Update to the Supercharger network policies

[Woodson]

We need to do something about this. They trying to drive sales up by adding ergency to buying it before January and also adding new features like Auto Pilot 2.0 with the cars starting in October. We did to speak up

The hole premise of buying these care was based on how you save money and free to travel anywhere, there web site has calculation to tell the costumer how to save money. Can you honestly say you r saving money? I don't think so.

 

[Garlan Garner]

If you're buying a 80-150k dollar car to save money, you're doing something very, very wrong in your life.

Now I have to say that that's funny.

 

[mhan00]

The hole premise of buying these care was based on how you save money and free to travel anywhere, there web site has calculation to tell the costumer how to save money. Can you honestly say you r saving money? I don't think so.

No, the whole premise of buying the Model S or X is that they're awesome cars with insane, even ludicrous, performance and some of the most advanced tech available. Free super charging was a perk.

 

[Garlan Garner]

The hole premise of buying these care was based on how you save money and free to travel anywhere, there web site has calculation to tell the costumer how to save money. Can you honestly say you r saving money? I don't think so.

There is NEVER a premise to buying anything. People bought Teslas for various reasons.


Tesla presented a premise of "Selling" their cars and it's all over their website. " to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport"

Tesla never touted an objective to allow people to go everywhere. Can you provide a link for that?

 

[ohmman]

The hole premise of buying these care was based on how you save money and free to travel anywhere, there web site has calculation to tell the costumer how to save money. Can you honestly say you r saving money? I don't think so.

If you already own a Tesla, you're set for free Supercharging for life. I think you might have missed that. If so, be relieved! Your car has it.

If not, then you know the product that's being sold. You have three options - buy now and get free Supercharging for as long as you own the car, buy later and get a lot of free Supercharging and then some marginal cost Supercharging, or don't buy at all.

If you choose the "later" option, you still save some money on fuel costs by charging at home on cheap electricity. If possible, you can also install solar and get a very rapid ROI on your PV installation.

Now, your complaint reads as "I wish they kept offering an option forever on something I haven't bought and I just want to knit them up!" And that makes very little sense.

 

[vinnie97]

First of all the 400kWh offer is coming with the MS and MX. There is no option to reject it. Use it or lose it. That's free.

I didn't need the explanation, but thanks for the condescension all the same. I was just extrapolating that "offer", prematurely or not, to include the Model 3. I'm accustomed to disappointment, so that is why I worded the presupposition in the manner I did.

Again, this is Elon's actual quote I'm referencing when I mention the unlimited package/option:

So it will still be very cheap, and far cheaper than gasoline, to drive long-distance with the Model 3, but it will not be free long distance for life unless you purchase that package.

We all know that ordering a M3 is highly improbable before 1-1-2017, however I have to go with what has already been stated by Tesla/Elon. The first thing that was stated long ago is that the M3 will have unlimited SC'ing. They said the same thing about the MS and MX and have carried through with that promise to all that heard it when they ordered their car. Now...they are changing the game for those who heard it - but had no car.
What is going to happen with the M3 concerning SC'ing? I certainly don't know, however that's not even the 10th most important option to me...so....

It is/was a bit higher on my priority list. I was not a big traveler before, but this would have been a nice incentive to get out on the road more.

 

[vinnie97]

There won't be any unlimited supercharging option for Model S/X or Model 3 after January 1st 2017. Tesla's blog post doesn't mention any such option. There are two reasons why it's not possible:

1. It would make city superchargers impossible. Tesla needs large numbers of city superchargers to sell Model 3 in high volume. Elon is talking about 1-2 million units per year. Most people around the world live in apartments and park their cars on the street. Eventually, there will be more city superchargers than long distance superchargers. Around the world, there is already huge demand for city superchargers. If the unlimited package was available, people would buy the Model 3 with the unlimited package just to start a taxi service within the city. Let alone offering a new unlimited package, Tesla needs to offer high trade in prices to get those cars back that already have unlimited supercharging so they can cancel that option.
2. In the current business model, light users balance out heavy users but after Jan 1st, almost all light users will pick the credits system because it is much cheaper. If the unlimited option was available, mostly heavy users would pick it. It doesn't make financial sense.

