free fuel for the rest of your life???

"Free fuel for the rest of your life

Date
January 16, 2013 - 12:14PM

Matt Campbell
Motoring Writer

Electric car maker Tesla says it will offer free charge points to buyers, with Australian stations in the pipeline.

Free fuel for your car for the life of the vehicle. Sounds too good to be true, right?

Tesla thinks otherwise.

The US-based electric car maker says it plans to give buyers the peace of mind that they will never have to pay a cent for recharging at its dedicated "super-charger" fuel stations.

The recharge points take 30 minutes to give the car about 150 miles (240 kilometres) of range. There are currently a number of the super-charger stations on the east and west coasts of the US, and the brand says it is planning to roll out many more in the coming years, including some in Australia.
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Tesla is planning to launch the new Model S sedan around the end of the year in Australia, and George Blankenship, Tesla's vice-president of worldwide sales, told Drive that the idea of its customers never having to pay for fuel is one of its main selling points.

He says that while Australia is a big country, there is scope for the super-charger network to work here.

"Here's what's nice about Australia - the goal with super-charging is to do it with solar," Blankenship says.

"So in a place like Australia where there's sun and you've got distances in between, the ultimate way to do that is with solar panels that put solar into a battery that then charges to a car whenever it needs it," Blankenship says.

He admits, though, that exact locations of potential fast charge points have not yet been defined for our market.

"I haven't put [the locations of potential super-charger stations] together for Australia yet, but we'll do it logically," he says.

He claims that the idea is that the super-charger stations would be free for buyers to use "forever".

"Our CEO Elon Musk is on the record as saying that [super-charging] is 'free forever on sunlight'.

"We think it's incredibly important to do this, because we think that it's part of the reason that people will acknowledge that you can take an electric vehicle on a trip. And you can go for free, and then it's better," he says.

"Our goal is to make our car better than a gasoline car so that people will adapt. The challenge is, how do you get people to change? And if they have to compromise to do so, and if they have to settle for something, it's hard to get them to change," Blankenship says.

"But give them a car like this... and say 'oh, by the way, you can drive all over for free', it's a compelling statement that people then want to get into the car, and that's the idea.""

http://theage.drive.com.au/motor-news/free-fuel-for-the-rest-of-your-life-20130116-2cspb.html