at 877-798-3752, and managed to reach a human on the second or third try. She was in Utah, not the Phillipines or someplace in Central America. Point in their favor right up front. I said I was keenly interested in the effort to roll out CCS charging be it "magic dock" or whatever else, but getting their app from the play-store was a non-starter so had they thought about alternative means to use the service?? I could go to the Tesla website and create an account and associate a payment method, but would still need a means to actually use a charger. I described the alternatives that the other networks use -- RFID tap-cards, credit/debit chip readers, etc, and what would Tesla's plans be to offer similar facilities?? This apparently took the rep by surprise, which it really shouldn't have, but she understood how various bad assumptions have been made, and that as they start rolling out more CCS compatibility in an effort to actually become part of a genuinely public network, they really need to think about these things and engineer ways to become more accomodating. One five-minute fix that can reach more potential users is to make the app install packages directly available on their website, and/or make it possible for a user to authenticate and start a charge from the website itself using the generic browser they already have. Since most "apps" work internally like glorified web clients anyway and call all the same APIs, that certainly isn't a development stretch. This evidently got funneled up the "suggestions" pipeline along with the hundreds of others they get per day, so you can guess how confident I am that they'll actually wise up at the decision-making level. But maybe if some other people make similar waves, they'd start listening a little better. Does your privilege to own a compatible smartphone and willingness to sacrifice your own life to Apple or Google entitle you to ignore problems like this on behalf of others who would maybe like to join the same community? No, it does not, and you should do your own part to fight for broad equity too. This stuff MATTERS, and needing to deal with this is barreling at Tesla like a freight train. They cannot dictate to this new market, no matter how arrogant they are. _H*
Out of curiosity, why is installing their app a non starter? I would gladly install the tesla App if it meant access to a fantastic charging network. And it's got to be better than EA's app. Someone else published some stats - in the same time period, EA installed something like 60 chargers, Tesla installed over 1200! And lets not even talk about Ea's poor reliability. I know some rave about EA, but in my area, its a mess, with no redundancy.
There are evil Apps. For example, one of my popular YouTube content authors keeps advocating "telegram" so I downloaded. Then it insisted it had to have access to my contacts list ... H*LL NO! Although Apple is 'less bad' than other App Library/Store providers, their survey and protections are too thin for me. I don't trust any new App until it proves itself 'not evil.' Both Circle K and 7-11 have claimed to be installing their own, CCS-1 exclusive, fast DC charging networks. So puzzle me this Batman: Tesla EVs are at least 2/3 to 3/4 of all EVs Tesla owners regularly travel 'vast distances' compared to our fellow EV owners. CHAdeMO, a Nissan only EV plug, at 50 kW (typical) has all but disappeared on new EVs. Tesla has released the technical specs for the vastly superior plug over CCS-1 Less than 1/3d the weight which is a challenge for small people Simpler, less expensive to manufacture Plug and charge billing, the car VIN identifies the previously registered payment I am reminded that a "press release" is not "a product." The willingness to believe Circle K and 7-11, even as badly designed as shown ... color me skeptical. Bob Wilson
I looked at the data from CleanTechnica for the 2019-2022 BEV sales in USA (totalling 1,701,477). If the Gen 4 chart port was made available around October 2020, then I took 25% of 2020 Tesla sales as CCS1 compatible. From the data we get: So for 2019-2022 USA BEVs only, there is about 80% of CCS1 compatible BEVs, but the CCS1 adapter would be required for Teslas equipped with the Gen4 charge port.
Owner of a 2019 Model 3, I’m not in that pool until a controller card upgrade shows up. I checked an hour ago and it was still not listed as an option. Regardless, I’m not desperate for CCS-1. It is heavier and announced cost is north of $500, and electricity is more expensive than Supercharger rates. FYI, there are no CCS-1 fast DC chargers between home and the Tunica casinos. As I might have mentioned, press releases are much cheaper than real hardware.
Installing the app is a non-starter for anyone who chooses to not have their personal devices tied to Google or Apple. If either one allowed downloads without being logged in, that could be an easy fix, and I've never understood why itunes / playstore insist on that. It's nuts, and protects against absolutely nothing. An alternative is a readily available alternate trustable source for the app, such as directly from tesla.com. I keep my devices free of "mothership" tethers for solid reasons, and call BS on any weak attempts to coerce me otherwise. _H*
You are most welcome to that stance, I really just was wondering if you had a specific problem with the Tesla app. Because I have seen some pretty bad Apps out there for the vehicles and Charging. EA's app has a lot of room to improve. So I wasn't grasping if your issue was App specific, or as it turns out, philosophical.
Tesla frequently changes their web site and App: Web site - took away the user forum and problem reporting form. Web-to-App - problems are now only 'service calls' that have to be scheduled. Web-to-App - billing invoices are only available via the App. App - has a good tracking tool for electric consumption and charging. Many of the changes are welcome but any change means old habits have to be broken to learn the new way. I agree with @hobbit that being tethered to 'the mother ship' can be disappointing. For example, JuiceBox is replacing their servers that my boxes used to record all charge sessions. Fortunately, these seven year old, EVSEs, continue to work as expected. Eventually they will break and I will replace them at half the price with better metrics and management. Bob Wilson
In the ongoing saga / cage-match, I actually signed up and created a Tesla account today, thinking ahead to some utopian time when I can roll up to a supercharger in my Kona and have the same experience that a Tesla owner would. Maybe with a NACS -> CCS1 adapter that I carry around, and definitely with support for generic Autocharge. In poking around at what I can do on the website, I see that I can set up a payment method, great, but there's nothing about adding my vehicle specifics or starting a charge at some location that I could easily type in given the charger ID. No, those critical on-the-ground functions are app-only. So I called them again, and this time I could reference an actual good-faith customer account, even if it was mere minutes old. [Interestingly, their site never asked me to verify my email address.] Their "contactus" form was broken, so I raised that as a meta-problem, but then got right into the mud and laid the whole app problem on them. [Where "them" was another reasonably friendly/understanding voice in Utah, even if it was like 20 minutes on hold to get there.] All my concerns got logged in another escalation ticket that I have the ID of this time, including the app-problem URL and my contact info and the fact that I was now registered within their infrastructure with certain expectations. Which will probably go into the same black hole that any other suggestions from the field go. I'm considering following up with a formal ethics complaint, citing discriminatory practices and the fact that regulation will eventually force their hand anyway and if they want to try and innovate alternatives creatively now instead of later under pressure, they need to get started. _H*
