I agree with you, my next EV has to have at least 400 miles of range and 20 minute charging to 80%. If not, the upgrade is not worth the hassle and cost.
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Would you give up free supercharging for life?
- Thread starter Nepats
- Start date
I agree with you, my next EV has to have at least 400 miles of range and 20 minute charging to 80%. If not, the upgrade is not worth the hassle and cost.
While it is/was nice to never have to consider cost when supercharging with my Model S, and there is that gut-level reluctance to give it up, I really wanted an upgrade (AWD, EAP, etc.) and the math of it all is that I probably won't spend more than $100/year on supercharging. Even at $8-10 a pop I just don't take that many long trips and I charge at home for daily charging. Maybe I'll be more inclined to look for free charging options than I would have with free charging, just because I'm a curmudgeon, but it's not worth forgoing a better car to hang onto a feature like the free supercharging.
I said for the past year or more that a better referral feature would be to offer free supercharging for referrals. It takes away some of the high dollar value that led to the commercialization under the old programs and offers a usable incentive for real owners. And now they've done that. I'd love to get about 4-5 referrals with the new program, that would be enough supercharging to last me the next 5 years I bet. (unless I take some really long trip in there somewhere along the line).
I said for the past year or more that a better referral feature would be to offer free supercharging for referrals. It takes away some of the high dollar value that led to the commercialization under the old programs and offers a usable incentive for real owners. And now they've done that. I'd love to get about 4-5 referrals with the new program, that would be enough supercharging to last me the next 5 years I bet. (unless I take some really long trip in there somewhere along the line).
I also think that there is a some psychological benefit to it as wells as perhaps an advantage while reselling when the car is worth < 20 K.
The psychological advantage is huge to me, though I admit it makes no sense. The last road trip we supercharged, used our Marriott points for free stays, and brought some food along. Our total trip-based expense total for several days was maybe $100. That's oddly pretty satisfying to me. 
RaeW
Member
Easy to call SuperCharging a bad habit when you don't have it.
I have solar panels and charge more at home than at SuperChargers, but I still would prefer to keep SuperCharging for life. Road trips require SCs.
I have 10 SCs within 15 minutes of home. My cost of home electricity is <5 cents/kWh, which is a lot less than SC cost, but not as fast.
I have solar panels and charge more at home than at SuperChargers, but I still would prefer to keep SuperCharging for life. Road trips require SCs.
I have 10 SCs within 15 minutes of home. My cost of home electricity is <5 cents/kWh, which is a lot less than SC cost, but not as fast.
The psychological advantage is huge to me, though I admit it makes no sense. The last road trip we supercharged, used our Marriott points for free stays, and brought some food along. Our total trip-based expense total for several days was maybe $100. That's oddly pretty satisfying to me.
The psychological goes the other way as well. I felt when I had free SC, I had to use it and would top off when I could rather than charge more conveniently at home (on my dime). Since removing free SC, I feel like a burden to always use it has been lifted. And the place I was often SC at I was spending more money on food than the SC was worth that I normally would not have spent.
I think if Tesla gave some amount of kWh per year, maybe with some carry over it would add a lot of value to the car, folks wouldn't be so tempted to "use it up" and overload some busy SC centers. But it wouldn't cost Tesla that much and give the best of both worlds.
In the two years I have owned my car, I have supercharged maybe 10 times. At this point, it's just bragging rights - I have probably said "I can drive my car anywhere in the US without spending a penny on fuel cost" more times than I have supercharged!
I wasn't planning on upgrading the car for the next few years anyways though. Would make no economical sense.
I wasn't planning on upgrading the car for the next few years anyways though. Would make no economical sense.
There are a few for whom it appears to be a financially valuable feature, but I think that by and large it is a psychological benefit, as has been mentioned above. Most of my miles are on long multi-state road trips, often at very high consumption rates with my X due to towing the camper. But in the scheme of vehicle depreciation, battery degradation, insurance and other costs, the value is relatively insignificant. Yet I still value it as a neat plug-and-go benefit. Cost never crosses my mind, which is.. nifty. But logically it should barely enter my equation for an upgrade decision.
Maybe you won't have to! Check out this article:
Tesla brings back free Supercharging as end-of-quarter incentive – with a caveat
Sources have now told Electrek that Tesla is bringing back the free Supercharging incentive as an end-of-the-quarter discount to help convince current owners to upgrade their cars.
According to people familiar with the matter, Tesla is offering existing owners with free Supercharging on their current vehicles to be grandfathered-in when purchasing a new Model S or Model X and get 3 years of free unlimited Supercharging if they order and take delivery by the end of the quarter.
