks to innovate rapidly will inevitably leave the early adopters behind. Indeed, it will leave every purchaser behind, because something newer will always come along. A company simply can't afford always to retrofit older cars with innovations developed for future cars. Imagine, for example, that Tesla Motors today develops a more efficient bolt pattern for attaching its batteries (i.e., an innovation that reduces the cost and increases the speed of production). Would we expect them to forgo the implementation of this change simply because it would preclude rapid battery swapping on older cars? Battery swapping has been announced, but has it been clearly promised that every Model S will be able to use the swapping stations? I think not. I believe the most we should expect is that the company will be honest with us, and will note (and explain the reason for) the limitations if and when the swapping stations are actually rolled out.
If we step back, it's hard not to conclude that our expectations for Tesla Motors have been too high. So why all the emotion, the bitterness, the intense feeling of betrayal? I believe it is because the early adopters (and I include myself in this) came to believe that Tesla Motors is a different breed of company. It doesn't engage in puffery. It makes things right, even if it has no contractual obligation to do so. It makes very few mistakes, and those are quickly corrected. Why else would we have put down $40,000 or $5,000 based on a distant promise by a company with a very short track record? I may not believe that I have a right to have this problem corrected, but I am pretty pissed to learn that the emperor has no clothes.
