Checklist

Home Charging vs Supercharging: Your Year-One Checklist

By Elena Marsh · EV buyer's advocate · Published August 10, 2026 · updated August 10, 2026

A Tesla at a Supercharger — Photo: “Tesla-charging-iec-type-2-outlet-tesla02-outlet” by Paul Sladen — CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Illustrative free-licence photograph — not a Tesla press image.

A new Tesla owner's first year usually mixes home charging and Supercharging, but how much of each makes sense depends on facts that are yours alone: your tariff, your country's referral reward, and how long a temporary credit actually lasts. Here's the checklist, dated July 13, 2026.

1. Know which reward you actually got

Only the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain get Supercharging credit as the referral reward; the US and Canada get an FSD trial instead, and Australia gets a cash-style discount. If you're not in a Supercharging-credit market, skip straight to comparing home charging against ordinary Supercharging pricing — there's no starting credit to factor in. Check your country page if you're not sure which applies to you.

2. Know exactly how big that credit is — and that it's one-time, not a subscription

Country	Referral credit
🇬🇧 United Kingdom	≈ 650 free Supercharging miles
🇩🇪 Germany	≈ 1,000–1,500 km (verify current amount)
🇫🇷 France	1,000 km free Supercharge
🇳🇱 Netherlands	Free Supercharging km (may be shifting to an FSD trial — verify)
🇪🇸 Spain	Free Supercharge km, or ≈ €500 credit in some periods

Every figure above is a fixed, one-time allotment, not an ongoing plan. Once it's used, ordinary per-kWh Supercharging pricing takes over — which is exactly why a year-long comparison can't stop at "how big is my credit."

3. Check your own home electricity tariff before comparing anything

We won't quote a home electricity rate here — it varies by household, region, and whether you're on an EV/off-peak tariff. Check your actual bill or your supplier's EV tariff page before running any comparison; a generic "average" rate wouldn't tell you anything useful about your own year.

4. Check current Supercharger pricing in your own Tesla app, not an old post

As one illustration only, our UK country page uses roughly 41p/kWh peak and roughly 3.7 mi/kWh to estimate the UK credit's cash value — and flags that figure as illustrative because Supercharger pricing moves by time of day and location. Look up the live rate at your own nearest Superchargers in the Tesla app before doing this math for yourself.

Same code, whichever way you charge The credit is fixed — home vs Supercharging is your call after that.

Open Tesla with the code applied →

The code is in the toolbar above (tap Copy). This referral link opens Tesla's official store with the benefit attached — always confirm it shows in your order summary before you pay. We may earn Tesla Credits; it costs you nothing.

5. Decide on the paid Charging Membership by your real session count, not a guess

Tesla's own framing puts the paid Charging Membership's break-even at roughly four or more Supercharging sessions a month — reported for North America; Membership pricing varies by country, so confirm your own local figure in the app before deciding whether it's worth adding once your free credit runs out. See the full stack of referral reward, incentive and Membership for how the three interact.

6. Plan for the month the credit runs out — that's when the real comparison starts

A temporary credit only covers the first weeks or months of ownership. The honest year-one comparison has to include the months after it's gone, when every Supercharging session is priced normally and home charging is the only "free-feeling" option left on the table.

7. Re-check anything market-in-transition before you lock in a plan

If you're in the Netherlands specifically, re-confirm which reward you actually got in your order summary — the country's benefit has been mid-shift since the RDW approved FSD (Supervised) for public use on April 10, 2026, per our Netherlands page. Don't plan a full year of "free Supercharging km" against a reward that may already be an FSD trial by the time you order.

For the referrer side of this same math, see referrer reward vs Supercharging costs; for every country's exact figure, start at the country pages.

Questions this raises

Is the free Supercharging credit the same as a subscription?

No — it's a one-time allotment of miles or kilometres (e.g. ≈650 miles in the UK), not an ongoing plan. Once it's used, normal per-kWh Supercharging pricing applies.

Should I get the paid Charging Membership once my credit runs out?

That depends on how often you actually Supercharge. Tesla's own framing puts the North America Membership's break-even at about four or more sessions a month — confirm your local pricing before deciding.