How would you prefer to pay for Supercharging?

[SageBrush]

but 100K and under are going to try and get as much as possible back out of the system if we have to pay a large up front fee for access.

Speak only for yourself please.

I view SCs as a commons resource and would not be so foolish as to contribute to its impairment for a personal, very minuscule gain.

 

[Cebe]

Supercharger access, is not about electricity, it's about time saved on long trips. There are plenty of "pay as you go" options out there, some faster than others. Taking the price of the supercharging and dividing it by the number of times you're going to use it, or the amount of kWh you're going to charge for it (and, at $2k, you're probably talking about 60k miles+ before you spent that on electricity alone) is a wrong way to think about it.

Instead, consider whether you want to be able to take longer trips or not, and if you do, what do you want those trips to look like. Then figure out if the difference between the experiences is worth for you or not.

 

[SageBrush]

I admit to annoyance the more I read this and similar threads. People seem to almost universally understand that the SC system is there to turn an EV into a non-local car, but then argue incessantly about kWh value.

Are there any shrinks in the house !?

 

[Fourdoor]

Speak only for yourself please.

I view SCs as a commons resource and would not be so foolish as to contribute to its impairment for a personal, very minuscule gain.

If I do get a Tesla, I will be the only one within hundreds of miles of my local supercharger... what impairment of the system would I be causing?

Also, cherry picking a quote is rough on the person being quoted, in that same post I said that people making 100K or less are more likely to use superchargers if the buy in to use them is high than the 500K+ a year people. Do you think that is inaccurate? If I said 100% of TM3 owners will exclusively use superchargers you would have had a valid complaint.

I view your home as a commons resource, can I sleep there without paying rent? What? You paid for it so it is your right to sleep there but I didn't so I don't get too? Hmmm.

Keith

 

[Grendal]

I am all for an additional cost for Model 3 users to pay extra for Supercharger use. The Model 3 is the mass market car and the additional cost for Superchargers should not be "baked" into the price as it is for the Model S and X.

I chose the "pay as you go" plan for my preference. I rarely drive long distances.

I don't see any reason that the Model 3 should have more choices for its users than the old $2K unlimited use system. Tesla should offer much more than one choice. Why not have both choices? Or even three or four? Why not a weekly fee? Monthly unlimited use fee?

 

[jkk_]

For the M3, I voted for pay per use. Also, I think there will be a $2000 activation fee IN ADDITION to a use fee (about $10/use). Tesla will likely have at least two, maybe three, subscription levels. Perhaps, $5000 for activation and unlimited use, $3000 for activation and $5/use, and $2000 activation and $10/use. That said, it would be better to have a per minute cost, say $0.20/min (including when finished!). This would incentivize people to move their vehicle as soon as they obtain their desired charge level, as well as penalize those who don't. Tesla needs to make money on every transaction, just like Apple makes a huge amount of money selling music, not just hardware.

Surely you must be joking with those numbers?

 

[SageBrush]

Surely you must be joking with those numbers?

I just had a glimpse of the future:

Buy a SC subscription, get a Tesla free !

 

[stopcrazypp]

Who said I'm assuming anything? I'm not assuming anything. I choose my words carefully so read them carefully. I simply said that a poll of 200 people doesn't qualify as a poll when 300K+ potential voters are out there. That's not even 0.5% of all of the buyers out there.

I'm not a statistician, but for a random survey of a 300k population, a survey of 196 people would give you a 95% confidence level with a confidence interval of 7 (meaning whatever the result of the poll, it'll vary plus/minus 7%).
Sample Size Calculator - Confidence Level, Confidence Interval, Sample Size, Population Size, Relevant Population - Creative Research Systems

You don't need a sample size even close to 300k for a poll to get useful results, otherwise polling for elections (or many other things) for example would never work out.

Tesla is offering free charging for life. They are doing pretty good in my eyes.

Tesla is subsidizing their charging infrastructure from car sales and advertising expenses (keep in mind Tesla had only one profitable quarter throughout their existence). A charge network would not have the luxury of doing so.

 

[stopcrazypp]

No it's not costing Tesla money, it is a cost passed on to the buyer in the base price. So I guess tires are costing Tesla money also?

