Installed a 12kw solar system for my aunt. Her bill dropped $500 a month to almost $30 bucks. Only cost 18k for the system. Solar is getting cheap and everyone should be doing it. Now Teslas installs it even cheaper! Its a no brainer
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Free Unlimited Supercharging
- Thread starter domodan
- Start date
In my experience free Supercharging is overrated. It's true that if you don't have home charging, then free Supercharging is better than paid Supercharging. However (IMHO) nothing beats being able to plug in my car at night and wake up in the morning will a fully charged battery (well whatever percentage I configured). I know that's not feasible for all owners.
There was a week or so last year where I was not able to charge at home and had to use a Supercharger for routine charging. I hated it. The time wasted by needing to drive to a Supercharger and waiting for my car to charge completely overshadowed the fact that it was "free".
Just my $0.02, YMMV, etc.
Bruce.
There was a week or so last year where I was not able to charge at home and had to use a Supercharger for routine charging. I hated it. The time wasted by needing to drive to a Supercharger and waiting for my car to charge completely overshadowed the fact that it was "free".
Just my $0.02, YMMV, etc.
Bruce.
ucmndd
Well-Known Member
Definitely agree. A smokin-fast supercharging session will net you what, 60kwh in an hour?
At 30 cents/kWh that’s $18. My time is worth quite a bit more than $18/hr, and I imagine that’s true for almost all S/X owners.
Certainly happy to not have to pay the $18 on those road trips when I need the charge - but in 3.5 years and 110,000 miles I’d guess the realized monetary value of my “free” supercharging is less than $500.
AMPd
Well-Known Member
500 a month for electricity? Was your aunt operating a grow house or something? Damn!
AC never stopped. I suspect something else was going on. Might be her AC unit need freon or something. She was hitting tier 3 constantly. Also had a model 3 that was constantly charged at home.I think that alone took $100 of the bill. $500 is still cheap for her her house and AC running all day. That bill would easily be $1,000 a month in my area during summer time. She has public utility company I have Edison
AMPd
Well-Known Member
1000 dollars... wow
Thanks for putting my 90-100 dollar summertime bill in perspective
In the winter our bill is in the 40s, and even then I’m on the edge of talking to my wife about the high electricity use.
I spend $400/month on electricity at $0.0876/per. Lots of space, lots of people, swimming pool, spa, hot tub, etc... we use a lot of power.
That’s a good point. It’s only value to me is on road trips, which are fairly infrequent.
AMPd
Well-Known Member
I’m the opposite, my family takes a lot of road trips and the only way I’d own a Tesla is if it had free supercharging. There’s no way I’m taking the model s on a road trip over the bmw if I have to pay for the pleasure of waiting 30-40-50 minutes to charge.
ha! In the Central Valley in CA, when we bought our moderately sized 3300 sq ft house built in 1991 with shitty insulation and 8 tons of ~8 seer cooling (2x4 ton units) running 11kW combined that used to run almost all the time our power bills were $1500/mo in the summer just for AC.
now with 11kW solar, 7tons of 19seer 2 stage units (4kW on low, 6.5W on high) with substantially improved ductwork and insulation to run probably 50% of the time (did everything myself) and 2 EVs with net metering we’re less than $1k for the whole year. Trying to justify powerwalls but the ROI just doesn’t work out.
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HenryFarkas
Google "Henry Farkas Tesla"
Limited Supercharging:
I bought my M3 in mid-June. I used a referral code so I got free 1,000 miles of supercharging, but it expires in December. There's a pandemic. Not sure I'll even get to drive it 1,000 miles in six months, much less get supercharging for any part of my few local drives. I'm enjoying the car, and I and autopilot are learning how to work with each other. But my supercharging will probably disappear before I get the opportunity to even try it out unless I purposely go to a nearby supercharger just to play with it. Sorry, just a rant.
I bought my M3 in mid-June. I used a referral code so I got free 1,000 miles of supercharging, but it expires in December. There's a pandemic. Not sure I'll even get to drive it 1,000 miles in six months, much less get supercharging for any part of my few local drives. I'm enjoying the car, and I and autopilot are learning how to work with each other. But my supercharging will probably disappear before I get the opportunity to even try it out unless I purposely go to a nearby supercharger just to play with it. Sorry, just a rant.
TFCooper3
Member
The reason that local utilities charge less than the big companies has to do with regulation. Big utilities like Edison and PGE are forced to pay subsidies that smaller local utilities don't.
dgpcolorado
high altitude member
Depends. I bought my car for road trips and the large majority of my 90k miles, in four years, are road trips. I've Supercharged my car more than 450 times, every single one on a road trip because I have no local Supercharger Stations — the nearest is 95 miles away from my home. FUSC is of value me, not just monetarily but because of the psychology of not having to worry about the fuel cost of a trip. It may be a little thing, as you suggest, but it is a reason to keep my older Model S.
