Elon Musk explains why Superchargers will not be free for Model 3

Elon Musk and JB Straubel held a four hour long presentation last evening - delaying the boards meeting by an hour - to answer everyone's questions at Tesla's annual shareholder's conference in Mountain View, California. They recounted the history of Tesla from the first it was conceived in 2003, going through its milestones and their future vision of the company while inviting some employees on stage to share their stories about their missions at Tesla.

Later today we'll reveal more insights from this presentation but the most notable information - everyone who put a reservation on a Model 3 was waiting to uncover - was whether they will be able to charge their vehicles - come 2018 - at the Supercharger stations for free. The question was asked by a young Model S P85D owner wondering how the company will handle the high volume of Model 3s using its Supercharging stations,

During the Q&A, Elon quickly went down to business and answered the question straight from the get go.

"... we wanted to make it really straightforward and easy, that's why the Superchargers are set up at -least today - for people on board the car to travel long distances for life. Obviously, that has fundamentally a cost... The obvious thing to do is decouple that from the cost of the Model 3. So it will still be very cheap, and far cheaper than gasoline, to drive long-distance with the Model 3, but it will not be free long distance for life unless you purchase that package. I wish we could [make it free], but in order to achieve the economics, it has to be something like that. What Tesla's motivation is, to make electric transport as affordable as possible. That is what informs all of our actions. It's not because we want to make things more expensive, it is because we can't figure out how to make it less expensive. That's all."

"It also pains us to see people mis-valuing their time at charging stations so often, it is far more convenient and faster for you overall to charge at home or at  work. It takes one second to plug in, you don't have to go to a separate location and wait for the car to be there. Time and time again, we see people drive to Supercharger stations, wait there for 30 minutes and drive to a different destination. And if they do their math - and they value their time - it makes no sense." Straubel added.

Elon continued "It will not be free long distance for life unless you purchase that package," without elaborating how much this package will cost. He then advised people to charge their electric cars where they charge their phones, "would you really take your phone to a gas station?", reiterating that "they do it out of habit" because of fossil fuel cars. "You are getting $5 of electricity while spending half an hour of your time...maybe barely minimum wage" he concluded.

It is safe to assume a Model 3 SuC package will not be very expensive as the cost of charging at the station shouldn't go for more than $5 per charge - 800 sessions would then equate to $4000 - keeping in mind supercharging was initially set up in order to avoid range anxiety and enable long distance travel. That amount should reasonably cover a few year's worth of this package deal Elon mentioned and will contribute to Tesla's long term plan of expanding its charging network. Model 3's battery - less than 60 kWh - is not meant to have such a high charge cycle in its lifespan otherwise it will experience heavy degradation. Tesla offers their high end Model S and X owners an 8 years unlimited miles warranty on the life of their batteries but that comes obviously at a cost of their price class.

Additionally, supercharging is a free service for Tesla Model S and X owners. Some stations are already overwhelmed with high demands and experience long queues for vehicles to charge, so Elon's answer was somehow expected as Tesla wants to make the charging experience as easy and hassle free as possible.

During Model 3 unveiling, Elon was not very detailed when mentioning Supercharging for Model 3, however he did say the vehicle will be equipped with Supercharging capabilities. Tesla later on had to rewrite its Model 3 description, in order to clarify what the customers will be expecting from their reserved vehicles, from "standard" to "capable", hinting that Supercharging might not be free after all. Now, this subject can be finally put to rest.

It's worth noting Tesla initially decoupled Supercharging capabilities from the Model S 60 kWh and added it as a $2,000 option - including all hardware & software installations and testing of its capabilities. This feature is still available for the 60 kWh model - though not for the 40 kWh model - on Tesla's website but for $2,500. This might be a hint of things to come for the Model 3.