This reminds me of the early history of street parking meters: They were introduced not as a source of revenue, but rather because retail store owners complained that their customers had nowhere to park. In one famous instance, one side of a street was metered and the other not, and the merchants on "free parking" side of the street immediately started lobbying to have meters installed on their side too, since their potential customers were parking where space was available... and not crossing the street.
People tend to think of metered street parking as being a matter of raising revenue, but in terms of the revenue raised per square foot it's one of the least profitable uses of real estate around; but even a nominal price works wonders to encourage drivers to plan on vacating their parking spot promptly once they're finished at the local stores.
It would be great if street parking everywhere were priced to pay for the land it used. Free (or very cheap) street parking (and also large parking space requirements for businesses) has to be one of the worst imaginable land uses: creates traffic, makes road design less friendly to pedestrians/cyclists/buses, undercuts paid parking structures, wastes incredible amounts of space.
It’s really nice that the commercial street near me in SF has started allowing businesses to replace parking spaces with public parklets. Much better use of space.
I agree and I noticed how really "Helpful" it is in my city. There are two parts of the city: One with metered parking (maximum stay is 2 hours) and the other with free parking.
It's impossible to find empty space on the free zone. It seems that people park there and only get off by the end of day. On the other hand, I always find a parking spot on the metered zone. It seems that being non-free and a time limit makes it impossible for full day parking. So only people in need of a short trip (30-90min) will park.
Elon just tweeted:"We are going to modify this so that people only pay a fee if most bays are occupied. If the site is basically deserted, no problem to park."
If the Supercharger stations are on private property, it seems like Tesla could legally activate self-driving "Summon" functionality to move fully-charged Teslas to nearby parking spaces. The only real challenge would be safely unplugging the cable without damage to the car, which is relatively trivial compared to the self-driving technology they've already built.
Not that difficult, the plug in the car could have an ejection mechanism(just pushing slowly the cable, nothing fancy) and then you move the car away to a parking slot with autosummon.
The cable just needs to be installed from a taller post that avoids it being dragged by the floor when released.
If done like this doesn't need really high tech on top of summon.
Owners have been complaining about it for a long time, especially at certain superchargers. Tesla is well aware (from their stats) where this problem exists.
What I found really cool was the week it apparently took them to implement the change after he tweeted about it. Maybe they were already working on it, or maybe they're just that fast and agile. Either way like you said, pretty cool.
The gas station analogy is contrived: a comparable car can be filled with half a tank of liquid fuel in two or three minutes, while the Tesla website quotes the supercharger charging it to half charge in 20 minutes.
It's certainly a lot more reasonable to leave the car unattended for 20 minutes while going about one's business, especially as supercharger stations in urban and suburban areas tend to be near malls and retail districts. Nor is it much fun running back to your car within five minutes, but it's clear that this initiative is trying to encourage a behavior that's more considerate towards others waiting to charge.
It also illustrates a different trend: that Teslas, more so than any previous car, blur the line between outright ownership and a automobiles-(and associated infrastructure)-as-a-Service -- (edit: even if they don't intend to make a profit off this change).
>Teslas, more so than any previous car, blur the line between outright ownership and a automobiles-(and associated infrastructure)-as-a-Service
Not that i think you're wrong, but i'm not sure how you draw that conclusion from this announcement. "you can't park your car forever at our charging stations" hardy implies you don't really own the car.
> Nor is it much fun running back to your car within five minutes
Considering (a) the charging status can be monitored through the app, (b) there's a push notification for "almost done", (c) there's the final push notification of "charging completed" when the 5-minute grace period kicks in, it's hardly a surprise out of the blue.
That kills the concept that people will eat meals while charging. What will restaurant operators who were going to allow Tesla to install charging points, such as this chain[1], do about this?
This is about time spent after having finished charging. As you are well aware, the charge current on Lithium batteries has to drop off a cliff as they near completion, so a full charge on a Tesla supercharger is still 1h+
Well if the restaurant is proving the space for super chargers then two ideas, one is they decide if there is a fee or they have designated valet service for their customers
For all who think it is inconvenient to move their cars after the charging has finished, think about how inconvenient it must be to stand with an empty battery in line at a supercharger, because people are parking but not charging there.
