Important to note that the unlimited charging is for the life of the vehicle, not for the life of the customer. This means that you're going to lose the perk eventually as your car degrades, it's just probably not as quickly as Tesla would like. Would be interesting to consider, at what point will it become more expensive to keep your car in good running condition, including replacing the batteries, than it is to pay for charging?
For the purpose of identity - I believe that all you need is the VIN - there have been some questionable restorations of classic cars with largely new replacement parts but the original VIN plates gives the ability to charge as if it were a 'restored' original car.
For cars with automatic software updates, I suspect Tesla could exert some influence over how fast the car degrades. Forced obsolescence has been used before, and some companies got away with it. Though doing it with cars would probably be going way too far for a lot of people.
Because Tesla is a brand that relied entirely on the CEO for PR/Marketing.
And it's indisputable that Twitter is in serious trouble.
By Musk's own admission the company is worth less than half what he paid for it. Revenue has plummeted, toxicity is rampant, lawsuits are increasing and Twitter Blue has been a disaster that will likely be researched for years.
And so all of this chaos has dragged Musk's reputation down which in turn is affecting Tesla.
I don't think Tesla is necessarily in crisis, but Musk's behaviour definitely has some impact on the trust people have in his company. It's still a big car brand obviously, but to a lot of people, Tesla isn't as cool anymore. Backpedaling on promises isn't going to help.
Well it’s that + they’ve never had a big exterior design overhaul for their vehicles. So they’ve been pretty much selling the same cars for 10 years now.
Eventually it gets old when everyone has the same looking car.
To be perfectly honest, I think most cars these days look the same. It seems like there's only a handful of designs that most car makers tend to stick to, with only minor variations.
Was going to say this too. Compared to 40 years ago, car designs are not very diverse. I suppose because there is an optimal aerodynamic shape for each class of car, and we are converging on that.
Hyundai and Rivian both have really interesting and atypical design. There are also some very interesting designs in the microcar segment where aerodynamics don't matter as much.
Tesla has two problems right now: fewer cars sold despite price cuts and quality issues are finally reaching courts which may also affect their brand image.
Is this a crisis? Too early to say, but nevertheless this all happend while competitors are catching up and latest offerings from German manufacturers looks very promising. There is a very real chance Tesla can loose the luxury EV segment.
I don't know. I have a 2014 Model S that I'd like to replace. The list of EVs that are actually _available now_ at list price as opposed to an order/wait list or an upcharge over list from dealer is pretty small (another Tesla, Chevy Bolt, Porsche Tacan/Audi eTron GT).
I agree there will soon be more choices, but that's going to be a problem in 2 years, especially in the luxury segment.
To add to the comments already made - IMO it's because the customer base is generally left leaning environmentally aware types, and Musk's public behaviour recently is not well aligned with that. Electric cars are still not fully mainstream, but there are many more options from other manufacturers now. He's basically alienated a lot of the consumers that were "brand champions".
So what I have seen him say and do seems genuine and I don’t really think this is happening, but what if the environmentally aware types market is saturated and he is trying to push the brand into a new demographic— pickup truck buyers, I suppose, and interestingly they have a pickup truck planned as well…
That's an interesting take on the situation. I find it hard to believe though - for one thing it would be a huge risk to reorientate your brand like that, and also the designs for their pickups are not exactly conservative. (Incidentally I have a pre-order for the cybertruck - it was only 100EUR, and refundable, so kind of a casual decision. No news on when they will be available still though!).
It depends on whether it impacts “repeat purchases” or “first time test drives”. I could see the political stuff impacting the latter significantly more than the former, assuming the product is good. But again I don’t think it’s actually happening, it would be too Machiavellian for reality.
I think it will impact both - surely a lot of the potential repeat purchases are from people that had ethical motivations to buy an electric car - they probably wont give up on electric, but there are a number of good alternative options now on the market.
I think it basically boils down to whether the political stuff can cause a significant portion of the existing user base to start boycotting the brand. That sounds kind of extreme given the situation but I am not completely in touch with mainstream media driven perception.
There were people claiming his Twitter fiasco is part of some "5D chess" plan, and the only plan I've been able to identify that could make his behaviour somewhat rational, is this all being part of a big gambit where he alienates liberals to the point that conservatives start to love him so much that they will buy his electric cars out of team loyalty.
I was talking to a friend this weekend who just bought a Tesla. He really didn’t want to if he could find an alternative, purely because of Musk and Twitter.
I don't agree with many things he's said, however, having his his own opinions or expressing them, or running his companies how he believes will make them a success doesn't strike me as bad behaviour. Certainly, he's excelled going his way so far.
