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Supercharging letter from Tesla 8-13-2015

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They could do that but resale value of Teslas would drop and it would upset lots of owners and scare away potential buyers.


No. They can't. Supercharging is free for the life of the Model S. The ONLY argument they can make is that when they claimed the life of the model S, they were referring to the 20 year estimate they put in their SEC filing. But they can not take away supercharging for resale to the next owner.

Supercharging | Tesla Motors

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Heh, touché. But is that "life" as in prison which is like "15 years"?


Great minds. Same post time. See above.
 
I would argue the typical owner will flip their car before they burn through their reserve and the outliers (high/low milage and long/short ownership) will balance each other out.

If a car has Supercharging enabled, the new owner of the car is still be able to charge it unless you are expecting Tesla to charge each subsequent owner for the right to access the Superchargers.

Or did you mean typical owners will actually flip their cars (upside down), rendering them useless and removing them from the pool of active Supercharging-endabled cars? j/k ;-)
 
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Max* I agree with you however I watch lots of Tesla stuff (see topic in my signature) and in one of the videos I happened to come across a Tesla sales advisor who argued otherwise. They were doing a test drive and the sales advisor said to the potential buyer that Tesla might cancel free supercharging for the second owner if the car is sold.
 
Max* I agree with you however I watch lots of Tesla stuff (see topic in my signature) and in one of the videos I happened to come across a Tesla sales advisor who argued otherwise. They were doing a test drive and the sales advisor said to the potential buyer that Tesla might cancel free supercharging for the second owner if the car is sold.

I wonder if that'll be the case with their CPO program. I can't imagine they'd sell a used one themselves and say "oh yeah you have to pay to use superchargers". That'll kill those sales.
 
AnxietyRanger said:
Frankly, I'm not sure bonnie and NigelM do any favors to their point of view by supporting each other on almost every thread. It looks more like wingman action than real conversation at times.
I almost without exception get caught up on a thread before responding to a post, to make sure others haven't already said what I'm planning on saying. I'm four or five pages from being caught up on this thread, but need to comment on this now:

I strongly disagree with the quoted comment above. For starters, Bonnie and Nigel don't do that. Sure, there are threads on which they agree, and one will support the other, but I don't see that happening nearly as often as you suggest.

More importantly, I, and I believe most other TMC members, have a great deal of respect for both Bonnie and Nigel. I've only been around less than a year, so I'm not the best judge of the long-term history of TMC, but from what I can tell I'd be hard-pressed to come up with two people who have done more for the good of the TMC community than those two. I value both of their opinions very highly. There is no doubt in my mind that each speaks their own mind, and if they were to disagree, they would say so. The fact that they agree much more than they disagree is just a testament to the fact that they are both very smart people who have been around a long time, know a lot about Tesla, and want the company to succeed. (This is one of the reasons I dislike it when I disagree with either of them.)

I imagine as I read through the next five (or by now possibly six) pages of this thread I'll find other comments along the lines of mine. (At least I hope I will.) I just couldn't continue reading posts in this thread without responding to this myself.

Respectfully, I strongly disagree with you. :) Not on contributions and deserved respect for NigelM and bonnie, those are not doubted, but in the IMO fact that they tend to complement (and compliment) each other on threads in a way that seems like speaking for, feeding of one another. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I was wondering out loud if it hurts their cause more than helps - the latter of course just being my own musings.

And frankly, I find it somewhat sad that you'd feel so bad about disagreeing with someone as you have on this thread. Nobody should have such a position that we should feel bad about disagreeing with them.
 
Max* I agree with you however I watch lots of Tesla stuff (see topic in my signature) and in one of the videos I happened to come across a Tesla sales advisor who argued otherwise. They were doing a test drive and the sales advisor said to the potential buyer that Tesla might cancel free supercharging for the second owner if the car is sold.

That's interesting...

I know people here are going to argue that the sales advisers know as much as we do (and in most cases that might be accurate, but I've also seen cases where the sales advisers have accurately predicted what's going to happen).

IANAL, but I don't think they legally can. They can change it going forward, but I don't think they can legally take away SpC on the Tesla's already sold.
 
Again you make it appear that if two folks are of like mind on most topics, that must imply agenda. There are a boatload of forum members, of course there are going to be folks that tend to think along similar lines.

I happen to find myself agreeing with the viewpoints of several people time and again here. It's often after I read the post that I realize it's once again somebody I've agreed with before.

Why don't you determine if a post has merit based on it's content, rather than casting aspersion on the post or poster by calling in to question who else voices a similar sentiment?

Incidentally, they aren't the only ones who voice support for other's posts:









Interestingly all of these "complimentary" posts happen to be to people voicing an opinion that generally supports your stance.

(Of course I expect you to explain this away by saying it's not a pattern of the SAME person, etc... which will once again ignore the crux of the issue: look at the merit of the post, not the poster.)

Of course I voice support for people I agree with. I don't do it to the same people on many threads, though. You also quoted my compliments to Zach, whom BTW I do *not* agree with - but truly appreciate his contributions. I also compliment a lot of folks that make a good case or post, even if I don't agree.

