Supercharging letter from Tesla 8-13-2015

[RAW84]

They should have added a note to the end to clarify conditions and say that if this does not apply to you, then feel free to ignore it. Looks like they have lots of false positives but they didn't account for that in their letter.

I think they should've just sent a letter to all owners (reworking their language, of course).

With new locations popping up all the time, this will become an issue for many more owners as time goes on (a supercharger just came on 4 miles from my house and job). It would be best if they just let everyone know of their position on superchargers. Some will ignore, some will respect the intention, but at least the whole fleet will receive the message.

 

[Benjamin Brooks]

Perhaps we should start a poll to see how many TMC members have really gotten said e-mail?
I haven't, but I use SCs about 1 or 2 times a month driving around the Bay Area CA, so kinda surprised I wouldn't have gotten it...

 

[stopcrazypp]

I think they should've just sent a letter to all owners (reworking their language, of course).

With new locations popping up all the time, this will become an issue for many more owners as time goes on (a supercharger just came on 4 miles from my house and job). It would be best if they just let everyone know of their position on superchargers. Some will ignore, some will respect the intention, but at least the whole fleet will receive the message.

That's a possibility too, but I think it lessens the impact of the letter to send to everyone. With some rewording of the current letter, I think it can work fine even when there is false positives (right now it's very offensive when there is a false positive). I'm surprised though that they had so many false positives. Looks like they screwed up somewhere with their algorithm.

 

[Merrill]

I totally understand why they would do this, as more Tesla's are on the road it will become very important to free up as many spots as they can. I think the letter is misleading and poorly written and we did pay for this option as long as we do not abuse it.

 

[smsprague]

Didn't think that the "Ownership" email address was functional anymore. Where did you send your email?

I used the contact button at the bottom of Tesla web page

 

[NigelM]

(right now it's very offensive when there is a false positive).

C'mon people; it's a communication that could have been worded better but you're all grown-ups and not timid mice, right?

(Sorry stopcrazypp: not meaning to pick on you particularly).

 

[hpham007]

Looks like they screwed up somewhere with their algorithm.

The algorithm is so simple, I'm not sure how anyone can mess that up. They probably have a database table that has all sc visits. Just do a count of how many times a car's unique id shows up, if over a certain threshold, send email.

 

[bonnie]

The letter doesn't seem to be targeted appropriately, but it doesn't seem too onerous, either. I know I'd react negatively if I received one - kind of like even though you know you didn't do anything wrong, when the teacher would say 'who took my lunch off my desk?', you try really hard not to look guilty. Because you're not.

So while I say 'it's not personal and ignore it if you know you haven't abused', I also know my nose would be out of joint for receiving it.

 

[Matteo]

At the end it says, "Thank you for your cooperation". (screenshot in message #7) To me this sounds like they expect people to cooperate with the implication they will keep monitoring the same users and potentially something else might happen if the user doesn't cooperate.

When this subject was discussed after Elon talked about it, there was a lot of speculation on how they might decide if somebody is abusing the system. It looks like the definition is not as sophisticated as some expected. In other words, it doesn't take into account your home location, whether you have a home charger or what percentage of charging happens at home. From what I have read, they only look at how many times you have supercharged at each station. If this number is more than X times during last Y months, then you get an email.

This creates a disadvantage to heavy users who have a home charger but travel long distance on a specific route frequently. The user might use superchargers only for 5% of driving but that 5% would be a lot if the user drives a lot and most long distance travel is on same route. I think they should look at what percentage of charging happens at home.

If they count number of times somebody has supercharged at each station, that would fail to identify Uber drivers or commercial drivers who supercharge a lot at different stations. Of course I might have misunderstood it. More data would be useful from people who received the email.

 

[78Lion]

I think they used the logic of Trip Planner to determine who gets these letters.

 

[Max*]

I thought I'd get an email, but I haven't. I have a supercharger maybe... 15 miles from my house, and I occasionally use it (maybe once every 1k miles so far).

 

[bhuwan]

Got an email, a local supercharger just opened up 4 days ago. I still have yet to use it. Not sure what criteria Tesla has for sending emails, but it's clearly WRONG.

 

[Kipernicus]

From the very beginning I knew that Elon's grandiose "free supercharging for life" statements would come back to bite them.
And Model X and 3 aren't even on the road yet.

How likely do they think that people will change behavior due to a few letters? The clueless ones won't read the letter. The selfish ones will continue to look out for #1. The indifferent ones couldn't care less.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I think they used the logic of Trip Planner to determine who gets these letters.

That was funny. If they used something similar to trip planner, I can totally see why there was so many false positives.

 

[smsprague]

C'mon people; it's a communication that could have been worded better but you're all grown-ups and not timid mice, right?

(Sorry stopcrazypp: not meaning to pick on you particularly).

That did not take long.

 

[nh-srt8]

I received one. Nearest "local" supercharger is 55 miles away from me. I have a HPWC installed at my home but I have used the supercharges extensively for long distance travel. I've driven over 10,000 miles in three months, mostly on one cross country trip from here in AZ to Syracuse, NY and back, and three trips to California. I don't know what they are using as their algorithm for it to indicate me as one who frequently charges locally but it is clearly wrong. My only concern is what they intend to do next if there broken logic continues to see me as an abuser and as such I have voiced my concern at Tesla.

 

[Nevek]

It's interesting how heavily the letter's text emphasizes home charging. OP and Nevek, do you have home charging installed? Perhaps more importantly, have you designated a "HOME" address in your car's nav system (if equipped)?

Just idle speculation that maybe they are using the lack of such a designation as one factor in determining who gets a letter.

80A circuit, HPWC, home tagged, so thats not it.

 

[mspohr]

I got the letter today.
I use superchargers frequently but most of my use is for long distance travel (as I believe Tesla intends). I have put 16,000 miles on my car in six months and most of this mileage has been long distance trips using superchargers (just finished a 3,800 mile trip to Seattle, Banff, Glacier, Jackson and home across Nevada).
There are several superchargers that I visit frequently since they are on my way to destinations along I80 in California (the valley and Bay Area). I do have home charging. I have a supercharger which is 30 minutes away which I do visit sometimes coming and going on trips but not usually since most of the time we just want to get home or get to our destination and we don't want (or need) to start or end a trip with a stop. I've driven past this "local" supercharger many more times than I've stopped.
I probably won't change my behavior since I feel I'm not "abusing" the system.

 

[Gizmotoy]

Considering the cost of the Supercharging option (even if it was bundled with the 85kWh pack), I'd also be pretty upset if I got one for Supercharging 3 times, even if the Supercharger was in the parking lot next door to my house.

Sometimes I've had to stop in Fremont for a quick boost because I couldn't quite get all the way up to Napa and back on a charge. That's within a few dozen miles of my home. Is that abuse? Can I use the Mountain View Supercharger if I need to, or is that abuse? In an apartment, I can't guarantee charging availability on any given day and it being just a few miles away makes it a strong preference to being stranded at home.

Pretty disappointed how they've handled this so far.

 

[bonnie]

Got an email, a local supercharger just opened up 4 days ago. I still have yet to use it. Not sure what criteria Tesla has for sending emails, but it's clearly WRONG.

I'm starting to wonder if everyone is getting the letter - just sending it to 100% would mean no one is getting singled out. Usually comms roll out over a few days. And it seems like a LOT of people are reporting receipt.