Seems totally reasonable. Gas-powered cars cost a lot to fill up and electricity isn't free either, so this totally makes sense. I'd rather go the "pay by the kWh used" route than the "pay the entire expected lifetime cost of charging built into the up-front cost of the car" route, because I know I drive significantly fewer miles than average.
This charge also changes the economics of rolling out Supercharger stations, to the point where they might actually become profitable (rather than being loss-leaders). This means that more of them will be built. That's a great thing.
Those next to service centers are likely to be on Tesla-owned land lots, but there's a bunch located in outlet malls and third-party parking lots. I'd expect the landlords to want their piece of the pie or some semblance of rent once there's a profit motive.
Apparently they're getting hogged up by ride sharing companies. Some even have their cleaning crews scheduled to show up at the super chargers to clean while they're charging.
From that thread: "At times, I've even seen tesloop cars left charging over night."
I hope Tesla changes their system so that once a vehicle is fully charged, the user would be charged for the time that they remain hooked up beyond a full charge. Sort of like how Amazon AWS charges for reserved but unused public IPs. Much like an unused IP, being hooked up to the charger while not actually charging might not be "consuming anything", it is preventing others from using it.
This would discourage people from leaving their vehicles overnight or plugged in for hours on end. From my understanding the SC's are for quick charges so that travelers can get on their way quickly, preventing others from using them should incur a cost.
Also its worth mentioning that none of this was 'free' to begin with. Tesla could afford to run these stations with no cost to the customer because the customer just paid $100,000 on a car that had enough margin to pay for perks like these.
With the Model 3 coming, I imagine competition from Chevy and others will keep prices low, so that means a cooked in premium to pay for the Supercharger network isn't in the cards anymore. Personally, I prefer things this way. Whenever a resource is free, it means the average users are simply subsidizing the heaviest users, who are often abusing the service, like ride sharing and taxi services are now. Metered pricing with a lowered up-front makes a lot more sense.
The car is self-driving and self-parking, right? For the problem of supercharger bays being hogged by unattended fully charged (commercial) cars, then perhaps the car can move itself to a non-charging parking bay once it is fully charged?
EDIT: Ah, there's still a cable plugged in the side!
Umm, can tesla look around and identify parking spots it can take? That itself seems like an impossible problem based on current computer vision capability.
Then what about reading signs on the parking lot, if it parks on a reserved or handicapped spot?
Tesla's self park at home (forgot what they called it) is basically meant to just drive straight into a garage. That's not going to do that job.
I would think they would have some view of the behavior regardless of the reddit post (for sure occupancy statistics for each charger; apparently per car usage statistics).
They could probably reduce that problem by opening fee based charging stations closer to the populations the cars serve. Time is money and all that.
No one is suggesting Elon Musk read 1 reddit post 18 hours ago and changed the entire program overnight.
The reddit post is merely a current iteration of a common complaint popping up on various forums and customer feedback tools for a while now.
Elon and Tesla likely are aware of commercial use of SC stations for a long time now.
The point of posting the most-current-iteration-reddit post isn't "Elon saw this and changed the program 12 hours later" but rather "here's today's discussion of last years problem that perhaps Elon is fixing today"
Net net: they intend super chargers to be for travelers and not everyday use. Probably because the super chargers are getting clogged up with people who are actually driving locally and could have charged at home.
That has been considered. But you get into a lot of corner cases. For instance. I might suddenly need to go on a long drive. I only have 25% SoC and I will use the closest supercharger to charge up to 80% and be on my way.
This way they add a cost to supercharging and people get to control their allotted free charge capacity as they see fit.
When something usually goes from paid to free, it's an indicator the product fit isn't working. In this case it's the opposite.
Now we're seeing the free incentive to buy being given a marginal cost to help ensure the spread of the service. This is likely because of increased usage and/or projected demand. So basically, it's a sign Tesla is doing ok.
Is the current free Supercharger access tied to the owner or the car, i.e., if I bought a pre-2017 Model S where the previous owner had free Supercharger access, would I also have access?
