Last fall, Tesla announced that it would soon be pulling the plug on the totally free use of its Supercharger stations, giving prospective Tesla buyers until Jan. 15 to place an order that would lock in this free access. With that deadline looming, the company has finally revealed vague details on what latecomers should expect to pay for fast-charging their pricey electric vehicles.
The price will be set state by state in the United States and country by country elsewhere, and generally the charge will be per kilowatt hour. In some areas, the company has to charge for the time that a car is plugged in due to local regulations. Tesla didn’t specify in the announcement which regions these are.
Those prices will be fairly low, though: the company gives an example of the fuel required for a road trip from Los Angeles to New York, which would cost about $120.
“We carefully considered current Supercharger usage and found that 400 kWh covers the annual long-distance driving needs of the majority of our owners,” the company said in its announcement blog post. In other words, most customers do most of their charging at home, and this change will prevent Supercharger abuse in the future.
It will also raise more money to build out the Supercharger network, which will be important as the lower-cost Model 3 goes on sale.
“We are only aiming to recover a portion of our costs and set up a fair system for everyone; this will never be a profit center for Tesla,” the announcement post said.
[via Bloomberg Technology]
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on Consumerist.