Tesla removes ‘free unlimited Supercharging’ from its used cars

Tesla was including ‘free unlimited Supercharging’ for all its vehicles for a long time before switching to a paid model last year.

The automaker’s used cars were still benefiting from it since from some vehicles, the ‘free unlimited Supercharging’ was attached to the car, but now we’ve learned that Tesla is removing the feature.

For the first few years of the Model S and Model X program, unlimited free Supercharging was been one of the top perks that Tesla was offering to its customers.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the perk wasn’t sustainable and he even admitted that they should have ended the incentive earlier:

“Sorry, it’s not really sustainable at volume production & doesn’t incent optimal behavior. We probably should have ended this earlier.”

After that, Tesla still brought back free Supercharging as an incentive to sell inventory cars and even the Model 3 during a few periods last year.

For a while, ‘Free Unlimited Supercharging’ was also linked to Tesla’s owner referral program, but the automaker has since restructured the program.

Lately, the only way to buy a Tesla with free Supercharging was to buy a used car, but now we’ve learned that’s longer the case — at least when going through Tesla.

Sources familiar with the matter told Electrek that Tesla sent a memo to sales employees last Friday to inform them that Tesla is removing the perk.

Older Model S and Model X vehicles that should be listed with free Supercharging no longer have the feature on Tesla’s website:

It should still be possible to buy a used car from a third-party or directly from an owner with free Supercharging, but buyers need to be careful because Tesla switched its policy in 2017 and the ‘Free Unlimited Supercharging’ became linked to the ownership of the vehicle — making it non-transferable.

Electrek’s Take

Tesla is buying back these cars. They own them so they can theoretically do whatever they want to do with them.

However, I am not sure how it works on an accounting basis because Tesla sold these cars while allocating some cost to ‘Free Unlimited Supercharging’ being associated with the vehicle for the life of the vehicle.

Now they are removing this perk before selling back the cars. That’s tricky.

Either way, it might help the rest of the used Tesla market — though Tesla controls a big part of it.