OK, but you're effectively calling Elon a liar. I agree with another poster who said that you increasingly can't believe what he says as Tesla tries to break into the big(ger) leagues of automotive manufacturing. I on the other hand do believe they could offer such if they priced it accordingly (i.e. sky high). Whether they will is another story.

If such an option is offered as inferred by Elon 5 months ago, I would not be at all surprised if it's a $10k option and thus only worth it if you practically live on the road.

 

[FlatSix911]

We need to do something about this. They trying to drive sales up by adding ergency to buying it before January and also adding new features like Auto Pilot 2.0 with the cars starting in October. We did to speak up

The hole premise of buying these care was based on how you save money and free to travel anywhere, there web site has calculation to tell the costumer how to save money. Can you honestly say you r saving money? I don't think so.

Your money could be better spent on ... improving Literacy

 

[ChrisJ]

I wouldn't be surprised when sales are down that they offer limited specials/bonus/bumped monthly max beyond the 400 kWh or even free/cheap lifetime SC to boost sales.

 

[Topher]

This might not get a lot of owners to downgrade but I'm sure there are some who use supercharging very rarely, who would essentially lose nothing by downgrading.

Which argues against Tesla offering it. Why would they pay to remove a liability that the owner doesn't expect to exercise? This is exactly the same issue as offering free for life supercharging in the first place.

Instead, the adapter itself could communicate back to the mother ship. Perhaps via its own radio or via smartphone. It need not always be connected.

Doesn't need to ever connect, just needs a secure identification that the supercharger (which is connected) can read.

The Supercharger network is a huge advantage of buying a Tesla over a Bolt or i3.

Which the Model 3 doesn't need. Plus, Tesla's goal is to accelerate the advent of sustainable transportation. Selling access to the supercharger network does exactly that. Tesla *wants* Bolts and i3s to sell.

If you already have a solar infrastructure in place then cost to charge at home would be virtually free.

Most people who have solar at home, are charging their cars at a low but not free rate. They are paying down their investment, or they are losing income from selling that power somewhere else.

I guess it's good for the environment too but that's not my major driving factor.

Sure. Who needs a livable planet?

Thank you kindly.

 

[JRP3]

I don't see that as a strong argument at all. Tesla can simply say it's for the life of the Model S while owned by the person they have the contact with.

Except there is certainly no wording to that effect. Plus the number of Tesla's on the road with the unlimited SC feature will only be decreasing over time, and will be decreasing even faster as a percentage of the Tesla fleet and SC network as both continue to grow. Bottom line, I don't see Tesla doing anything to existing cars that came with unlimited SC access.

 

[ohmman]

Except there is certainly no wording to that effect. Plus the number of Tesla's on the road with the unlimited SC feature will only be decreasing over time, and will be decreasing even faster as a percentage of the Tesla fleet and SC network as both continue to grow. Bottom line, I don't see Tesla doing anything to existing cars that came with unlimited SC access.

Not on topic, but that was your 10,000th post. It's immortalized and we'll come back to analyze this later when I reach the 10k club.

Congrats.

 

[JRP3]

Thanks, didn't even notice.

 

[scaesare]

For those who have been following Tesla, this move in the supercharger space isn't a new concept. For some time Tesla has talked about the need to phase in to a paid supercharging model. This is from a year and a half ago, and I don't think it's the first time it was talked about either:

ON EDIT: It appears you can't embed a time code withn URL's here, forward to 13:00 minutes...

It may have come a bit sooner than initially assumed, but the unanticipated demand for the Model 3 likely had something to do with that...

 

[Topher]

I think bro1999 was suggesting that one of the reasons to wait for M3 rather than to buy Bolt a year or two earlier has been diminished by Tesla not providing free supercharging.

Much of the appeal to buying a Tesla was the free Supercharging.