I also don't pay for home charging, since I have solar panels. In four years I've paid just $1 for charging my car: the entrance fee to the parking garage where the Colorado Springs Supercharger Station is located.
So, as you say: "YMMV" Mine surely does!
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ucmndd
Well-Known Member
I think that’s certainly an outlier in the statistics - and you’re one of the few that has come out ahead.
Some bar napkin math taking you at face value on the “vast majority” statement, if 80,000 of your 90,000 miles are road trips, and 80% of those miles are supercharging, to exclude destination chargers and the like:
64,000 supercharging miles at ~330wh/mi = 21,120 kWh at current average supercharging cost of ~$0.32/kWh = $6758 in supercharging costs.
The going rate for “free supercharging” seems to be about $2,500 to $3,000 added to the price of the car based on historic pricing and recent pricing adjustments, so you’re at about 100% ROI.
My car has free supercharging; recently moved to a house that doesn't make installing any kind of charger easy.
The supermarket I'd go to regardless has a supercharger, so I'm just supercharging when I shop. Not sure how much I'm saving on *just* supercharging, but I'm also saving quite a bit of money by not revamping my antique house's electrical system to support even limited a nema 6/20 plug.
I'll likely eventually bite the bullet and get something worked out, but for now, it's certainly convenient to not worry about charging except for racing through the shopping to avoid idle fees.
The supermarket I'd go to regardless has a supercharger, so I'm just supercharging when I shop. Not sure how much I'm saving on *just* supercharging, but I'm also saving quite a bit of money by not revamping my antique house's electrical system to support even limited a nema 6/20 plug.
I'll likely eventually bite the bullet and get something worked out, but for now, it's certainly convenient to not worry about charging except for racing through the shopping to avoid idle fees.
dgpcolorado
high altitude member
My numbers aren't that favorable. For example: my overall efficiency is 268 Wh/mile, although it is higher on road trips, due to freeway speed and, often, lower altitude.I think that’s certainly an outlier in the statistics - and you’re one of the few that has come out ahead.
Some bar napkin math taking you at face value on the “vast majority” statement, if 80,000 of your 90,000 miles are road trips, and 80% of those miles are supercharging, to exclude destination chargers and the like:
64,000 supercharging miles at ~330wh/mi = 21,120 kWh at current average supercharging cost of ~$0.32/kWh = $6758 in supercharging costs.
The going rate for “free supercharging” seems to be about $2,500 to $3,000 added to the price of the car based on historic pricing and recent pricing adjustments, so you’re at about 100% ROI.
My recollection was that FUSC was priced at $2000 when my car was made, although I bought it used and all CPOs had FUSC added back then. Some time ago there was a discussion about whether Model 3 owners should take the offered $5000 or keep FUSC. I'd take the $5000 in a heartbeat because I can do the ROI calculations just fine.
$2000 is more of a wash for me; at that point, the psychology of "free fuel" for road trips becomes important even if it isn't "rational." However, I didn't pay anything for FUSC since it was a default option on the Model S on CPO cars in 2016. There are other reasons I prefer my old 2014 Model S, as opposed to a newer one — FUSC is just the icing on the cake.
only concern, is that I believe there is evidence that supercharging excessively has potential to degrade your battery prematurely. To the point where Tesla will eventually slow down your supercharging speeds to preserve the battery/save them a warranty replacement.
I've heard that; I know they've nerfed some of the 85s. My car's a 90 with the worst iteration of the battery and it may well be impacted as well, but I'm putting ~200-300 miles a week on it now so although I'm relying on supercharging I'm not pounding the miles on.
The "free" is a nice bonus in that it mostly just reduces cognitive load more than anything else. I suspect I'm getting a whopping $20 of use out of it a month. I'd pick up a $20 from the floor, but I wouldn't go substantially out of my way to get it...
I'm hoping for free lifetime supercharging to be added to inventory cars this quarter. I agree that it's mostly a psychological benefit, but in my case it might add up to a bit more than others since I haul my camper with the X. We consume more like 600-650Wh/mi on trips, and our trips can be 3k-4k miles at a time. It's still unlikely to exceed $4k of value, though.
SilverString
Member
According to TeslaFi I have received $436 of free supercharging in the ~29K miles I have driven since I took delivery in 6/6/2019, and half my charge miles have been supercharge miles. That was/is way too much supercharging according to Tesla service and they strongly recommend that I reduce the ratio and charge more at home to avoid battery degradation, at the same time letting me know that mine was still fine and I could still charge at full speed.
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