Everybody believed he was a genius, a real-life Tony Stark, and then he started to believe that too, and thought he couldn't fail. And that's when the crazy ideas came.
If he'd stuck to running Tesla and SpaceX to the best of his ability, without picking stupid internet fights, and keeping his Twitter addiction in check, he'd still have all that respect, and not just wasted $44B.
It seems to me that he's quite mindful of the possibility of failure - he's often quoted as saying that gambled everything on telsa, but only estimated a 10% chance of success (who knows if he really believed that at the time). And I think he's the closest thing we have to a real life tony stark - he's certainly a visionary. I get the impression that his odd tweets, and decisions like buying Twitter, happened after too much "red wine, ambien and vintage records".
But he's quite clearly not a "real life Tony Stark". He didn't invent any of the stuff he sells. He didn't found Tesla, but bought it. He may claim he's directly involved in designing SpaceX rockets, but that's most likely a lie. Or maybe he believes it to be true; a couple of months ago, someone claimed that SpaceX had people whose job it was to distract Musk and make him believe he was contributing.
The way he mismanaged Twitter makes pretty clear he doesn't really know what he's doing. Even if the decision to buy was made after too much wine, he's had plenty of time to sober up since then, but he just keeps doubling down on all the worst decisions.
He's a great salesman. Or was, at least. He was like Steve Jobs who could sell the amazing work of Woz and other Apple engineers. But that charisma has gotten seriously dented now.
> Even if the decision to buy was made after too much wine, he's had plenty of time to sober up since then
Well if he has bad habits, like a lot of us do, then its not just a matter of sobering up like it's a one time event.
> But that charisma has gotten seriously dented now.
The guy never had natural charisma in my opinion - a kind of glamour perhaps, from the wealth and achievements. I don't see the comparison with Jobs though, who was a natural salesman - Musk is a terrible public speaker, and should probably let other execs in his companies do the presentations.
Regarding the Stark comparison - IMO it doesn't matter how involved he really was with the engineering, or that he bought tesla etc - isn't it impressive enough that he made stuff happen? Can you nominate a better candidate for that comparison?
I don't mean to be confrontational though, and I respect your points.
>isn't it impressive enough that he made stuff happen?
But he didn't make stuff happen, he just paid for it. Why should we consider "Have enough money to pay for someone else to do good things" an impressive trait? Maybe we should stop deifying management for just doing a useful thing once in a while in between all the milking franchises and wealth extraction.
No one was more instrumental than Musk in making Tesla and SpaceX happen.
People who haven’t tried to run a company often fundamental misunderstand the nature the extent of the job, but claiming Musk is just “doing a useful thing once in a while in between all the milking franchises and wealth extraction” comes off like sour grapes.
It’s abundantly clear to anyone who has closely followed the development of SpaceX and Tesla the tremendous positive impact both technical and managerial that Elon has had in his companies.
I think it’s a truly bizarre smear to claim he nor Jobs “didn’t invent any of the stuff he sells” when they are perhaps the two most notable technical visionaries of our time.
I guess you can make that argument if you tilt your head and squint a certain way.
But he did become involved in Tesla when the company had only 3 employees, and contributed >85% of the series A funding (and also led the B and C rounds). He's been there for 19 of the company's 19.5 years of existence... hardly a new kid on the block.
It's always worth looking outside your bubble. His mismanagement of Twitter has not exactly improved people's trust in how he's running his other companies. There was definitely a significant chunk of hype in the enthusiasm for Tesla and SpaceX, and that's really been dying down. It's not as "cool" to get a Tesla anymore, and that's undeniably brand damage.
> It's not as "cool" to get a Tesla anymore, and that's undeniably brand damage.
To unpackage this further: a big part of Tesla's "cool" was that in allowed customers have luxury and performance while not trading off being "green", and by implication being pro-social. It was a have-your-cake-and-eat-it deal, for those who could afford it. People who had to accept tradeoffs bought a Nissan Leaf.
Now there are more EV options, and Musk's behavior has done irreparable damage to the pro-social brand associations that Tesla had. It's now more associated with the tech-bro archetype, and all the baggage that carries, similar to how Wall St guys were associated with Lambos a few decades ago.
That said, I still see plenty of new Teslas on the road in liberal areas, but they are often rationalized in practical terms, not with the religious zeal that customers used to have.
I agree. I think the fact that tesla started with the roadster was a genius move - proving that electric cars can be far superior in performance compared to ICE. Everyone else in the space was going for boring efficiency, and they showed that it could be the best of both worlds.
