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I'm glad the superchargers will no longer be free for new Tesla owners. I wish they would charge existing Tesla owners for the power as well. I went to charge

I'm glad the superchargers will no longer be free for new Tesla owners. I wish they would charge existing Tesla owners for the power as well. I went to charge my Model X at the Whole Foods in Menlo Park on Friday night, because mine was broken. I waited for over 40 minutes for other people using the chargers to leave. I'd much rather pay a market rate for the power from Tesla and have the units open when I need them, than take the chance of waiting for hours because people are clogging the spots to get free power.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
forgetsusername 10y ago
>I waited for over 40 minutes for other people using the chargers to leave. And yet "free Supercharging for life!" was advertised as a major advantage for owning a Tesla. I agree, this is the most realistic option. If waits are long with 0.5% market share, how bad would it be with their expected 500,000 cars on the road over the next couple years?
- TulliusCicero 10y ago
  Well I mean, presumably as they sell more cars and their market share goes up, they'd also continue to build more and more superchargers.
  - jfoster 10y ago
    They gave up on the idea of automated battery swap stations, right? It's a shame; I thought they were a great idea, but perhaps there's good reasons why they can't work in reality.
    - iplaw 10y ago
      I don't know if they gave up on it, or if it's simply not ready for primetime and/or the market isn't currently open to the idea of battery sharing. Once marketshare increases, car sharing increases, etc., and people become more accustomed to sharing property (and charging becomes the norm for everyone), the convenience of a 3 minute battery swap will likely win over - and Tesla will be ready to roll out their tech.
    - bb611 10y ago
      They gave up on them because people didn't use the only one they ever ran: http://fortune.com/2015/06/10/teslas-battery-swap-is-dead/ http://fortune.com/2015/06/10/teslas-battery-swap-is-dead/ Realistically, it seems likely that there just wasn't enough demand among existing Tesla owners for that use case. If/When Tesla gets more market share, that could very well change. My understanding is that they are still engineering all their chassis to support the fast swap technology, so they haven't entirely trashed the idea.
      - jessriedel 10y ago
        No, that charging station was purposefully built and run to make it extremely inconvenient in order to discourage use. It was just built to obtain a tax incentive. http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2015/0312/Tesla-battery-swapping-useful-service-or-tax-credit-ploy http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2015/0312/Tesla-ba... http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-battery-swap-harris-ranch-20150310-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-battery... There may be good reasons that swappable batteries don't make sense, but interest data gathered from this station doesn't contribute.
        bb611 10y ago
        I'm sure the tax credits play into the decision to build the station, but its position was intended to allow people to swap batteries for the trip from SoCal to SF, which otherwise requires a fair amount of time at a charger. For that it's pretty perfect, it's just that Tesla users apparently don't find it worth using. I do think that's pretty clear and useful data, and it's clearly informed their current efforts (i.e. no new battery stations).
        sammydavis 10y ago
        One big reason is people want their original battery back after swapping. We have all been trained that we are taking care of our batteries on phones or AA at home. The tesla should take care of batteries and they are basically swappable without issue. But this isn't how anyone thinks of their battery.
- sammydavis 10y ago
  It's still free if you bought yours. They will keep this lifetime free thing going if you buy before January 15th. Only 2 more days! Mine is free forever. They just keep adding cool stuff making me wanting to buy a new one.
kelvin0 10y ago
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but even if it becomes a paid service, you might still have to wait for other paying customers to leave? Unless right now there is a problem of people taking their sweet (inconsiderate) time in the parking spot since they are not getting charged? If that is the case, some HN posters had an interesting theory: once some customers start paying, they might feel entitled to stay at a charging station even longer (which would not fix your issue of waiting forever to access it). Hope your charger gets fixed soon!
- johnward 10y ago
  > Unless right now there is a problem of people taking their sweet (inconsiderate) time in the parking spot since they are not getting charged? Per r/teslamotors that seems to be the bigger issue. Once a vehicle is charged people don't move it promptly because they have no incentive to do so.
  - kardos 10y ago
    Isn't that the case at a gas station too?
    - bdcravens 10y ago
      As another commenter pointed out, gas fuel times are so short that you typically don't wander off far. Additionally, there are some safety concerns around leaving the fuel hose attached when you're not there.
  - Anasufovic 10y ago
    At the Santana row shopping mall in San Jose people pretty much just use them as parking spots.
- xavi 10y ago
  To solve that problem Tesla recently introduced a Supercharger idle fee https://www.tesla.com/blog/improving-supercharger-availability https://www.tesla.com/blog/improving-supercharger-availabili...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

forgetsusername 10y ago

>I waited for over 40 minutes for other people using the chargers to leave. And yet "free Supercharging for life!" was advertised as a major advantage for owning a Tesla. I agree, this is the most realistic option. If waits are long with 0.5% market share, how bad would it be with their expected 500,000 cars on the road over the next couple years?

