Retaining free supercharging as second owner

[remilekun]

We bought a Tesla Model 3 Performance at auction and will be picking it up in a few weeks after it’s had a number of repairs. I’ve been told that it comes with FREE supercharging (mechanic has checked) and the car is still registered to the previous owner via Tesla (but legally the car is now mine of course).

I’ve heard that the free supercharging only applies to the first owner, so there is an incentive for me NOT registering myself as a new owner of the car via my Tesla account.

If I leave the previous owner on the account, what are the downsides if that person is a stranger? Can they control my car? Will they get notifications of its whereabouts? Just trying to weigh up whether I should register the car against my Tesla account or not - because I know that doing so will cause me to lose free supercharging and even possibly supercharging altogether since it’s a salvage vehicle!

 

[israndy]

You will probably lose the ability to Supercharge at ALL the next time Tesla goes thru updating their database. When they get notification of a salvage title being issued and they add this to their database the vehicle loses their ability to do ANY fast charging, although you still have the ability to AC charge, so maybe as much as 40 MPH charging rate.

Rich Rebuilds has spent a large amount of time on this subject as he rebuilt several Teslas that were working GREAT before Tesla changed their policy toward Salvaged Teslas and suddenly he was unable to Supercharge them. I see people on Craigslist ALL THE TIME advertising Salvaged cars as having Free Supercharging. Nope!

Also, if you don't have a connection with the former owner then they are a stranger watching your every move including the ability to unlock the car remotely and remotely start your car, so they could steal it or allow someone to steal it if you don't register it on your account. If you communicate with them and they are nice about it they could transfer the account to a third party email address and then give you access to that email, once you change the password to that account than the car would be yours w/o changing the Supercharger status. This isn't very nice to Tesla, who sold the car under the assumption that the car would get resold on average after a certain number of years and to that end they limited the free Supercharging to that assumed time frame...

 

[ATPMSD]

This should answer the transferability question, assuming this is not a “salvage“ as noted by @Randy Spencer:

Tesla Supercharging FAQ

Ultimate Tesla supercharging FAQ. We tell you what you need to know

tesla-info.com

 

[troot]

go supercharge your car and see if there is a bill. if not, then the previous owner is still registered as the owner of the car via tesla and yes, they can control and see your location via the app.

seems you want to retain free supercharging, here is a test you can do. charge your car at a super charger a few times, you'll quickly find out it's a waste of time spent waiting on lines and charging. you wont care for free sc anymore if your time is valuable. source: 5 yr owner with free unlimited super charging, never use it with exception of road trips.

i'm just a stranger online, so best you go to a tesla center or call them to get a direct answer.

 

[israndy]

never use it with exception of road trips.

That's pretty important, if you don't wanna road trip just get a Jaguar or some such.

 

[remilekun]

go supercharge your car and see if there is a bill. if not, then the previous owner is still registered as the owner of the car via tesla and yes, they can control and see your location via the app.

seems you want to retain free supercharging, here is a test you can do. charge your car at a super charger a few times, you'll quickly find out it's a waste of time spent waiting on lines and charging. you wont care for free sc anymore if your time is valuable. source: 5 yr owner with free unlimited super charging, never use it with exception of road trips.

i'm just a stranger online, so best you go to a tesla center or call them to get a direct answer.

I have a supercharger 5 minutes from my house in a relatively remote area of the UK, so lines will not be an issue at all. would this have changed your SC habit if it were you? Just curious!

 

[troot]

I have a supercharger 5 minutes from my house in a relatively remote area of the UK, so lines will not be an issue at all. would this have changed your SC habit if it were you? Just curious!

yes, I would definitely use SC on the regular if I had one 5 minutes away with no lines!

 

[remilekun]

yes, I would definitely use SC on the regular if I had one 5 minutes away with no lines!

plus free SC…you can see why I’m seriously questioning whether to add myself to the account to lose the free SC! Free fuel for life essentially on my doorstep sounds splendid

 

[JbHB]

I’m talking w an owner of a 2017 who free SC won’t transfer. He suggested that I use his account and can change password. Is this possible, is there a way Tesla could eventually find out? Understand this isn’t how program was designed, thoughts?

 

[remilekun]

I’m talking w an owner of a 2017 who free SC won’t transfer. He suggested that I use his account and can change password. Is this possible, is there a way Tesla could eventually find out? Understand this isn’t how program was designed, thoughts?

Yep this is entirely possible and it’s exactly what I did in the end.

So unfortunately I found out the car did not actually have free SC, but nevertheless I was able to contact the prev owner and he essentially handed over his account to me (changed his email to mine, then reset password and sent me the new password).

I then logged in and updated the account name, address, card details etc and that’s it!

Funny thing is even the invoices for previous services show up in my name when I request to download them from the app because the software must just grab the current name on the account when it generates the pdf.

As far as Tesla are concerned, I’m still the previous owner, but with a different name and address

 

[remilekun]

Probably worth mentioning as well - I still have supercharging enabled and it is a salvage vehicle. Not sure if this is due to the way we swapped the account or whether Tesla are now allowing salvage cars to supercharge

 

[jjrandorin]

Probably worth mentioning as well - I still have supercharging enabled and it is a salvage vehicle. Not sure if this is due to the way we swapped the account or whether Tesla are now allowing salvage cars to supercharge

Part of it might be how you swapped the tesla account. I would expect that at some indeterminate point in the future, supercharging will likely just stop working. Enjoy it while it lasts, however long that is. Could be months or could be years if they never audit your car and dont realize it. I would likely avoid taking it to tesla for anything (likely your plan anyway) and dont also recommend not "expecting" it to stay that way forever, even if it does.