I recently went out of town for a wedding.  The venue was probably within my range for driving to and from the event.  I decided to top off the charge just in case.  After a short bit of research, I found the most convenient charging station for my trip.  The station was located at a business, which I knew very little about.  In order to generalize this post, I will not name the business as it is not particularly relevant. My new Chargepoint card had already arrived in the mail, so everything was set.

When I arrived at the station, the owner greeted me and said I was the first Model S to have visited the station.  I learned that even though I needed to use the card, the energy was free.  They had actually built excess solar power and were giving quite a bit of free energy back to PG&E, and did not have many people using their station.  In California, PG&E is not a particularly popular business. They did ask me if I wanted to come into the business, and I said that I might upon my return.

Does one have any obligation to visit a business while using their free charging station?

Is it rude to use the power at a station with no interest in the business?

Would the decision be different depending upon the energy company?

Would you make a perfunctory purchase in order to be polite?

Using a Free Charging Station

If I make a call into the service center and leave a message, how long is a reasonable turnaround for a call back?

I have been waiting 3 days, or 72 hours so far for a return call or email.  I provided a telephone number, my email and even my VIN # for reference.  My problem is not urgent, but I don’t think it is particularly safe to drive around a car that can open its door randomly without any warning.  So far this problem has happened only when stopped but that could allow someone to enter the car or for it to rain on the interior.  I would not have this complaint if someone at least returned my call to discuss the issue or schedule an appointment sometime in the next month.

The last time I took the car in for service, I also had to call multiple times to schedule an appointment.  And I never got the promised callback to discuss the issue again after the problem occurred the first time post service.

Elon Musk recently tweeted and acknowledged the problems with service.  I am not faulting the individuals who work there as they have all been great, they are just significantly understaffed and the understaffing problem is not new.

Elon Musk’s service tweet

Map Goes Black without Cell Coverage

I was a bit surprised on a recent trip to Pinnacles National Park, that the navigation map went completely blank when it lost cell phone service.  On my ipad and iphone, once the map is loaded and you lose a connection, you do not lose the actual map.  For some reason, the Tesla map does not even have the last map in memory.  I was quite surprised when I saw a black screen.

I understand that the navigation works with google maps.  I do not expect to ask for a new destination, but I think having a black screen is unacceptable.  The turn by turn direction was still listed on the side.  I actually find turn by turn annoying, and I keep the voice muted unless I am in an unfamiliar congested city.  I have always loved visual maps and often use navigation simply to have an estimate for the number of miles left on the journey, not for the actual directions.

Also, the Tesla app cannot talk to the car without a cell phone signal.  When I configured my car, I was told that there was still a wi-fi connection but this is not true.  I would like to pre-cool my car in many places without cell phone coverage and having the app access the car through wi-fi would be very nice.  I don’t know whether or not there is wi-fi built into the Model S.

A workaround that works pretty well is to open all the doors and windows before arriving at the car to let all the hot air out.  This workaround works well here where it typically gets hot but not super hot.  The key fob works at a pretty far away distance to open all the windows.  I was comfortable opening all the windows in the parking lot at Pinnacles without anything of particular value in the car.  This workaround may not function well in other locations with more people and crime, or in hotter weather.

The drive to Pinnacles is a lovely drive and passing other cars in the Model S almost feels instantaneous.

Pinnacles National Par

Self Opening Door

My door self opened again.  Maybe it is haunted?  I had it in for service a couple of months ago.  It self opened the next day but has been quite since.  I also got a software update shortly afterwards.

The self opening door this time came by surprise.  I had no issues with the door opening by itself since the day after the service call.

The day of the haunting, I had driven quite a few miles that day and had stopped at the Gilroy supercharger for a quick top off while checking my email.

I went to throw a few things away in a nearby trash bin and as I was walking away I heard a

“Your door is open!”

My first reaction was that maybe I left the driver door open as I was just walking maybe a few hundred feet, but instead it was my haunted door.

Sometimes the passenger side of the car does not seem as eager to present the door handles as the driver’s side, but I was thinking that perhaps the car was intentionally designed that way.

I still never got my call back from the Menlo Park service center from the last self opening door incident.  They were going to check with engineering to see if this problem was going to be fixed with the software or not.

On the Tesla Motors Club Forum there has been some excitement over sudden drops of rated range on this thread.

During my service visit a couple of months ago, I was told by the service manager that the rated range changes depending upon your driving conditions.  Several customers were getting confused about this and even a bit alarmed thinking that their battery was degrading quite fast.  The service manager said something to the effect that “the software engineers were too smart for their own good.”

I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the range after charging.  I rarely even look at the battery pack as it has been plentiful, so the gauge got boring.  After watching this thread, I did notice my rated range was at the bottom of the reported ranges.

My Range After Standard Charge

I am actually not that surprised that my range would be lower than normal.  I do not drive much on city streets.   My driving is probably 20% on highways around 40mph, 60% on freeways without much traffic, and 20% on city streets.  The street up to my house also has a very steep grade.  It takes a lot of energy to get to my house as you can see in the graph below.

I think having this range personalized is useful as the data is more accurate.  But I would like some other kind of battery gauge stating such as a SOC, state of charge, indicator.  Eventually if you want to resell your Model S and you have driven it aggressively, this personal rated range could be a false indicator.

The drive up to my house