Supercharging to be uncoupled for new owners - lowering price of S/X

[Footer]

Tesla deserves to make a profit on their superchargers just like a gas station. They should charge more if it costs them more for the power. If the EV market takes off as expected this will be a big source of revenue and they have to price it accurately. Not really looking forward to seeing posted power prices though, but it may come down to that. Actually, I'm sure the price will show up on our screen. At least it's only one price, no extra charge for premium

 

[TaoJones]

Tesla deserves to make a profit on their superchargers just like a gas station. They should charge more if it costs them more for the power. If the EV market takes off as expected this will be a big source of revenue and they have to price it accurately. Not really looking forward to seeing posted power prices though, but it may come down to that. Actually, I'm sure the price will show up on our screen. At least it's only one price, no extra charge for premium

*twitch*

We're going to need a bigger shark.

 

[ohmman]

I hear they're hiring for spinmeisters lately - don't miss out.

That said... Hardly. Enabling simple prepayment keeps the payment process (far) away from the pedestal which is almost the entire point.

Speaking of spinmeisters.. "almost the entire point" may be true, but it wasn't your point, was it?

This one makes your position pretty clear:

If people want to save the $2,500 SC fee or whatever it's going to be, then great. But don't clutter up a perfectly good, best in class fast charging network with hinky poo-poo schemes.

Go get a ChaDeMo adapter and use ChaDeMos via, hopefully in your area by then, a nice $19.95/month unlimited use plan.

Let's say you own the car 5 years. And you plan 2 trips a year of 2,000 miles round trip each. That's roughly 200 SC visits, including sightseeing while at yer destinations.

Poo-poo won't save you nearly as much as you think. Subscription-based or poo-poo based.

There's a reason why people will gladly order their M3s without SC access. It's because they won't use SCs.

As long as the cars come with the hardware and as long as it is unlocked such that ChaDeMos can be used, there is no justifiable reason to add friction to a frictionless system of SCs.

If you want the fastest charging, then pay for it up front or enable it later for a slightly higher fee.

If you really think you will only use fast charging "once in a while", then for you, there are ChaDeMo. $491 for the adapter (delivered, with tax if in CA), and either $19.95/month or per session.

I'd guess 70/30 would be the split for/not, but we can't really guess until the SC enablement cost is known.

For a family with a perfectly good minivan and a garage in a town without SCs, paying for SCing won't happen.

An apartment dweller in Burbank would probably opt for SCing and for the up front cost.

It's not rocket science. It's capacity management and Tesla's commitment to density as well as distance has done just fine so far. Other than for persecuting locals, poo-poo serves little purpose.

And in case there was some question, there's this:

There's that word again. Depends upon how you define free.

Many M3 owners won't use SCs and will happily not pay for it. Think of them as Leaf clones.

Further, many M3 owners will in fact have "free" SC usage presuming the higher packages include it.

One can certainly envision, as with AP today, a 30-day trial or some sort of annual plan.

But what will not fly is poo-poo. People who say "Oh, I'll use SCs once in a blue moon." Actually, you'll use them perhaps 15-20 times during a single round trip from LA to Portland with time built in for sightseeing. Do that once a year for 5 years and exactly how much money do you save after 100 poo-poos versus just paying up front?

Lastly, your point is well-taken regarding the garaged grabbing a quick top-off at an SC before heading home. This will lessen as activity increases. Again - you'll see usage at SCs primarily from distance travelers and from the non-garaged. And that's exactly what Tesla expects.

The question in my mind is how much of a fire Elon and the Feds can light under private enterprise and municipalities to build out infrastructure in the next 4 years. Because by then it won't be just Tesla in the game. But Tesla will have the best network and the garaged STILL won't use SCs locally to any significant degree .

To be clear, I have no issue with anyone making an incorrect prediction, even if they're breathtakingly adamant about it. But to play spinmeister, and then accuse other people of being a spinmeister.. I could keep quoting your old posts if you'd like.

Or you can take the pie back.

 

[ohmman]

Another fail from you? Not your best day.

Keep quoting and deliberately misconstruing until your fingers fall off for all I care, but it doesn't change the fact that prepaid != pay per use at the pedestal.

Good luck with that.

And as far as the larger point goes, I don't see a lot of objection. Simply put, "and" makes a lot more sense than "or".

One-time (up front or after the fact of decoupled, with a premium) remains one of Tesla's strongest competitive advantages. Not that they need one yet, but in a few years, people will realize how unique their network is. Urinating that away unnecessarily makes no sense as illustrated above.

The next time you try to call me out, make sure you understand the details - as they do matter. Is Tesla advocating pay at the pedestal (poo poo/ppu)? No. Their "leaked" code implies prepaid, which is exactly in line with what Elon said.

As long as no friction is introduced into supercharging, and as long as a one-time option remains for the high end/non-entry level, then I remain a happy camper. Clog up the pedestals with fumbling around for credit cards or fobs or phone calls as the poo-poo crowd advocated, and yeah, there's a problem with that.

