I was just watching
Jon Ronson: When online shaming spirals out of control | TED Talk | TED.com
So I feel an obligation to stand up for ITSELE and against TaoJones.
I love my Tesla and wish everyone else could be driving similar vehicles. But, if you're relying on someone else to provide you with your electricity, then you are abusing a privilege. Use of Superchargers as they were intended to facilitate longer trips is great; short term regular use of Superchargers is fine, but permanently claiming you are owed "FREE" electricity because you paid $2000 upfront is IMO abusive.
Your response is noted, but it in no way addresses or contravenes the point I presented above. It instead appears to be just another example, all too often found in these threads of late (that occasionally attempt to shame the non-garaged), of making a reasonable objection to a non-existent premise. It also presents or supports an opinion, and one that is not supported by fact, to which I take exception.
Tesla *has* committed to DENSITY as well as DISTANCE. Distance supports your position, and until late last year, was all Tesla supported. Density supports my position, and as of late last year, is a premise now clearly supported by Tesla - poorly-written recent letter notwithstanding. Also, the paying extra for supercharging as a separate line item must have been before my time.
Let me be succinct (too late, I know): I was told specifically by Tesla prior to the purchase of my Model S that as a non-garaged owner, I could use SCs for the duration of my ownership. Frankly, I expected the answer to be more along the lines of "Have a nice day", which clearly a small minority of yes, handwringing busybodies, would prefer. Supporting said handwringing busybodies whose position has actually been to DISSUADE THE PURCHASE OF TESLAS BY NEW OWNERS is equally untenable. The gall.
Instead, I was welcomed with open arms by Tesla and that was when there was just 1 SC in the area. Now there are 3 SCs within a 10-mile radius. When I called Tesla early on about the use of SCs, they did say they were going to build more SCs in dense areas to support, in part, the non-garaged - I didn't necessarily believe that at the time, but sure enough, it happened, and within 3 months.
I might fully charge once a week on average. I also don't expect this to go on forever since, in part, I am trying my best to actively lobby for EV chargers in the harbor - someday, even at the glacial pace of municipal and regional government, we *will* finally have chargers. Without putting too fine a point on it, given the typical harbor demographics (much more likely to buy EVs), it makes sense and who wouldn't want to wake up every morning to a full charge? But in the meantime, off to the SCs I go.
Another poster said it best: If you can charge at home, then charge at home. If you cannot charge at home, then there's no problem and no "abuse" - use the SCs in a courteous manner and all will be just fine. Welcome to the family. I would only add that were I buying today, I'd get the above in writing from corporate before placing the order.
This next one will really chap the hides of the HB contingent and their supporters: I met a fellow at a Washington SC this past month who starts every morning with a full charge courtesy of his solar array at home - and he then charges almost EVERY DAY at his local SC for at least a half-hour. He has almost 100,000 miles driven with his Model S in 2 years. Yep - he pays nothing for his home electricity AND he uses SCs. Oh, the horror. Oh, what a freeloader. Oh, the humanity. But seriously, if there were 1000s of such people, their net (no pun intended) usage would still be negligible.
All of this handwringing and support of handwringing also unfortunately masks what I believe to be the biggest and most glaring problem facing SC network utilization - and that's ICEing. ICEing by ICES *and* sadly by Model S owners. There is no significant problem with regard to locals other than HBs distastefully referencing their statistically non-existent usage as freeloading. Most owners don't use SCs much if at all in the first place. But folks, after 11,000 miles of road trips and periodic usage of SCs in the most populous county in North America these past 9 months, I can tell you that we could all do well to (cordially) educate, educate, and educate some more owners that don't vacate spaces immediately after their charge is complete (and of course, discourteous ICE owners).
