The real reason for continued free internet... telemetry.

[rcc]

I took the factory tour when I picked up my car.

The seats are built at Fremont. They are built by another company but Tesla insisted that they build the seats at the Fremont plant to speed up the feedback loop between Tesla and the company.

But I agree with the point that it isn't the billing system that's driving the internet decision.

Personally, I think it's a cost-benefit decision. After a more than a year of collecting usage data, they've probably concluded that they'd rather pay AT&T for data and build the cost into their margins. Tesla's not into nickle-and-diming its customer base - which is a strategy that makes sense for premium products. Tesla wants people to have a premium experience.

+1 on Tesla being an emerging markets play by AT&T. A year+ of data probably gives AT&T some confidence about the data load generated by your average Model S usage. I'm sure AT&T gave Tesla a really good deal. And in 4 years (undoubtedly the length of the AT&T/Tesla pricing contract) it should be clear how people will use that connectivity and therefore how AT&T should charge for it.

Really, this is one of those situations where everyone wins. Now stay tuned for 4 more years .

 

[mpbruin108]

I would happily pay extra not to have any advertising of any kind. I'm already inundated with that junk and I find most of it offensive.

I agree on that point. I'm sure they will figure out the most non-intrusive way to do this data collection and focused advertising. Small stuff like what Facebook or google does isn't out of the question in my books. Probably won't affect a lot of us who don't use certain apps but look how successful google ads are and you barely notice the ads but google adsense and adwords has made google a ton of money without really being that intrusive into your daily email lives.

I think the supercharger idea of advertising makes sense since you stop and wonder what is around you to check out while the car is charging. So some sort of ad might pop up on your car for a local joint. who knows. We'll all find out in 2018. =)

 

[techMology]

I took the factory tour when I picked up my car.

The seats are built at Fremont. They are built by another company but Tesla insisted that they build the seats at the Fremont plant to speed up the feedback loop between Tesla and the company.

But I agree with the point that it isn't the billing system that's driving the internet decision.

Personally, I think it's a cost-benefit decision. After a more than a year of collecting usage data, they've probably concluded that they'd rather pay AT&T for data and build the cost into their margins. Tesla's not into nickle-and-diming its customer base - which is a strategy that makes sense for premium products. Tesla wants people to have a premium experience.

+1 on Tesla being an emerging markets play by AT&T. A year+ of data probably gives AT&T some confidence about the data load generated by your average Model S usage. I'm sure AT&T gave Tesla a really good deal. And in 4 years (undoubtedly the length of the AT&T/Tesla pricing contract) it should be clear how people will use that connectivity and therefore how AT&T should charge for it.

Really, this is one of those situations where everyone wins. Now stay tuned for 4 more years .

My only point re: the seats is that Tesla doesn't build them, and probably didn't design them outside of their physical appearance (even if they are manufactured in Fremont). It's shocking how much stuff is farmed out to OEM's. And it makes sense. I don't think Tesla would have been able to produce such a high quality car as quickly as they did if they didn't rely on OEM design and manufacturing services.

I have a friend who works for Magna, and his job is to reply to RFP's for car components from manufacturers. His last project was bidding on seat adjustment mechanisms for VW. Heck, Magna (as an example) even builds entire vehicles for BMW (or they used to anyway).

 

[techMology]

I'mguessing techMology's assertion it isn't the billing system complexity is probably the case. In the days before smartphones, contents didn't all go through a computer company's cloud infrastructure like they do now (Apple, Google). Contents like ring tones were produced by third parties and each carrier presented the "store" on their phones. Carriers would need a system bill/pay these aggregated contents separately from one another. It seems like carriers needs to aggregate multiple content sources would be a natural force as the phones screen got bigger (therefore better UI to select contents). Of course then smartphones came long and contents got all centralized by computer company's clouds. Carriers just go back to voice, text, and data But I have to imagine carriers may still be delivering some content or constantly finding ways to. In addition, large part of the world isn't even on smartphones yet. Carriers there are likely still up selling contents individually supplied by third parties.

Anyhow, back on topic, why continued free internet? Below is an article on AT&T's Tesla involvement. Here are some clues in the article

- quotation is from VP in AT&T's emergning technologies group.
- they (AT&T) suggest its early and pricing models aren't clear. Heck, even value proposition isn't clear.
- OnStar is switching over to AT&T's LTE service. OnStar is a a branded service that have captured some customers based on a safety proposition. So consider this "matured business segment"
- they (AT&T) hint at consider all types of new usages.. including pay per time window. They have these types of cellphone plans now.
- they (AT&T) said they are exploring a bifurcated billing model. Telemetry billed to car manufacturer. Internet hotspot to end user.

So what is Tesla business for AT&T? probably Emerging Technology Driven by lots of technology early adopters. Evaluate what people like... find a value proposition, figure out what to charge for it. And given the minuscule number of Tesla cars compared to the number of smartphones. It really a tiny blip on their capacity and limited development investment to explore future business. If they start charging now to this little market, they might sour the consumer's taste buds before they even figure out what people like. So I would imagine AT&T cut Tesla a great bundle deal. Its not like there isn't another aggressive GSM carriers out there

I would imagine AT&T like to try lots of different type of services... hotspot per their stated example (would need 4G now ). Tesla's team is probably the limit here. They should always be racing to build the next sequence in their Moore's law (Roadster->MS->MX->ME)

ATT launches $5/day tablet data plan, powers Tesla's wireless services - FierceWireless

This makes sense. This is a huge learning opportunity for AT&T. Win, win.

 

[techMology]

This kind of underscores my earlier "it's not billing" point:

Connected Car Solutions and Technology | ATT

You'll see AT&T has a Tesla in the studio in the video. Also, they've partnered with some giant players in M2M platform enablement (Ericsson) and billing (Amdocs) to make things like charging easy.

To me, this underscores the partnership deal AT&T have most likely struck with Tesla and why free data happening for 4 years. Clearly the infotainment cluster in the MS is way ahead of any other manufacturer, so there is lots to be learned from the partnership from AT&T's point of view.

This does give me hope that things like the chargeable WiFi hotspot feature may actually be an easy update and could be coming. In one press release I read, they actually cite that scenario as an example (see here: ATT and Ericsson announce agreement for the connected car - Ericsson).

 

[DriverOne]

It is the next logical goal and has HUGE potential for advertising dollars. ... focus targeted ads on where we are in real time, all the time and have little pop ups on our navigation screen or when we are parked..

This sounds like Google. Tesla is not Google. Look at Apple for another company going the non-advertising route; clearly it's possible for companies to do well without throwing adverts into everything they send you.