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I think I'm missing something. How's that you'll be driving "for free" ? Someone has to pay for the energy the cars will be spending.The cars need maintenance. The car will be the "fastest, sexyest" for how long?

There is no free lunch. And Mr. Musk is not trying to give humanity free drive for life... he's just trying to make money. He is just trying to make his stuff popular so he can sell more of it and make more money. It's just business.

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The article claims that the supercharging stations are solar. The whole point of the article is about independence from oil, if you ignore the hyperbolic title.

Jason isn't saying Tesla isn't out to make money, simply that they are out to make money from great cars, rather than the oil industry.

I'm still skeptical that the charging stations will scale up to a national scale, but I admire Musk trying.

As another comment on here points out, the power produced from the solar panels is nowhere near enough to power the charging station. At best, it helps them offset the costs slightly due to the difference between the price they sell the (solar) power to the grid, and the price they pay for power from the grid - there's a 18-20 cent/kWh difference in their favour.

So, actually the tax payers are paying for the "free" ride :)

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