Zero evidence “the brand is in crisis.” Your repetition of of this suggests you are (most likely unintentionally) playing a validation role in the “wrap-up smear.”
Excuse me - what do you mean by my "repetition" of this? I've only expressed this view today, in response to this thread. I'm also not familiar with the term “wrap-up smear" - perhaps I am guilty of that, could you explain please?
For what it's worth Tesla has been limiting how fast older models are able to charge at superchargers, with the stated goal of extending battery longevity. I guess there's some truth to the stated goal, but I imagine it was more about nudging people to start charging at home. The affected models happen to be a lot of those with unlimited supercharging.
I think the offer they've made is a decent one. Looking at my charging habits I would actually have preferred the $5k rebate over 6 years of supercharging. I wouldn't want to spend 30 minutes every week at supercharger, and charging over-night at home is dirt cheap.
> "For what it's worth Tesla has been limiting how fast older models are able to charge at superchargers, with the stated goal of extending battery longevity."
This limitation is not based on the vehicle model you drive but based on the age and condition of the battery. Certain high-milage battery packs that have been supercharged frequently during their life tend to be the ones affected.
But if you replace an old, rate-limited battery with a new (or newer) one, you get back the full charging speed.
You're right. But they only recently started removing the rate-limiting when you got a new pack, which there was a lot of fuss about. I imagine there's quite an overlap of cars with unlimited supercharging and frequent supercharging.
To put it in perspective, a new car typically has a 3-5 year warranty while a new phone has a one year warranty (unless the local law requires a longer warranty).
btw Android is not an end product like a car and Google doesn't really "provide updates" for Android phones, but I'll let they pass.
The only impressive thing about Google’s work with Android updates is they have convinced many people dropping support for a computer in less than two years is an acceptable behavior.
Getting software updates for a car AT ALL is _really_ impressive.
Yes, they update the maps every now and then when you take it to the service and when they remember to plug the laptop in for the map update. But an actual update that adds new features is next to unheard-of.
Actual new features beyond map updates for a 10+ year old car? Never been done before by any brand ever.
But does your ten-year-old car have an internet-connected computer that is potentially vulnerable to malicious attackers? Note that I don't drive and know very little about cars, but my understanding was that Tesla's system was the kind of computer where software updates would be essential, and other cars less so.
(I generally think the "all out-of-date devices must be burned" mantra is a tad overblown, but they are at least somewhat dangerous in a way that non-networked computers are not.)
Teslas are essentially computers with cars built around them.
Traditional have cars and they are trying to shove computers into them.
The traditional model of upgrading infotainment software has been "lol, buy a new car" for a good quarter of a century now. But now Tesla is changing the expectations with Joe mode and Dog mode starting as someone requesting stuff from Elon and the feature appearing OTA in a matter of weeks.
Dog Mode, is still a rarity in EVs for some reason. It's a dead simple feature: "allow the heating/ac to work while car is locked, optionally display internal temperature on infotainment display so that people don't break the windows to 'rescue' the dogs".
The few that have it (Polestar and Mercedes I think) limit the usage to max 30 minutes.
All other things being equal, there's nothing wrong with trying to shove computers into a car.
Trouble starts when the computer is networked and therefore vulnerable to more attacks. And for networked computers, security updates are table stakes. Feature updates are merely nice.
To compare apples to apples, you need to compare Tesla to another brand of networked cars.
I have a Toyota RAV4 that is networked and this is a sad joke.
Toyota lives in the 90's from a cyber technology perspective. It is so bad that I wonder how the engineers who work there can say to themselves "I did something great".
I do not know other cars but I guess this is similar.
> All other things being equal, there's nothing wrong with trying to shove computers into a car.
I think that's preferable. That Teslas are "computers with a car built around them" that phone home to the mothership and get automatic updates is the main reason why I will never buy a Tesla.
>Getting software updates for a car AT ALL is _really_ impressive.
It doesn't sound impressive so much as excessive and dangerous. I would not want to purchase a car, which drives at high speeds on the road, the functionality of which depends on regular software updates from a company. I want a car that runs, won't kill me, and is easily and cheaply repairable. As far as I can tell, Teslas don't satisfy any of those concerns even if you spend a lot of money to service them.
Even the juicero couldn't kill you because of a software error...Tesla increasingly seems to me to be a piece of Silicon Valley fluff, and a dangerous one at that.
> "Important to note that the unlimited charging is for the life of the vehicle, not for the life of the customer."
My Dad had a 2019 Model X, which I think was one of the last to be offered with unlimited free supercharging. He loved it but unfortunately someone crashed into it and it was written off. A double blow because the Model X is not currently sold in our country, so he's had to wait a long time (and is still waiting) for a replacement, and secondly he's lost the unlimited free supercharging.
