Tesla Adjusts Supercharging Cost To Include Vehicle Use While Charging

[JamstationP85D]

I wish they had a ‘premium’ service charges indicator that would show up or you would get a push alert when navigating to a supercharger or within GPS vicinity. This would come on if the superchargers were busy. Its not like they cant tell. If its busy they want the cars in and out without cars waiting for a charging spot. If its dead (like many of the superchargers in my area) then its ‘normal’ service rates. Kind of like ‘surge’ pricing in Uber (but not a cash grab with questionable business tactics like Uber).

 

[dhanson865]

So what will this mean for owners that have free unlimited “lifetime” supercharging?

Nothing, free is still free.

 

[TheLocNar]

Nothing, free is still free.

Let’s hope they don’t split hairs by saying HVAC etc. isn’t part of “supercharging”.

 

[talononeguy]

10-25 kWh using the climate control and video? That seems really extreme. I only use about 15kWh per day in my entire house every day right now. To use that much while Supercharging would take hours.

 

[Big Dog]

I guess I'm the only dimwit on the system, bcos I always assumed that I was getting charged for every kW that the car was sucking up, regardless of whether it was charging the battery or running HVAC.

 

[Silicon Desert]

10-25 kWh using the climate control and video? That seems really extreme. I only use about 15kWh per day in my entire house every day right now. To use that much while Supercharging would take hours.

I will agree that 10-25 kWh will not be typical, but they did say under "extreme" cases and I can think of a circumstance where this could happen for some cars. Again, rare.

 

[SparkyB]

Superchargers in Texas seem to charge by the minute but that said some are much faster than others. Huntsville Texas is very fast and Corsicana is pretty slow by comparison. As far as I know there are two rates in the Dallas area... sometimes on a single supercharger station. Maybe it depends on the power distribution so when the supercharger slots are full it is slower and when you are the only car it is using the full power. Electric rates at home are $0.089 per KWh and at the supercharger about $0.25 per KWh with the cost of the chargers and location etc added in it is OK.... but I charge at home if I can. The only problem I have with the added cost is they sometimes locate the superchargers where there is absolutely nothing around (Arlington and Austin Texas). The biggest problem with Superchargers is there are still not enough (in fact charging in general). My daughter goes to Texas Tech and there isn't one in LUBBOCK ALTHOUGH IS WAS PROMISED for 2018... 2020 and still no hope of getting one there it looks like. I can't take the Tesla to Lubbock without a reliable charging solution. Tesla needs to work with companies to get a few supercharger slots in many more locations... rather than trying the standard 12-slot stand alone implementation. In California, there are malls that have free charging just to get the customers there to spend money. One thing Tesla owners have in common is they ain't poor.

Bottom line charging is still cheaper than gas.

 

[GeoX750]

I think AC charging is about 85%-90% efficient. How efficient is DC charging, I think it is substantially better ?

Around here in the summer, the car is working hard to cool the battery during charging. During the winter, it does seems to take some time for the battery to heat up before getting full charge rates.

Does seem like the additional energy not making it to the battery is significant.

 

[Fusion]

You would think that whatever is being delivered to the car would be what is charged. This does not make sense. Maybe they were using calculations instead of actual meters?

 

[Yinn]

10-25 kWh using the climate control and video? That seems really extreme. I only use about 15kWh per day in my entire house every day right now. To use that much while Supercharging would take hours.

Is that including the car??

I can’t even wrap my head around that. I average about 125kwh/day.

 

[talononeguy]

Is that including the car??

I can’t even wrap my head around that. I average about 125kwh/day.

No, that's just my typical baseline usage, this time of year in NW FL, without car charging included. Obviously, when I charge my car, my usage goes WAY up.

 

[aTri]

TESLA sent me a nice note last month saying I had "just used my one waiver of idle fees". I was right there, with my range set to 280. They shut me off at 250 miles, with no warning! That's why I took my time walking out of the Dedham Service center. I was sure I had 30 miles left. No heat on, just the slow finish.
Customer Service replied "we have the right to limit charging if we think the station is Busy". WTH?
Pay attention..... this may happen to you too!

 

[AMPd]

I guess I'm the only dimwit on the system, bcos I always assumed that I was getting charged for every kW that the car was sucking up, regardless of whether it was charging the battery or running HVAC.

That’s what I was assuming too, that tesla was charging by the kWh into the battery and where it went from there was irrelevant.

This really makes no sense to me. I’ve had free supercharging so I’m not sure how the billing worked but for those that have been billed for SC use, was there a discrepancy in the amount of kWh you received from the supercharger and the amount that was billed?

 

[Yinn]

TESLA sent me a nice note last month saying I had "just used my one waiver of idle fees". I was right there, with my range set to 280. They shut me off at 250 miles, with no warning! That's why I took my time walking out of the Dedham Service center. I was sure I had 30 miles left. No heat on, just the slow finish.
Customer Service replied "we have the right to limit charging if we think the station is Busy". WTH?
Pay attention..... this may happen to you too!

This happens all the time. If the station is more than half full, it’ll pull your limit down to 80%. You should have received a notification for it.

 

[diamond.g]

That’s what I was assuming too, that tesla was charging by the kWh into the battery and where it went from there was irrelevant.

This really makes no sense to me. I’ve had free supercharging so I’m not sure how the billing worked but for those that have been billed for SC use, was there a discrepancy in the amount of kWh you received from the supercharger and the amount that was billed?

As far as I can tell, the car uses shore power for everything when plugged in, and the difference (when on AC) charges the battery. Since, initially, the cars reported how much power was used to charge the battery (and nothing else) Tesla only charged folk that way. Now the SC stall can report back how much power was used so now they can bill us for total power instead of what is charging the battery.

I think this change was done because CA is requiring the screen on the stall to show how much power a person has received and how much per kWh said power costs. This change should have no effect on folks that live in states that require per minute billing.

 

[eladts]

This happens all the time. If the station is more than half full, it’ll pull your limit down to 80%. You should have received a notification for it.

It is not tied to the station being more than half full, it is tied to the station designated as "high usage". We don't know how Tesla decides which stations get this designation, but Dedham often does, as it is a busy station. It sets your limit to 80% when you plug to such station but you can override it and manually set a higher limit.

 

[Yinn]

It is not tied to the station being more than half full, it is tied to the station designated as "high usage". We don't know how Tesla decides which stations get this designation, but Dedham often does, as it is a busy station. It sets your limit to 80% when you plug to such station but you can override it and manually set a higher limit.

Maybe it’s different based on station then. There’s a station that I frequent, it’ll only adjust when it’s more than half full. If there’s only 2-3 cars it’ll leave it at 90%.

 

[ElectricIAC]

What about those of us who pay by minute? I suppose in the end we were paying for this all along by way of slightly reduced charge speed.

 

[mociaf9]

What about those of us who pay by minute?

Shouldn't be any change as the price paid at those stations isn't directly connected to the kWh put out by the charger or measured by the car.

 

[ElectricIAC]

Shouldn't be any change as the price paid at those stations isn't directly connected to the kWh put out by the charger or measured by the car.

Fair point: I do notice a small drop in power received though when running the heater while plugged into an SC so basing “time spent/charged for” on this.