The bad news from Tesla keeps piling up. Yesterday I saw this about their response to declining sales on their Model S & X cars. Free charging for life.
In a turn of events, Tesla has now announced that all new customers of the Model S and Model X can access free unlimited charging at any Tesla supercharging station.
Tesla tries to win back Model S and X customers with free, unlimited charging
My son-in-law (he earned the title yesterday), bought a Tesla a few months back and got free charging for the first six months of ownership. As previously documented, the difference between the Supercharge station and the other two forms of charging is huge—in terms of time.
However, the big news to me in this article was the cost of charging.
A few years ago, Tesla offered free supercharging to customers; until the offer was revoked by Musk for being unsustainable for the company in the long run. With the cost of supercharging in the US being pretty much equal to the cost of gas ($0.28 per kWh), this may have been one of the reasons Tesla customers have been abandoning this part of the product line.
OK, so if the cost of charging your car is the same as gasoline, what exactly is the savings of owning the car?
Please note that the logic of electric vehicle ownership goes off the rails at this juncture. If the cost of charging is the same as gasoline, where is the cost savings when your state—or the federal government or both—introduce the dreaded mileage tax? Filling up my gasoline powered car takes less than five minutes while the Tesla supercharge station gives you only a mostly charged vehicle after 45 minutes. Don’t forget, should you resort to 110 VAC charging, you may be waiting a whole day for a charged battery.
Also, as others have documented, Tesla has made no changes to the Model S & X cars since they were introduced except some software updates. Oh, don’t forget that the designer of said cars also quit working for Tesla so there is that. Elon is selling old tech for premium prices. If Tesla goes under, he might have a future with Apple since they do the same thing.