I think it's pretty clear that although they may succeed in ramping up production of the Model 3 fast enough to satisfy advance orders, they probably can't ramp up installation of superchargers to match. There are economies of scale that apply to car production that aren't matched by the ability to get physical locations upgraded with the necessary high-current wiring, let alone contracts with whoever owns all those locations. If they don't reduce demand, they're unlikely to cope, and charging money is the obvious way to achieve this.
Once they're charging to charge, it makes sense to come to agreements with other manufacturers of EVs to use each other's charger networks. In the long run it makes no sense to have multiple networks of vehicle chargers, just like it makes no sense to have gas stations that only fill Fords.
In the UK, Ecotricity give me 52 fast-charges (30 minutes at 43kW) a year on their motorway (freeway) charging network for free as I use their 100% renewable tariff for my home electricity.
Tesla's allowance seems pretty weak by comparison. In fact, their allowance is only 35% of what Ecotricity offer.
If one has a Tesla, yes. I currently drive a Renault Zoe which is incompatible with Tesla superchargers, but had been considering buying a Model X.
A Tesla could charge at either 22kW using the Type 2 Mennekes connector, or if the owner has a CHAdeMO connector (about £250 from Tesla) at 50kW. Both a lot slower than a supercharger's 120kW.
Readit News
This charge also changes the economics of rolling out Supercharger stations, to the point where they might actually become profitable (rather than being loss-leaders). This means that more of them will be built. That's a great thing.
That said, certainly earning something from supercharging stations helps the economics of expansion significantly.
https://pay.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/5bgdp5/another...
Apparently they're getting hogged up by ride sharing companies. Some even have their cleaning crews scheduled to show up at the super chargers to clean while they're charging.
I hope Tesla changes their system so that once a vehicle is fully charged, the user would be charged for the time that they remain hooked up beyond a full charge. Sort of like how Amazon AWS charges for reserved but unused public IPs. Much like an unused IP, being hooked up to the charger while not actually charging might not be "consuming anything", it is preventing others from using it.
This would discourage people from leaving their vehicles overnight or plugged in for hours on end. From my understanding the SC's are for quick charges so that travelers can get on their way quickly, preventing others from using them should incur a cost.
With the Model 3 coming, I imagine competition from Chevy and others will keep prices low, so that means a cooked in premium to pay for the Supercharger network isn't in the cards anymore. Personally, I prefer things this way. Whenever a resource is free, it means the average users are simply subsidizing the heaviest users, who are often abusing the service, like ride sharing and taxi services are now. Metered pricing with a lowered up-front makes a lot more sense.
EDIT: Ah, there's still a cable plugged in the side!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM0lRfX6YI
Then what about reading signs on the parking lot, if it parks on a reserved or handicapped spot?
Tesla's self park at home (forgot what they called it) is basically meant to just drive straight into a garage. That's not going to do that job.
They could probably reduce that problem by opening fee based charging stations closer to the populations the cars serve. Time is money and all that.
The reddit post is merely a current iteration of a common complaint popping up on various forums and customer feedback tools for a while now.
Elon and Tesla likely are aware of commercial use of SC stations for a long time now.
The point of posting the most-current-iteration-reddit post isn't "Elon saw this and changed the program 12 hours later" but rather "here's today's discussion of last years problem that perhaps Elon is fixing today"
I guess it isn't really that surprising, it doesn't make sense to have to worry about future electricity costs when setting prices for the vehicles.
This way they add a cost to supercharging and people get to control their allotted free charge capacity as they see fit.
When something usually goes from paid to free, it's an indicator the product fit isn't working. In this case it's the opposite.
Now we're seeing the free incentive to buy being given a marginal cost to help ensure the spread of the service. This is likely because of increased usage and/or projected demand. So basically, it's a sign Tesla is doing ok.
Once they're charging to charge, it makes sense to come to agreements with other manufacturers of EVs to use each other's charger networks. In the long run it makes no sense to have multiple networks of vehicle chargers, just like it makes no sense to have gas stations that only fill Fords.
Tesla's allowance seems pretty weak by comparison. In fact, their allowance is only 35% of what Ecotricity offer.
A Tesla could charge at either 22kW using the Type 2 Mennekes connector, or if the owner has a CHAdeMO connector (about £250 from Tesla) at 50kW. Both a lot slower than a supercharger's 120kW.