Netflix announced a major policy change this week that will have a big impact on Canadian Tesla owners and will leave many unable able to access the streaming service from their cars.
To crack down on password sharing Netflix is now requiring Canadian subscribers (and those in New Zealand, Portugal and Spain) to set a home location for their account. Once the home location is set (this is required by February 21, or Netflix will automatically assign one based on your usage habits), any device that uses your account must be logged into your home network at least once every 31 days.
If this doesn’t happen that particular device using Netflix elsewhere will be locked out. (You can read more of the details on the Netflix website.)
UPDATE Feb 13 8:15am PT: Netflix has reached out to Drive Tesla to confirm owners will not be required to sign in from their home location once every 31 days, and that this policy does not apply to Tesla vehicles. You can read more about this here.
This causes a problem for all Tesla owners as they will now have to sit in their car and log in to Netflix while connected to their home Wi-Fi at least once per month.
While this is definitely an inconvenience it is not insurmountable, but it will be for owners who are simply unable to connect their Tesla to their home network, like those who live in apartment buildings and park too far away from their home Wi-Fi.
We reached out to Netflix for an official statement on this new policy and how it applies to Tesla owners when it was announced earlier this week, both by email and through Twitter, but we have not received a response. Netflix online support agents have said that Tesla owners will have to pay an extra $7.99 per month to add another user (e.g., the car) to their account to avoid being locked out. We will update this article if we get a response from Netflix.
https://twitter.com/DriveTeslaca/status/1621258847817195520
