Wife just said she's never driving the Tesla again......

[sorka]

What fraction of that group are refusing to drive their cars over one episode of a faulty SC station ?

Sorry, but this is not about Tesla, it is about your wife. Good Luck!

Not one episode. Two in one night at the same charger plus the 3 previous times. It's not like she experienced this once ever. If it happens to me a few more times, it won't be my wife, it'll be me too If she'd had to move just once to another stall, I really don't think that would have been the camels back, but having the second stall also fail was the final straw. And it's not just my wfie, but her sister and now all of her relatives that are laughing their asses off

Go ahead and make excuses for Tesla all you want, but if you want to see Tesla succeed, you won't.

 

[mhan00]

If they're laughing their asses off, then your wife and her family were just looking for an excuse to do so. EVs are more than viable these days if you have charging at home and often a superior driving experience than ICE vehicles.

 

[mhan00]

Refusing to drive the Tesla ever because of bad supercharger experiences is the height of irrationality. If she refused to take it on longer trips, sure, I could maybe get that, but not even for shorter trips (which I'm certain make up the majority of her daily driving)? 200 plus miles covers a lot of territory without ever having to think about using a super charger, unless you don't have home charging. If both you and she are driving hundreds of miles as a matter of course any time you leave your house, then I feel incredibly sorry for both of you and you need to move immediately.

 

[SageBrush]

Go ahead and make excuses for Tesla all you want

It is not a question of excuses for Tesla, but realizing that life has hiccoughs. Even for your wife.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I don't get all these people saying "Put up with it". I understand the viewpoint, but why? Tesla could tell you on the screen which Stalls at the Supercharger are on reduced power - you might have no choice if the others are occupied, but at least you'd be making an informed decision. What's the point of plugging in, walking away, coming back and THEN finding that you only have 1/3rd of the charge you expected? - of course if you are a nerd (I qualify my wife certainly does not) then you can do the maths with kWH and SOC such that you could have worked out that the stall was not working 100% - of course you also have to take into account whether you are paired - how many non-Forum drivers even know that that is a thing?. Or someone could hang a "reduce power" sign on the stall ...

When the car was new, and I was unfamiliar, I had the experience of plugging into a stall, walking away and coming back to only a 1/3rd of the expected charge. That site has 16 stalls (I think ... either way "it's big"), if I had known that such an issue existed I could have tried a different stall. It was 2AM and not another car in sight ... if my wife had been with me I expect she would have said "never again" ... either way, at that time of night I could have done without an additional 30 minutes charging delaying me getting to my bed.

... I now sit in the car for the first few minutes to check that charging ramps up OK, and I then check my phone every few minutes to make sure that the charge rate hasn't suddenly slowed down; what a waste of my time. I most definitely,100%, should not have to do any of that and I should not be EXPECTED to have to. There is absolutely no excuse for it, the technology exists to alert to the problem, indeed it would be incredibly cool to know if the Supercharger site is full - and also: how many cars are waiting - BEFORE turning off the highway, in case you have range for the next charger location and it is/ is likely to be less busy. This icing on the cake would be incredibly cool, must surely be trivial to do, but instead folk are berated for not being fully-fledged, and probably bearded!, early adopters. Tesla is better than that ... and it would NOT be an option for the plethora of 3rd party chargers provided by different, and completing, companies - so would be another USP for Tesla.

I think it is pants that this problem a) exists (Tesla aware, admits so when fault is reported, yet fault sometimes persists for weeks) and b) does not have any notification system to inform their customers (who, mostly, could work around the problem).

I'm with @sorka 's wife, mine is the same, "I understand, but WHY do I have to put up with that?".

 

[Max*]

As this thread keeps on giving, I'd like to share a detail to dispel some of the generalizations I've been reading about spouses, which, interestingly, all seem to be wives in this thread. As others have noted, there is an undercurrent of sexism in some posts. Nothing egregious, but it still is there.

My wife is the driving force behind getting an MX; she is the one who has been enamored with EVs before the MS even came out. While I am enthusiastic about EVs, the MX's complicated doors, enormous windshield, reliability issues, and very high price makes me lean towards an ICE SUV for a few more years, then make the EV leap. She will hear none of it. She just loves the car and performance. And she's ready to deal with niggling issues here and there. She even did additional freelance work to make this purchase less of a stretch for us. Also, among our friends, many women are very enthusiastic about our forthcoming Tesla; in fact, as many women as men.

