Model S

Make
Tesla
Segment
Sedan

There was a time when no one thought Tesla was going to make it. But despite its many ups and downs, Tesla has proven to be quite resilient in one of the most challenging industries. The automotive business has never been easy and survival is far from guaranteed. Now that Tesla has (mostly) gotten things under control, specifically production, it's once again examining ways it can reduce expenditures. One of them is to discontinue something that helped convince people to buy Teslas in the first place.

As first reported by Electrek, Tesla has updated its official website, specifically its used vehicle section, to indicate free Supercharging is no longer available. Does this mean owners will actually have to pay to fuel their Teslas? Yes. Heaven help them.

If you recall from last year, Tesla switched to a paid model instead of "free unlimited Supercharging" for all of its vehicles. However, used Teslas still benefited from the original plan because the package itself was originally part of the purchase price. So, in some ways, buying a used Tesla might have been the smarter choice, but that's over now. Tesla CEO Elon Musk even admitted free Supercharging was not sustainable when the program was removed from new vehicles purchases, and that the company "probably should have ended this earlier."

There is, however, one other potential way to receive free Supercharging, but it has nothing to do with Tesla itself – and therein lies a problem. This would require one to purchase a used Tesla from a third-party or directly from an owner already eligible for free Supercharging.

However, this purchase will somehow have to be kept a secret, at least from Tesla. Back in 2017, the company changed its policy as the Free Unlimited Supercharging became linked to vehicle ownership; it was no longer transferable. For the most part, Tesla controls its own used vehicle market because it buys back a majority of its cars.

Theoretically, it can decide how these used vehicles are re-sold. Eliminating free unlimited supercharging is well within its right, but there could be some consumer anger, which would be understandable.