Read the original post for context. He said GM is justified in charging $750 for hardware because they save money when it is not included.

There is obviously a marginal cost for Tesla to make the car have DC charging: the wires instead of having to support only 80A, have to support 370A; instead of a single contactor connecting the onboard charger, there has to be another one that connects to the power pins; instead of using a generic J1772 protocol, Tesla has to use a proprietary protocol to support DC charging (one that involve both analog and digital communication). Tesla just decided that marginal cost was low enough to include with the car and make the feature activated by software. They are gambling that enough people will activate the feature that they will more than break even, but that doesn't mean there isn't a cost (if not enough people activate it, they will lose money on it). Unlike tires, DC charging is not a necessary part of a car.

However, I should say that this is more in the context of the Model 3 and Model S 60kWh/40kWh as these are the only models where the supercharger is not activated by default.

 

[metier]

There is obviously a marginal cost for Tesla to make the car have DC charging: the wires instead of having to support only 80A, have to support 370A; instead of a single contactor connecting the onboard charger, there has to be another one that connects to the power pins; instead of using a generic J1772 protocol, Tesla has to use a proprietary protocol to support DC charging (one that involve both analog and digital communication). Tesla just decided that marginal cost was low enough to include with the car and make the feature activated by software. They are gambling that enough people will activate the feature that they will more than break even, but that doesn't mean there isn't a cost (if not enough people activate it, they will lose money on it). Unlike tires, DC charging is not a necessary part of a car.

SoTesla is loosing money on every model 3 car at the base price? Because that is the only way it would cost Tesla money.

 

[alseTrick]

It's happening.

Tesla opens Erie Supercharger connecting west PA with NY

I'm thinking the congestion issue is going away. Slowly but surely.

What does that have to do with congestion? That supercharger was built because the Tesla's range was insufficient to reliably travel the distance between the previously two closest superchargers, not because the superchargers were or were not congested.

 

[alseTrick]

For the M3, I voted for pay per use. Also, I think there will be a $2000 activation fee IN ADDITION to a use fee (about $10/use). Tesla will likely have at least two, maybe three, subscription levels. Perhaps, $5000 for activation and unlimited use, $3000 for activation and $5/use, and $2000 activation and $10/use. That said, it would be better to have a per minute cost, say $0.20/min (including when finished!). This would incentivize people to move their vehicle as soon as they obtain their desired charge level, as well as penalize those who don't. Tesla needs to make money on every transaction, just like Apple makes a huge amount of money selling music, not just hardware.

Apple charges an insanely high initial fee just for the opportunity to use their app store? And then still makes their users pay for each product they purchase?

Those options are horrible - and I can't stress it enough - on the infrequent supercharger user. Someone who may only need it 10-15 times a year when driving down the highway to the next major city to visit friends/family or do "touristy" things, but locally.

 

[alseTrick]

This poll reflect how they "want" to pay for it. The discussions reflect how they're "willing" to pay for it. That's where the discrepancy between the poll and the discussions come from.

Not exactly true.

The choices should've simply been "One-time flat fee" vs "Pay per use" if you wanted to actually know which option consumers prefered. But since prices were included, the actual method that may have been most prefered doesn't even matter. With the prices, consumers will choose which one they're more willing to pay.

I want to simply pay a one-time fee and get it out of the way, over and done with. But for me, would it make more sense to pay $2,000 up-front or to pay $6/supercharge? Given those options, I'm not willing to pay the one-time fee since it will likely cost me substantially more than the pay-per-use option.

For example: If the options were $1,000 for lifetime supercharging or $10/charge, I'd switch both my want/willing to be in favor of the $1,000 fee.

 

[ChadFeldheimer]

If you divert ~$2k of 'advertising' money from each vehicle sale and use that to fund the supercharger network it's sustainable indefinitely provided it's only used for travel and not daily charging. Offer pay-per-use as an alternative and it all breaks down.

Not really. They could simply raise more capital. Investors are willing to front the capital because they believe it will allow Tesla to make more money in the future - e.g. indirectly via selling more cars due to a better charging network or directly via pay per use.

