The Tesla lineup of EV models has expanded over the past few years and makes it easy for you to enjoy the drive in a car that doesn’t use gasoline at all. Another perk of driving a Tesla Model S or Model X is the fact that these models are offered with free supercharging for life at all Tesla stations, but that is about to change. The free supercharging will end and any Tesla vehicle sold after January 1, 2017 will be provided with about 1,000 miles of free credits per year, but that’s all.
There are already more than 4,600 supercharging stations around the world for the Tesla vehicles and these stations allow owners to drive and enjoy the ability to go nearly everywhere without being stuck near home where most of their charging takes place. For those who purchase a new Tesla model after the beginning of the next year, the benefit of using a supercharging station will cost them a fee. These fees will be incremental and Tesla maintains they will be less than filling up at a gas station, but the will no longer be free.
The company maintains they also don’t intend to make money off the supercharging stations or the fee that’s charged to use them. The prices are expected to fluctuate over time based upon location and the money raised will be used to build more superchargers to allow the network to expand, creating an infrastructure that’s similar to what gasoline vehicles enjoy on the road. If this happens it will be easier for Tesla owners to drive anywhere in the world because they will never been more than a few miles from a supercharging station where they can get a fill up of electrical charge at a fair price.
How will this affect the sales of Tesla models? If you planned on buying a Tesla Model S or Model X, now is the time to do so. This is what you want to do before the deadline date so your supercharging will be free for life. If you wait and don’t order your vehicle now, you will have to pay and be subject to the same fluctuating prices that we find at gas stations all the time. This certainly could make for a huge push in Tesla orders over the next few months before this deadline is reached.
Of course, those who will have the Model 3 as their vehicle in the upcoming years will now have to pay for the privilege of using a supercharging station. The “free for life” sales pitch that Tesla offered when they first began building their EV models is now gone and we see the cost to build and expand. The challenge for Tesla will be the fact that charging a car at a supercharging station will be more time consuming than filling up a tank of gas which is the challenge all EV models face at the moment.
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