Elon Musk’s Tesla is following in the footsteps of Apple and making its customers buy chargers separately.
Tesla has now officially removed the mobile connector as a standard accessory with every new car purchase.
The connector serves as a way to connect the car to a standard power outlet and juice the car up incredibly slowly – like adding just a few miles of range per hour.
Of course, most people never use it and charge their vehicles through wall connectors or dedicated public charging stations. But still, the mobile connector was nice to have lying around in a pinch.
The change was first noticed earlier this month by an eagle-eyed Twitter user who pointed out a subtle change on Tesla’s order page. A sentence saying ‘it can be topped off using the included Mobile Connector’ was modified to remove the word ‘included’.
On Sunday, Musk confirmed the news on Twitter, that buyers would no longer receive a mobile charger with their brand new Teslas.
He added that Tesla would be ‘including more plug adapters with the mobile connector kit’ in the future but did not specify which adapters.
Musk also said that Tesla would be slashing the price of mobile connectors to $200.
Apple stopped including EarPods and wall chargers with iPhones in 2020, opting only to include a USB-C to Lightning cable in its packaging.
According to Apple, ditching the charger and EarPods is supposed to reduce carbon emissions and preserve raw materials.
Reducing waste seems to be the line that Tesla is going with for the change as well but what’s also significant is the timing. Global supply chain issues and suspended production at its Shanghai factory while the carmaker struggles to hit its delivery targets cannot be ruled out.
As of now, Tesla’s website says that its mobile connector bundle is out of stock.
Metro.co.uk has reached out to Tesla for comment.
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