If they want to change behavior they should simply ban abusive users from the network, starting with a 1 day ban and increasing it with each next offense. There are people who will pay the $24/hr, when the cost:benefit analysis favors that choice.
Plus $24 per hour is a cheap parking spot in some cities. I might just park my gas guzzler at a SuperCharger the next time I can't find a reasonable spot.
I'm assuming that the charger only knows you're parked there because it's plugged in. What's to keep a Tesla owner from unplugging the charging cable and leaving the car in the parking spot? Maybe they'll use some of the wireless features in the car?
> they should simply ban abusive users from the network
Frequent chargers are not the issue. People who take up the parking spots are. For someone who lives near a supercharger or for certain businesses (cough, Tesloop) it was customary to park the vehicles overnight. You started early on some long drive, you get off at Culver City or Burbank supercharger around 7-8am and ... congrats, 8/8 or 12/12 spots taken, with none of the charger lights blinking (which means charging has been completed, possibly hours ago).
If someone sells their Telsa car to a third party, and that third party gets charged for parking there, would the initial owner get the bill? Does Tesla require that you inform them of re-sales?
A Whole Foods nearby has free charging spots and is headlining a small commercial plaza in the middle of a residential complex. Which basically means that whoever grabs the spot around 7-8pm gets an overnight parking spot, everybody else is welcome to get a quick charge next morning.
A good move - especially as the supply of superchargers begins to struggle to keep up with demand from all the new Model S & Model 3 owners over the next few years.
(Yes, they've announced that supercharging will incur a fee for certain Model 3 owners who reserved after a certain time - but still.)
An Israeli company in 2010 collaborated with Renault to develop a car with swappable batteries [1] and they had automatic battery swapping station that could fit new batteries in about a minute [2]. The venture went bust mostly due to mismanagement and questions about the sustainability of its business model due to the high infrastructure cost of building these stations.
Telsa entertained this concept and specifically designed the Model S with floor-mounted batteries to enable easy swapping [3], but then abandoned the idea.
If it continues to be an issue they can raise the price per minute significantly and have it all go to charity, keeping a live tracker on how much has gone to what charities.
Since Tesla can auto-drive. Why not have the car auto-drive to the charger, then the charger automatically recognize the Tesla outlet. Once it's done, the car is unplugged and leaves the place.
Anyway, the answer is, the self-connecting and disconnecting chargers aren't ready yet, and even when they are they won't magically appear at every supercharger. Also, the self driving isn't ready yet, and when it is it also won't be available worldwide. Also, where would the car go?
Owning a Tesla doesn't mean you're rich. I know people who saved up, used tax breaks, work bonuses, etc to bring one into affordability. Just because they spent money on something they want doesn't mean they don't care about money.
How did they come up with the figure of $0.40 per minute?
I can understand why they say "per Minute" since you think in seconds (which would be too short), minutes (just about right) and hours (which would be too long).
But that $0.40 charge per minute seems odd. Why not $1, why not $0.50, $0.25 or $0.10?
[+] [-] cperciva|9 years ago|reply
People tend to think of metered street parking as being a matter of raising revenue, but in terms of the revenue raised per square foot it's one of the least profitable uses of real estate around; but even a nominal price works wonders to encourage drivers to plan on vacating their parking spot promptly once they're finished at the local stores.
[+] [-] jacobolus|9 years ago|reply
It’s really nice that the commercial street near me in SF has started allowing businesses to replace parking spaces with public parklets. Much better use of space.
[+] [-] kosei|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csomar|9 years ago|reply
It's impossible to find empty space on the free zone. It seems that people park there and only get off by the end of day. On the other hand, I always find a parking spot on the metered zone. It seems that being non-free and a time limit makes it impossible for full day parking. So only people in need of a short trip (30-90min) will park.
[+] [-] CodeWriter23|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patman81|9 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/810135528783937537
[+] [-] brianshaler|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greglindahl|9 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM0lRfX6YI
[+] [-] omegant|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] firloop|9 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/807787096727425024
[+] [-] greglindahl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrfusion|9 years ago|reply
They probably had this ready for a while and responded to a tweet when ready to deploy. I'm sure they get tweets like that one every day.
