LTE service free only for 4 years

2krazykats · Dec 31, 2015

I picked up my car yesterday and was surprised to find out the free LTE service thru AT&T is only good for 4 years. I didn't know this despite being a regular reader of this forum. I guess it's not come up since I joined. How are people dealing with it after you have to start paying for the service? How big of a plan do you have to get?

Johann Koeber · Dec 31, 2015

This is unknown at this point.

So far it is free for all. Noone is past the 4 years free service.

Originally we thought we would soon have to pay for connectivity. At that point we were pleased to hear the first four years are free. Probably Tesla has not even figured out how much they will charge us.

Happy motoring

jerry33 · Dec 31, 2015

And they may change their mind. Originally it was one year for Sigs and three months for non-Sigs. My guess is that it will depend on the pricing they can get in four years.

TexasEV · Dec 31, 2015

Even if there was an answer now, which there is not, it would likely change by the time your car is 4 years old. Just enjoy your new Tesla!

taurusking · Dec 31, 2015

TexasEV said:
Even if there was an answer now, which there is not, it would likely change by the time your car is 4 years old. Just enjoy your new Tesla!

+1 ^^^^^^^^^

Thumper · Dec 31, 2015

That 3G or LTE connection is a two-way street. Tesla is collecting massive data on the fleet. I think we will not have to pay for connectivity until Tesla doesn't need the navigation or service data on every car. Right now they must be calculating that the value of the data they are getting exceeds their cost.

pdxgibby · Dec 31, 2015

Tesla also collects diagnostic data beyond the Nav and Autopilot feedback. They need the LTE connections to gather this diagnostics. I would be surprised if the LTE connection went away.

Brass Guy · Dec 31, 2015

IIRC, they said 4 years starting Jan of 2014. Anybody that already had their car then, the timer starts at 2014; so I get 4 years +3 months.
Nobody runs out until at least the end of 2017, and longer if Tesla hasn't figured out what to do/how to do it by then.

rlang59 · Dec 31, 2015

Thumper said:
That 3G or LTE connection is a two-way street. Tesla is collecting massive data on the fleet. I think we will not have to pay for connectivity until Tesla doesn't need the navigation or service data on every car. Right now they must be calculating that the value of the data they are getting exceeds their cost.

Just because Tesla wants the connection doesn't mean they will necessarily give us access to it. They could always disable all the user facing connectivity features (when on cellular) and leave a lower bandwidth path for them to pull the data they want. Not saying this will happen but it very well could.

eye.surgeon · Dec 31, 2015

I would guestimate 90% of Tesla owners will have sold the car prior to 4 years anyways.

ChadFeldheimer · Dec 31, 2015

Thumper said:
That 3G or LTE connection is a two-way street. Tesla is collecting massive data on the fleet. I think we will not have to pay for connectivity until Tesla doesn't need the navigation or service data on every car. Right now they must be calculating that the value of the data they are getting exceeds their cost.

They can collect some fraction of that data without 3G/LTE - but only from cars that are set up to connect to wifi (at the cost of on-car storage and additional latency to collect). Similarly, they could even collect data without wifi - e.g. collect data when the car is brought in for service.

Given this, in my opinion, the value of the data connection is disproportionately on the side of the consumer (updated nav maps, real time traffic, calendar integration, internet music, etc).

I speculate Tesla will charge for the connection after 4 years. It will be interesting to see if they give us the option to pay AT&T (or other service provider) directly for the data connection - in that case, the consumer would be paying for data used by the car to phone home and would be able to see the usage. Would be interesting to see how much data is phoned home!

islandbayy · Dec 31, 2015

ChadFeldheimer said:
They can collect some fraction of that data without 3G/LTE - but only from cars that are set up to connect to wifi (at the cost of on-car storage and additional latency to collect). Similarly, they could even collect data without wifi - e.g. collect data when the car is brought in for service.

Given this, in my opinion, the value of the data connection is disproportionately on the side of the consumer (updated nav maps, real time traffic, calendar integration, internet music, etc).

I speculate Tesla will charge for the connection after 4 years. It will be interesting to see if they give us the option to pay AT&T (or other service provider) directly for the data connection - in that case, the consumer would be paying for data used by the car to phone home and would be able to see the usage. Would be interesting to see how much data is phoned home!

It will be more of a hassle, but the SIM card is swappable, just need to get to the inner console. Pop ones own sim in. Freedom pop, 500 free megs/month.

Nosken · Dec 31, 2015

When it runs out, I intend to just Hotspot to my iPhone via Wifi.

green1 · Dec 31, 2015

islandbayy said:
It will be more of a hassle, but the SIM card is swappable, just need to get to the inner console. Pop ones own sim in. Freedom pop, 500 free megs/month.

Unlikely to work. As pointed out earlier, Tesla is likely to want to keep the link going for diagnostics and data gathering, so instead of disabling the SIM they are more likely to disable our access to those functions (map tile display, Internet streaming radio, Web browser, traffic based routing)
The better solution is to use a hot spot to make the car think you're on wifi. The downside being that you'll end up paying for all the data that tesla wants, plus the data you want. You'll also be on the hook for potential firmware update downloads which can be very large, and because it's wifi the car won't know the difference from your free WiFi at home.
I'm curious to know how much data a tesla uses in a month. ..

Canuck · Dec 31, 2015

Nosken said:
When it runs out, I intend to just Hotspot to my iPhone via Wifi.

The problem with this solution is that you can't remotely monitor your car. I guess you can while at home or the office, if you connect it to your home/office wifi but while on the road there's no monitoring it while Supercharging, etc.

I use one of these when I travel to the States and I buy a plan through T-Mobile for $30 for 5gb/month and my family of 5 connects to it. I plan to get a cheap Canadian plan and use it in the car whenever the Tesla plan is up --then I can just change the sim when I go the States...

Unlocked at T Unite 770s 4G LTE Sierra Netgear Wireless Broadband Hotspot New | eBay

HankLloydRight · Dec 31, 2015

I thought the latest LTE boards used the software SIM so they could update/change the carrier (if they wanted) without a hardware change (SIM swap)?

If true, that also means you can't swap in your own SIM.

tanner · Dec 31, 2015

HankLloydRight said:
I thought the latest LTE boards used the software SIM so they could update/change the carrier (if they wanted) without a hardware change (SIM swap)?

If true, that also means you can't swap in your own SIM.

That's correct, just got off the phone with service... 3G is INSANELY SLOW - maps take FOREVER to load and I wanted to upgrade mine

$500 doesn't seem bad, wish they had stuck to Elon's initial "it'll be a free upgrade" tweet, but whatever.

TexasEV · Dec 31, 2015

eye.surgeon said:
I would guestimate 90% of Tesla owners will have sold the car prior to 4 years anyways.

Maybe 90% of ophthalmologists, but certainly not 90% of the Tesla owners I know.

bmah · Dec 31, 2015

TexasEV said:
Maybe 90% of ophthalmologists, but certainly not 90% of the Tesla owners I know.

Don't know if this adds signal or noise to the thread, but I intend to keep mine well past four years, and I'm married to an optometrist.

(I'm contemplating scheduling the LTE upgrade when I take my car in for its annual servicing.)

HankLloydRight · Dec 31, 2015

Yeah, I plan to keep my P85+ for as long as possible. I bought the 8 year service plan and the extended warranty.

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