Tesla makes Supercharging free for owners affected by California wildfires

Tesla sent out an in-car notice to some owners in California to let them know that they are giving them free Supercharging to facilitate their travel if they need to escape the California wildfires.

As we reported yesterday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk authorized Tesla employees to provide assistance for the California wildfires and ‘not worry about payment’.

Now they seem to have found one way to help: free supercharging.

Several Tesla owners in Southern California have reached out to Electrek to share this following notice that they received from Tesla this afternoon:

“Due to wildfires in California, your vehicle has been granted free supercharging. We hope this provides assistance for your transportation needs and will notify you before returning your vehicle to its original configuration in mid-December. Safe travels.”

Here’s the notice on the Model 3’s center screen (picture by Ted Lawson):

It’s not the first time that Tesla decided to offer free supercharging during disasters.

In September, Tesla released more battery capacity and gave free Supercharging to owners in Hurricane Florence’s path.

The automaker had a similar initiative when Florida was hit by hurricanes last year, but it’s the first time that Tesla did it for wildfires.

Several wildfires have been extremely destructive in California this week.

The one that destroyed the northern California city of Paradise has been deemed “the most destructive in state history in terms of structures burned” and several people died, according to news reports.

Yesterday, tens of thousands of people have been evacuated in Southern California due to several significant wildfires.

Musk suggested that Model S and Model X vehicles could be used to evacuate people due to their air filtration system, which Tesla says is about 10 times larger than a normal car filter and it is “100 times more effective than premium automotive filters” as it removes “at least 99.97% of fine particulate matter and gaseous pollutants, as well as bacteria, viruses, pollen and mold spores.”

Update: Tesla has also released additional battery capacity to those cars with software-limited battery packs in the areas affected by the fires, just as they did during Hurricane Florence.  The additional capacity will also be reverted in mid-December.