[+] [-] indifferentalex|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] niftich|9 years ago|reply
It's certainly a lot more reasonable to leave the car unattended for 20 minutes while going about one's business, especially as supercharger stations in urban and suburban areas tend to be near malls and retail districts. Nor is it much fun running back to your car within five minutes, but it's clear that this initiative is trying to encourage a behavior that's more considerate towards others waiting to charge.
It also illustrates a different trend: that Teslas, more so than any previous car, blur the line between outright ownership and a automobiles-(and associated infrastructure)-as-a-Service -- (edit: even if they don't intend to make a profit off this change).
[+] [-] notatoad|9 years ago|reply
Not that i think you're wrong, but i'm not sure how you draw that conclusion from this announcement. "you can't park your car forever at our charging stations" hardy implies you don't really own the car.
[+] [-] prostoalex|9 years ago|reply
Considering (a) the charging status can be monitored through the app, (b) there's a push notification for "almost done", (c) there's the final push notification of "charging completed" when the 5-minute grace period kicks in, it's hardly a surprise out of the blue.
[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/30/12076172/tesla-supercharge...
[+] [-] alkonaut|9 years ago|reply
Restaurants could perhaps strike deals with Tesla to allow customers waived fees up to an hour or two?
[+] [-] revelation|9 years ago|reply
(Which is why most on a trip never charge fully)
[+] [-] XJOKOLAT|9 years ago|reply
Maybe for those who it is an issue for, Tesla can one day do an OTA which sends the car into an automated parking pattern.
>>When charge finish, automatically circle parking lot until parking spot found.
[+] [-] hobarrera|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _ph_|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] XorNot|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CodeWriter23|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smoyer|9 years ago|reply
I'm assuming that the charger only knows you're parked there because it's plugged in. What's to keep a Tesla owner from unplugging the charging cable and leaving the car in the parking spot? Maybe they'll use some of the wireless features in the car?
[+] [-] prostoalex|9 years ago|reply
Frequent chargers are not the issue. People who take up the parking spots are. For someone who lives near a supercharger or for certain businesses (cough, Tesloop) it was customary to park the vehicles overnight. You started early on some long drive, you get off at Culver City or Burbank supercharger around 7-8am and ... congrats, 8/8 or 12/12 spots taken, with none of the charger lights blinking (which means charging has been completed, possibly hours ago).
[+] [-] hobarrera|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greglindahl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flexie|9 years ago|reply
There is still not a single supercharger here in Bulgaria although the chart has shown they would set up some 3-4 stations here by 2016.
[+] [-] magoon|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prostoalex|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lloyddobbler|9 years ago|reply
(Yes, they've announced that supercharging will incur a fee for certain Model 3 owners who reserved after a certain time - but still.)
[+] [-] greglindahl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nanite|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dghughes|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brownbat|9 years ago|reply
I guess you'd never know how cycle-worn your new battery would be...
[+] [-] niftich|9 years ago|reply
Telsa entertained this concept and specifically designed the Model S with floor-mounted batteries to enable easy swapping [3], but then abandoned the idea.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Fluence_Z.E. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place#Battery-switching... [3] http://www.autoblog.com/2009/03/26/tesla-model-s-50-000-ev-s...
[+] [-] Hartge|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csomar|9 years ago|reply
Possible, no?
[+] [-] ClassyJacket|9 years ago|reply
Anyway, the answer is, the self-connecting and disconnecting chargers aren't ready yet, and even when they are they won't magically appear at every supercharger. Also, the self driving isn't ready yet, and when it is it also won't be available worldwide. Also, where would the car go?
[+] [-] dzhiurgis|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IshKebab|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tamalsaha001|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BinaryIdiot|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 464192002d7fe1c|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andreareina|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mlvljr|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] static_noise|9 years ago|reply
I can understand why they say "per Minute" since you think in seconds (which would be too short), minutes (just about right) and hours (which would be too long).
But that $0.40 charge per minute seems odd. Why not $1, why not $0.50, $0.25 or $0.10?