Tesla Motors Inc. on Monday said it would stop offering new owners of its electric vehicles unlimited access to free fast-charging stations at the beginning of 2017, a move intended to help pay for the expansion of the charging network to support the launch of a cheaper and higher-volume Model 3 electric car.
Tesla has gained notoriety for free access to proprietary stations that can recharge its cars in far less time than a conventional charger can accomplish. While the company's investment in the "Supercharger Network" has been steep, it considers the spending a replacement for the hefty sums most auto makers dish out for advertising or sales incentives.
The Silicon Valley auto maker introduced the perk four years ago and expanded it to Europe and Asia, but Tesla says it needs to change the rules. Owners of vehicles ordered after Jan. 1 will have to pay for charging after using 400 kilowatt-hours of free charging credits annually, or about the equivalent of going 1,000 miles.
"Beyond that, there will be a small fee to Supercharge which will be charged incrementally and cost less than the price of filling up a comparable gas car," Tesla said in a posting on its website.
Most sellers of electric cars, including General Motors Co. and BMW AG, leave buyers to rely on home-charging stations, public charging stations or independent power providers for their charging needs.
The Tesla stations were intended to give drivers traveling long distance the ability to charge their vehicles quickly, but they have become increasingly crowded as the number of Tesla vehicles on the road grows. Details of pricing, which may fluctuate over time and by region based on electricity costs, will be released later this year.
The changes won't affect current owners or Tesla orders placed before Jan. 1 and delivered by April 1, Tesla said.
The announcement comes ahead of next year's introduction of the Model 3 sedan, which Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk says will help increase the company's production to 500,000 vehicles in 2018 from about 50,000 last year.
Tesla's capital faces many demands, which will likely grow if Mr. Musk's plan to acquire SolarCity Corp, a solar-panel company where he is chairman, succeeds. Mr. Musk wants Tesla to offer a suite of products that enable sustainable vehicle ownership.
The Supercharger network is valued at $194 million with 734 locations world-wide, according to the company. The growth of sales, however, has strained the network's capacity, and Tesla has worried about its ability to offer service.
Tesla has said it has 373,000 reservations for the Model 3.
"The increasing number of Model S and Model X vehicles, as well as the significant increase in our vehicle fleet size that we expect from Model 3, will require us to continue to increase the number our Supercharger stations significantly," the company said in a quarterly filing this month. "If we fail to do so, our customers could become dissatisfied, which could adversely affect sales of our vehicles."
Mr. Musk first hinted at the company's annual meeting in 2015 that the charging network could change, noting that some people were "abusing" the system by using it for daily charging rather than for quick fill-ups between cities. This was causing congestion at the stations.
"There are a few people who are quite aggressively using it for local supercharging," he said at the time. "We'll sort of send them just a reminder note that it's cool to do this occasionally, but it's meant to be a long-distance thing."
In June, Mr. Musk announced that owners of the Model 3, which will start at $35,000, would be charged to use the network. When the Model S first launched, owners of the less-expensive model initially had to pay $2,000 to $2,500 to enable the car to have access to the system. Free supercharging for all vehicles has been standard since April 2015.作者: tianfangye 时间: 2016-11-8 09:28
