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[Rant] locals clogging the Highland Park, IL supercharger

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The problem with say, the first hour free as was proposed by "Cottonwood" is there is a fixed cost that Tesla must spend to put this billing system together, maintain it, provide statements, a path for escalation for people who feel they've been improperly charged, etc... Without having access to supercharger usage statistics for all owners I have no real idea how many people are actually abusing the system. Without that number it'd be very hard to justify all of the investment into the support structure for this proposal. You'd need enough people abusing the system to justify the administrative costs...

Jeff
 
The problem with say, the first hour free as was proposed by "Cottonwood" is there is a fixed cost that Tesla must spend to put this billing system together, maintain it, provide statements, a path for escalation for people who feel they've been improperly charged, etc... Without having access to supercharger usage statistics for all owners I have no real idea how many people are actually abusing the system. Without that number it'd be very hard to justify all of the investment into the support structure for this proposal. You'd need enough people abusing the system to justify the administrative costs...

Jeff

IMO, there is already enough abuse to justify the administrative costs to keep the system working as it was intended.
 
IMO, there is already enough abuse to justify the administrative costs to keep the system working as it was intended.

Depending on what Tesla's Model 3 Supercharging plan is, they may already be planning an administrative billing arm for this purpose. If so, I'm guessing they could just implement it earlier and work out some of the details by only dealing with abusers.
 
No, most of the Tesla owners who live nearby do have home charging, at least in the U.S. anyway. They're just lured by the availability of free charging.
From what I am reading, there are definitely cases where people are charging a supercharger stations because they don't have home charging. In some cases it is deliberate on the part of the owner to not install home charging, and if there is a paid station installed, there is no excuse left to hog a free station. In some cases, it is deliberate on the part of Tesla: they know the location will be mainly used by locals, for example "city" superchargers like installed in London, Hong Kong, China, etc (perhaps the LA stations also fall into this).

In this scheme, there may be some cases where the intended users are flipped: locals hog the free station, while long distance travelers are forced to use the paid station, but at least you can complete a trip without waiting.
 
...

In this scheme, there may be some cases where the intended users are flipped: locals hog the free station, while long distance travelers are forced to use the paid station, but at least you can complete a trip without waiting.

And in a 3rd case, free CHAdeMO at Nissan dealers, locals may end up getting all non Nissan vehicles banned, so almost everyone loses.


I think most of the proposed solutions would have been reasonable in 2012, but the horse is out of the barn for some of them in 2016.
 
It is possible with software only using existing data to determinate what proportion of a user's charges were done unnecessarily at a supercharger, then take appropriate action like denying that user the ability to supercharge at that specific abused location (throttling), with a fudge threshold. For example you get a 25% "unnecessary" charge threshold before you get denied. So a reasonable person knowing that sometimes they might actually NEED to charge here, would avoid abusing the system.

Using cost ladders and such as suggested above is very oldworld thinking. No matter the cost ladder some things will suck.

On the other hand, Tesla couldn't get some trivial things right like homelink and saving heated steering wheel settings with heated seats. So who knows.
 
I question your assessment, and I haven't any source of data, but I believe that a good many tesla owners in the more urban areas and are using the SCs as their primary source of charging live in apartments and condos where they have no ability to charge at home. when I had a second home I was only able to charge at 110 at that house so if was taking a longer drive it required a stop at a SC to top off.
When this happens, the correct answer is more Superchargers.
 
any talk of charging fees for tesla charging for current owners is half baked thinking and will violate the promise and spirit of what all of us bought. tesla more than likely has the ability to throttle those who are "abusing" the charging.
 
any talk of charging fees for tesla charging for current owners is half baked thinking and will violate the promise and spirit of what all of us bought. tesla more than likely has the ability to throttle those who are "abusing" the charging.
Not all of us. Many (if not most) of us bought understanding that the purpose of the superchargers was to facilitate long distance travel, not for routine charging near home. But that's why I and a few others advocate a parking fee at the superchargers. Even those locals who could charge at home but don't couldn't claim it violates the free supercharging pledge, because the fee would take effect after the car finishes charging, such as after being plugged in for 90 minutes. It would stop those frequently reported in California who drop off their car at a supercharger and come back for it hours later.
 
The problem with say, the first hour free as was proposed by "Cottonwood" is there is a fixed cost that Tesla must spend to put this billing system together, maintain it, provide statements, a path for escalation for people who feel they've been improperly charged, etc... Without having access to supercharger usage statistics for all owners I have no real idea how many people are actually abusing the system. Without that number it'd be very hard to justify all of the investment into the support structure for this proposal. You'd need enough people abusing the system to justify the administrative costs...
Jeff
I don't see it that way at all. The biggest problem that I have found is people using charge stations as unlimited parking spot. Cottonwood's proposal would put a stop to this in short order.

Those of us who use the Supercharger to get enough juice to make the next travel stop would pay nothing. No problem.