They're competing with a ton of operators on cost, the margins are very small. When they start offering retail services on supercharger locations, then you know they're serious about making this a profit center.
But ... in Norway at least, Tesla was seemingly very keen on expanding their supercharger network fast, so they partnered up with everything from gas stations to fast food places.
It seems that if people are offered such a deal by Tesla, this is evidence that the deal is in Tesla's favor, not theirs. Otherwise Tesla would not offer the deal.
This is true of everything in commerce. Businesses only make offers that they think will benefit them. Consumers only accept offers they think will benefit them. Because of the prospect of mutual benefit, both parties are better off and overall welfare increases.
Although in general there’s a pretty big information asymmetry between a multi billion dollar car company and a boomer dad w/ a Tesla. So whether the latter is usually better off may be debatable.
The multi billion dollar company has more information and resources, but also has the disadvantage that it has to make uniform offers to large groups of people.
The same offer might be hugely in favor of one customer and to the disadvantage of another. Who's favored overall depends on who accepts the deal (which both sides can try to influence)
In most deals both parties profit as they are not zero-sum games. You give me money, I give you a loaf of bread. But in the present case the deal appears to be zero-sum: Either Tesla saves money, or the customer, but not both.
That is almost certain, though it should be noted that it’s not always the case.
For instance in the mid 70s exchanged the few “GS Birotor” it had sold for CXs, which was higher in the range.
The deal was very much in Citroen’s favour, but not to the client’s loss: the birotor was effectively pretty crummy (outside of being a collector model, which is how a few survived), and it was launched just as the oil crisis started powered by a gas-guzzling (and unreliable) rotary engine, as well as being almost double the price of a standard GS.
As a result it sold extremely poorly (847 units were produced) and was quickly pulled. Citroen tried to buy / exchange them back (and did get most of them) so it didn’t need to support the car and keep spare parts through its network.
I don't think this is universally true, as e.g. companies may temporarily take a small loss to increase the userbase and the visibility and perhaps network effects that come with it. Of course they will withdraw or change the offer later when shareholders want to see results.
Duh. Someone here said the following a few months ago: “business is ripping people off without pissing them off.
That said, 5k discount on a new car could make a lot of people happy too.
I’d say this is one of the really good handling of how to end a ‘lifetime’ offer instead of just revoking it once you don’t like it anymore. Of which we have plenty of examples.
I'm not saying Tesla is the bad guy here or anything. I'm just noting that when you are offered what looks like a zero-sum deal, the deal is probably not in your favor.
Most deals are not zero-sum, so they can be in favor of both sides. That appears not to be not the case with this deal though. Either Tesla saves money, or the costumer, but not both.
It's infrastructure all the way down and Tesla's stack is considerably higher than your home wallbox or some opportunistically placed medium speed charger.
Yes, but in addition you have the supercharger device itself, the asphalt and keeping it clean around it. And then maintenance and repair if it breaks and so on.
For three thousand charger at net of 0.29 per kwh would mean that you have to sell 100 00 kwh of energy. And 3000 is probably bit low for these type of installations in total cost.
Are all of the car parking spots on public roads in Germany? Here at least the chargers are usually at some privately owned and maintained parking lots.
Superchargers are usually not located on the street, but at Autobahn gas stations. I'm not sure who pays for the asphalt and cleaning around there. I would have assumed it's private property and the oil company usually pays for that. I could be wrong though.
It probably makes more sense to account the costs for building superchargers in car sales and profits, rather than the electricity costs. More cars than chargers, much higher profit margin and it gives brand value driving future sales.
Although I don't think the price has to be exactly the same as regular consumer electricity price, it should cover some maintenance.
> It probably makes more sense to account the costs for building superchargers in car sales and profits, rather than the electricity costs.
Why would that make more sense? You'd need to raise the cost of the cars, which would decrease sales. Also, people who charge at home would be paying for super chargers they might not use. Usage-based charges seems totally logical here.
and where do Tesla chargers get the electricity from?
when you use a supercharger you are paying for Tesla's infrastructure, your country's infrastructure and the electricity itself, so of course it costs more
I think it makes sense that drawing energy from the grid at a high rate costs more than drawing the same amount of energy from the grid at a slower rate. There is a real cost to supporting that high rate of current draw.
My utility charges residential customers $0.11 per kW-h
Large users pay $0.06 per kW-h and then a demand charge of $10 per kW based on their max draw for the month. So if you do a bit to smooth out demand, the resulting cost isn't going to be wildly different than residential.