Using the correct definition of 'free', what Tesla offered was "unlimited supercharging (without being a jerk about it) included in the price of the car, whether one wants it or not, and regardless of how much one uses."

Phrased that way, it doesn't sound great for people who would use it infrequently and still have the $2,000 tacked onto the cost of their car

Thank you kindly.

 

[TexasEV]

The hole premise of buying these care was based on how you save money and free to travel anywhere, there web site has calculation to tell the costumer how to save money. Can you honestly say you r saving money? I don't think so.

No, that's not the whole premise of buying the car. The first premise is about not using oil. It's also about having no noise, no exhaust, and being incredibly fun to drive. You do save money as charging at home is much less expensive than buying gasoline for a similar size car, but no one spends high five figures or six figures on a Tesla to save money. You also get the availability of the supercharger network, unlike any other EV, which enables you to drive long distance easily even if you have to pay something for it beyond a certain use.

If you're buying a Tesla primarily for the free supercharging, then you're buying it for the wrong reason. I suspect that Tesla wouldn't mind losing that sale.

 

[Carl]

I think Tesla should today have a very straightforward communication on this: does free Supercharging transfer to a new owner when you sell your pre-2017 car? Given that the 7 November announcement is probably also meant to trigger some Q4 sales ("AP2+Lifelong Charging, wow!"), it matters, for those sales as well, whether "lifelong charging" survives an eventual resale of Tesla's ordered before 2017.

To recap:

(a) On 7 November Tesla wrote (regarding the new SuC credit policy vs. the former lifelong free Supercharging policy): "These changes will not impact current owners or any new Teslas ordered before January 1, 2017, as long as delivery is taken before April 1, 2017". The reference to "current owners" in stead of "current Tesla's" could indicate Tesla may want to stop "lifelong charging" on an existing car once the current owner sells it (to someone else than Tesla - obviously Tesla can do whatever it wants to cars it buys back itself).

(b) Formerly, the transferability of lifelong free Supercharging was so obvious that it wasn't even worth questioning. June 2013, Q&A on Tesla's website: "How much does it cost to use the Supercharger? Supercharging is free for the life of Model S, once the Supercharger option is enabled". And : "Will it always be free? Yes, Superchargers will be free to use for Supercharging-enabled vehicles for the life of Model S". I re-sold my first 2013 Model S in March 2016 (in order to buy an AP1-enhanced new one) and obviously the buyer of my 2013 'Classic' has unlimited SuC-access - that was never in doubt.

(for the record and to ring-fence the question: this is not about whether Tesla should continue its policy of free Supercharging: that's Tesla's decision - the decision it made public on 7 November is, I think, very sane, in the long run - and anyway Tesla is better placed than any one of us on this forum to decide on its policy. This is only about what has been promised to existing owners, and trying to understand what precisely is currently being promised in respect of new pre-2017 orders).

 

[winfield100]

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

as an example, 40+ years ago I purchased a LIFE subscription to "The Mother Earth News", for $120
They lost money on me, and others, and the only way they got rid of thousands of us was to sell the magazine

I will have no problem paying to charge at home, as I do now, at 1/4 the cost of gasoline, and on my 1,000 - 2,000 mile trips, at 1/4 the cost of gasoline, which will only become scarcer, more expensive over the years

 

[JRP3]

it matters, for those sales as well, whether "lifelong charging" survives an eventual resale of Tesla's ordered before 2017.

Does it really? Do you think anyone will actually not buy the car if the lifelong charging doesn't go to the next owner?

 

[Carl]

If I didn't already have a Tesla I would buy one even if Supercharging costed as much as gas, or perhaps even more. But that's not the question.

There are bound to be people thinking "Will I trade in my 2016 AP1 Model S for an 2017 AP2 Model S with Lifelong Supercharging, an unique opportunity". Among those, the question what 'lifelong' means (transferable or not) obviously somewhat affects the value of the 'opportunity' and hence, potentially, whether or not they would indeed decide to trade in.