For a while now, Tesla has been stating that free supercharging would eventually come to an end. Tesla has been pushing the date further and further back, but it seems like its real this time. Kiss your free supercharging goodbye (if you haven’t bought your Tesla yet.)
Back in our last article about Tesla Superchargers, we asked ourselves if the supposed September 16th date was accurate. (It was). For those that don’t know, if you were to buy a Model S, X, or 3 Performance using an owner’s referral code you were granted free supercharging for the ownership of your car. This is a great perk, and no doubt has helped Tesla sell some additional cars.
But as Tesla continues to sell more and more models, it becomes in their better interest to stop this perk. Tesla will soon (or already is in certain areas) be facing the problem of overcrowding at their Supercharging stations. If an owner has free supercharging, why wouldn’t they get the most use out of it? Supercharging, in Tesla’s eyes, should be used for long distance travel, while everything else should be done through a home charger. Obviously free supercharging makes using a Supercharger as your daily charger more attractive.
So to help curb this overcrowding issue, Tesla has changed the perk from free supercharging, to a $100 Supercharger credit. So it may not be unlimited, but a new owner can still get 500-1,000 miles free supercharging depending on the state. Couple that with the fact that new Model S and X get 400 kWh of annual free supercharging, and it’s still not so bad. Model 3 owners, you’re out of luck on that unfortunately.
You can hope over to the Tesla website to see what the current referral rewards are.
So what to think of this. From a customer standpoint, this isn’t too great. But with so many Model 3s flooding the streets, Supercharger stations might eventually be deadlocked. On top of that, Tesla has stated that they would use the money generated from Superchargers to both improve and expand the network. So this change will probably allow Tesla to spread the network even bigger, because with how many cars they are looking to output, they’ll need it.
Eventually this had to come to an end I think. Tesla has done a good job making the transition over to electric cars with their network, and free supercharging was a great perk. BUT, you still have time? The deadline is in a couple days. So go find someone with a referral code and order a Tesla today to secure that sweet free supercharging. Unless it’s a regular Model 3, then I’m sorry you are still out of luck.
So what do you guys think? You think there’s another chance that Tesla will push this back again? Or is that just wishful think? Let us know down in the comments below.
Source: Tesla