Right, you’re paying for the infrastructure to bring the energy to what is essentially a handoff point of a power meter and some bare wires. From there, additional overhead exits to convert those bare wires into a Supercharger location. Beyond the initial costs of building the charging site you will have some non-zero ongoing maintenance costs.
Beyond all that, Supercharger outlets are arguably a business of sorts. Which means it needs to make a profit and not just sell at cost.
A high power DC charger (50-350kW) puts higher peak load on the grid, and therefore the infrastructure needs to be sized to meet that peak load. A lower power 240V home charger (5-6kW) doesn't demand nearly as much real time power from the grid, and so doesn't require as much infrastructure, especially if it can be charged during off-peak hours.
I tried to find out whether that was the case, and it isn't clear. At least some have batteries, and the batteries can provide at least some of the required power, but the capacity of the battery at a particular location seems to be obscure.
I'd guess it depends very much on the power available to Tesla at the location. In some locations there will be plenty of power with little additional cost from the electricity company (e.g. near an industrial area), in others the opposite (isolated motorway rest area).
That is just factually untrue. Most chargers are .52€/kWh right now, with a 10 cent surcharge at peak times, which is 4pm to 8pm at all the places I’ve been recently.
Right. If you want, you can get high power service at home and wire up your own private "supercharger" that only costs whatever the standard rate for industrial buyers is.
It should be obvious really that a Tesla with unlimited supercharging would need a higher trade-in value than one without. If you want those owners to buy a new car you need to offer them more than those without the unlimited supercharging.
Negative spin? The editorialising of it is reasonably nuanced, even going so far as to point out that customers “[might not] have to trade in [their] older Model S or Model X vehicle when taking this offer”, and calling the offer ‘interesting’.
Really hard to see this as anything other than at worst neutral.
Right. Presumably, they’re worried that some Tesla owners are being dissuaded from trading in for a new Tesla, because they would lose their unlimited supercharging. This offer is an attempt to soften that blow.
There’s an easy way to do this. Buy out the contract.
Companies offer foolish lifetime packages all the time. I think it was American Airlines offered lifetime unlimited first class flights. They can’t claw this product away from the few remaining die hard users, and they only sold a few dozen of the things.
I expect the reason for wanting out of the deal is the same.
Airline seats and supercharging time share a scheduling problem. Having even a few customers with unlimited rights to a limited resource creates intractable scheduling conflicts.
> Having even a few customers with unlimited rights to a limited resource creates intractable scheduling conflicts.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "scheduling conflicts"? I'd assume the problem simply that these people are using the free things more or longer than anticipated: Tesla has to pay more for the power usage, the airline has to give seats it won't receive extra money for. What does this have to do with scheduling, or how does some other scheduling problem have an even greater negative effect, as you seem to suggest?
Unsurprising and honestly not the craziest thing. “Infinite” and perpetual liabilities are tricky from an accounting point of view and also hard to model accurately.
If Tesla offers V2L sometime down the line and you can retrofit it on one of these cars - you can just forever power your home and other cars from your existing car for free
I have unlimited free super charging on my 2020 model X as they had a brief promotion that ended January 2020, the month I bought mine. We live half a mile from a super charger and have a home charger but only use it in a pinch. Otherwise we exclusively charge at the super charger for free. I plan to drive that model X until it sublimates.
This is happening because owners are not trading in.
The people who buy new cars are different from folks who buy used cars. They are less price sensitive and are likely to trade in their car every few years.
They are the ones that keep the gravy train running.
And now they can't get the "Free Supercharging" option, and aren't buying. So telsa is trying to help them out, while ending the free supercharging.
Personally, I think one other thing telsa ended is individual controls for functions like turn signals, headlights, wipers, PRND - that sucks more than losing free supercharging. (I'm not talking about touch controls)
If they want more inside sales, perhaps Tesla should actually release a new product. People who have an S don't want to "downgrade" to a 3/Y that maybe doesn't have air suspension.
Cybertruck and Roadster were supposed to be here by now. What do they expect? ZIRP allowed them to cruise along till now.
I knew their stalks had fewer buttons, but everything? Eww. Very glad I grabbed an Elantra before it gets the axe next year, it's essentially a model 3 minus 90-degree autopilot.
> Earlier this year, Tesla made a first effort to try to get those vehicles off the perk by offering owners an extra $5,000 discount if they trade in a Model S and Model X with unlimited free Supercharging.
> Now Tesla is doubling down on this effort by launching what it calls a new “Ownership Loyalty Benefit.”
> The automaker is offering those owners six years of unlimited Supercharging when buying a new Model S or Model X by the end of the quarter.
