Business model of the NOT "free...forever" Tesla DC network

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ydnas7 said:
GRA said:
Thanks for the photos. I'm all for it, if they can do it, great. Now, all they have to do is put all those receptacles on the curbs and at the edges of parking spaces, so that no cords cross sidewalks or walkways.

more photos
https://www.google.com/search?q=parking+meter&safe=active&biw=1024&bih=702&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIstrd_qSxxwIVTByUCh2ZkQ4P

its not that hard
bmw-i3-webseite_mittelgro_4.jpg


really, its not that hard
ubitricity-portable-streetlight-attachable-ev-charging-unit.jpg


again, how difficult is it?
ev-line-2-570x379.jpg


the thing about electricity, its ubiquitous with modern society. If the car is parked under electric lighting, duh, there is electricity in proximity.

sure, first adopters need to have their own garage, and solar really complements EVs, so its better to have one's own roof, but the accessibility of recharging is not a hard physical cost (like H2 is) but an adoption consensus curve, apartment dwellers come last, but they will come too. Do you really think BYD is selling $30k PHEVs to people who can plug in, but that $100k Tesla can't?
Yes, it can be done, but it will take many years and mucho bucks. I'm all for seeing it done, but so far, no one has demonstrated that it can be done for profit by anyone other than a utility without govt. subsidy, at least in the U.S. Eventually, we'll have to let the utilities in. I do wonder if some of those installations would pass muster in the U.S. with the potential liability (see trip and fall), which is why I think public curbside charging here will have to be wireless. I'm not familiar with European law as to hazards, although I always liked the 'Mind the Gap' signage on London subway platforms - the implication being if you're too dumb to heed the warning, that's your problem.
 
Musk's comment below suggest you will be able to buy an unlimited charge option for the model 3.
“Free supercharging fundamentally has a cost,” Musk, 44, said Tuesday during Tesla’s annual shareholders meeting, held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. “The obvious thing to do is decouple that from the cost of the Model 3. So it will still be very cheap, and far cheaper than gasoline, to drive long-distance with the Model 3, but it will not be free long distance for life unless you purchase that package.”

Musk did not provide further details as to what the package may cost consumers...
http://www.autonews.com/article/20160601/OEM05/160609996/musk-says-its-obvious-model-3-owners-will-pay-to-use-superchargers

Another half-baked Idea, IMO.

If Tesla is ever able to deliver model 3s in anywhere near the price and numbers that have been promised, adverse selection by buyers would require the supercharger option to be obscenely expensive.

Imagine all the other Tesla owners waiting for charger access, while the model 3 uber drivers who purchased the all- you-can-charge option were using the chargers for the second or third time per day, for free...
 
edatoakrun said:
Another half-baked Idea, IMO.
I expect it to be "half baked". Afterall 3 design isn't finalized for 6 weeks.

I'm happy with the options of pre-pay and pay per charge. I'll pick pay per charge, as I'm unlikely to use it a lot.

I'm sure the pre-pay option will come with a lot of limitations that make it not possible to use it as the primary charging option.
 
The local SC should have a fee and long distance is free. Local might be any station within 80 percent of range to home address. Locals could all support their own with fees and still roam the country for free.
JMHO
 
edatoakrun said:
...Imagine all the other Tesla owners waiting for charger access, while the model 3 uber drivers who purchased the all- you-can-charge option were using the chargers for the second or third time per day, for free...
Tesla's policy or terms of use state that you can't use it as your daily charger. The price will be such that there will be plenty of chargers all over the place for everyone. Likely $2,500 to pay for the capital costs. If we assume that a super charger costs $200K, then 80 people signing up for the upfront cost will pay for one super charger.
 
smkettner said:
The local SC should have a fee and long distance is free. Local might be any station within 80 percent of range to home address. Locals could all support their own with fees and still roam the country for free.
JMHO

That is the best idea I have heard yet!
 
smkettner said:
The local SC should have a fee and long distance is free. Local might be any station within 80 percent of range to home address. Locals could all support their own with fees and still roam the country for free.
JMHO

There are a number of ways abuses can be stopped - all with some work-arounds for abusers. Just look at how "unlimited bandwidth" broadband internet has evolved.