TulliusCicero 10y ago
Well I mean, presumably as they sell more cars and their market share goes up, they'd also continue to build more and more superchargers.
- jfoster 10y ago
  They gave up on the idea of automated battery swap stations, right? It's a shame; I thought they were a great idea, but perhaps there's good reasons why they can't work in reality.
  - iplaw 10y ago
    I don't know if they gave up on it, or if it's simply not ready for primetime and/or the market isn't currently open to the idea of battery sharing. Once marketshare increases, car sharing increases, etc., and people become more accustomed to sharing property (and charging becomes the norm for everyone), the convenience of a 3 minute battery swap will likely win over - and Tesla will be ready to roll out their tech.
  - bb611 10y ago
    They gave up on them because people didn't use the only one they ever ran: http://fortune.com/2015/06/10/teslas-battery-swap-is-dead/ http://fortune.com/2015/06/10/teslas-battery-swap-is-dead/ Realistically, it seems likely that there just wasn't enough demand among existing Tesla owners for that use case. If/When Tesla gets more market share, that could very well change. My understanding is that they are still engineering all their chassis to support the fast swap technology, so they haven't entirely trashed the idea.
    - jessriedel 10y ago
      No, that charging station was purposefully built and run to make it extremely inconvenient in order to discourage use. It was just built to obtain a tax incentive. http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2015/0312/Tesla-battery-swapping-useful-service-or-tax-credit-ploy http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2015/0312/Tesla-ba... http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-battery-swap-harris-ranch-20150310-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-battery... There may be good reasons that swappable batteries don't make sense, but interest data gathered from this station doesn't contribute.
      - bb611 10y ago
        I'm sure the tax credits play into the decision to build the station, but its position was intended to allow people to swap batteries for the trip from SoCal to SF, which otherwise requires a fair amount of time at a charger. For that it's pretty perfect, it's just that Tesla users apparently don't find it worth using. I do think that's pretty clear and useful data, and it's clearly informed their current efforts (i.e. no new battery stations).
        sammydavis 10y ago
        One big reason is people want their original battery back after swapping. We have all been trained that we are taking care of our batteries on phones or AA at home. The tesla should take care of batteries and they are basically swappable without issue. But this isn't how anyone thinks of their battery.
sammydavis 10y ago
It's still free if you bought yours. They will keep this lifetime free thing going if you buy before January 15th. Only 2 more days! Mine is free forever. They just keep adding cool stuff making me wanting to buy a new one.

kelvin0 10y ago

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but even if it becomes a paid service, you might still have to wait for other paying customers to leave? Unless right now there is a problem of people taking their sweet (inconsiderate) time in the parking spot since they are not getting charged? If that is the case, some HN posters had an interesting theory: once some customers start paying, they might feel entitled to stay at a charging station even longer (which would not fix your issue of waiting forever to access it). Hope your charger gets fixed soon!

johnward 10y ago
> Unless right now there is a problem of people taking their sweet (inconsiderate) time in the parking spot since they are not getting charged? Per r/teslamotors that seems to be the bigger issue. Once a vehicle is charged people don't move it promptly because they have no incentive to do so.
- kardos 10y ago
  Isn't that the case at a gas station too?
  - bdcravens 10y ago
    As another commenter pointed out, gas fuel times are so short that you typically don't wander off far. Additionally, there are some safety concerns around leaving the fuel hose attached when you're not there.
- Anasufovic 10y ago
  At the Santana row shopping mall in San Jose people pretty much just use them as parking spots.
xavi 10y ago
To solve that problem Tesla recently introduced a Supercharger idle fee https://www.tesla.com/blog/improving-supercharger-availability https://www.tesla.com/blog/improving-supercharger-availabili...