Web Service Required for Android App?

[ChargedUp]

From what I understand, Tesla will start charging a monthly fee to have web access in the car. Does that mean the Android app will stop working unless web access is paid for?

 

[Volker.Berlin]

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[gregincal]

That's news to me... Where did you get this idea? Can you cite a source?

It's right on the Tesla Bulletin board:

"We originally planned to announce a standard connectivity plan as well as a smart phone tethering plan for Model S in December. We have made a lot of progress in designing our connectivity plans and are happy to announce that the option to tether your smartphone device to Model S will indeed be possible.Connectivity plans will be published on teslamotors.com soon and yearly subscriptions will become available on your My Tesla page near the end of your free trial. For a limited time, all Model S will continue to be delivered with unlimited 3G data and a free subscription to all connectivity features, including Google Maps with traffic, voice control, internet radio with album art and a web browser."

However, I'm not sure it's clear exactly what will be disabled if you don't sign up for the plan. Presumably the things listed above.

 

[strider]

We don't know if mobile app access is included with the car or if you have to have a connectivity plan. I assume that even if you don't buy the plan that Tesla will still have a connection to the car to pull logs and do software updates but we don't know if they'll let you use that channel for the app to control the car or not.

I would guess they would since if you chose to use tethering for the car's connection then once you left the car the app wouldn't work but we haven't explicitly been told this.

 

[jerry33]

My assumption is that the connectivity plan and WiFi enablement will appear at the same time or close to it.