Still, I'd like a pay-per-use. Makes little sense for me to pay a big amount upfront if I'm not going to use it much - esp. if I'm leasing.
 
Tesla has always understood that it will have to have pay-per-use for charge stations, that "free...forever" charging was a marketing gimmick, and that would only be available for a limited number of buyers.

Where TSLA was delusional, IMO, was in it's contention that electricity would remain cheap, and it could afford to subsidize "free...forever" charging until it sold ~ a million BEVs, both of which you can hear about at ~13 minute into this Video of JB Straubel, Chief Technology Officer, Tesla Motors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnQs1k_0Yys

Tesla never understood the reality of time-of-use Home charge pricing For BEV drivers, which will probably be almost all BEV drivers, within a few years.

I am on PG&E E6 smart rate, as I expect are quite a few Northern California Tesla owners.

We will be paying over $.90 per kWh this afternoon, from 2 until 7 PM, or close to $100 for a full charge for a tesla owner.

"Free" public charging would be a congestion disaster during peak demand periods, once more BEV driver's rates are rationalized for actual costs per kWh, and even more so if Tesla is unable to maintain its current prohibition on its BEVs vehicle-to-grid use.

Which is why I doubt that Tesla will ever offer "free...forever" charging for the 3, at any price.

Yes, TSLA could impose any level of complexity to regulations on public chargers to limit their use.

But the reality is, no method of rationing is as efficient as market pricing.

Something Tesla definitely seems to understand, when pricing its vehicles...
 
Something that I haven't seen discussed yet is that a pay-as-you-go encourages competition with other QC networks. I'm thinking about the trip I normally take to visit family. There are 3 different supercharging stations along the route, but every one of the requires that you exit the thruway (a toll road) to get to them. On the other hand, Greenlots has started to install QCs at the full-service rest stops. Many people will go out of their way to save some money, but if it costs nearly the same, they will stick to the more convenient option. And if Greenlots suddenly gets thousands of Tesla drivers as customers, that helps their long-term viability. And having multiple charging networks helps all EVs, which in turn helps Tesla. Because let's be honest, the Supercharging network is great but Tesla just cannot go it alone forever.
 
edatoakrun said:
Which is why I doubt that Tesla will ever offer "free...forever" charging for the 3, at any price.
That's a bold prediction. Musk has already stated during the May 31 shareholder meeting that "free-forever supercharging" would be offered for the 3 in some package, so it would be a huge about-face for Tesla to not offer it at this point.
 
garsh said:
edatoakrun said:
Which is why I doubt that Tesla will ever offer "free...forever" charging for the 3, at any price.
That's a bold prediction. Musk has already stated during the May 31 shareholder meeting that "free-forever supercharging" would be offered for the 3 in some package, so it would be a huge about-face for Tesla to not offer it at this point.
DC charging was never "free...forever" for any Tesla.

It was and is a pre-paid program with the cost imbedded in the vehicle's sales price, lasting for the ~10 year expected life of the car, allowing unlimited access without any usage fee when charging.

As others have speculated, Tesla may offer some sort of pre-pay option for its BEVs in the future, but I doubt it will continue to offer the current scheme it calls "free...forever" for any BEV, particularly those with a ~less-than-$100k-per-vehicle sales price

"Free...forever" charging would guarantee chaos at charge stations after Tesla BEV sales began to reach significant levels, as has been confirmed by various Tesla statements, including those in the video posted on the previous page.
 
edatoakrun said:
garsh said:
edatoakrun said:
Which is why I doubt that Tesla will ever offer "free...forever" charging for the 3, at any price.
That's a bold prediction. Musk has already stated during the May 31 shareholder meeting that "free-forever supercharging" would be offered for the 3 in some package, so it would be a huge about-face for Tesla to not offer it at this point.
DC charging was never "free...forever" for any Tesla. It was and is a pre-paid program with the cost imbedded in the vehicle's sales price
And your quote was "at any price". If somebody buys a 3 "at any price", and is able to charge the car for free forever from that point on, you can't just say it doesn't count because the vehicle's price covers Tesla's costs. What in the world did your original prediction mean in that case?
 
