zoomer0056
Active Member
Open the SC network but discriminate and discourage use. All inclusive ... for some. There are a lot of Karens who'll be dissatisfied.
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Tesla forced to open superchargers to unlock billions
- Thread starter Sambub
- Start date
Tesla has monthly membership for non-Teslas. Same as other networks where a monthly fee lowers the price per kWh/min.
Already at busy locations it sets an 80% limit which is overridable by the customer. It (and other networks) also use time-of-day pricing to encourage people who have flexibility to charge off-peak. Users who want to charge fast won't want to dwell anyway.
But, the more important point is that Tesla's approach, from the start of Supercharging, is more plugs than power. This model of separating power from the stall is also being used by others (Bjorn Nyland has a visit to Kempower which has such a system), There's far less constraint on the number of plugs, allows some longer dwell, for which people can have a good reason.
Also, more plugs makes it less likely that people have to wait in line. It's better to plugged in and waiting then hanging around in your car waiting for a spot.
Stepping up the rate after 80% doesn't make sense, but a penalty for trickle charging on a DC fast charger does. First of all, watch this video if you haven't seen it yet:
So what do we do about vehicles like this? Tesla has no way to control other manufacturers' charging profiles. At the same time, people shouldn't be penalized for topping off to 100% as long as it doesn't take too long, but the billing must also be easily understood. So I would propose something I'd call "The 20/20 rule": once your charge rate falls below 20 kW, you have 20 minutes to complete the charge. If you do not, then after 20 minutes, you start to get billed at the idle rate, whatever it is at the time (could be based on occupancy of other stalls). And to stop people from gaming the system by unplugging from the charger and plugging back in using a different account: if your charge rate never exceeds 20 kW for the entire session, then the entire session gets billed at the idle rate.
Sound like the free Supercharging program changed again. On my X in April, it was 1000 miles which worked out to 3-8 charging sessions. My 2018 X had for the owner or 3 years. Tesla does play with the program all the time. It is an incentive to get people to buy Tesla.
Oh, mine was good for 6 months and was "1000 miles" (actually 400 kWh if you look at how they calculate a mile). And I was basically using it until the last day because I ended up not doing enough road trips to use it all up and basically went to SC sites in urban areas to burn off the free "miles". I think it was maybe about 300 "miles" that I had to burn off in this manner and the rest of them I burned off by actually taking road trips I wouldn't have otherwise taken.
I think mine was 6-month time limited also, but I hit the 1000 miles well before then.
And it looks like Tesla is doing what it can to kill off the Free Supercharging for Life program. Someone mentioned Tesla was offering a $5,000 bump on a trade-in with these cars.
My guess is Tesla sees Supercharging becoming a big revenue stream for them as more and more cars use Superchargers to charge. As a stockholder I would love to see Tesla become the BP, Shell, etc. of EV charging.
scottf200
Well-Known Member
I didn't realize they had two levels now. Sounds like 50-99% and 100% (double fee).
Supercharger Idle Fee | Tesla Support
When your Tesla vehicle remains connected to a Supercharger after charging is complete, it may incur an idle fee. Learn more about idle fees.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
I would prefer no idle fee if the station never fills, and a warning when the station is about to fill, and a very fat fee if it actually does fill, including perhaps start with a flat $10, and then add $1/minute or even more. But only if I got a warning and didn't move within 5 minutes. Give some of my fee to the person waiting. (Let me set the warning buffer time, or set it automatically based on the walking distance from my phone to the charger plus a couple of minutes.)I didn't realize they had two levels now. Sounds like 50-99% and 100% (double fee).
Supercharger Idle Fee | Tesla Support
When your Tesla vehicle remains connected to a Supercharger after charging is complete, it may incur an idle fee. Learn more about idle fees.www.tesla.com
How do they warn me? Track drivers on the way to the charger who have said "navigate to supercharger." They know when they are getting there. If somebody forgets to navigate to supercharger, then they may have to wait without the compensation, though as soon as they plug in my clock starts. (Their car should also notice they are waiting at a supercharger and say, "Click OK to indicate you want to charge, that will alert drivers of the cars here to come move within 5 minutes or pay a fine that you get 1/3rd of.)
I think it's stupid that if a station is at 51% I have to get up from my dinner to move my car. It benefits nobody. Just raise the price for really blocking a station when somebody wants it until people are just as motivated to clear the station, and don't punish anybody if nobody was actually inconvenienced.
It might be different for V2 stations, which is what existed when they made the 51% policy. Maybe the rule there would be that I pay if I'm the reason there's no free pair. Though note that when I am there, the paired stall with mine is a 100% stall if it's open. The arriving driver should be told it's a good choice to take. Tesla knows if you move your car after charging, though at present it doesn't seem to use this -- ie. I think you can unplug and stay EV-Icing the spot without idle fees.
I think it is best to keep the message consistent: They are charging stalls not parking stalls. Keep people trained that you move your vehicle after it finishes charging.
I agree, supercharging stalls are not parking stalls.
How about a reward ($1 credit?) for drivers that disconnect promptly, or reward for staying with the vehicle so it can be moved immediately? Either combined with or instead of a fine for lingering.
