Not much of an incentive to buy a Tesla without free supercharging? Speak for yourself. Tesla is the best EV by far and the only one that's practical for long distance travel. What more incentive does one need? So what if you have to pay for charging after 400kWh of supercharger use each year? The free supercharging was icing on the cake. It wasn't the cake.
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Update to the Supercharger network policies
- Thread starter Bluechip
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- Tesla Inc.
Garlan Garner
Banned
I'm going to go with what they said until I hear or see otherwise.
Tesla said that the SC network is not profitable, nor is it their intention for it to be profitable...Tesla said that the network will “never be a profit center” and that all revenue will be reinvested to expand the number of stations and improve the charging technology. <----- I think the improvement might be the articulating arm or something like that for L5 autonomy.
Let me put it this way. SC's will still be free to use, but will be expensive to abuse.
It goes without saying IMO. Common sense tells me to free up a resource for others to use once I'm finished, and finished doesn't mean finished parking. Unfortunately, there are many people that lack both common sense and the ability to read, even the simplest of FAQs.
When my children were in preschool, my wife and I took turns picking them up by no later than 6 PM. At 6 PM, the care was in fact $1/minute. Fifteen-minutes late - no problem. $15 tacked onto you monthly statement. It was a very rare case when well heeled parent/s showed up late
It worked!Elon's been known to play with words a bit and my level of trust in what he says is going down slowly over time
1. Supercharging will be "free for life" . Although technically true for all users who purchased a Tesla so far, this was obviously intended to give the assumption that it would be free for all.
2. supercharging credits. The way they worded this gave the assumption that all new buyers would receive 1000 miles worth of free credits. Now it looks like that is only for s and x orders and excludes 3.
3. By saying that certain features hardware will come standard on all cars gives the impression (for some people) that the underlying feature will come standard. They could easily clarify these details but choose not too. maybe it's because they really do not have the details yet, or maybe it's to create hype and confusion a bit.
I personally do not have issues with these from a financial perspective, or from a business model perspective and I get why they are making these changes, however I do not like the verbiage he uses to mislead the public a bit.
1. Supercharging will be "free for life" . Although technically true for all users who purchased a Tesla so far, this was obviously intended to give the assumption that it would be free for all.
2. supercharging credits. The way they worded this gave the assumption that all new buyers would receive 1000 miles worth of free credits. Now it looks like that is only for s and x orders and excludes 3.
3. By saying that certain features hardware will come standard on all cars gives the impression (for some people) that the underlying feature will come standard. They could easily clarify these details but choose not too. maybe it's because they really do not have the details yet, or maybe it's to create hype and confusion a bit.
I personally do not have issues with these from a financial perspective, or from a business model perspective and I get why they are making these changes, however I do not like the verbiage he uses to mislead the public a bit.
I have some of the same thoughts as your well-stated post. It's hard of course to judge motivation, but it seems they were happy to give the impression of 'always free'. This is at odds with what I've come to expect from Musk/Tesla but of course completely in line with standard business type lying and deception done by all other companies.
No it is not "obviously intended" to give the impression that would be the case for every car every built into the indefinite future. It is an accurate statement about the cars that Tesla was selling when the statement was made.
The announcement states "For Teslas ordered after January 1, 2017, 400 kWh of free Supercharging credits (roughly 1,000 miles". See An Update to Our Supercharging Program which says nothing about "excluding" the Model 3. Read the statement.
Tesla states "All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability". Nowhere does Tesla say that capability is functional today or tomorrow or this year or next year.
No additional "clarity" is needed. Elon assumes that people can read and understand plain English. I agree that some people cannot. That is a failure of their educational system, or in some cases of their neural wiring. Tesla cannot correct that.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I never assumed that, in fact I always assumed "free for life", which was actually prepaid for life, would stop at some point for newer vehicles
True, but I'm fine with that. It's more important that the company survives and remains successful. No one has yet ordered a Model 3 so they cannot have been mislead about their purchase.
No it doesn't, not for anyone remotely paying attention.
The email I just received from Tesla specifically mentions S and X but not 3, so I'm not sure.
The update for November doesn't mention the 3. Perhaps they'll have to pay extra to receive the same credit or a smaller credit will be given.
I have not received any email from Tesla on this, so I have to ask: What was the subject of the email? If it was about Model S and/or X I would not pay any attention to this. If it was an answer to "what about supercharging on the Model 3?" on the other hand...
I'm surprised it's taking so long. Elon Musk is a salesman. His words are at best expressions of intent. It's the reality of Tesla's intention that keeps the company alive.
Buyers are getting what was advertised. The language was used to emphasize that if you bought the car there was no asterisk to it. They were trying to make the model work, and had already said they'd wait for higher volume before reassessing. I think the acceleration is based on a combination of cashflow issues and the acceleration of competition from the VW settlement. (Tesla's been unlucky in that this is the 2nd significant boost to CCS that's coming as a result of a settlement).
I am not at all surprised by this. It's part of the Supercharging package. The package is included in the S and X, but I have (and I think the vast majority of people here have) understood since the 3 launch that for the 3 you will have to make an additional payment to enable Supercharging, and when you do you will get the 400kWh per year. The 400kWh is a trivial amount of electricity but serves the important purpose hassle-free charging for emergency travel or in the event of an outage.
Anyone already familiar with Tesla will understand what they're doing. It's how it's been working on the S and X for AP from the start. Some early Model 3 buyers might not be familiar, but the principle behind it is simple, it's used elsewhere (e.g. OnStar in _all_ GM vehicles, and satellite radio in way too many vehicles*), and the wider public will not have any trouble understanding how it works.
* Including my Volt; I never wanted it, I'll never want it and its presence makes the radio worse.
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What are you talking about? It's not like he's tricking you into buying a Model S and then pulling the SC out from under you. If you buy a Model S after the New Year, you know that you'll only have 400kwh of free SC use. Same for the 3, if the 400kwh is not included with the purchase of the car, you know it ahead of time. Feel free to cancel your preorder and get your fully refundable deposit back.
Thanks for the update. Have not received that email yet.
Hard to make any conclusions based on this, but it sounds like that they have considered that it was necessary to update the wordings based on some conclusions that was made based on the original wordings on the blog.
Free doesn't scale well, at all. Either Tesla would spend so much money on building SC locations and stalls plus maintenance plus cost for electricity that they'd cripple or even bankrupt themselves, or the SC network would be so congested with cars that the free charging perk would be basically useless since the wait times would be nuts (as they already are at certain CA locations).
I don't want to get too sticky on this issue, but the email update says the following:
Tesla Email said:
These aren't necessarily contradictory. The more general blog post is correct, because we cannot order a Model 3 immediately after January 1, 2017. The blog post doesn't say anything about "this will be our policy going forward," either. It's the current policy, and therefore it applies to the Model S and X.
Will it apply to the Model 3? Maybe, and perhaps even likely. But I have seen what happens here when people draw conclusions about a feature or a benefit, and then don't receive it. It happens here at TMC plenty.
Consider this just a cautionary post. I don't think there is anything spelled out that says this applies to Model 3. It's safer to avoid making that assumption and avoiding the drama of disappointment.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Free charging stays with the vehicle, probably controlled by communicating the vehicle VIN to the charger.
Maybe stays with the vehicle. Since the phrasing was cleverly stated as "your Tesla," it could also be the owner/vehicle pair. If so, that would be controlled via VIN and the My Tesla account information.
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