Tesla has announced the availability of free “supercharging” for its vehicles during the holidays.
There are some caveats, though, with the company saying its customers will be able to “charge for free during off‑peak hours at Superchargers along select travel routes in the United States.” The free charging will be available from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time from Thursday to Sunday.
The relevant Superchargers are sprinkled throughout 11 states — most of which are on the West Coast — that Electrek says are more likely to boast “high concentrations of Tesla owners.” (The company’s former home state of California, for example, hosts 33 of the free charging stations.)
This promotion can help Tesla customers in two ways. The first is by making holiday trips a bit more affordable; the second is by encouraging people to recharge their vehicles at different times so the Superchargers won’t be overwhelmed by these end-of-year travelers.
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Electrek notes that Superchargers being overcrowded during the holidays isn’t a new problem. Tesla owners complained of particularly long wait times during Thanksgiving in 2018, and in the years since, promotions like this have been used to mitigate this issue as much as possible.