Tesla will raise rates at its Supercharger stations after it implements a new pricing structure. At present, it charges using a state/region pricing scheme. It will now use a structure that prices individual stations according to local power and demand.
Price increases vary from place to place
The price increase was reported by Electrek, not Tesla. The site claims that New York drivers were until now charged the state-wide rate of $0.24 per kWh. With the change, the price goes up one third to $0.32 per kWh.
Tesla already hiked prices anywhere from 20 to 40 percent for pay per-use customers in 2018. A Tesla spokesperson said that the company is “adjusting Supercharging pricing to better reflect differences in local electricity costs and site usage,” and repeated its talking points from 2018, claiming that the company doesn’t plan to use the Supercharging stations as a “profit center.”
Tesla is cutting costs
This price rise comes on top of Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, just having announced that the company will end its customer referral program, which permitted customers to gift six month of free charging to friends who bought a Tesla. The company has been continually cutting back on its free charging program as noted on the appended video.
As another cost-cutting measure, Tesla cut about seven percent of its work force as reported in a recent Digital Journal article.
For the third quarter of last year Tesla finally made a profit but has yet to make a yearly profit. As discussed in a recent article, Tesla has a huge amount of its debt coming due $920 million. This is putting a lot of pressure on the company to reduce its expenditures as it has been burning through cash.
Previously published in Digital Journal
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