The cost of implementing this system would be very small compared to the cost of building the SC locations to begin with. It would increase through put because people would be motivated to move on as soon as charge is complete.
 
Not all of us. Many (if not most) of us bought understanding that the purpose of the superchargers was to facilitate long distance travel, not for routine charging near home. But that's why I and a few others advocate a parking fee at the superchargers. Even those locals who could charge at home but don't couldn't claim it violates the free supercharging pledge, because the fee would take effect after the car finishes charging, such as after being plugged in for 90 minutes. It would stop those frequently reported in California who drop off their car at a supercharger and come back for it hours later.
I'm not sure the reception to that idea would be good. When Blinked tried to push as similar post-charging parking fee, they got a lot of push-back and had to delay it indefinitely:
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...rking-(15-minutes-after-a-charge-is-complete)

I can see how it can be argued it doesn't break the promise of free charging (the charging is free, parking at the spot after charging is completed is not), but I'm not sure how many examples this would address. It seems a lot of the problem are locals who use the supercharger for their daily driving, but they don't necessarily leave their cars for hours.
 
The only solution is to change the mind and attitude of the cloggers.

The question is then how? How do you make someone care?

1. Tesla contacting them?
2. Public humiliation by Elon?
3. Hypnotism?
4. 1 to 1 sit down and talk to a long distance supercharger user?
5. Show them photos and videos of other tesla owners in distress?
6. Put the shoe on the other foot and clog up a supercharger when these cloggers go on a long distance trip themselves?

To be honest No.6. Is the only one that could work, of course it might backfire and the cloggers might go on a clogging spree and go clogging up superchargers everywhere even though they don't need to charge.
 
I'm not sure the reception to that idea would be good. When Blinked tried to push as similar post-charging parking fee, they got a lot of push-back and had to delay it indefinitely:
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...rking-(15-minutes-after-a-charge-is-complete)

I can see how it can be argued it doesn't break the promise of free charging (the charging is free, parking at the spot after charging is completed is not), but I'm not sure how many examples this would address. It seems a lot of the problem are locals who use the supercharger for their daily driving, but they don't necessarily leave their cars for hours.
The Blink situation is different-- it takes many hours to charge at a Blink station and charging might be finished in the middle of the night when someone intends to retrieve car in the morning. There is no excuse for a Tesla to stay at a supercharger for hours. You're right it wouldn't address locals who use the stations quickly, but that's not as much of a problem at some superchargers as locals who stay parked for hours (such as the topic of the 1st post in this thread and lots in California).
 
Was poking on supercharge.info and noticed the following estimates:
Metro AreaPopulationSupercharging Locations
Baltimore3M0
Charlotte2.3M1
Washington DC6M1.2 (temp one in Bethesda is terrible)
Atlanta5.6M2
LA4M7
Chicago9.7M8
London8.6M9 (+1 offline)
Hong Kong7M10 (2 are time-restricted)
What's my point? Not sure I have one except that the intent and the use of the Supercharger network for "local" charging are rather complicated. OK to do in Hong Kong, but not in DC?
 
Was poking on supercharge.info and noticed the following estimates:
Metro AreaPopulationSupercharging Locations
Baltimore3M0
Charlotte2.3M1
Washington DC6M1.2 (temp one in Bethesda is terrible)
Atlanta5.6M2
LA4M7
Chicago9.7M8
London8.6M9 (+1 offline)
Hong Kong7M10 (2 are time-restricted)
What's my point? Not sure I have one except that the intent and the use of the Supercharger network for "local" charging are rather complicated. OK to do in Hong Kong, but not in DC?

Interesting. I can't remember where I heard it but I remember hearing that the densely populated cities such as London have the chargers for locals because of living in tower blocks or on streets without garages that the only way they can charge is at a supercharger.
 
Yes, but all cities have people who live in multi-dwelling buildings or row houses without a dedicated parking or charging spot, even LA. So if Tesla made the decision that it is OK for owners in one city to use the superchargers that arguably were built for such use, but not in another then that could certainly be contentious.
 
I don't want to get too far off on a demographic tangent because I do not have the data... but... Having lived in several large US cities and in London (but not Hong Kong), I can say this: In US cities, the majority of the Tesla demographic (those who can afford and might buy) live in suburbs or in city houses or condos with dedicated parking. In London (and as I understand Hong Kong) there are many potential tesla owners who live in city houses or flats with no dedicated parking. This is pure marketing. Tesla wants to penetrate those markets, so they have to reduce one of the obstacles. Let's forget about trying to compare or talk about "fair" between different cultures and housing markets.

The unfortunate morale to this thread is that in our me me me world, there are many people who feel it is their privilege, they paid for it, and they don't care about fairness to other owners or Tesla's intent. That's just the world we live in. Which means that as Tesla continues to succeed, they will either need to build out a ton more charging infrastructure, or modify the deal. Those are the only two options. Lots of good and creative suggestions in this thread and others. But any approach short of massively more infrastructure will alienate some owners.