Nov Tesla News - Superchargers not free for new customers

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forbin404

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Anyone who orders a Tesla After Jan 1st 2017 (Or take Delivery After April 1st 2017) will only get approx 1000 miles of free supercharging. (Basically all the model 3s are screwed)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-to-limit-long-distance-supercharging-for-new-owners-1478531035

Now is this a gimmick to sell more Tesla's this month? Or is it because they wish to reduce their bottom line? (I know it says the 300,000 Model 3's would cost Tesla too much to support)
Well I guess the free lunch is over, it doesn't say how much to use after that though.
 
"Free for Life" was not a sustainable strategy. We also knew that the base Model 3 was not going to have free Supercharging included. I think the only thing surprising about this announcement is that it came this year and that it applies to Model S and X for orders after January 1, 2017. To me, this is very good news. 400kWh which is about 1,000 miles of driving will be included for free every year. I will probably not drive out of town more than that. The open question is how much they will charge when you go over that amount. I'm guessing it will be less than or equal to $0.25/kWh in the United States. That will discourage people who use the Superchargers when they could charge at home if they bothered to install a charging circuit. It's also less than the price of gas. $0.25/kWh at 3mi/kWh is $0.083/mile while $2.50/gal gas for a 25mpg car is $0.10/mile. It's equal cost to a 30mpg car at $2.50/gal. Tesla could make the fee lower than $0.25/kWh and still discourage local users.
 
I agree about this being good news. If Tesla did not make people pay at some point, all the Tesla drivers would be screwed. Electricity is not free and giving it out for free encourages the waste of a resource and also the waste of people's time who need to wait for an open charging station. While it was fine to have "free for life" for those willing and able to pay ~$2000 for unlimited charging as a way to encourage early adopters, it just doesn't make sense when hundreds of thousands of new cars could descend upon the supercharger system in the next few years.
 
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