Tesla Rolls Back Supercharger Price Increases To Appease Owners

The customer is always right.

Many people praise Tesla for caring about its customers and listening to their feedback. Just last week, we reported that the Silicon Valley electric automaker substantially raised prices for Supercharging globally. The car maker is clearly struggling to continue to show a profit. Moreover, Tesla needs to bring the base Model 3 to market.

In addition, it has big plans to move forward with additional projects like the Tesla Semi and Roadster. Thus, cuts are imminent. In addition to upping Supercharger rates, Tesla eliminated its Referral Program and will slash 7 percent of its full-time workforce.

According to Electrek’s analysis, Tesla hoped to increase average pricing for Supercharging by some 33 percent as a whole. This number is not specific to all markets, since the automaker planned to adjust pricing based on local electricity costs, as well as area-based demand.

Needless to say, many current and soon-to-be Tesla owners were upset by the upcoming change in pricing structure. Some were even going so far as to do the math, which showed that Supercharging could end up costing nearly as much as gassing up in some markets. Additionally, charging at some other non-Tesla stations could be cheaper. The truth of the matter is if people cancel their reservations due to this adaptation, Tesla could be in a much more dire situation. So, the money gained by increasing rates could easily be lost due to decreasing sales.

Obviously, Tesla took notice of the contention on social media and forums, likely crunched some numbers, and decided that this plan is not going to work. Less than a week later, the automaker decided to dial back the price hike by some 10 percent worldwide.

As Tesla continues to move forward with hopes to keep finances out of the red, decisions like this are hyper-crucial. One faulty move by the automaker could cause catastrophic issues. On the other side of the coin, if Tesla continues to crunch the numbers and listen to consumers, it should be able to continue its forward momentum unscathed.

Source: Electrek

This article originally appeared on Inside EVs.

 

[BerTX]

I guess a 20% rise would have resulted in the same blowback as a 33% rise, but the thought was that raising by 33% then lowering by 10% at the height of the explosion would be accepted. Smart.

 

[Cirrus MS100D]

I guess a 20% rise would have resulted in the same blowback as a 33% rise, but the thought was that raising by 33% then lowering by 10% at the height of the explosion would be accepted. Smart.

"I'm going to cut off your arms and legs!!!"
>>> WHAAAAAT!?!?!?!

"OK, I'll just cut off your left arm, right arm, and part of your left leg."
>>> "k k, seemz fair"

 

[Ulmo]

I recommended Tesla increase competition by offering a competent full-capability CCS adapter for S, X, & 3, and allow other companies to certify their chargers for use with the Tesla SuperCharger standard (Tesla's charger plug). Tesla gets all the feedback including mine, and says "Wait, we don't want competition ... just lower the price a little bit." That's anti-competitive and anti-marketplace.

They get to do that, but it is a bad sign for the company and its products, because it makes the value of its products much lower since it doesn't serve its customers properly. As word of Tesla's anti-customer attitude gets out to new Model 3 owners (not just this issue, but many issues; Tesla exerts great control over how customers use products that they own), a huge portion of potential electric vehicle purchasers will turn sour against Tesla in particular and not buy their products. This issue with Tesla's failure to let owners do what they want with their own things isn't going away, especially since Tesla keeps adding anti-customer pro-centralization Directors to their Board of Directors.

 

[Ulmo]

I said:

(not just this issue, but many issues; Tesla exerts great control over how customers use products that they own)

Here's another of a million examples of Tesla behaving as if people do not own their own Tesla products:

While I have copious personal examples, I still own some of those products, so a censorial pressure is against me. This is a Tesla thing and people will come to know it is a Tesla thing more and more. Slightly reducing the price increase is one of the ways Tesla will avoid actually opening this market up.

 

[theoceanwaves]

maybe they should survey existing customers on their thoughts on increasing prices and where the extra capital would be going e.g new superchargers, I'm sure a lot would welcome it.

 

[not2smartpa]

Well, we're living in a world where new features are coming via software, and just as noted, existing features can be removed or changed. Tesla doing it with a car and impacting the torque capabilities is perhaps more invasive, but no different than a cellphone manufacturer removing features or adjusting behavior based on what they think.

BTW, this isn't necessarily a new happening just because of SW. For years Hewlett-Packard sold Enterprise-class
business systems that you could pay for a performance upgrade. That was accomplished by paying a boatload of money for a CE to come out, pull out a board, and move or remove a jumper, and restart the system. Similarly, HP decided (for an inexplicable reason) to use HPIB bus to connect peripherals to replace the dedicated cables they previously used. Something was done to the existing IO board to prevent the use of the older cables which provided higher thruput. it was a minor change because it was possible, again for a knowledgeable CE, to re-enable the capability.

NET -- manufacturers will do what they need to do ti drive demand in a direction they want it to go. Not every change will be appreciated or desired, but they will still do what they need to do. On the performance downgrade, Tesla may have felt it would encourage folks to skip the performance models unless they did the downgrade --or-- it could have been a coincidence and related to some other concern related to mechanical stresses or some other safety concern. Sometimes things come together appearing as a specific act, when in fact it's a bunch of different things that coincide. (real Estate for sale in Florida if interested )