Pretty simple unless you have a problem seeing the forest for the trees. Again.

It's easy, man. "I got that one wrong. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out."

But attack me all you want. I'll keep "failing" (?) with pride.

 

[SageBrush]

Total cost of supercharging = $1362 (for supercharger hardware) + $200 (for vehicle hardware) + $2,156 (for electricity)
= $3,718/car

The SC cost is amortized over it's lifetime.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Doesn't it get a little tiring predicting the downfall of Tesla and the solar industry? I'm sorry to tell you this, but Tesla is here to stay and coal is a thing of the past. Period - end of sentence. There's going to be rough patches for both Tesla and solar companies, but something tells me you still don't travel by horse and buggy. It's better to embrace the future than complain about it. Plus, the ride to the future is so much more fun in a Tesla powered by solar, hydro, wind, or even coal, than an ICE powered by OPEC.

Good question in the first sentence.

 

[SageBrush]

Of one thing I am very, very sure:

If I take a Tesla on a trip that includes a SC stop that does not work, my wife will remind me of it. For the rest of my days.
I suspect that Tao shares my anxiety.

 

[RogerHScott]

"Hey, there are people in Tasmania paying for SC access... maybe build one or two there?"

The devil is in the details -- sorry, couldn't resist

 

[FlatSix911]

Tesla deserves to make a profit on their superchargers just like a gas station. They should charge more if it costs them more for the power. If the EV market takes off as expected this will be a big source of revenue and they have to price it accurately. Not really looking forward to seeing posted power prices though, but it may come down to that. Actually, I'm sure the price will show up on our screen. At least it's only one price, no extra charge for premium

I only purchase premium electrons ... and have this special decal on my HPWC to remind me...
Regular is fine for Tao...

 

[pkulak]

Man, if Tesla releases an SAE adapter and opens up the network to anyone who pays by the kWh, the Bolt would become a serious competitor for me. Right now, no way just because non-Tesla charging is a nightmare.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Another fail from you? Not your best day.

Keep quoting and deliberately misconstruing until your fingers fall off for all I care, but it doesn't change the fact that prepaid != pay per use at the pedestal.

Good luck with that.

And as far as the larger point goes, I don't see a lot of objection. Simply put, "and" makes a lot more sense than "or".

One-time (up front or after the fact of decoupled, with a premium) remains one of Tesla's strongest competitive advantages. Not that they need one yet, but in a few years, people will realize how unique their network is. Urinating that away unnecessarily makes no sense as illustrated above.

The next time you try to call me out, make sure you understand the details - as they do matter. Is Tesla advocating pay at the pedestal (poo poo/ppu)? No. Their "leaked" code implies prepaid, which is exactly in line with what Elon said.

As long as no friction is introduced into supercharging, and as long as a one-time option remains for the high end/non-entry level, then I remain a happy camper. Clog up the pedestals with fumbling around for credit cards or fobs or phone calls as the poo-poo crowd advocated, and yeah, there's a problem with that.

Pretty simple unless you have a problem seeing the forest for the trees. Again.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but neither you nor Red Sage, ever brought up that you were talking only about pedestal based pay per use, before recent news about the payment page leak. Rather, you were arguing there would be no pay per use at all. This new qualifier about pedestals seems to be goal post moving. Personally, I always assumed that Tesla would do pay per use online/in-car and not with a pedestal. I'm pretty sure most people on the "PPU" prediction side also thought/predicted the same and very few (if any) predicted/suggested using a pedestal.

Just to back up what I am saying about payment for payment for pay per use, here's my prediction three months ago:

Of course, the superchargers are network connected as you point out (so it can at minimum monitor consumption), but Tesla doesn't have to use the same network connection to do billing. Rather Tesla can continue to do authorization on the car side and have the billing be done on the car side also. Tesla was previously exploring doing in-car apps (and Tesla recently offered an autopilot trial) so certainly Tesla already has some billing infrastructure built-in (tied to your MyTesla account).

I also browsed that thread a bit and didn't see anyone bring up adding a pedestal to supercharger stations to take credit cards / payment. Everyone was talking about Tesla billing a credit card on file.

 

[Footer]

I would be surprised if the superchargers look anything different than they do today. Between the car's computer and the supercharger's connectivity to Tesla, billing can be figured out as the system exists now. Why add anything?

 

[bob_p]

What might make sense...

Lower priced Tesla vehicles - Model 3 and the lowest price Model S/X would have SC as an option, to allow owners not planning to do much long distance driving the ability to save around $2K off their purchase price by omitting SC. This is what Tesla did originally with the Model S.

Higher priced Tesla vehicles - for most Model S and X vehicles, they would likely continue to bundle the "free long distance" SC package, since with the higher priced cars, the $2K savings isn't as important.