garsh said:
edatoakrun said:
garsh said:
That's a bold prediction. Musk has already stated during the May 31 shareholder meeting that "free-forever supercharging" would be offered for the 3 in some package, so it would be a huge about-face for Tesla to not offer it at this point.
DC charging was never "free...forever" for any Tesla. It was and is a pre-paid program with the cost imbedded in the vehicle's sales price
And your quote was "at any price". If somebody buys a 3 "at any price", and is able to charge the car for free forever from that point on, you can't just say it doesn't count because the vehicle's price covers Tesla's costs. What in the world did your original prediction mean in that case?
If you read my entire post, rather than quoting a single sentence out of context, I think the meaning is clear:

edatoakrun said:
Tesla has always understood that it will have to have pay-per-use for charge stations, that "free...forever" charging was a marketing gimmick, and that would only be available for a limited number of buyers.

Where TSLA was delusional, IMO, was in it's contention that electricity would remain cheap, and it could afford to subsidize "free...forever" charging until it sold ~ a million BEVs, both of which you can hear about at ~13 minute into this Video of JB Straubel, Chief Technology Officer, Tesla Motors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnQs1k_0Yys

Tesla never understood the reality of time-of-use Home charge pricing For BEV drivers, which will probably be almost all BEV drivers, within a few years.

I am on PG&E E6 smart rate, as I expect are quite a few Northern California Tesla owners.

We will be paying over $.90 per kWh this afternoon, from 2 until 7 PM, or close to $100 for a full charge for a tesla owner.

"Free" public charging would be a congestion disaster during peak demand periods, once more BEV driver's rates are rationalized for actual costs per kWh, and even more so if Tesla is unable to maintain its current prohibition on its BEVs vehicle-to-grid use.

Which is why I doubt that Tesla will ever offer "free...forever" charging for the 3, at any price.

Yes, TSLA could impose any level of complexity to regulations on public chargers to limit their use.

But the reality is, no method of rationing is as efficient as market pricing.

Something Tesla definitely seems to understand, when pricing its vehicles...
I could be wrong of course, and Tesla might offer model 3 owners the same unlimited "free...forever" program as an option, that it currently makes a mandatory purchase for S and X buyers.

Since it is a mandatory purchase, the S and X owners who make little use of the DC network but are forced to pay for "free...forever" anyway, are subsidizing the S and X owners who draw a lot of kWh from the charge sites.

But Tesla has said it will allow 3 owners to opt-out of the "free...forever" program, so the cash source for this subsidy will not exist for the model 3, and Tesla would have to charge something close to the actual cost for the "free...forever" program, for those 3 owners who choose to buy into it.

And since that actual cost could be thousands of dollars per year for 3 owners who drive a lot and charge frequently during peak demand periods, the option would have to be very expensive to cover charging over the life of the vehicle, probably $10k to $20k if Tesla wants to recover its costs.

Few 3 buyers are likely to want to pay that much for the opton, when they can arrange to do most of their 3's charging much more cheaply wherever the car is parked during off-peak hours, and pay to use DC chargers only when they need to, instead.

Which is why I doubt that Tesla will ever offer "free...forever" charging for the 3, at any price.
 
edatoakrun said:
I could be wrong of course, and Tesla might offer model 3 owners the same unlimited "free...forever" program as an option, that it currently makes a mandatory purchase for S and X buyers.

Since it is a mandatory purchase, the S and X owners who make little use of the DC network but are forced to pay for "free...forever" anyway, are subsidizing the S and X owners who draw a lot of kWh from the charge sites.

But Tesla has said it will allow 3 owners to opt-out of the "free...forever" program, so the cash source for this subsidy will not exist for the model 3, and Tesla would have to charge something close to the actual cost for the "free...forever" program, for those 3 owners who choose to buy into it.

And since that actual cost could be thousands of dollars per year for 3 owners who drive a lot and charge frequently during peak demand periods, the option would have to be very expensive to cover charging over the life of the vehicle, probably $10k to $20k if Tesla wants to recover its costs.

Few 3 buyers are likely to want to pay that much for the opton, when they can arrange to do most of their 3's charging much more cheaply wherever the car is parked during off-peak hours, and pay to use DC chargers only when they need to, instead.