My point wasn't about agenda, I don't think there is one, it was about perception. NigelM and bonnie complement each other on a lot of threads and I wonder if that helps or hurts their message. It is quite predictable and often contains insider references and winks and nods that them and maybe a few old timers understand, and it is hard to converse with that.
 
Well based on a quick scan of this thread I will be in the minority. But my opinion is:

- I am very glad the e-mail went out. I don't want to be doing a long distance trip with no other charging choices and have a supercharger filled with local owners trying to save $10 on charging a $75K-$130K cost car. They have a choice of home charging. On a long trip my only choice is Supercharging.

- If you got an e-mail and were not local charging on a regular basis or have no way of home charging (ex: apartment) just ignore it, it was misdirected at you by accident or bad algorithm or did not know your circumstances, etc.

I frankly don't care at all about the arguments about what was promised. If you can charge at home rather then inconvenience others do so. If you can not charge at home or were not charging at a local superchargers repeatedly ignore the e-mail.

Based on the several pages of comments I read (I certainly did not read 50 pages of comments) many/most here will disagree with me and I respect your views but don't feel compelled to agree with them.
 
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Well based on a quick scan of this thread I will be in the minority. But my opinion is:

- I am very glad the e-mail went out. I don't want to be doing a long distance trip with no other charging choices and have a supercharger filled with local owners trying to save $10 on charging a $75K-$130K cost car. They have a choice of home charging. On a long trip my only choice is Supercharging.

- If you got an e-mail and were not local charging on a regular basis or have no way of home charging (ex: apartment) just ignore it, it was misdirected at you by accident or bad algorithm or did not know your circumstances, etc.

I frankly don't care at all about the arguments about what was promised. If you can charge at home rather then inconvenience others do so. If you can not charge at home or were not charging at a local superchargers repeatedly ignore the e-mail.

Based on the several pages of comments I read (I certainly did not read 50 pages of comments) many/most here will disagree with me and I respect your views but don't feel compelled to agree with them.

I agree with you wholeheartedly
 
One possibility that occurred to me is that Tesla is negotiating with other car maker about participating in supercharger network. That other car maker has said that the superchargers are already too occupied. Maybe Tesla told them "we'll build more when we get your money" but they said "no, you need to something about these frequent chargers first". Pure speculation...
 
A typical owner might sell the car after 5 years but supercharging is attached to the car, not the owner. After you sell the car, the car continues to have free supercharging. Most current Model S cars that have free supercharging for life will end up as taxis and Uber cars. They will get old and restored multiple times. Future Tesla buyers will pay for the fuels of these cars for decades to come. The problems are just starting. Over time there will be more superchargers near dense areas and used Model S cars will be cheaper. It means people looking for opportunities will buy a Model S to start a business.

Perhaps, but there is a lot of unproven supposition in your comment--I really don't envision fleets of 20 year old Tesla's driving around in the future. Since Supercharging is standard on all their cars now, why would you deal with the maintenance headaches of a 10 or 15 year old car (not to mention forgoing the technical advances that have occurred in the intervening time)? The folks with the empirical data don't seem to be all the concerned with the the incremental costs of Supercharging--heck, they are bundling it in with CPOs now so they don't seem all that concerned with lifetime costs. If you want to look for signs of stress in the system, view the Supercharger reserve the way you would the warranty reserve for each car. If they start increasing the Supercharger reserve per car, then you have an indication that costs might be ahead of projections.

However, I am also going to stake out a contrary position and suggest adding more Supercharger-capable cars helps the strengthen the system. It seems to me that heavy users are in the minority so the Supercharger model is built to create and maintain a structural surplus (i.e. most drivers will not use their reserve), in which case, the surplus should climb nicely as sales increase.
 
This idea of 'abusers' in the letter is my problem with EM and Tesla. Unlimited supercharging was what was promoted, and never were restrictions mentioned. Now it's going from a desire of Tesla, to stated policy. Supercharging was promoted as fast, free and forever, and that anyone who bought a Tesla could use any Supercharger that's accessible, and as often as they wish. Imagine the uproar if these limitations applied to gas stations owned by a single oil conglomerate.
I use a SC whenever possible, because DC charging is fast, and I don't necessarily want to cancel a sudden trip in the evening because I limped home with a low range remaining, and my MS now has to spend the night charging to become uesful again.

I agree that if you park in ANY charging stall, you need to move your vehicle as soon as charging has finished.

Scotty
 
Of course I voice support for people I agree with. I don't do it to the same people on many threads, though. You also quoted my compliments to Zach, whom BTW I do *not* agree with - but truly appreciate his contributions. I also compliment a lot of folks that make a good case or post, even if I don't agree.

My point wasn't about agenda, I don't think there is one, it was about perception. NigelM and bonnie complement each other on a lot of threads and I wonder if that helps or hurts their message. It is quite predictable and often contains insider references and winks and nods that them and maybe a few old timers understand, and it is hard to converse with that.

mod note: These subtle jabs at Bonnie and Nigel need to stop. Yes, they are stated in such a way to not be an overt attack but you know what you are doing. Stick to analyzing both sides of every argument as I think that will go over better with people who respect what Bonnie and Nigel bring to the table.