Suggestions like this have been made many times over the years, and I disagree for the following reasons:
1. While Tesla has to honor free Supercharging on existing cars, going forward, they should not be incentivizing people to over-rely on Superchargers. Even on road trips, owners should seek to use destination charging whenever feasible.
2. There is no reason, apart from existing commitments, to be subsidizing heavy Supercharger users, regardless of their travel patterns.
3. If someone truly needs to Supercharge, they should do whatever makes the most sense for their circumstances, rather than potentially altering their behavior because of an arbitrary 100 mile radius. Personally, I live on a mountain, and when returning from trips, it’s more time efficient and a better use of Supercharger resources to save my final Supercharging for a location closer to home, near the base of the mountain.
4. Abusive people can easily “game” their home location. And what about people who have multiple homes or divide their time among multiple locations? For Supercharging purposes, why should Tesla have to care where someone calls home?
I’ve yet to use a destination charger. There just don’t seem to be many of them, not where I’ve stayed, anyway.
There are some who use a lot of supercharging, there are others of us that don’t use much at all. It’s the average that’s important to Tesla, not the individual use.
My car uses about 300WH per mile. 10,000 miles of long distance travel at $0.12 per KWH costs $360. I don’t do anything like 10,000 miles per year at a distance of over 100 miles from home, so the cost to Tesla is far less. It makes people like me feel warm and fuzzy toward Tesla, makes us feel that we get something special, and we’re more likely to buy another Tesla. My $100 worth of supercharger use is a bargain for Tesla. I feel positive toward Tesla far more than one would anticipate for just $100 of real benefit.
People will still have the option to use any supercharger in any way they want, they’ll just pay the rates for close supercharger use. There’s nothing preventing you from charging at the base of your mountain.
I doubt people “gaming” their locations is a big factor in the overall scheme of things. Cars generally have to be registered at the primary residence, the address on the driver’s license. I don’t think anyone is going to go to the trouble to establish another primary residence in order to save the cost of 30KWH of power. At home we pay 12 cents per KWH. That’s $3.60. It’s the price of a Starbuck’s cup of coffee.
Why did I pick 100 miles? It’s well within range of a home fully charged car. I can charge at home then set out for Yellowstone, D.C., or take a grandchild to Disney World, all without any fuel costs at all. Realistically do I save much? Not really. But traveling free while others fill their tanks with $30-50 in gas every few hours is immensely satisfying to me. I forget that I spent $100k for the car and with depreciation, insurance, and expensive tags, this is probably the most expensive way for me to travel, but I still feel it is “free”. It just feels free. I think it was absolute genius on the part of Tesla to give away free supercharging, to get enormous amounts of free press, and to not have to spend a penny to advertise.
Ford spent $2.5 billion last year to advertise. Fiat/Chrysler spent $2.2 billion. GM spent $3.1 billion. Yet Tesla spent zero and make no mistake about it, virtually no one is unaware of the Tesla brand. In large part it’s because many of us are still amazed we can go cross country without fuel expense, and we spare no opportunity to tell others.
I think they can resurrect this program, institute the 100 mile rule, and get all the benefits. I don’t think any other electric car companies are going to be able to offer it. I think there will be a few high use people but as a percentage of sales, I think it’ll be negligible.
