This Week in Tesla - Disruptive ICE Owners in Yorktown, NYS Teams Up With Ireland & Denmark on Renewables

ICE Owners Disrupt Yorktown Heights Supercharger

In a recent meetup of the Cars & Coffee group of Yorktown, NY it was decided to meet at a parking lot which also had a Supercharger located in it. The parking lot in question, as can be seen from the photo below, has several other spots suitable for the meetup. This led to several non Tesla vehicles blocking every single one of the dedicated charging spots that many Tesla owners rely on to power their cars. Needless to say, the Tesla owners that showed up to charge were not happy about this and vented their frustration online, pictures and all.

Although the Cars & Coffee group responded to the social media outrage of Tesla owners, by admitting that people need to charge and telling its members to park elsewhere next time, it’s difficult to understand how the people parking in these spots did not realize that they might be doing something wrong by parking there. If one were pulling into the lot, wanting to charge, they would be forced to locate the owner of one of the cars and ask them to move. Not only would this be a massive inconvenience, but it would be something that one would rarely have to do at a gas station. Judging by the fact that there were so many open spots in nearby parking lots, one can’t help but think that it may have been done intentionally.

Governor Cuomo’s Office Announces NYS Partnership with Ireland & Denmark to Modernize New York’s Power Grid

This week, the office of New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a new partnership with the nations of Ireland and Denmark to modernize the state’s power grid and make it suitable for further development of renewable energy, as well as more efficient. This is progress towards Cuomo’s Climate Leadership and Protection Act, which he signed this summer. The act mandates that New York State be using 100% clean and carbon free energy by 2040. This EPA resource shows where one’s energy comes from and hopefully, in the near future, we will begin to see more and more renewables from solar, offshore wind, and hydro-electric power sources.

The Beginning of “Connectivity” Charges from Tesla?

Since you’ve bought your Tesla, you have been able to remarkably use cellular service features for free, such as Google Maps, and even the internet. Tesla has now started monitoring your data usage and may soon begin to charge you for it as they expressed in 2014. In 2014, they stated that data usage in Teslas would be free for four years. The deadline arrived in 2018 and they've continued to offer the service for free. Now, a few owners have reported that after a recent update, they have begun to see their data usage out of 50GB shown in the car’s display.

The question is, what happens after 50GB? Are you charged? The best answer seems to involve the tiers of connectivity included with your Tesla. If you have a base, standard range Model 3, you most likely have the “Standard Connectivity” which offers basic maps, bluetooth music connectivity, and software updates over Wi-Fi. If you have a more premium Model 3, or any Model S or X, you have the “Premium Connectivity” which offers, satellite view maps with traffic visualization, music streaming, and an internet browser.

It’s suspected that if you have the “Standard Connectivity”, you will be charged if you use too much data in your car. This also may have something to do with Version 10’s new Tesla Theater Mode which was outlined in last week’s article. You may be able to stream limited video over the cellular included in the car, but once you hit a certain limit you will be charged if you aren’t on Wi-Fi. These are all mere speculations and ultimately, only time will tell what Elon and his team have up their sleeves.

The Arrival of V10 Comes With a Cost

After discussing V10 last week, we are now finally seeing the beginnings of a massive software update. This comes ahead of schedule as CEO Elon Musk earlier stated that the update would roll out around late October. Your car will qualify for this initial rollout if you have a newer car with Full Self Driving and the Advanced setting selected in the software update menu. Don’t be surprised if this initial rollout is pretty buggy, as most of these early iterations tend to be. Typically, the bugs fade as time goes on, so if wanting to avoid these bugs, it’s recommended to wait for a later iteration to install it. The update also contains Spotify which means that with a Spotify Premium account, you will be able to access your music in your car. This update will improve the entire fleet of Teslas and push the cars closer to the fun, self driving machines they were designed to be.

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