In the article How much does it cost to charge a Tesla? [1] the Cost to charge a Tesla Supercharger/DCFC is in the range of $5.28 per 100 miles (Model Y) to $5.97 per 100 miles (Model 3) to $6.37 per 100 miles (Model X) to $5.88 per 100 miles (Model S Plaid).
Lets take a blended average of $5.80 per 100 miles.
Average miles driven per year (CA) is 14,435 miles. [2]
That gives a supercharger charging cost of $837.23 per year.
For 6 years, that is a cost of $5023.38 without considering time value of money. If we use the national average from [3], Tesla Model Ys are driven 13,500 miles and at the average Model Y charging cost of $5.28/100 miles that is $712.80 or $4276.80 over 5 years.
And customers did not bite the $5k offer in expected numbers to surrender the free supercharger perk. Perhaps, Tesla should look at upping the offer.
They have to record a liability for future charging until they extinguish it. If it is recorded at 20k per car, and they replace it with sitting like 6k per car, they make a huge profit
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 221 ms ] threadWhich reminds me that most positive stories about companies are probably due to the PR department.
Asking because I am curious to see this take, not to dispute it.
And it's indisputable that Twitter is in serious trouble.
By Musk's own admission the company is worth less than half what he paid for it. Revenue has plummeted, toxicity is rampant, lawsuits are increasing and Twitter Blue has been a disaster that will likely be researched for years.
And so all of this chaos has dragged Musk's reputation down which in turn is affecting Tesla.
Eventually it gets old when everyone has the same looking car.
Is this a crisis? Too early to say, but nevertheless this all happend while competitors are catching up and latest offerings from German manufacturers looks very promising. There is a very real chance Tesla can loose the luxury EV segment.
I agree there will soon be more choices, but that's going to be a problem in 2 years, especially in the luxury segment.
This year everyone from Mini to Royce Rolls are selling EVs. Some such as BMW and Polestar are on their 3rd generation.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/12/elon-musk-is-no-longer-the-r...
/pedant
I have no doubt that hubris is a longstanding character defect in his case.
It sounds like a very long shot, though.
Seems like a brand in crisis to me.
If he'd stuck to running Tesla and SpaceX to the best of his ability, without picking stupid internet fights, and keeping his Twitter addiction in check, he'd still have all that respect, and not just wasted $44B.
The way he mismanaged Twitter makes pretty clear he doesn't really know what he's doing. Even if the decision to buy was made after too much wine, he's had plenty of time to sober up since then, but he just keeps doubling down on all the worst decisions.
He's a great salesman. Or was, at least. He was like Steve Jobs who could sell the amazing work of Woz and other Apple engineers. But that charisma has gotten seriously dented now.
Well if he has bad habits, like a lot of us do, then its not just a matter of sobering up like it's a one time event.
> But that charisma has gotten seriously dented now.
The guy never had natural charisma in my opinion - a kind of glamour perhaps, from the wealth and achievements. I don't see the comparison with Jobs though, who was a natural salesman - Musk is a terrible public speaker, and should probably let other execs in his companies do the presentations.
Regarding the Stark comparison - IMO it doesn't matter how involved he really was with the engineering, or that he bought tesla etc - isn't it impressive enough that he made stuff happen? Can you nominate a better candidate for that comparison?
I don't mean to be confrontational though, and I respect your points.
But he didn't make stuff happen, he just paid for it. Why should we consider "Have enough money to pay for someone else to do good things" an impressive trait? Maybe we should stop deifying management for just doing a useful thing once in a while in between all the milking franchises and wealth extraction.
People who haven’t tried to run a company often fundamental misunderstand the nature the extent of the job, but claiming Musk is just “doing a useful thing once in a while in between all the milking franchises and wealth extraction” comes off like sour grapes.
I think it’s a truly bizarre smear to claim he nor Jobs “didn’t invent any of the stuff he sells” when they are perhaps the two most notable technical visionaries of our time.
I guess you can make that argument if you tilt your head and squint a certain way.
But he did become involved in Tesla when the company had only 3 employees, and contributed >85% of the series A funding (and also led the B and C rounds). He's been there for 19 of the company's 19.5 years of existence... hardly a new kid on the block.
To unpackage this further: a big part of Tesla's "cool" was that in allowed customers have luxury and performance while not trading off being "green", and by implication being pro-social. It was a have-your-cake-and-eat-it deal, for those who could afford it. People who had to accept tradeoffs bought a Nissan Leaf.
Now there are more EV options, and Musk's behavior has done irreparable damage to the pro-social brand associations that Tesla had. It's now more associated with the tech-bro archetype, and all the baggage that carries, similar to how Wall St guys were associated with Lambos a few decades ago.
