I didn’t physically plug it in with my own hands, but then again, I’ve let passengers plug in at other Superchargers so that they could experience what it’s like.
The rules were established in the first post.
<snip>The count of Superchargers Visited is the number of Superchargers that you have visited and been the person controlling the connection of the Supercharger to a Tesla.<snip>
<begin rant>
I would like to lobby for modifying this part of the rules as I feel very strongly that it is either unfair or at least not what was originally intended. I would suggest that if the Driver or any of the Passenger plugs in the vehicle that it should count for that Driver.
Maybe I pull up to a charger and am still noting stats from the drive for 2 minutes and calculating for another 2 minutes how long to charge while a Passenger has already hopped out and plugged in so we didn't lose 4 minutes of charging time. Is it now a foot-race with all the other Passengers to see WHO can get to the charge port the fastest? If that's the case then I'd park with the Passenger side as close to the curb or wall or shrubs as possible while also having the Child Safety Door Locks engaged to give me the most time possible to plug it in myself. Again ... that just seems a little silly to me.
The rule is stating that it wouldn't count for filling up your vehicle with gas if you didn't physically operate the nozzle. In that scenario, my wife would never be credited with filling her car when we go on trips because I am always the one who hops out to fill it up even though
she paid for it and
she got the fuel perks on her card and it is
her car.
It's when you roll up to a hotel or restaurant with a Valet and there happens to be a supercharger 1/4 mile away and
THEY drive your vehicle over and plug it in. That to me shouldn't be counted. If you want to get credit for visiting that supercharger then you get to walk the 1/4 mile back from the supercharger. Or maybe in a grey area like that someone asks for clarification from the group and another rule can be modified.
I don't know of many locations like this but have visited the Newburgh, NY location and it is IN the crowded / congested front corner of a parking lot for a restaurant rather than out in the spacious area of the larger back parking lot. Anyway, if this area suddenly becomes a "Valet Only" parking lot then I feel you should be able to count this as you'd roll up to the Valet which is 25 ft from the charger and they would drive it 25 ft and plug it in for you. How would
THAT not be counted if you just drove 4 hrs to get here and maybe it's the only charger you visit all year?
Maybe you have a gimpy leg but managed to drive 4 hrs and you get out at the entrance but your spouse moves over and drives it 25 ft and they or the Valet plug it in? I'd count it as a visit in each of those scenarios but the rules would clearly not allow me to count any of those as a visit. Again, that seems a little silly to have to be the one who physically plugs it in and maybe some wiggle room in the rules would help.
Would it help to have an arbitrary distance to cover on foot or bike or skateboard? Such as, if you or someone else moves your car <200 ft to the charger and plugs in then you can count it. Or <500 ft? Something >1/4 mile should probably not be permitted unless you are unable to cover that distance easily. We shouldn't be robots with this and exclude someone who can drive several hundred miles to a charger but has issues covering the 250 ft from the entrance to where the vehicle is parked.
Now, on a road trip with a buddy or spouse or kid and I drive 150 miles from home to supercharger A then I should get credited for that no matter which of us plugs in. if co-pilot then drives us 150 miles from supercharger A to supercharger B then THEY should get credited for that visit again no matter which one of us plugs in. If co-pilot instead drives 149 miles from supercharger A to a rest stop and I get in and drive 1 mile from the rest stop to supercharger B and plug it in myself then I wouldn't count that as "my" visit since I only drove 1/150th of the distance to get there.
Time or distance would be up to each person as driving 1 mile of a 7 mile route in NYC at rush hour might take a full hour but then the driver and co-pilot swap and the new driver goes 5 miles in 5 minutes and plugs in to the supercharger. I'd lobby that the person driving the vehicle for the majority of the time (60 of the 65 minutes) would get the credit for the visit to the charger even though they only drove a short portion of the trip (1 of the 7 miles). Most of the time I'm sure time and distance wouldn't make it an issue to determine who should get credit but I'm just trying to think of scenarios that would have the human count it as a visit but a robot looking at the rules would not.
It also shouldn't matter if it is your vehicle or a loaner or someone else's but the fact that YOU drove to the supercharger and that vehicle got plugged in is what should count whether you the Driver or a Passenger plugged it in. If someone takes my car and drives me around the entire East coast, then I'm certainly not going to count that even if I plugged the car in at each and every charger. To me, the important part of the 'game' is that it is the person who drives the majority of the distance (or time) TO the supercharger who should get credit for the visit. Again, with some wiggle room such as the NYC scenario above.
I've had a friend or two on a road trip drive of a full day but in each case, I had already visited those superchargers so they counted so when my friend drove for several chargers in a row and plugged it in then it was moot as they already counted for me. It could have counted for THEM as a supercharger visit using my logic that it gets credited to the person who drives the majority of the way to get there.
We are all trusting each other's count of visits while still trying to honor the rules that are stated and it's a pleasure to see some folks have a visit removed from their count after the scenario is discussed and not trying to 'pump up' their count will false visits. To me, whether the rule(s) are clarified or not I will still count a supercharger visit if I'm the one driving the majority of the distance to reach it no matter who plugs it in. I've driven well over 95% of the 63,000 miles on my vehicle in the past 21 months so I almost never need to worry that someone else is driving 51% of the distance to a new supercharger visit but would gladly stand behind my suggestion that I wouldn't count that as I didn't drive the majority of the way to reach it.
</end rant>