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ucmndd
Well-Known Member
"Free" lifetime supercharging is an emotional benefit for 99% of owners as opposed to a financial one.
lifegoe5on
Member
I drive about 80 miles to and from work, and use the slow J-1772 (5 kW) charger at work and my 8 kW charger at home. My long distance trips are probably 2-3 times a year, so if Tesla offered me $5K to remove free super charging, I would take that immediately. I will never use that much super charging in my lifetime of owning my Model S, and I have 52k miles in about 27 months.
I would give up if MS has 1000 mile range
Yes, this would make me give up free supercharging for life without a problem, because then i could do my usual trips from one house to another and only charge at home.
I know it's more a physiological factor than a economic one for the big majority of Tesla owners (for me it is), BUT i do like to have it.
I think Tesla should have kept free supercharging and should bring it back, and, to me, the perfect solution would be (like it has been suggested by some on the forum) to somehow only enable free supercharging while traveling, which would mean to unable it in the owners residential area. This way people would be "forced" use SuC as they are meant to be used (not abused), only while traveling and not as a daily charging method.
AMPd
Well-Known Member
5k
I love this idea. If tesla were to give model S/X 500kWh per year that would add a huge psychological benefit to a lot of people.
While at the same time curbing unnecessary usage.
Edit: how about free nights? Maybe tesla can work out a deal with electricity providers where night time electricity would be free.
I would totally shift my trip to night time, free electricity and less traffic!
Clearly we would all give it up if weren't available any longer...not much else you can do, right? For those who have it but don't or seldom use it, I'm sure they like having it just in case. It seems the purpose of Supercharging is to allow their cars to cross the country in a respectable amount of time, that for awhile set Tesla apart from any other EV. The secondary purpose is to allow fast-charging for folks on the go where overnight level 2 charging is not sufficient (road-trippers, destination drivers, multi-leg business trips, etc).
I would not voluntarily give up my free Supercharging, but I wouldn't mind paying a few extra bucks for usage. Without Supercharging, I wouldn't have considered buying the car in the first place...I would have saved the money and bought a Bolt or Kona.
I would not voluntarily give up my free Supercharging, but I wouldn't mind paying a few extra bucks for usage. Without Supercharging, I wouldn't have considered buying the car in the first place...I would have saved the money and bought a Bolt or Kona.
Haha, and I treat it like Jerry's bad movie analogy: You walk out!
X owner here, having non-transferrable FUSC, I do feel it's a reason not to sell. But I bought the 75D instead of 100D to invest the difference for a battery replacement 8 years from now. I plan to keep this car until I no longer need a car, which enhances the "unlimited for life" aspect. It is mostly psychological, as I can find free level 2 chargers most anywhere, and it does irk me to hear how little people actually spend supercharging. I did sign up for a ChargePoint account when I was in KC area. Most of their chargers are sponsored, but I did want to park at a fee station, so I went through the whole credit card sign up. They charged me $5 to use $1.25 of electricity and kept my balance for future charging, talk about a burden!
The peace of mind for me is knowing I can road trip without issue, that my car will get power from any supercharger without any hassle. I would hate to forget to update an expired card and wait an extra 30 minutes to give them a new one before the charger would activate. However, I think @pinball_player has it spot on. I'd give up FUSC for $5k.
jlv1
Twice as much fun
I bought my S just before the first time free lifetime supercharging was going away. I bought the X the day the last time free lifetime supercharging was going away. One of my concerns was what the cost of supercharging might become; right now it is not so high, but I wanted to lock it in.
Most of the miles on the S are from long trips with multiple SC sessions. Extrapolation based upon TeslaFi numbers (I started using TeslaFi at 11K miles, so it has 2/3 of my trips in it) shows I've gotten 3500 kWh via SC sessions, which at the current cost (28¢/kWh) would be $980.
So I wonder how much the free lifetime really is worth. If I keep the car until 100K (pretty likely) and keep using it the same amount, I'll end up at under $3K in lifetime supercharging cost.
Would I give it up? Originally I would have said it depends upon what I was getting in return (V3? 250kW rate?). With the above in mind, I would probably give it up now *if* was certain the price wouldn't increase in the future (which is impossible to know).
Most of the miles on the S are from long trips with multiple SC sessions. Extrapolation based upon TeslaFi numbers (I started using TeslaFi at 11K miles, so it has 2/3 of my trips in it) shows I've gotten 3500 kWh via SC sessions, which at the current cost (28¢/kWh) would be $980.
So I wonder how much the free lifetime really is worth. If I keep the car until 100K (pretty likely) and keep using it the same amount, I'll end up at under $3K in lifetime supercharging cost.
Would I give it up? Originally I would have said it depends upon what I was getting in return (V3? 250kW rate?). With the above in mind, I would probably give it up now *if* was certain the price wouldn't increase in the future (which is impossible to know).
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