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Tesla Is Prohibiting Commercial Drivers From Using Its Supercharger Stations (theverge.com)
Tesla has issued a new policy called Supercharger Fair Use, which prohibits new commercial drivers from using the red-and-white charging ports. The reason behind this new policy is to help alleviate congestion and improve the experience for others who rely on the Supercharging services. The Verge reports: Tesla says that the stations are intended for drivers who don't have ready options for charging at home or at work, and that when they're not used for this purpose, "it negatively impacts the availability of Supercharging services for others." Thus, the new policy says that for vehicles purchased after December 15th, drivers who plan to use their vehicles as a taxi, for ridesharing, commercial delivery or transportation, governmental purposes, or other commercial ventures won't be permitted to use the free stations. The company tracks usage and driver behavior, and if they find that someone isn't complying with the policy, they might be asked to stop, and simply limit or block one's vehicle from the stations in certain instances. The policy went into effect on Friday, December 15th, 2017. A Tesla spokesperson said that the company does "encourage the use of Teslas for commercial purposes," and that they will work with drivers to find other places to charge their vehicles. The policy carve out an exception, saying that some stations might be excluded, depending on local circumstances.
The more I read about how Tesla treats their customers and the cars the "sell" to them, it really looks like you lose nearly all privacy and that the car you spent a ton of money on is never, ever truly yours.
Electric, self-driving cars, are where the future is headed, however, all of this tracking will make me never purchase Tesla or any other car that tracks this much data. They have no right to know I stopped by "dildos r us" right before I went to visit my friend in prison.
This is a tell about the future of automobile transport:
The company tracks usage and driver behavior, and if they find that someone isn't complying with the policy, they might be asked to stop, and simply limit or block one's vehicle from the stations in certain instances.
Just as privacy was destroyed in personal communication, so to shall it be for transportation. I own a 1996 Chevy. I do not have to tell Chevy where I drive, nor do they get a say in where I go. They cannot block my car from certain destinations even if they wanted to.
We are on the cusp of a world where companies track everyone's driving. Arguably telecom companies already do that, but it's rapidly expanding in car companies, with GM Onstar, the Tesla system above, etc. Not only that, they will grant themselves veto power over your use of your automobile. Violate the Terms of Service? No more driving for you.
The ownership era is drawing to a close in every area, from phones, to cars, to appliances, to (legally owned) entertainment media.
Toyota is switching back to batteries. that should tell you something.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
A bit over the top... TFA says NEW commercial drivers. So, if you become an Uber driver after this policy is in place, you have no-one to blame. In any case, people should never have had the expectation that Tesla would subsidize the fuel costs for their Uber business indefinitely. As usual in 'modern society', a small subset of users, intent on pushing the absolute limit of any arrangement, screws things up for everyone else. Complain to those Tesla drivers, not to the company that provided a pretty cool ownership perk and trusted people not to abuse it.
I think that Tesla the manufacturer's point is that commercial users should set up their own infrastructure, or should contract as a business expense for someone else's commercial infrastructure. It harms the totality of the electric car market by letting one fairly small segment of the market monopolize the recharging stations.
If I interpret this right, this is not the same as Chevron stating that one could not fuel-up because Tesla is giving the electric power to the customer, not charging them for it. If Chevron gave away fuel but wanted to charge commercial users would that be different?
Around here there are the normal gas stations for regular drivers, and there are perhaps one to two special gas stations for commercial accounts in a 50 sq mile area. These commercial fuel stations don't have convenience stores, don't have attendants, don't even have credit card readers. One has to have an existing account to get fuel, and enter credentials at the pump to activate it. This sort of setup would make sense for commercial electric users too, where they don't charge their cars at their residences or at their places of business.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I think that Tesla the manufacturer's point is that commercial users should set up their own infrastructure
In fact, that's apparently one of the reasons why they opened up their patents. So that companies could build these things in their parking lots etc.