This is not new ground for Tesla. They raised $1.4B in May in this manner to accelerate Model 3 production. They also raised $700M in August 2015 to:

accelerate the growth of our business in the U.S. and internationally, including the growth of our stores, service centers, Supercharger network and the Tesla Energy business, and for the development and production of Model 3, the development of the Tesla Gigafactory and other general corporate purposes

Note the inclusion of the Supercharger network.

It's kinda like health insurance. The system only works if healthy people that rarely get sick also pay into the system.

Honestly, this is a terrible analogy. It's kind of like health insurance at a glance, but when you give it a bit more thought - it's completely different. The core value of health insurance is to accommodate very (i.e. unaffordably) large and unpredictable expenditures. In comparison, the cost and value of energy and energy dispensing infrastructure is quite stable - with predictable demand.

Perhaps a better analogy is AAirpass, where American Airlines last sold unlimited airplane tickets for $1.01M in 1994, giving travelers the option to prepay for life versus pay as you go. No prizes for correctly guessing how this worked out...

 

[ohmman]

I'm not a statistician, but for a random survey of a 300k population, a survey of 196 people would give you a 95% confidence level with a confidence interval of 7 (meaning whatever the result of the poll, it'll vary plus/minus 7%).

The problem is less about the size of the survey and more about the methodology. Selection bias being the main one - you can't hold a poll where people choose to participate and expect valid results. It has to be a randomized survey of potential owners, and it has to be worded more neutrally. There are specifics in this poll which may or may not be the final details.

 

[SageBrush]

The problem is less about the size of the survey and more about the methodology. Selection bias being the main one - you can't hold a poll where people choose to participate and expect valid results. It has to be a randomized survey of potential owners, and it has to be worded more neutrally. There are specifics in this poll which may or may not be the final details.

It is a rare poll that is mandatory -- but then another confounder would be introduced.

So to nitpick, the bias you mention is non-random opting out.

 

[SageBrush]

Not really. They could simply raise more capital. Investors are willing to front the capital because they believe it will allow Tesla to make more money in the future - e.g. indirectly via selling more cars due to a better charging network or directly via pay per use.

This is not new ground for Tesla. They raised $1.4B in May in this manner to accelerate Model 3 production. They also raised $700M in August 2015 to:



Note the inclusion of the Supercharger network.



Honestly, this is a terrible analogy. It's kind of like health insurance at a glance, but when you give it a bit more thought - it's completely different. The core value of health insurance is to accommodate very (i.e. unaffordably) large and unpredictable expenditures. In comparison, the cost and value of energy and energy dispensing infrastructure is quite stable - with predictable demand.

Perhaps a better analogy is AAirpass, where American Airlines last sold unlimited airplane tickets for $1.01M in 1994, giving travelers the option to prepay for life versus pay as you go. No prizes for correctly guessing how this worked out...

I prefer the analogy of back seats. Many, many owners use them quite infrequently. If they were an option I bet some people would try to figure out the cost/use and pull their hair out trying to decide whether to splurge.

 

[ohmman]

It is a rare poll that is mandatory -- but then another confounder would be introduced.

So to nitpick, the bias you mention is non-random opting out.

I still think the main bias here is self-selection. I'm not suggesting polls should be mandatory to be valid, just that the selection process should provide a randomized sample such that it's representative. TMC members are not representative of the overall population, and TMC members who have implicit interest in Supercharging (and therefore clicked on this link) are yet another subset inside of that population. If Tesla emailed 3000 reservation holders at random, and received 1500 responses, that would do a better job controlling for selection bias, though it would still exist to a much lesser extent.

 

[SageBrush]

Oh, no doubt about the selection bias. I was just kidding you wrt your phrasing.

 

[Garlan Garner]

What does that have to do with congestion? That supercharger was built because the Tesla's range was insufficient to reliably travel the distance between the previously two closest superchargers, not because the superchargers were or were not congested.

Come on people. The more that are out there the less congestion there will be. I wasn't specifically talking about a single location.

The more installed the less congestion there will be - period. Calm down. Be patient....you will see.