That said, I still see plenty of new Teslas on the road in liberal areas, but they are often rationalized in practical terms, not with the religious zeal that customers used to have.
A gossip campaign of an improperly predicated assertion is called a “wrap-up smear” in some circles. What’s your basis?
I think the offer they've made is a decent one. Looking at my charging habits I would actually have preferred the $5k rebate over 6 years of supercharging. I wouldn't want to spend 30 minutes every week at supercharger, and charging over-night at home is dirt cheap.
This limitation is not based on the vehicle model you drive but based on the age and condition of the battery. Certain high-milage battery packs that have been supercharged frequently during their life tend to be the ones affected.
But if you replace an old, rate-limited battery with a new (or newer) one, you get back the full charging speed.
Today it is, but "energy crisis" headlines are pilling up.
Apple didn't get away with slowing down iPhones for this stated purpose, what makes Tesla think they can get away with it?
btw Android is not an end product like a car and Google doesn't really "provide updates" for Android phones, but I'll let they pass.
Yes, they update the maps every now and then when you take it to the service and when they remember to plug the laptop in for the map update. But an actual update that adds new features is next to unheard-of.
Actual new features beyond map updates for a 10+ year old car? Never been done before by any brand ever.
(I generally think the "all out-of-date devices must be burned" mantra is a tad overblown, but they are at least somewhat dangerous in a way that non-networked computers are not.)
Traditional have cars and they are trying to shove computers into them.
The traditional model of upgrading infotainment software has been "lol, buy a new car" for a good quarter of a century now. But now Tesla is changing the expectations with Joe mode and Dog mode starting as someone requesting stuff from Elon and the feature appearing OTA in a matter of weeks.
Dog Mode, is still a rarity in EVs for some reason. It's a dead simple feature: "allow the heating/ac to work while car is locked, optionally display internal temperature on infotainment display so that people don't break the windows to 'rescue' the dogs".
The few that have it (Polestar and Mercedes I think) limit the usage to max 30 minutes.
Trouble starts when the computer is networked and therefore vulnerable to more attacks. And for networked computers, security updates are table stakes. Feature updates are merely nice.
To compare apples to apples, you need to compare Tesla to another brand of networked cars.
Toyota lives in the 90's from a cyber technology perspective. It is so bad that I wonder how the engineers who work there can say to themselves "I did something great".
I do not know other cars but I guess this is similar.
I think that's preferable. That Teslas are "computers with a car built around them" that phone home to the mothership and get automatic updates is the main reason why I will never buy a Tesla.
Huh? So what happens after 30 minutes? The car heats up and the dog cooks?!
There are no technical reasons not to have the ac/heating run longer, they just decided to cap it to an arbitrary 30 minutes.
It doesn't sound impressive so much as excessive and dangerous. I would not want to purchase a car, which drives at high speeds on the road, the functionality of which depends on regular software updates from a company. I want a car that runs, won't kill me, and is easily and cheaply repairable. As far as I can tell, Teslas don't satisfy any of those concerns even if you spend a lot of money to service them.
Even the juicero couldn't kill you because of a software error...Tesla increasingly seems to me to be a piece of Silicon Valley fluff, and a dangerous one at that.
My Dad had a 2019 Model X, which I think was one of the last to be offered with unlimited free supercharging. He loved it but unfortunately someone crashed into it and it was written off. A double blow because the Model X is not currently sold in our country, so he's had to wait a long time (and is still waiting) for a replacement, and secondly he's lost the unlimited free supercharging.
Shocking. How much does it cost if you are paying? I'd be curious to see the math behind these offers.
They're competing with a ton of operators on cost, the margins are very small. When they start offering retail services on supercharger locations, then you know they're serious about making this a profit center.
But ... in Norway at least, Tesla was seemingly very keen on expanding their supercharger network fast, so they partnered up with everything from gas stations to fast food places.
The same offer might be hugely in favor of one customer and to the disadvantage of another. Who's favored overall depends on who accepts the deal (which both sides can try to influence)
For instance in the mid 70s exchanged the few “GS Birotor” it had sold for CXs, which was higher in the range.
The deal was very much in Citroen’s favour, but not to the client’s loss: the birotor was effectively pretty crummy (outside of being a collector model, which is how a few survived), and it was launched just as the oil crisis started powered by a gas-guzzling (and unreliable) rotary engine, as well as being almost double the price of a standard GS.
As a result it sold extremely poorly (847 units were produced) and was quickly pulled. Citroen tried to buy / exchange them back (and did get most of them) so it didn’t need to support the car and keep spare parts through its network.
