Tesla CEO Elon Musk has come out to address the elephant in the room when purchasing the electric car company's new Model 3. Apparently, since news about the absence of free juice for the base price unit of the Model 3 came out, many have expressed their disappointment in Tesla.
Hence, it is just right that Musk discussed the matter during a shareholder meeting in Mountain View, Calif. on Tuesday. In his explanation, Musk said that the base Model 3 units do not have free supercharging because Tesla is not capable of providing such a feature to the car given its $35,000 price tag, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Since the Model 3 is Tesla's most affordable yet, the company cannot afford to provide the unit access to its Supercharger network. Musk even emphasized that the only way they could offer the units at such an affordable price on the market is by decoupling it from free supercharging.
Tesla's CEO also went on to say that the company only adds extra charges to higher trim levels because they cannot find a way to make them less expensive to market.
Compared with other models like the Model S and the Model X, the latest design is the only one without the free supercharging service factored into its market value, as per Ars Technica. However, the two aforementioned models are not as affordable as the Model 3. The base price for a Model S is $71,500, while the base price for a Model X is $80,000.
Musk also reiterated that owners of the Model 3 should not even rely on the company's charging network because it would just be a waste of their time. "Driving to a supercharger in order to get five dollars worth of electricity, and spending half an hour of your time, your're like, maybe barely at minimum wage. So it's just not the best thing for people, but you kno, they kind of do it out of habit," the Tesla cofounder said.
