Rumour of free premium for leases cars ending

[Tigermad]

Elsewhere there has been a report from a reliable source that from April 1st lease car drivers will have to pay for premium connectivity.

Obviously due to the day this is supposed to happen every is saying it’s an April Fool but the contact works for Octopus EV leasing and Tesla have told them they need to pay for it.

No one else’s as far as I can see has been notified of this from their lease company. Has anyone on here? Also how are people going to pay for this when we can’t even buy any upgrades when we want.

 

[MrMoonUK]

It would require Tesla changing their systems, so Will be interesting to see what happens

 

[UrbanSplash]

Going forward, will the £10pm just be added to the lease fee?

 

[Tigermad]

Going forward, will the £10pm just be added to the lease fee?

I’m not sure how they can do it to be honest. You have signed a lease for an amount already.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I can see lease companies making it an option when you take the car out rather than some more convoluted way for delegated access to be able to buy it. There has been talk of 12 month subscriptions which are cheaper than 12x monthly payments, so maybe for the lease companies they wil be able to buy for the duration of the lease term rather than have to manage lots of monthly payments.

Or maybe it's linked to more wholesale changes such as the subscription models for EAP and FSD which is already in the states and making these subscriptions accessible outside any lease agreement. The calue of the car doesn;t change with these subscriptions to the lease companies should be fine with it.

I don't know how supercharging works with leases, do lease drivers get full visibility and pay direct or is it rebilled? I presumed billed direct, so maybe they can use that as a mechanism too,

 

[Durzel]

Going forward, will the £10pm just be added to the lease fee?

I doubt Tesla would force lease customers to have Premium Connectivity...

More likely I guess is that for this particular feature a Tesla account will allow you to specify a VIN that you want to "gift" Premium Connectivity to, and pay for it independently of whichever Tesla account owns the vehicle (the lease company).

Probably a dumb question but why is it not the case that you can't already buy upgrades via the app if you're leasing? Is the "Upgrades" option just not available?

 

[Tigermad]

I doubt Tesla would force lease customers to have Premium Connectivity...

More likely I guess is that for this particular feature a Tesla account will allow you to specify a VIN that you want to "gift" Premium Connectivity to, and pay for it independently of whichever Tesla account owns the vehicle (the lease company).

Probably a dumb question but why is it not the case that you can't already buy upgrades via the app if you're leasing? Is the "Upgrades" option just not available?

The only option under upgrades is accessories and it takes you to the shop.

 

[bc1979]

As long as they actually put a mechanism in place for lease customers to pay I can’t complain too much.

 

[NewbieT]

I can’t imagine many lease agreements specifically say it is included, excluded or is a trial. Mine doesn’t. Does anyones?

You could take the view it’s an implied term: my car came with Premium connectivity, I’ve driven with it for x years and nobody mentioned it wasn’t included. If the lease company then doesn’t give you an option to at least pay you could argue the vehicle doesn’t conform because you no longer have access to features the car came with. Potentially breech of contract.

Or accept the lack of features - you ordered a car of a specific specification. That standard spec said it was an option (that you didn’t take) and therefore it’s not included.

 

[NewbieT]

Given residuals are performing well, the lease companies might just may let it slide.

Possibly it’s costed in anyway - might be the lease co currently winning.

 

[Durzel]

Maybe you leasing people could look on it as having had something for nothing for an extended period of time, and all good things must come to an end. There's no justification for why lease customers should be able to get away with free Premium Connectivity when the rest of us have to pay for it.

 

[NSS89]

Maybe you leasing people could look on it as having had something for nothing for an extended period of time, and all good things must come to an end. There's no justification for why lease customers should be able to get away with free Premium Connectivity when the rest of us have to pay for it.

Or the leasing companies had already calculated the cost into the monthly payments so the lessee was always paying for it anyway?

 

[Durzel]

Unfortunately the monthly cost is opaque so there would be no way of proving or disproving that one way or the other.

I would say baking the cost of Premium Connectivity into the car when some people might not even be prepared to pay £10/month (plus interest when its part of the loan) for it seems a bit harsh.

 

[NSS89]

Unfortunately the monthly cost is opaque so there would be no way of proving or disproving that one way or the other.

I would say baking the cost of Premium Connectivity into the car when some people might not even be prepared to pay £10/month (plus interest when its part of the loan) for it seems a bit harsh.

Totally agree it would be nearly impossible to prove/disprove.

I was thinking maybe it was easier for them to add it by default as being a lessee you miss some functionality such as being able to purchase AB for example, recent supercharging trips don't show up, stats isn't available etc

I'm probably wrong lol but was just a thought.

 

[greenbottle123]

Tesla can turn this feature off at the touch of a button and OTA update.
Unless the lease agreement has it included, expect it to be turned off

 

[fancealot]

I doubt this rumor is going to happen, 1. the date, 2. If implemented it'll be a Friday, lease companies will get slammed on the weekend with calls about 'broken' teslas when they have hardly anyone in the office, 3. There would be some form of subscription packages leaking and someone would find refernces in past builds/recent build of the software. Maybe they announce on the 1st that they are considering ending lease packages' free connectivity, but Tesla doesn't really go for that so i don't know.

Oh and yes i'm a lease customer willing to pay for premium connectivity.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Some are reading this as back dating it to existing leases. There's nothing stopping this being a "new leases from 1st April" being what they're talking about. The lease companies just need to work out how they're going to manage it.

 

[MrMoonUK]

I can’t imagine many lease agreements specifically say it is included, excluded or is a trial. Mine doesn’t. Does anyones?

You could take the view it’s an implied term: my car came with Premium connectivity, I’ve driven with it for x years and nobody mentioned it wasn’t included. If the lease company then doesn’t give you an option to at least pay you could argue the vehicle doesn’t conform because you no longer have access to features the car came with. Potentially breech of contract.

Or accept the lack of features - you ordered a car of a specific specification. That standard spec said it was an option (that you didn’t take) and therefore it’s not included.

Most leases have terms about you being responsible for connected services costs after any initial period ends, Zen auto certainly do

 

[bc1979]

Most leases have terms about you being responsible for connected services costs after any initial period ends, Zen auto certainly do

Are you with Zen? Do you get premium included up to now?

I am getting my lease delivered next week and want premium, I would happily pay for it if not, but I heard somewhere that Zen leases don’t have it and have no way of subscribing.

 

[Barabing]

I'm with Zen, i've had my M3LR since mid Dec 21.

Premium has been included for me. Never had to pay.