That said, 5k discount on a new car could make a lot of people happy too.
I’d say this is one of the really good handling of how to end a ‘lifetime’ offer instead of just revoking it once you don’t like it anymore. Of which we have plenty of examples.
Does anyone intentionally make a habit of conducting dealings that are not in their favor?
For three thousand charger at net of 0.29 per kwh would mean that you have to sell 100 00 kwh of energy. And 3000 is probably bit low for these type of installations in total cost.
In Germany, we already pay taxes for this exact thing, so that shouldn't be factored into the cost of the charging itself.
Although I don't think the price has to be exactly the same as regular consumer electricity price, it should cover some maintenance.
Why would that make more sense? You'd need to raise the cost of the cars, which would decrease sales. Also, people who charge at home would be paying for super chargers they might not use. Usage-based charges seems totally logical here.
Large users pay $0.06 per kW-h and then a demand charge of $10 per kW based on their max draw for the month. So if you do a bit to smooth out demand, the resulting cost isn't going to be wildly different than residential.
Beyond all that, Supercharger outlets are arguably a business of sorts. Which means it needs to make a profit and not just sell at cost.
I'd guess it depends very much on the power available to Tesla at the location. In some locations there will be plenty of power with little additional cost from the electricity company (e.g. near an industrial area), in others the opposite (isolated motorway rest area).
If you want cheaper charging, you can use a schuko plug at home or a 22kW charger at a store or parking garage.
You're paying for a service.
It should be obvious really that a Tesla with unlimited supercharging would need a higher trade-in value than one without. If you want those owners to buy a new car you need to offer them more than those without the unlimited supercharging.
Really hard to see this as anything other than at worst neutral.
If I wanted to trade in my Model S with unlimited supercharging, I'd sell it on the used market and use that as a premium to get more for it.
Companies offer foolish lifetime packages all the time. I think it was American Airlines offered lifetime unlimited first class flights. They can’t claw this product away from the few remaining die hard users, and they only sold a few dozen of the things.
I expect the reason for wanting out of the deal is the same.
Airline seats and supercharging time share a scheduling problem. Having even a few customers with unlimited rights to a limited resource creates intractable scheduling conflicts.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "scheduling conflicts"? I'd assume the problem simply that these people are using the free things more or longer than anticipated: Tesla has to pay more for the power usage, the airline has to give seats it won't receive extra money for. What does this have to do with scheduling, or how does some other scheduling problem have an even greater negative effect, as you seem to suggest?
The people who buy new cars are different from folks who buy used cars. They are less price sensitive and are likely to trade in their car every few years.
They are the ones that keep the gravy train running.
And now they can't get the "Free Supercharging" option, and aren't buying. So telsa is trying to help them out, while ending the free supercharging.
Personally, I think one other thing telsa ended is individual controls for functions like turn signals, headlights, wipers, PRND - that sucks more than losing free supercharging. (I'm not talking about touch controls)
Cybertruck and Roadster were supposed to be here by now. What do they expect? ZIRP allowed them to cruise along till now.
Wait what? Teslas have these all mapped to the same button?
> Earlier this year, Tesla made a first effort to try to get those vehicles off the perk by offering owners an extra $5,000 discount if they trade in a Model S and Model X with unlimited free Supercharging.
> Now Tesla is doubling down on this effort by launching what it calls a new “Ownership Loyalty Benefit.”
> The automaker is offering those owners six years of unlimited Supercharging when buying a new Model S or Model X by the end of the quarter.
In the article How much does it cost to charge a Tesla? [1] the Cost to charge a Tesla Supercharger/DCFC is in the range of $5.28 per 100 miles (Model Y) to $5.97 per 100 miles (Model 3) to $6.37 per 100 miles (Model X) to $5.88 per 100 miles (Model S Plaid).
Lets take a blended average of $5.80 per 100 miles.
Average miles driven per year (CA) is 14,435 miles. [2]
That gives a supercharger charging cost of $837.23 per year. For 6 years, that is a cost of $5023.38 without considering time value of money. If we use the national average from [3], Tesla Model Ys are driven 13,500 miles and at the average Model Y charging cost of $5.28/100 miles that is $712.80 or $4276.80 over 5 years.
And customers did not bite the $5k offer in expected numbers to surrender the free supercharger perk. Perhaps, Tesla should look at upping the offer.
[1]: https://electrek.co/2021/10/27/how-much-does-it-cost-to-char...
[2]: https://www.caranddriver.com/auto-loans/a32880477/average-mi...
[3]: https://insideevs.com/news/587352/tesla-modely-average-annua...