Category: News

Harald and I represented TOCWA at the Tesla Owners Club 2018 Leadership Summit in Fremont, California from the 11th to 13th October.

The summit was designed to be a two-way conversation between Tesla and owners and representatives from official owners groups from around the world were invited.

We began with a factory tour on registration day, and then spent the next day in sessions.

Tesla sent along a number of staff to talk about Tesla’s approach to marketing, owner liaison and how it hopes to work with us.  Some highlights of that conversation are:

• Tesla is keen to get owners involved in making the new owner experience as pleasant as possible.  In the US, in the leadup to the end-of-quarter, they invited various owners clubs to help with the large volume of Model 3 deliveries.  This experiment is likely to be repeated – TOCWA will follow up with Tesla about this happening in WA, and we may call for volunteers.
• There is now an up-to-date list of officially recognised owenrs clubs at https://www.tesla.com/support/tesla-owners-club-directory
• Tesla is working on a mechanism for new owners to be put in touch with official clubs in their region – this needs, of course, to be sensitive to any privacy issues.
• Tesla is slowly becoming more aware of issues presenting owners outside of continental North America, and recent tweets by Elon back this up

Same goes for all countries within which we officially operate by end of next year

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 17, 2018

We were also given a good look at the new Performance Model 3, as well as the new service vehicle designs to be rolled out

Most importantly, it was a great opportunity to see how other clubs around the world were interacting with Tesla and with owners, and we hope to be able to provide a better channel of communication that has been present thus far.

Nice writeup of the owners club summit in InsideEVs

This Shows The Ultimate Tesla Ownership Support … Wow!

As part of the Tesla Owners Club Summit in Fremont, we visited the Tesla factory for a tour.

Although we’re not allowed to talk about what we saw there, the factory speaks volumes of Tesla’s success in getting these vehcles designed and built.

The Model S/X line and the new Model 3 line were running at full strength to meet the ongoing demand for product.  We spent a bit of time on the tour trying to spot the odd right-hand-drive vehicle (none were spotted on the 3 line, unfortuantely!)

The Australian Government is holding an Inquiry into Elecric Vehicles through a senate committee chaired by independent SA senator, Tim Storer.

The terms of reference of the inquiry are:

1. the potential economic, environmental and social benefits of widespread electric vehicle uptake in Australia;
2. opportunities for electric vehicle manufacturing and electric vehicle supply and value chain services in Australia, and related economic benefits;
3. measures to support the acceleration of electric vehicle uptake;
4. measures to attract electric vehicle manufacturing and electric vehicle supply and value chain manufacturing to Australia;
5. how federal, state and territory Governments could work together to support electric vehicle uptake and manufacturing, supply, and value chain activities; and
6. any other related matters.

TOCWA did not submit as an organisation, but members of the committee took some of our input, and made their own submissions – these submissions are linked below

Tesla also made a direct submission

You can see the full inquiry page here

Sylvia visited Perth back in April, and there’s a great writeup of her trip here:

Sylvia , 70, completes round-Australia trip in an EV for …. $150.90

PRESS RELEASE
By Horizon Power on 16 March 2018

Electric vehicles can now travel across WA’s Kimberley region, thanks to three new charging stations servicing the 900km stretch of Northern Highway between Kununurra and Derby.

The stations have been installed by Horizon Power in the remote Kimberley communities of Warmun, Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing, completing the ‘missing link’ for electric vehicle charging availability around Australia’s perimeter.

Due to their limited travelling range, electric vehicles were previously only able to reach Kununurra in the East Kimberley, or Derby in the West Kimberley.

Tara Stigwood, Horizon Power Retail and Community Manager East Kimberley said the charging stations were part of the electricity utility’s commitment to a sustainable energy future for regional Western Australia.

“Knowing they can now complete their journey through the Kimberley will encourage more electric vehicle users to travel through this magnificent part of Australia,” Ms Stigwood said.

“That’s great for local businesses and the people in our remote communities.”

“We have a range of exciting projects across the state focusing on providing innovative energy choices for customers,” Ms Stigwood said.

“Making electricity available to power vehicles is just one of the ways we’re working toward our vision for the future of energy.”