The point I'm making is that there is no such thing as a typical woman, and I sense that women may actually be more openminded to EVs than men.

Very well put.

While I am driving the force in our relationship with EVs, my wife wants a Model 3. We have friends where the woman is the driving force and she's shopping for her first EV (he's not interested in EVs at all).

 

[Max*]

that's not what this thread is about

Crap, were we supposed to stay on topic?

 

[Max*]

If they're laughing their asses off, then your wife and her family were just looking for an excuse to do so. EVs are more than viable these days if you have charging at home and often a superior driving experience than ICE vehicles.

I agree.

My wife was giving a friend a drive to the airport. And the Tesla nav made a stupid decision (like usual), and my wife wasn't paying attention so she followed it. The person asked "why are we circling the airport?" and then realized the nav took them through a huge detour. He took a photo said he'll laugh about it with his friends. But a comment he made resonates to a comment I made early on in this thread; he said "I'm sure the future is EVs, I'm just not sure it's with Tesla."


I love my car, but there are too many problems (charging infrastructure in certain places, congestion in other places, and lots of software issues that need resolving) before Tesla (and in an irrational way EVs) become mainstream.

 

[AudubonB]

My X chromosome feels slighted.

In industry terminology, a slighted X chromosome is called a Y.

 

[apacheguy]

If they're laughing their asses off, then your wife and her family were just looking for an excuse to do so. EVs are more than viable these days if you have charging at home and often a superior driving experience than ICE vehicles.

Good point. We all need to remember of the drawbacks of driving ICE. Visits to the gas station are terrible experiences IMO and a waste of time.

 

[Rocky_H]

Yes, I know all that, but if you look at what I was actually responding to: which I interpreted to mean that Tesla's current charge ramp can damage batteries and perhaps they've decided they need to slow the charge rate to keep from doing so.

Ah, I think we were interpreting things differently through a few comments. I saw these:

@Ulmo:
“One solution to this is for Tesla to offer an UltraCharger for extra money at charge-per-use that is 3x the max SuperCharger speed,”

Then, @sdorn replied:
“I think Tesla has pretty much maxed out charging speed with today's technology. Charging THAT fast generates a lot of heat which can damage the battery.” (my emphasis on THAT)

We had different ideas of what the word “that” was referring to. My impression was @sdorn saying that Tesla has it covered with their current charging speed, but the word “that” was probably referring to the suggested level 3 times higher, which would create the dangerous level of heat.

It's not very specific, so I could see either of our interpretations being what he was intending.

 

[DarkMatter]

I've had at least one friend in each of the last few years that has filled up with a tank of bad fuel. On modern cars that can result in the car not only needing the fuel drained out but the replacement of a high pressure fuel pump and injectors. These fixes are major inconveniences (and sometimes a major expense!) yet I've never seen anyone swear off combustion vehicles because of them. We need to make charging better. The downside to a bad charge is usually much smaller than the downside to a bad tank of fuel.

 

[Az_Rael]

Those characteristics aren't ICE or EV specific. All other EVs have lighted vanity mirrors. Not having enough cup holders has nothing to do with the car being electric or gas.

Being first to the market with a new technology/product is not a garuntee a company will survive. Many don't once the mainstream market catches up and starts competing.

I wonder how Tesla will do when there are several long range EVs on the market to choose from, especially from the other luxury brands. If Lexus made a sweet long range EV with their solid reliability record and nice creature comforts, I might go back to them. By the time that happens, the VW settlement money for charging infrastructure will have probably been implemented, and the supercharger network might not be the only long range charging game in town.

Once Tesla has to start competing on "normal" car features, they might be in trouble. Fit, finish, initial quality and long term reliability are currently not their strong point.

 

[AudubonB]

I've had at least one friend in each of the last few years that has filled up with a tank of bad fuel. On modern cars that can result in the car not only needing the fuel drained out but the replacement of a high pressure fuel pump and injectors. These fixes are major inconveniences (and sometimes a major expense!) yet I've never seen anyone swear off combustion vehicles because of them. We need to make charging better. The downside to a bad charge is usually much smaller than the downside to a bad tank of fuel.

