SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for Fnord666
Tesla's offer of free, unlimited Supercharger access was supposed to have ended in early 2017, but it's been on a form of life support since then. Unless you were buying a regular Model 3, you could get the no-cost charging by ordering your EV with a referral code from an existing owner. Now, however, even that exception appears to be coming to an end. Elon Musk has pointed out that the referral program is about to end. After September 16th, owners will only get to hand out $100 in Supercharging credit to Model S, Model X and Model 3 Performance buyers -- just enough for a few top-ups.
While there is a chance this isn't a permanent end (this is the company that brought back the Roadster), we wouldn't count on it given the finality of Musk's statement. Previous referral programs started the day after their predecessors ended.
The end to the offer isn't surprising, even with Tesla's repeated extensions. Superchargers may cost you less than filling up a gas-powered car, but they're still expensive to operate -- Tesla had to factor the cost of Supercharging into every sale when the perk was free for every buyer. And when the automaker is still bleeding cash, it's likely determined to cut costs and boost revenue whenever possible.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/16/tesla-ends-lifetime-free-supercharging-offer/
(Score: 2, Insightful) by bmimatt on Monday September 17 2018, @08:24AM
This may be the right time to double up on Tesla's stock.
Elon's antics, like the JRE show, can't have enough adverse effect on the trading to ignore the 'right' decisions.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday September 17 2018, @09:16AM
"People promising the world unable to deliver."
And this is news?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 17 2018, @10:19AM (4 children)
Free recharging at the superchargers is a real incentive for me. Ending that incentive on a temporary basis to get through a cash crunch is one thing, but on a permanent basis it takes the bloom off the rose.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by StarryEyed on Monday September 17 2018, @12:42PM
When someone sells you a "lifetime" of anything in the Tech world, they mean three years, even if the provider doesn't realize they mean three years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 17 2018, @06:08PM
With the premium that you would spend, you could probably buy a used $3k car on craigslist and use the difference to get a lifetime supply of free gas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18 2018, @06:33PM (1 child)
It was never really free. They just accounted for it in the price of the car.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday September 19 2018, @10:32AM
Indeed:
"Base prices for the 2017 Tesla Model S sedan range from $69,500 to $140,000, depending on the package."
$69,500 buys you an awful lot of petrol (gasoline). Especially in the US.
Current Avg. $0.83 per litre.
That's 83,000 litres (22000 gallons) or thereabouts.
Personally, that would be enough to buy a car half-the-price and then fill it up over 600 times. I fill up once a month at the moment, which would last 50 years. Even if I filled up once a week, that's 11.5 years of fuel.
For that price (with my very-inefficient but 2016 model European car), I'd be able to get that car brand new and.... 385,000 miles of fuel. The car would never last long enough to do that, though, no matter how much I spent on it.
Now, I'm mixing US gas prices and EU-sized cars, but if you want to be eco-friendly the price is a good measure of how much material was purchased, shaped, modified, etc. in the manufacturing process and the rarity/difficulty of extraction.
If you bought a small, second-hand car and a "lifetime" of fuel for it, it would be cheaper than buyer a Tesla by an enormous amount.
You don't buy a Tesla because you get "free" topups. That's so far from the point, it's unbelievable. If you wanted to buy a Tesla because you're not burning oil, that might be a small gesture that way. But you're paying through the nose to do that.
I hate Tesla. I really do. But you shouldn't be buying them on the basis of such stupid and unbelievable promises, and think you're doing yourself a favour. You might be doing the *environment* a small favour, at great cost. That's about it.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday September 17 2018, @02:38PM (1 child)
Does this mean it refers to new sales only? (As opposed to reneging on an existing proposal). And if so, will the price of the car go down by whatever factor they planned to account for the free supercharging? It would certainly shift around figuring out if your car is a good investment from a mileage per dollar cost.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 17 2018, @03:08PM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 17 2018, @04:17PM
How about Musky figuring out how to distribute cars in volume?
The area around the plant and parking lots of other buildings are filling up with cars,
and the streets are full of private company car carriers parked two deep. I've seen as
many as 50 of they damn things on Kato Rd.
Meanwhile, THE PLANT IS NEXT TO A FSCKING TRAIN LINE
That's why the original owners built it there.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday September 17 2018, @06:21PM (1 child)
Previously Tesla stated the Supercharger Network could be used by other vendors, but they also had to buy into the lifetime free charging. Perhaps other vendors will be able to use Tesla's network (although the Supercharger network uses their own plug, not SAE J1772 so current vehicles would need an adaptor).
The network is a big advantage Tesla has over the other makers. Keeping the network a monopoly could incentivize Tesla sales over other vehicles. However, if priced correctly selling electricity could also be a revenue stream. This leads to a classic debate for vertically integrated companies: should the network be a revenue source or consider it a feature of the main product? I suspect one day Tesla will spin-off the supercharger network to a separate company, but with Elon effectively controlling the company it is hard to predict.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday September 19 2018, @10:41AM
Please also note US-specifity here.
There are precisely 53 superchargers in the UK. Most of those are a handful of bays, about half-a-dozen on average after a quick zip through the list. The services says "plug in for 30 minutes".
There are over 8000 fuelling stations. Most capable of servicing a dozen cars simultaneously. And you can fill your tank in 5 minutes.
However you look at that, it's not enough by orders of magnitude to service the amount of customers necessary even if Tesla cars did 6 times as many miles before recharge as a petrol car does before refilling.
In terms of the global market, Tesla owns precisely zip.