Chris Jones, National Secretary of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association said using electric vehicles has a number of benefits.

“In addition to saving on fuel, electric cars are quieter than those with internal combustion engines, and have no exhaust emissions which improves public health and reduces ecological impacts,” Mr Jones said.

The new vehicle charging stations are located at the Warmun Roadhouse, Halls Creek Service Station and Fitzroy Crossing Roadhouse.

To view the network of 450 electric vehicle charging stations across Australia visit https://www.plugshare.com/

For media queries, please contact the media line on 1800 799 745.

Hi All Teslans,

Welcome to our first newsletter for 2018, and a special welcome to our new members, we hope you had a wonderful summer season and we look forward to a great year ahead.

Here is an update of our recent news:

Affiliation

Tesla Owners Club Western Australia (TOCWA) is now official, Tesla motors USA accepted our application and Australia now holds the distinction of being the only country outside of the USA to have an official regional based club. Although TOCWA are completely independent of Tesla owners club Australia (TOCA) both clubs are keen to work together when required, a big thank you to Annie Atkins for putting in the hard work and communicating with Tesla and presenting our case.

Membership

TOCWA now has over 40 members and is keen to recruit more; membership is $50 per year and brings a host of benefits including access to charging cables, member’s discounts on Tesla official merchandise and discounts on TOCWA sponsors products.

Charging facilities

Basic AC charging options are popping up everywhere across both the metro area and regional areas, there are now over 44 locations with Tesla destination chargers and many more locations with 3 phase outlets dedicated to EV charging, AC charging is not the perfect long term solution but it’s low cost to install and gets the discussion started on future possibilities, as time goes on and the EV population increases faster DC charging will become the norm. Don’t forget to make full use of plugshare before and during charging.

Becoming an Outback EV warrior

Once you’ve become accustomed to the driving and charging an EV around the metro area you may like to try something more adventurous, the prerequisites are planning, patience and a spare tyre (you can borrow a spare wheel/tyre combo from McCarthy’s prestige in Claremont), start with the relative safety of the South west where there are a plentiful supply of charging options, a trip to Albany via Bridgetown is a good starter, after gaining experience with energy use on country roads, charging speeds and other factors you can then try trips to Esperance, Kalgoorlie or Geraldton. The 3 most important tips I could give you when country driving is study plugshare religiously, always have a charging plan B and drive at a speed that gives full respect to the unpredictable wildlife.

Upcoming events

TOCWA have a few events in the planning including a drive day to York on the 8th of April. Please mark this date in your calendar.

There are also a number of AEVA organised car events that are a great opportunity to pick up some tips and tricks from long term EV fanatics.

Useful resources

TOCWA has a twitter account @tesla_wa, a website-https://www.tocwa.org.au/ and a facebook group- Tesla Owners Club WA, if you are keen to keep up with the ever changing world of electric vehicles, battery storage, renewable energy and sustainability I recommend an Australian site http://reneweconomy.com.au/ and a California based site https://electrek.co/

Happy motoring

Rob Dean

TOCWA Chair.

Inaugural TOCWA Newsletter Feb 2018

TOCWA, along with AEVA, wanted to see if a Tesla Model S would be more efficient in its use of energy than an efficient diesel vehicle.  So a test was run with a Volvo V40 T5 2L diesel against the same amount of power from a diesel generator.

Which do you think used less fuel for the same 100km run?

Watch Here

It’s also covered in this article at RenewEconomy

and this one at Elektrek

Tesla Owners Club of Western Australia has completed its affiliation with Tesla.

We’re now officially part of the Tesla family through Tesla’s club programme.

As such, we now have a direct line for members interests into Tesla, and a role in coordinating events here in WA.

If you have a recent 75D model S or X that was built before July 2017, you can get it “uncorked” to the same performance as the post July 2017 ones now – it depends on components and age, but well worth checking.

For the model S 75D the 0-100 time is 4.4 seconds down from 5.5 seconds, and for the model X 75D, 5.2 seconds down from 6.5 seconds.

One owner had theirs done today, and has noticed a significant improvement in performance.

This is one of the really unique things about Tesla – how many other cars have you owned where months after the original purchase, you get a free power upgrade?