And, for anyone using the SC's more frequently for local charging, they will likely start getting charged for local charging, since Tesla intended the SC network to be for long distance driving - not as an alternative to an overnight local charger.

 

[ecarfan]

@bob_p in general I agree with your position but think that Tesla should make some kind of pay-per-use system available with every Tesla model.

There will always be many prospective buyers who will not envision using their Tesla much for long distance driving, whether it is an 3, S, or X, and if they can save $2K by not having "free for life" Supercharging they may like that. As Tesla drives down the price of the base Model S, that $2K will make a difference for some people, particularly as people come to understand that the cost of a Supercharge session on a PPU model can be less than $10, perhaps (we don't know yet what it will be). So if they think they will only make a few long trips a year, not paying the $2K upfront can sound attractive.

I think Tesla will be able to implement a PPU system in a manner that makes it simple to use and the Tesla owner will not have to do anything when they arrive at a Supercharger except plug in and charge. Of course they will have to make sure, in advance of their trip, that they have a reasonable amount of kWh's in their account. Some people will forget or they will have difficulty translating kWh's into miles of range. All that means is that at the Supercharger they may have to "top up" their account through the center display interface or the smartphone app. As long as there is a cell signal that should be easy to do.

If their is no cell signal then they will be in trouble if they don't have enough charge to make it to their next destination whether it be a Supercharger or their planned stopping point. Cell service is not everywhere nor does it work 100% of the time, so Tesla owners will have to keep that in mind if they are on the PPU Supercharger plan. Or perhaps Tesla can design the PPU system in such a way that it will allow for a certain amount of "overdraft" protection so that it allows charging even when the owner's kWh balance is negative and then when the car is back on cell service the owner will receive an alert on the center screen informing them that their account has been charged and "topped up".

This issue is a solvable one and I'm sure that people much smarter than I, with experience in designing online payment systems, can figure it out. I am also sure that Tesla has already thought it through.

 

[SageBrush]

This new qualifier about pedestals seems to be goal post moving. Personally, I always assumed that Tesla would do pay per use online/in-car and not with a pedestal. I'm pretty sure most people on the "PPU" prediction side also thought/predicted the same and very few (if any) predicted/suggested using a pedestal.

Perhaps because I kinda sorta side with Tao, I took his 'pedestal' comment to mean any system that introduces possible authorization complications at the SC.

I think the key point here is that SChargers do not have an attendant and are widely spaced. It *really* behooves Tesla to not do anything that will cause a problem -- however uncommon -- at the charger. The fee is at best a tertiary concern.

 

[Topher]

In other words, the cost of supercharger hardware is 0.0302*$45,063= $1,362/car

This is probably a bit high, given that a lot of Superchargers are for coverage, rather than for usage. Coverage SC will not need to be replicated with mere increases in cars.

What happens if electricity goes way up?

Tesla will speed up the process of converting Superchargers to Solar. They might even need to merge with a solar company.

I do think they will strip the lifetime supercharging from all the CPOs for sale when this comes out. Why not - it is more money in their pockets.

No, it's not. A used car with life-time supercharging will cost them more to buy, than one without. Selling them all as non-lifetime charging mean that they lose that difference. Might be worth it, but it isn't free money.

They should charge more if it costs them more for the power

Probably makes the most sense to charge the average the cost of power over the whole country. High cost areas then get increased priority on solar conversion. Win for Tesla, win for customers.

I took his 'pedestal' comment to mean any system that introduces possible authorization complications at the SC.

There is already authorization complications at the SC. Unless you are claiming that one could make a simple converter and charge one's Leaf at a SC. If a company can't do a simple encrypted handshake, I certainly won't trust them to make an autonomous car.

Thank you kindly.

 

[brkaus]

Tesla will speed up the process of converting Superchargers to Solar. They might even need to merge with a solar company.

How realistic is solar for most supercharger locations? If one assumes perfect efficiency storage, and panels that generate 250w for 12 hours a day, it would take 26 panels to charge 80kW into a single car. Assume one car per hour for 24 hours, then up to 640 panels at a location to support 24 charges.

Maybe for seriously remote locations that have space and not many teslas to charge.

 

[Az_Rael]

No, it's not. A used car with life-time supercharging will cost them more to buy, than one without. Selling them all as non-lifetime charging mean that they lose that difference. Might be worth it, but it isn't free money.

Ah, but if they make the "lifetime" charging option tied to the user, NOT the car, then no used Tesla's would have lifetime supercharging anymore. (I am assuming no grandfathering of VINs here) Therefore, they can now charge every person who buys a used Tesla and wants to supercharge the fee/credits/etc.

 

[brkaus]

Too many corner cases to have lifetime charging tied to user. It just won't happen.

Do they refund unused portion if sold? If wrecked/salvaged? Allow to transfer to users next tesla auto?

They need to simplify not make this more complex.

 

[Canuck]

Also, they would have to retrofit all the superchargers to take a RFID card or something similar since now it authenticates the car only.