Tesla details how it’ll charge new owners to use Superchargers

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For the past few years, anyone who owned a Tesla could charge it up at one of the company’s Supercharging stations free of charge.

But as we’ve known for a few months now, this all-you-can-eat setup is being phased out. While existing owners will still get to charge up for free, anyone who orders a Tesla after January 15th would get around 1,000 miles worth of charging credit each year then pay for anything beyond that.

But how much would they pay, exactly?

Turns out there’s not any single answer to that question — due to variations in regulations around the world, the pricing varies a bit depending on where you are.

Tesla started outlining how it works in a blog post tonight:

  • In most of the world, Tesla owners will pay per kWh — that is, you’ll be charged for the actual amount of electricity you receive.
  • In select places, however, Tesla will be required (by local regulations) to charge per-minute at the charging station. It’s a bit less accurate, but Tesla says they going to work with regulators in these regions; it’s also a good bit more complicated, with two different charging tiers based on how charged your battery is or whether or not yours is the only Tesla at the charging station.
  • In North America, you’ll pay the same price to charge up throughout any given state or province.
  • Outside of North America, pricing is set on a country-by-country basis.

So pricing will vary a bit depending on where you are — but within a state’s borders (or, outside of North America, a country’s borders), at least, you know you’d be paying the same amount at any given supercharger. Beyond that, Tesla says they’re doing this just to help cover costs of Supercharger expansion, and that it’ll “never be a profit center” for the company.

You can find the state-by-state charging cost breakdown here

Since most people think in MPG as opposed to kWh, Tesla broke things down by how much it would cost to use Superchargers for a handful of treks people might be familiar with. According to Tesla:

  • San Francisco to Los Angeles would cost about $15
  • Los Angeles to New York would cost about $120
  • Paris to Rome would cost about €60 (or ~$64)
  • Beijing to Shanghai would cost about ¥400 (or ~$60)

And remember: this is only for charging at one of Tesla’s Superchargers (as opposed to charging the car at home, on your own electric bill) and only after the owner has used up their 400 kWh of annual charging credits.