I think opening supercharger network will cause some inconvenience to Tesla owners. But it can have some positive effects: 1) Other EV brand owners will have more positive views on Tesla and they may buy a Tesla car in the future. Tesla get free advertising. 2) Tesla owners and non-Tesla owners will have the opportunity to look face to face at the charging stations and have more positive attitude in sharing roads. Right now it seems some non-Tesla owners don't like Tesla owners much on the road. BMW, Porsches, Audi owners cut me off on the road sometimes when I was on autopilot.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
They are not parking stalls, but don't confuse a method for a goal. The goal is that people don't come to charge and find stalls blocked by people who are not charging. The goal is not to keep people from being parked there for a short time when they will inconvenience nobody. You can do this many ways. Some chargers have idle fees no matter whether other chargers are free or not. Tesla starts the fees if the station is half full. But these are just means to the goal of not making somebody wait while a station is not in use. I say, set your method to be as close to your goal as you can. Set the price for the actual problem high enough and you can get the same result.
As a driver, I would much prefer only to pay if I end up blocking somebody I was warned about. I would want that even if it slightly increased the chance somebody else might be late and block me, because I will be in both situations -- waiting for a charge, and in the middle of a meal when my charging session ends. Because the other goal is to make the charging experience as good as possible, and making people get up from a meal to move the car and go back is not a good experience. (If you're alone, it also looks like a dine and dash!) Making people do that when the station is not going to fill up and nobody will be even slightly inconvenienced is not a good plan.
In particular, let me tell you what happens in this situation, I would bet a lot. You are eating or shopping and you see you've hit your target. So you increase the target. If you have to you can bump it to 100% just to buy more time, a fair bit of time because of the slow rate of charge. That's not what we want (it's also not good for the battery.)
We want only one thing -- good charging experiences. No waiting, but also no rushing. The only negative I can see to doing it this way is that somebody who forgets to nav to supercharger might rarely get a very short wait. Again, I will be on both sides of this and I would like this deal.
Been like this for more than a year.I didn't realize they had two levels now. Sounds like 50-99% and 100% (double fee).
Supercharger Idle Fee | Tesla Support
When your Tesla vehicle remains connected to a Supercharger after charging is complete, it may incur an idle fee. Learn more about idle fees.
I wonder if Tesla will give people discounts on their SC rates if they open the app and give it GPS permissions? Right now, Tesla has GPS data for cars that are passing by the SC sites, the SoC data for said cars, etc., even if they do not explicitly navigate to the SC. When they open the network to other vehicles, they lose this insight, unless of course they allow people to tell them they're on the way (but this may run into issues with safety, i.e. don't want to be staring at a phone screen while driving).
Yep. You don't just stay parked at a gas pump when your car isn't filling up. It doesn't matter how many other pumps are open.
Actually it does inconvenience people who are tracking SC utilization. Let's say I see two sites, site A which has 90% of the stalls occupied, and site B which has 50% of the stalls occupied. Except what I don't know is that all of the 100% of the cars at site B just started charging and won't be moving anytime soon, whereas 100% of the cars at site A are really "done" charging and will move as soon as they get a warning. Great, now I'm more likely to select site B, because at first glance, it looks like I have less of a chance of having to wait, but the better selection is really site A.
Agreed. The car tells you how long your charge session will be up front, no reason people can't plan accordingly.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
That's because Tesla isn't giving you all the information they have. Tesla knows who is done charging, they also know exactly when each car will be done unless it increases its charge limit. They know every car that is navigating to the supercharger, and when it will get there if it doesn't pause or reroute. And if it's given an alert to any drivers it will know that, and it will also know which drivers have acknowledged the alert if it asks for that.
Tesla also knows how many cars are waiting in line, and almost exactly how long the line will take to clear.
Instead it tells you how many are plugged in now, which is much less useful than how many will be there when I get there, and if there will be a line, and just how many minutes it will be. When there is/will be a line, Tesla could also refuse to allow you to increase your charge goal. There's a lot more they could do to improve the experience. But that includes what the experience is like when you are doing something -- and you should always try to do something -- and being forced to return to no benefit of anybody else.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
No, when somebody needs your stall you should have moved your car before they get there. Why would it be other than this? What possible business is it of yours whether a stall that nobody needs is free?
BTW, while obviously this is just a few people, I am surprised that I don't hear from more people who dine or shop while supercharging, and find that it is annoying that their session is ending while doing so and you need to interrupt it and move the car. I mean, I do it and understand why it needs to be done, but that doesn't mean it's not annoying. I almost never charge without doing something while I charge. And I know I am not alone, I only rarely see people sitting waiting in the car while charging. It's annoying that Tesla doesn't give very accurate counts on charger use so you need to scurry back even when there are plenty of empty stalls sometimes.
Because those spaces are for charging, not for parking. You don't leave your car parked at a gas pump just because there are 11 other pumps open at the same station and nobody is showing up to buy gas. You move your car immediately after it's done filling. Deciding that you're going to fill up the tank with more gas and leave the car there longer = okay. Leaving the car parked at the pump after the pump stops because you're in the convenience store picking up stuff to buy = not okay.
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