Late last year Tesla finally announced a Premium Connectivity Subscription for $9.99/month in the US. With that monthly fee, Tesla owners were able to retain access to certain features in the car like live traffic visualization, music streaming, and more.
When it was released, US Tesla owners had to pay $9.99/month to keep access to these Premium features. Canada was excluded from having to pay for Premium Connectivity, and Standard Range Plus (SR+) owners even got a bump and were upgraded for free to the package.
Now the free run for Canadian Tesla owners is over, as the automaker has just introduced this evening the subscription for Premium Connectivity.
According to Tesla’s website, the current free access will end one month from today on May 17, 2020. If you purchased your vehicle with the Premium Connectivity package after May 17, 2019, your complimentary period should end one year from your date of purchase.
UPDATE: We have already heard from some Canadian Tesla owners that all are showing the complimentary period as ending on May 17, 2020, even if your purchase was after May 17, 2019.
UPDATE 2: Here is a screenshot one of our readers Keith sent to us showing their expiry date as June 12, 2020 (it renews one day after it expires). Keith picked up his car June 12, 2019, so it appears some are still getting the 1 year trial.
After that date, Canadian Tesla owners will have to pay $13.99 + tax for the Premium Connectivity package, which is basically equivalent with the US package when taking the exchange rate into account. In B.C., that works out to $15.67/month.
To sign up, simply log in to your Tesla account on Tesla.com, click on “Manage” for your vehicle, and then click on ‘Subscribe’ under Premium Connectivity.
There will no doubt be many owners upset with having to pay for this package when up to this point it has been included for free. But Tesla has always advertised the current free access as being for just 1 year from the date of purchase.
There will also be complaints about the price at $13.99/month, but that is a reasonable price for what you are getting. Yes, you can still stream music via Bluetooth to your car, but there is definitely a convenience factor to having in-car streaming access and not having to fiddle with connections to get your music playing.
I personally can’t remember the last time I actually listened to the radio, instead using either my premium Spotify account to stream through the built-in Spotify app, or the built-in Streaming app to listen to music and podcasts.
Will you be signing up for the Premium Connectivity Package? Let us know in the comments below.
