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Future Teslas Could Come “Energy Included”
Future Teslas could come “energy included”, no matter how much you drive, for the life of the car. Crazy as it sounds, Tesla can actually make money giving Tesla owners free energy at home not just at Superchargers. Key components are already on the road or under development at Tesla. So, how would this work, when will it happen and what does it mean for Tesla owners and Tesla investors?
How it works
Tesla can provide grid regulation and stabilization services worth as much as the energy used for charging, or more, by centrally controlling the time and rate at which Tesla cars are charged. Embedding a modest up-front cost increment into the price of a special Tesla charging connector, pays energy cost in excess of earnings from grid regulation and stabilization as an “annuity”, and can leave a lot of money in Tesla’s pocket, too. This model is similar to Tesla’s Supercharger business – there is a detailed analysis of Tesla’s Supercharger business I did a while back on Seeking Alpha.
Owners will handle charging differently. Instead of setting charging current, normal or range charging, and (optionally) the charging start time, the owner will instead set a time for charging to be completed and whether a normal or range charge is needed by that time. The Tesla charging control center will then match the charging rate of each Tesla car using over-the-air communication links to earn grid regulation fees and capture the best electric rates while making sure each car is recharged when the owner needs to drive off.
Central Control of Charging Rate Provides Grid Stabilization
Your garage charging connector will be fed from a separate meter and the connector will “identify itself” to the car to enable Tesla controlled charging.
Two things make this scheme economically viable. There is flexibility in exactly when your Tesla charges because most days the charging time is much less than the time your car spends plugged in overnight. This flexibility lets charging be “timed” to help regulate the grid. When wind generation surges due to gusts, or when system load suddenly drops, chargers can be switched on to “swallow” the power surge. The grid system operator, working through the Tesla charging control center can rapidly adjust the charging load to help stabilize the grid.
Rapid adjustment of loads on the grid is valuable because it allows the grid to use more wind power with less fossil generation online as “spinning reserve”. When a large number of car chargers quickly switch on to “swallow” a surge in wind generated power, the value of the “regulation down” can actually be greater than that of the energy used by the chargers. At these times, the system operator will actually pay to have cars charge!
When will free home charging happen?
The answer is, we aren’t there yet. Utilities are only beginning to wrestle with what happens when large amounts of battery storage get connected to the grid. This turns out to be quite complicated. This Sierra Club Energy-Storage Cost-Effectiveness paper offers a summary of the results of several grid storage studies done for the California Independent System Operator (CAISO). At this point we can’t do a specific financial model because technologies, rate structures and even how grid regulation will work with attached storage have not been set.
There are also, at this point, too few Tesla cars on the road to make their charging a significant source of grid regulation. And so far, there is no central control system in place to coordinate the charging of Tesla cars. But times are changing.
CAISO now operates a unified energy imbalance market (EIM) across all or parts of seven states (CA, ID, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY). Within a few years one can imagine upwards of half a million Teslas registered in these states. When these cars are (mostly) plugged in for charging at night, they together represent several giga-watts of load that can be switched on or off in seconds, using the central charging control scheme. That’s a lot of wind regulation capability that requires almost no additional capital investment. It just might get us “free” energy to charge Tesla cars in their owner’s garages.
Status: Where are we on the path to free energy?
Tesla is doing a lot more with grid connected storage and grid regulation than many Tesla owners, and even many Tesla investors realize. In May of this year, J.B. Straubel, Tesla’s Chief Technology Officer made the keynote presentation at Silicon Valley/ SEEDZ Energy Storage Symposium. He discussed a surprising array of Tesla storage products already being made and installed in grid applications, from small residential storage systems being rolled out by SolarCity to large industrial units delivering hundreds of kilowatts. Video of JB’s presentation is available on YouTube here.
A lot of the hardware needed for central charging control of Tesla cars is already part of every Tesla. Every Model S already has a big battery, of course. And high power 10kW or 20kW chargers that are controlled through the touchscreen and the car’s computer. Every Tesla car has a broadband communication link to Tesla company computers that is used to download software updates. These links are available to control charging on a car-by-car basis. Tesla already makes a high power wall connector (HPWC) that can be installed with connection through a standard utility meter. Buying and installing one of these will probably be a requirement to get “free” charging at home.
The only part of the remote charging scheme that isn’t online today is the central control system for “aggregating” car charging so it can be controlled by the grid system operator. Everything else needed to implement aggregated charge control for Tesla cars is either already in production at Tesla or available off the shelf as commercial products or communication services.
In his talk, JB describes aggregation of many residential storage systems to allow the grid operator to use that distributed resource in much the same way aggregated car charging control might be used to stabilize and regulate the grid. At the end of his talk, there is a Q and A session. Someone asks what Tesla’s plans are for eventually implementing the aggregated control center JB described. His answer, “We are building it now.”
Should Tesla owners / investors care about this?
