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Is the Supercharger option worth $2,000?

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EDIT -I ordered the Supercharger option :) Your peer-pressure talked me into it.


I've just ordered a 60D Model S and love the idea of the Supercharger system. However, the $2k pricetag has me thinking twice. Doing some quick math, I'd have to charge about 13,500 kWh at Supercharger stations to break even. That's about 50,000 miles. Just to break even on it.

I know there's a value in the quick charging and convenience. Having a very young family, I appreciate this when contemplating road trips in the car.

So I'm thinking and thinking. (I'm also thinking that it's clever to advertise the Supercharger network as "free" when we all know that it's sort of a pyramid scheme where the new car owners are paying for it with this surcharge.)

My rational brain is telling me that it'll never be a good use of money, that it's throwing money out the window. Thoughts?
 
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If you plan on driving farther than 200 miles one way then absolutely, positively get the supercharger option. Imagine a 300 mile trip. You need to charge after driving for three hours. You just need to pick up 100 miles to make your destination. You pull over to a Chargepoint charger that delivers 17 miles per hour. That's 6 hours spent charging. Spend the money--it's not about the energy cost, it's about the convenience.
 
Doing more math - when I compare this to driving my other gas vehicle, I'd only need to charge it for 13,000 miles (3,250 kWh) to break even. So it's getting easier to imagine I'd take a road trip per year for five years, maybe.
 
My recent round trip to Chicago in an ICE cost me almost $500 in gas (a 3 week stay in Chicago included). I do 3-4 such trips a year. If there were a complete series of superchargers along my favorite route, I would easily recoup the cost of the supercharger option in 4-5 trips. The "end of 2015" SC map gives me hope of accomplishing this next year.
 
Dude, Supercharging is awesome and it's only going to get better as the network fills in. It's definitely not a pyramid scheme, new owners are not paying for older owners' power usage. It's more like we are all putting in $2k to build out the network and the power is a cost of doing business to Tesla.

Don't think of it as a pre-payment for kWh. Think of it as paying ~70k to be able to realistically drive your car anywhere within a 300-mile radius or ~72k to be able to drive your car anywhere from coast-to-coast. So worth it.
 
eco5280---I just don't think you realize how much you will enjoy driving this car. (especially in the awesome Colorado Rockies)

Not only would I get the Supercharging, I would also think twice about a 85D with the Supercharging included.
 
As others have mentioned, it's more about the convenience and time than it is about the cost of electricity. Charging 180 miles will take less than an hour with the supercharger, and a good 6+ hours otherwise (I assume if you are hesitant about getting it supercharger enabled you definitely aren't getting dual chargers).

And as bsbomber said, "I just don't think you realize how much you will enjoy driving this car." A couple nights ago I just wanted to drive my car, so I drove ~100 miles roundtrip for fun. It was free (other than the $5 for the Culver's cheese curds I ate while charging for 20 minutes).
 
I had exactly the same rationale when I ordered my car. Then I took a couple of road trips driving my wife's E350 Mercedes. I hated it. The more you drive a model S, the more you dislike driving ice cars. The cost for upgrading then is $2500. If the model S is your primary driver, you are not going to like going back to the ice age.
 
Definitely not moving up to the 85 - I currently have the Nissan 24 and it's not quite enough but for 90% of the time, it's plenty. 250% of that will be perfect for us and it's already a stretch to buy the 60.

You've all given me a lot to think about - I'm leaning towards getting the Supercharger and I appreciate all the insight and advice. My wife is leaning towards it so that means we'll likely get it :biggrin:
 
Definitely not moving up to the 85 - I currently have the Nissan 24 and it's not quite enough but for 90% of the time, it's plenty. 250% of that will be perfect for us and it's already a stretch to buy the 60.

You've all given me a lot to think about - I'm leaning towards getting the Supercharger and I appreciate all the insight and advice. My wife is leaning towards it so that means we'll likely get it :biggrin:

If you'd like further insight on Superchargers and how they affect long distance driving. I made a very wordy post on reddit about it. Basically, I wouldn't even consider the Model S without Supercharging:

Driving Long Distances - A Tesla Owners Experience : teslamotors

If nothing else, I would get Supercharging OVER the S60 if I had the option. Just because I want to be able to drive long distances. I don't do it often, in fact I do it more now that I have the S85 with Supercharging then I ever did in an ICE. I want the option to be there so I don't have to spend 200 on gas to get to Houston. I also want the piece of mind of not polluting and the ease of just plugging in, getting a drink and leaving. Without the supercharger you WILL have to take an ICE to keep your sanity. I just CANNOT see myself stopping for hours every 2-3 hours to charge up. It is just unthinkable.
 
If you live in Colorado, is their any question about getting AWD? I don't think so.

as for SuperCharging, the Northeast is still a SuperCharger wasteland. The only one I've ever used is East Greenwich, RI, and that was just to try it. I needed to drive to Cleveland Ohio in December of 2013, I had to rent an ICE, there where no SuperChargers on I90 (and their still aren't enough to make the 675 mile trip). with all of that said, I'd still get SuperCharging, the SuperCharger deployment will eventually be more complete.

I'm waiting for Tesla to tell me the trade-in value for my Jan 2013 delivered Model S with 21K miles to evaluate my cost to upgrade to the 85D, AWD would be nice here as well. Might have to wait to 2016 and get a Model X AWD, depending on what the numbers are.
 
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