I guess you didn't read my own first post in this thread, then....

 

[sorka]

I've had at least one friend in each of the last few years that has filled up with a tank of bad fuel. On modern cars that can result in the car not only needing the fuel drained out but the replacement of a high pressure fuel pump and injectors. These fixes are major inconveniences (and sometimes a major expense!) yet I've never seen anyone swear off combustion vehicles because of them. We need to make charging better. The downside to a bad charge is usually much smaller than the downside to a bad tank of fuel.

In over a million miles of driving, I'm glad that never happened to me.

 

[sorka]

I wonder how Tesla will do when there are several long range EVs on the market to choose from, especially from the other luxury brands. If Lexus made a sweet long range EV with their solid reliability record and nice creature comforts, I might go back to them. By the time that happens, the VW settlement money for charging infrastructure will have probably been implemented, and the supercharger network might not be the only long range charging game in town.

Their supercharger network is their magic bullet. It's the thing that actually makes an EV long but if they let their infrastructure deteriorate, it will flip the other side of the double edge and work against them. If they straighten it out, then I believe the only way another EV could compete in the long range EV market is to provide an equivalent charging network.....or use Tesla's if they're willing to put up their proportional share and expand the network which is very unlikely to happen even though Elon has said he actually wants that. If it did happen, then the Tesla SC network would become a standard across multiple EVs rather than just one brand.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

I've had at least one friend in each of the last few years that has filled up with a tank of bad fuel. On modern cars that can result in the car not only needing the fuel drained out but the replacement of a high pressure fuel pump and injectors. These fixes are major inconveniences (and sometimes a major expense!) yet I've never seen anyone swear off combustion vehicles because of them. We need to make charging better. The downside to a bad charge is usually much smaller than the downside to a bad tank of fuel.

My neighbor told me how once she couldn't get the fuel nozzle to fit in her car so she just held it slowly and filled it up manually. She got a mile down the road and her car died. Some people stopped to help her out and they thought she might be out of gas. She said she just bought gas and showed them the receipt and it showed she'd put diesel in her tank instead of unleaded. That mistake cost her over a thousand dollars to fix.

A few weeks ago, my friend's mom got a new ICE car and we took it out for a drive. She's the kind that always fills up when it gets below half full so we had to stop for gas before going on a 30 mile trip "just in case". We found out that she didn't know how to use the nozzle to fill the car automatically...and she's been buying gas for over 50 years. She also didn't know how to pay at the pump.

 

[sdorn]

Ah, I think we were interpreting things differently through a few comments. I saw these:

@Ulmo:
“One solution to this is for Tesla to offer an UltraCharger for extra money at charge-per-use that is 3x the max SuperCharger speed,”

Then, @sdorn replied:
“I think Tesla has pretty much maxed out charging speed with today's technology. Charging THAT fast generates a lot of heat which can damage the battery.” (my emphasis on THAT)

We had different ideas of what the word “that” was referring to. My impression was @sdorn saying that Tesla has it covered with their current charging speed, but the word “that” was probably referring to the suggested level 3 times higher, which would create the dangerous level of heat.

It's not very specific, so I could see either of our interpretations being what he was intending.

Yes, you are right. I was referring to the 3 times speed as being the speed that would generate a dangerous level of heat. I think Tesla pretty much has it maxed out now, and I've seen posts here on TMC theorizing that Tesla has actually intentionally slowed down some chargers and heat has been mentioned as a possible reason for doing so.

 

[Merrill]

Does anyone remember when Diesels first came out, there were very few gas stations that had diesel and you had to hunt around for them. I know I'm old, but just think about it. Now every gas station has diesel, when I was in the automotive field we did have a few cars towed in because they put diesel in a gas car. Change takes time for those willing to make a change!

 

[sorka]

Does anyone remember when Diesels first came out, there were very few gas stations that had diesel and you had to hunt around for them. I know I'm old, but just think about it. Now every gas station has diesel, when I was in the automotive field we did have a few cars towed in because they put diesel in a gas car. Change takes time for those willing to make a change!

With the way things are going at Volkswagen, I wouldn't be surprised to see the number of diesel locations to shrink dramatically. I think Diesels days are numbered.