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The Cost of Super-Charging

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I always have a hard time wrapping my head around some of the analyzing cost down to the n'th degree. If it was all about trying to get by as cheaply as possible, I'd just buy a Prius or something. No way in the long term when you figure the cost of the car will a Tesla hold a candle to some econobox car, free charging or now.

I've had super efficient cars and I've had big AMG Mercedes that were super inefficient. I'm not buying these cars because I'm trying to find the least expensive long term car possible. I buy these cars because I enjoy them and I expect that they are going to be more expensive to operate and I'm ok with that because there is lots of value and enjoyment I get out of driving them.

I'm not running a taxi service or some commercial business where I'm going to fret because my total realized costs are going to go from $.17/mi to $.19/mi because supercharging is no longer free. If I was cutting my finances so close that this kind of thing is going to make me upset, then I probably had no business buying this car. If I was buying this car because I thought it was a "smart financial buy" then I would have been really naive.

Now it's fun to do all the math and analyze the data, but seriously...
 
Five years from now, will Tesla continue expanding it's supercharger network to support 1M new cars each year?

Or will Tesla rely more on 3rd party superchargers, on a pay-as-you-go program.

While the "free long distance charging" marketing is a significant advantage over other competitors, the new free 400 kwh/year charging, may only be the first step towards a completely pay-as-you-go model, and get Tesla out of the business of owning and operating superchargers, and instead focus on their other businesses (building cars, solar roofs, powerpacks, powerwalls, ...).

In Texas, we have huge Buc-Ees located between the major cities, with huge food courts, bathrooms and stores - in a couple of years, it would make sense for them to start adding EV fast charging stations - but they'd do that only if they can generate revenue. And as long as Tesla is giving away supercharging, they will discourage anyone else from providing fast charging for Tesla cars...

So this may be the beginning of the end of free charging... Which wouldn't be a bad thing - when that happens, Tesla will have achieved their goal in making EVs mainstream vehicles...
 
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Reactions: MorrisonHiker
I think the math that's being done is for, say, a 45 MPG car paying $2.69/gallon for gas. That puts it at $0.06 a mile. Looks like the difference between that and $0.03/mile is the 'convenience charge' for fewer stops to them, or around $12/day while road tripping.
 
Every hundred miles? Hour long stop? Something is wrong with your car if you're only getting that range, or you're driving 100+

I don't know where you live, but here in the Midwest, the Superchargers are spaced every ~100 - ~120 miles apart. They are too far apart to skip one. So you have to stop at every supercharger and charge for at least 10 minutes when all is said and done, and really it's more like 15 or 20 minutes as a best case scenario.

It's like this from North Carolina to Denver. I haven't traveled any farther west than that in a Tesla.
 
I don't know where you live, but here in the Midwest, the Superchargers are spaced every ~100 - ~120 miles apart. They are too far apart to skip one. So you have to stop at every supercharger and charge for at least 10 minutes when all is said and done, and really it's more like 15 or 20 minutes as a best case scenario.

It's like this from North Carolina to Denver. I haven't traveled any farther west than that in a Tesla.
We traveled from Reno to Denver and had to stop at every Supercharger along the way except for Silverthorne. Some might have to stop in Silverthorne as well but since we live to the west of Denver, we were able to skip that one. I've also driven from Denver to Manhattan, KS. I could've skipped Limon but I-70 was closed for a bit so I ended up stopping there instead of pushing on to Goodland. I was able to skip Salina as well since my final destination was between Salina and Topeka.

They'll be adding more to I-70 this year so some will be able to skip Goodland or Colby eventually.
 
Every hundred miles? Hour long stop? Something is wrong with your car if you're only getting that range, or you're driving 100+

100 or so miles has been my experience as well in my S85. The problem is that Superchargers are not ubiquitous yet and you have to schedule your stops where they currently are. It's not like an ICE where you can wait for the Low Fuel light to come on, then just pull into the next gas station which is likely only a short distance away. Sometimes I have to stop well short of my car's range simply because the next one is beyond my range.
 
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Reactions: Falkirk
Do folks think Tesla would consider rolling over any of your annual unused 400 kwh credits to the next year like cell data providers do? Being able to bank a couple hundred kW's for a vacation would be nice. That would soften the change and still allow a lot of FREE LONG DISTANCE travel. There has to be some value with that without costing them anything.
 
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Reactions: Falkirk
I give Tesla a lot of credit for not gouging the customers. $0.13/kwh in VA is very reasonable. $0.16 in MD.

NY prices a little higher at $0.19/kwh which might be a good average for the state as NYC is much higher than the burbs.

Two thumbs up for the new pricing.
 
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Reactions: GSP
The new pricing is better than any L2 or L3 public paid charging that I've ever seen. Even in the cheapest state (here in WA) it's likely to see $0.29/kwh or higher for public charging, almost triple the cost of the much better Supercharging. CHAdeMO can easily be $0.49/kwh or more.
 
The new pricing is better than any L2 or L3 public paid charging that I've ever seen. Even in the cheapest state (here in WA) it's likely to see $0.29/kwh or higher for public charging, almost triple the cost of the much better Supercharging. CHAdeMO can easily be $0.49/kwh or more.
The difference is the charging companies are in business to sell electricity to EV drivers and Tesla is in business to sell EVs.
 
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Reactions: Max*
Anyone worry that could change? Tesla really touted their "free supercharging for life" deal until suddenly it wasn't. Could the now "reasonable" fees be some day "market based" charges?
Anything is possible, they could also do it demand based if they wanted to.

No line - $0.15/kWh
Small line - $0.25/kWh
Large line - $1/kWh
You're in a line waiting for 2 hours to get a charge - $20/kWh ;)


With demand based pricing, you'd guarantee that there's no line.


I no way expect Tesla to do this. I was just pointing out that anything is possible