Which is why I doubt that Tesla will ever offer "free...forever" charging for the 3, at any price.

If they charge $2500 for supercharger access, that is roughly 62,500 freeway miles worth of driving assuming $0.10/kWh and 400wH/mile. I think most folks are going to put the majority of their miles close to home and charge from home, so that is a lot of road trips for each of those cars. I see your point and you'll get some folks who will game the system and work hard at trying to get free electricity. I'm sure Tesla can come up with some clever rules that keep these folks from using the Supercharger as a daily fill-up.

I keep seeing people talk about pay per use at supercharger, but I've seen ZERO evidence that they have any plans to do this (and I follow supercharger news very closely). I'm not sure how it got started or why it keeps getting repeated, but all statements from Tesla indicate that they want to keep the same business model where there is no transaction when you charge. Perhaps instead of a lifetime fee, they will have a yearly fee, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty confident there will not be a pay per use plan, though I could very will be wrong.
 
edatoakrun said:
If you read my entire post, rather than quoting a single sentence out of context, I think the meaning is clear:
I don't see how the context changes anything. You put together an argument that it would be foolish of Tesla to offer "free forever" charging as an option, and then conclude that they won't offer it. Did I get that much right, or am I missing some other nuance?

The Model 3 page says that it will have supercharging. At the shareholders meeting, Musk said that the base model 3 would not come with "free charging", and that you would only get "free forever" charging by purchasing the package. So it sounds exactly like Tesla plans to offer "free forever" charging, as an option, for the Model 3.
 
I wonder is unlimited charging will end up being like "unlimited" internet access on my cell phone: You get a certain amount each month at the maximum speed and thereafter it slows down significantly.
 
edatoakrun said:
I am on PG&E E6 smart rate, as I expect are quite a few Northern California Tesla owners.

We will be paying over $.90 per kWh this afternoon, from 2 until 7 PM, or close to $100 for a full charge for a tesla owner.
This type of pricing is precisely what will cause schemes like "Electric Vehicle Net Metering" to come about. Put another way, it is precisely BEVs with large batteries which will allow generation to be balanced with load. It seems to me that utilities are working hard to drive themselves out of business while using regulatory power to try to save themselves.

It won't work, but it could be painful for ratepayers in the short run.
 
palmermd said:
I keep seeing people talk about pay per use at supercharger, but I've seen ZERO evidence that they have any plans to do this (and I follow supercharger news very closely). I'm not sure how it got started or why it keeps getting repeated, but all statements from Tesla indicate that they want to keep the same business model where there is no transaction when you charge. Perhaps instead of a lifetime fee, they will have a yearly fee, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty confident there will not be a pay per use plan, though I could very will be wrong.

FWIW, when I talk about pay-per-use, it is just because, IMO, it is a better option. It solves many of the problems that have come up with crowding (and the Model III will worsen). It opens the door to Tesla owners willingly paying to support other charging networks (which Tesla itself may or may not want - but would be good for EVs as a whole). It is also better for the utilities, discouraging people from "topping off" for free and high rates during peak hours (e.g. on their evening commute), but encourages them to fill up slowly overnight during off-peak hours.

I have never heard direct word from Tesla that they will be moving in this direction, though. So it will be interesting to see what happens when the Model IIIs start to outnumber the Model S/Xs.
 
garsh said:
... it sounds exactly like Tesla plans to offer "free forever" charging, as an option, for the Model 3.
Why do you believe that?

There is plenty of wiggle room in Musk's statement to add more restrictions to an "(limited) unlimited" charge option "package" for the 3, making it far less comprehensive than the current "(not) free (not)forever" program payment embedded in the price of every S and X sold.

“Free supercharging fundamentally has a cost,” Musk, 44, said Tuesday during Tesla’s annual shareholders meeting, held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. “The obvious thing to do is decouple that from the cost of the Model 3. So it will still be very cheap, and far cheaper than gasoline, to drive long-distance with the Model 3, but it will not be free long distance for life unless you purchase that package.”

Musk did not provide further details as to what the package may cost consumers...
http://www.autonews.com/article/20160601/OEM05/160609996/musk-says-its-obvious-model-3-owners-will-pay-to-use-superchargers
 
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