After testing temporary Supercharger discounts in its home state of California, Tesla has announced its plans to expand its test of discounts in an attempt to reduce wait time during peak travel times.
When Tesla begin testing its limited-time Supercharger discounts in California last year, some speculated that Tesla was trying to incentivize people to charge at night in order to offset peak-hour charges. Tesla was charging $0.09/kWh during off-peak hours, dropping the price of Supercharging significantly compared to peak hours.
Now, we are learning that Tesla is planning on widening its testing by expanding its temporary Supercharger discounts to Norway and Sweden. According to the EV giant, it will offer 50% discounts on Supercharger rates on February 20, February 27, and March 6. Tesla explained that the reason behind incentivizing charging during off-peak hours is to reduce wait times at charging stations during high demand hours.
A Tesla representative told TV2 (translated from Norwegian): “The test is part of a larger project that examines how price can be used to encourage our customers to better use the Supercharger capacity. Norway and Sweden are the first markets in Europe where such tests are carried out, says Even Sandvold Roland, who is senior communications manager for Tesla in Norway.”
Norway has one of the highest concentrations of Tesla vehicles in the world and, if you didn’t know you found out during the Super Bowl, makes up about two thirds of is vehicle sales with electric vehicles. However, the country has experienced its fair share of problems when it comes to service capacity and charging station access.
Tesla has been working on expanding its global Supercharging network and recently announced it had deployed its 20,000th Supercharger in the world. Even more recently, the automaker revealed its new Supercharger factory in Shanghai is officially up and running sharing photos of the first Supercharger station produced at the new location.