My First Tesla Article! Why college students should buy Gen III.

[dsm363]

"The Super charging stations will allow you to charge for freefor the rest of your life"

Supercharging should be one word there as well.

 

[NigelM]

This matches what Tesla has been saying. The fact that there is an upfront cost for the SC enabling doesn't diminish that there isn't a per-use charge. Concur?

Not yet. I do concur what Tesla has said WRT Model S charging being free for life; I also concur that Elon said all future cars will be SC capable. I don't concur that this all means that all Gen III cars enabled with SC access will be free for life...

There's already discussion elsewhere about SC capacity and a few heated comments about folks with $100k cars charging for free at their local station and therefore taking up precious SC spots. There's only ~15k cars (WAG!) out there right now so fast forward several years and ask what will happen when there's 200,000 cars out there and a lot of those owners bought Gen III because it was finally affordable to them. So SC capacity becomes a major issue and free charging becomes a great motivation for folks on a lower household income than most of today's Model S owners. Charging for SC usage has to be a good option as a way to regulate demand.

 

[woof]

While I'd love to see college students in any EV, even a Gen III with access to Supercharging would require a local charging infrastructure on/near campus where the car will be parked most of the year. I didn't see how your article addresses this. My knowledge of campus life is a tad, um, rusty, but I'd bet that student parking is still the major pain it's always been. Add the need for Level I or II charging facilities to student parking as one of the issues that need to be resolved.

Time to lobby Tesla to put a few Superchargers on every campus!

My oldest son is off to college in a few years. While I'd love to see him buy an EV, I just don't see the combination of range (assuming he's going to be 200-400 miles away), price (he's got to be able to afford the thing), and housing/parking with available charging, aligning any time soon.