Probably, but some caution is warranted. Tesla owners already talk to their ICE driving friends about how much less electricity costs compared to gasoline or diesel fuel. If in the future all Tesla charging is free, both at home and from Superchargers when traveling long distances, Tesla owners will be left with literally “nothing” to talk about – something their fossil fueled friends may (or may not) appreciate.
For Tesla investors, the prospect of making all the energy for Tesla cars free has some big implications. If the economics parallel those of the Supercharger business, Tesla could see very large additional profit (billions of dollars at least) for something that would require negligible new capital investment by Tesla.
There will be indirect benefits for Tesla, too. Already Tesla cars offer the advantage of much lower energy cost compared to ICE cars, and even hybrids. Free charging at home and at Superchargers would make Tesla cars energy cost even lower than other electric cars which get charged on the owner’s electric meter. While the absolute economic advantage of free charging, compared to other electric cars, will be modest, the emotional value of getting energy for free should never be underestimated as a competitive edge in the market place.
And of course there is the plain, simple novelty of offering a car that costs nothing to run. This is a feature no other car is likely to have, and which no other car (with the exception of soap box derby and solar-car competition cars) has had before. It is newsworthy, people will talk and write about it and it will produce a lot of buzz and free advertising for Tesla. Tesla investors need to be careful not to be overcome with hysteria as the shares go up, yet again.
Disclosure: Author is long Tesla.
Tesla has expanded its branded ‘For Business’ Supercharger program that it launched last year, as yet another company is using the platform to attract EV owners to its business and utilize a unique advertising opportunity.
Francis Energy of Oklahoma is launching four Superchargers in Norman, where the University of Oklahoma is located. The Superchargers, which are fitted with branding for Francis Energy, will officially open tomorrow.
It will not be the final Supercharger location that Francis Energy plans to open, the company confirmed to EVWire.
Back in early September, Tesla launched the new “Supercharger for Business” program in an effort to give businesses the ability to offer EV charging at custom rates. It would give their businesses visibility and would also cater to employees or customers.
“Purchase and install Superchargers at your business,” Tesla wrote on a page on its website for the new program. “Superchargers are compatible with all electric vehicles, bringing EV drivers to your business by offering convenient, reliable charging.”
The first site opened in Land O’ Lakes, Florida, which is Northeast of Tampa, as a company called Suncoast launched the Superchargers for local EV owners.
Tesla launches its new branded Supercharger for Business with first active station
The program also does a great job at expanding infrastructure for EV owners, which is something that needs to be done to encourage more people to purchase Teslas and other electric cars.
Francis Energy operates at least 14 EV charging locations in Oklahoma, spanning from Durant to Oklahoma City and nearly everywhere in between. Filings from the company, listed by Supercharge.info, show the company’s plans to convert some of them to Tesla Superchargers, potentially utilizing the new Supercharger for Business program to advertise.
Moving forward, more companies will likely utilize Tesla’s Supercharger for Business program as it presents major advantages in a variety of ways, especially with advertising and creating a place for EV drivers to gain range in their cars.
Tesla Cybercab is perhaps the most highly-anticipated project that the company plans to roll out this year, and as it is undergoing its testing phase in pre-production currently, there are some things to work through with it.
Over the weekend, an image of the Cybercab being loaded onto a tow truck started circulating on the internet, and people began to speculate as to what the issue could be.
Hmmmmmm… https://t.co/L5hWcOXQkb pic.twitter.com/OJBDyHNTMj
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 11, 2026
The Cybercab can clearly be seen with a Police Officer and perhaps the tow truck driver by its side, being loaded onto, or even potentially unloaded from, the truck.
However, it seems unlikely it was being offloaded, as its operation would get it to this point for testing to begin with.
It appears, at first glance, that it needs assistance getting back to wherever it came from; likely Gigafactory Texas or potentially a Bay Area facility.
The Cybercab was also spotted in Buffalo, New York, last week, potentially undergoing cold-weather testing, but it doesn’t appear that’s where this incident took place.
It is important to remember that the Cybercab is currently undergoing some rigorous testing scenarios, which include range tests and routine public road operation. These things help Tesla assess any potential issue the vehicle could run into after it starts routine production and heads to customers, or for the Robotaxi platform operation.
This is not a one-off issue, either. Tesla had some instances with the Semi where it was seen broken down on the side of a highway three years ago. The all-electric Semi has gone on to be successful in its early pilot program, as companies like Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. have had very positive remarks.
The Cybercab’s future is bright, and it is important to note that no vehicle model has ever gone its full life without a breakdown. It happens, it’s a car.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that there has been no official word on what happened with this particular Cybercab unit, but it is crucial to remember that this is the pre-production testing phase, and these things are more constructive than anything.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
Tesla expands its branded ‘For Business’ Superchargers
Tesla Cybercab ‘breakdown’ image likely is not what it seems
