If you drive a Tesla and use the accommodation renting service Airbnb a lot, you’re in luck. Starting in California, Tesla Motors will hand out free (minus an installation fee) charging stations to certain Airbnb locations.
The primary goal for Tesla is expanding the range of its vehicles - not just with bigger battery packs or revolutionary technology (that’s coming though, says every battery engineer, ever) - but also by expanding their charging network. Soon that will include Airbnb, a company that boasts locations in over 34,000 cities, 190 countries, and over 40 million customers served so far.
The plan is to start in California, retrofitting quality Airbnb accommodation locations with Tesla chargers like the ones used by Tesla owners, with more details coming from Web2Carz:
Airbnb candidates must have more than five completed bookings and an average overall star rating of 4+ to be eligible to receive a free Tesla charger (which is typically valued around $750 or so). Installation, however, will cost the homeowner between $200 and $900, depending on the layout of the Airbnb host’s home. That said, Tesla owners driving through other states would be more likely to stay with a host that has a charger for their car, which means the initial cost could be recouped relatively quickly.
With the deal, Tesla will be expanding its charging network by around 500 Airbnb locations, slowly spreading out from California to other states, and likely eventually going global.
Tesla’s biggest issue it has had to tackle, besides fighting dealership networks in some U.S. states, has been providing an ample amount of locations for customers to charge their vehicles beyond their garage. They have made a great attempt so far by developing an international “Supercharger” network, where customers can park their car at a certified Tesla station, and in under an hour drive off with their vehicles fully charged.
The company is also supposedly still actively interested in a battery-swap system, which they previously demonstrated swapping a Tesla battery pack faster than topping off a car with gasoline. This potential setup would get drivers back on the road in under three minutes.
Until that happens, this new deal gets Tesla an expanded network and opens the door to more, and Airbnb, the accommodation sensation sweeping the... world, and its locations become instantly appealing to Tesla owners looking for a good place to stay and re-energize, both their bodies and their cars.
PHOTO CREDIT: AP IMAGES