To help Elon Musk celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the opening of the Supercharger stations in Europe, Tesla invites all EV owners to charge for free on Tuesday 29th August 2023. As long as you begin your charge before 11pm this evening (UK summer time), you won't pay to charge.
This initiative is part of Tesla’s Electric Summer celebrations and a token of appreciation to the Tesla community who has contributed to making the Supercharger network the largest, most reliable and one of the best fast charging networks in Europe. For other EV owners, this is a great opportunity to test the network and greatly expand their charging options as over 70% of the network is now open to all EVs in Europe and the Middle East. That number will be lower in the UK, so please check before to travel.
Tesla likes to label its Supercharger network as ‘Charging that just works' and, based on reputation alone – that has been true in the past.
On 29th August 2013, the first 6 stations opened in Norway. 10 years later, the network spans 36 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa with well over a thousand sites and 13,000 individual Superchargers. Over time, the greater integration of the network between the cars and the Tesla app have made the overall experience ‘smarter', while keeping it simple and intuitive. Simply plug and charge. With a 99.95% uptime in 2022, Tesla also managed to expand and upgrade the network while keeping it extremely reliable.
With one eye on future expansion grant schemes, Tesla recently began to ‘unpack' its network – allowing more and more Superchargers to be used by any compatible EV. As of today, 70% of the European network is ‘open'. This began in November 2021 as part of a pilot program, but after months of data and feedback collection, it is now a full-fledged offering.
Tesla's open network is the biggest ultra-fast charging network in Europe with over 9,200 Superchargers and 660 stations currently accepting all EVs. Through the program, EV owners can access the network in just a few simple steps and at what has turned out to be – a very fair price.
Worth noting that Tesla charges are dynamic – and will change (within certain parameters) according to the time of day. This encourages folks to charge at ‘off-peak times', when more units are available/under-utilised.
Tesla has run a number of events across the summer – and it's also been putting pressure on its rivals through a series of price movements. That said, shaving a few thousand off the price of a Model 3 or Model Y won't have anything like the impact on sales that a fully fledged ‘Budget Tesla Model 2' might have.
If you're armed with an EV and want the free juice, then make sure you start before 11pm this Tuesday evening.