Ezekiel 23:20
They are not stopping anyone from charging the cars, they are just stopping them from 'abusing' (as defined by them) particular charging stations. If you left your car parked in front of the diesel pump for half an hour after filling the tank, the gas station would be within their rights to say 'you cannot fill up here anymore'
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I've read through the commentary so far. Sheesh, people, did Tesla kill your father or something?
Tesla has offered unlimited use of the Superchargers to most of their customers. They initially offered it to everyone, then they announced a change ahead of time (and not retroactive). Then they decided to make their deal more generous, and just to make sure the more-generous deal applied to everyone they announced a one-time retroactive change to give unlimited Supercharger use to all Model S and Model X customers as of that date.
Unlimited use of the Supercharger goes with the car, so every car that ever had it still has it. Buy a used Tesla that has unlimited Supercharger use, you get that benefit. This hasn't changed.
Now they announced their "Supercharger Fair Use" policy that commercial users will no longer be permitted unlimited free use of the Superchargers... and that's only on new sales of Tesla cars, so anyone who has already been running a business and using the Superchargers is still being allowed to continue doing it.
What if you want to buy a Tesla in 2018 and use it for a business? You still can, just install a Tesla wall connector and you can charge the car from empty to full in less time than it takes you to get a good night's sleep. (If you have a 240 Volt circuit with enough Watts you can charge a Tesla at one-quarter the speed of a Supercharger... at your home or business!)
What if you want to operate a whole fleet of Teslas as a taxi service or something? Tesla will sell you a private Supercharger station you can set up. Rumor has it a two-station Supercharger costs about $60K, and rumor has it that Tesla might give it free with a bulk purchase of 10 cars:
https://electrek.co/2016/10/03/tesla-to-deliver-its-largest-privately-owned-supercharger-station-to-a-taxi-fleet-in-montreal/
To those of you wailing that Tesla can control who uses their Supercharger stations: yeah, they can, but so far they haven't abused this in any way; and they can't stop you (and don't want to stop you) from setting up your own charging solution.
It's true that gas stations don't control who can get gas there. But they don't give the gas for free to anyone... they charge money which is why they don't care who gets it. Also, gas stations are pretty well built-out everywhere, while Tesla is frantically building new Supercharger stations; IMHO Tesla is looking after their ordinary customers by trying to keep a few users from disproportionately using the Superchargers.
And note that all Telsas can use all the other charging stations for all the other cars, with an adapter. If you are so worried about the Supercharger, get a CHAdeMO adapter; this will charge a Tesla about half as fast as a Supercharger station, which is still pretty darn fast.
If you read all the above and you still think Tesla is doing something wrong here, I'm really curious as to just what it might be. Maybe you think Tesla should promise to just give free unlimited power forever to everyone without limit? That doesn't seem very reasonable to me.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
If there's anyone who needs fast-charging stations I'd expect it to be the commercial drivers.
If there's anyone who should be paying for their own electricity instead of getting it for free, I'd expect it to be the commercial drivers.
Unless they can swap cars part way they're going to have to re-charge during the work day.
A $500 Tesla wall charger can charge at one-quarter the speed of a Supercharger. A private commercial Supercharger is available that can charge at half the speed of a Tesla public Supercharger.
If commercial drivers are swamping the fast-charging stations it's because they desperately need them for their Teslas to be a viable option.
0) The change isn't retroactive, so current users can continue to do what they have been doing.
1) The cost for electricity to run a Tesla is roughly one-third the cost of gasoline to run a similar gasoline car. A commercial user will save money operating a Tesla even if they need to invest in a private charging solution.
2) For the Tesla semi truck, they will build out special truck charging stations with the new truck charging connector. Those will not offer unlimited free power, but Tesla says that the new semi will pay for itself within two years just on the cost savings vs. buying diesel fuel for a conventional semi truck.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Won't be long before new home builds include a 240v outlet ready to go in the garage
How nice for everyone except the hundreds of millions of people living in apartments or townhouses with no garage. Remember we are talking not about how to satisfy one in a thousand cars needing to charge, but 90% of them being electric. That part is inevitable; then the question remain how does that practically work? I can see a lot of future problems where an apt complex has four charging spots and huge fights to get at them for the night.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley