Tesla has reduced Supercharging prices in many regions as its charging business starts to mature a little.
One of the biggest advantages of electric vehicles remains that their cost of operations is much lower than vehicles with internal combustion engines, thanks to electricity generally being much cheaper than gas.
However, the cost of both gas and electricity has been skyrocketing over the last year, especially in Europe because of the war in Ukraine and restrictions on Russian oil and gas.
It used to be difficult to pay more than $5 or $10 for a full charge at a Tesla Supercharger.
After several price increases throughout the last year, now many Supercharger stations are charging $0.50 per kWh, which can result in a cost of $30 to charge 60 kWh.
Earlier this year, we reported Tesla announcing a major Supercharger price hike in Europe – mainly because of the energy crisis, and later in North America, especially in California.
But what goes up must go down.
Many Tesla owners across several markets have been reporting over the last few days that Tesla has reduced prices at their local stations.
There’s no way to track Supercharger pricing globally, but Tesla owners can see prices at stations around them through the navigation system inside their vehicles.
A Tesla owner in California reported that local prices are down by as much as 5 cents per kWh:
Some price drops in Europe are even more significant with prices going down by as much as $0.10 per kWh.
Tesla’s charging business is maturing
Charging stations are slaves to the electric utility rates, and they undeniably influence prices more than anything else, but the charging business as a whole is also evolving.
Top comment by M in California
This does not seem to be true, at least in the SF Bay Area. At the same supercharger it just cost me $0.57/kWh to charge yesterday on November 24, 2022. (They increased the rates for the superchargers in the bay area in September 2022.) Back in April 2022 it was $0.48/kWh. And back in November 2021 it was $0.42/kWh. Hoping to see rates go down, but right now that's definitely not the reality in the SF Bay Area.
It’s only about 10 years old, and only now the volume of electric vehicles on the road is starting to be high enough that the business is maturing.
When it comes to Tesla, the automaker has been making a lot of moves to adapt lately, like expanding time of use rates to match high traffic times. Of course, it is also slowly opening the Supercharger network up to non-Tesla EV, which is turning the network into a real business rather than just a feature to help sell Tesla vehicles.
Tesla Supercharger network recently reached 40,000 chargers globally.
It is now starting to morph into its final form: a sustainable (both ecologically and financially) global fast-charging network that enables long-distance travel in electric vehicles.
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