Tesla announces unlimited overnight charging for $30 per month
electrek.co
electrek.co
It's a whole different paradigm when you compare fill/charge as you go vs monthly recurring fees.
What you are talking about is usage based Vs flat rate billing.
This is a new model of paying for energy, but it seems weird to suggest that your ownership of the vehicle somehow meant that subscription-based versions of paying for power are an injustice.
Nobody is forcing you to take a subscription. You're welcome to power it for free all by yourself, with solar panels. Or, for all they care, build yourself a generator with a wood-burning fire and start chopping trees.
The scheme requires a deal with the power company. Power companies, if they refuse the deal with Tesla, get to charge the customer full retail price for any energy used. They are buying that energy at super low nighttime rates, so they're usually making a large profit margin.
I think it only works in Texas because the regulator requires power companies to accept a deal like this. Ie. is is legal for a device within your home to use power, but the power it uses gets self-metered and then subtracted from your utility bill, and the power is bought from the wholesale market by someone else.
Personally, I think this is a good thing. And it would be nice for all electrical devices to be sold bundled with power use for the first few years. That way, the manufacturer of your dryer/washer/aircon has a direct incentive to make it energy efficient, even post-sale.
Even if electricity were free at night (not an impossibility in some markets), it would take 433 months (36 years) to reclaim $13k.
This is simply a billing plan option for people who already have a Tesla car, Tesla home charger, and live in Texas.
When you sign up, instead of paying your electricity company for power your car uses, you will instead pay Tesla a fixed monthly fee, and they'll deal directly with your power company.
That being said, I am not convinced it is worthwhile as a consumer. I would be personally annoyed any month where my average daily mileage was less than the break-even point at standard electrical rates. If nothing else, the hassle of setting up a separate electric account for something I am already getting would make me hesitant to enroll.
(I would characterize convenience as an emotional decision, it’s not intended to have a negative connotation).
A bit like 'fuel cards', which let you top up a car with gas for free, and it gets billed to the owner of the car. Lots of companies do that for corporate cars so employees don't have to buy gas with their own money and get a refund.
The target market is somebody who wants a nice, predictable cost structure. They want to be insulated from price spikes or demand spikes (such as suddenly needing your car a lot more).
They're not doing it as a charity. It will almost certainly cost more on average than charging it yourself. Maybe Tesla will be able to eke out some small economies of bulk-purchasing, but it's not the reason for this. It's about smoothing people's experience. People who would rather optimize can do that instead.