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American car maker Tesla has confirmed that its forthcoming Model 3 saloon will not be able to access the firm's supercharger network for free.
At the moment, all Tesla owners are able to use the company's network of 32 UK superchargers free of charge.
The powerful chargers are able to add 170 miles of range to vehicle batteries within half an hour, compared to 11 miles when charging at home.
But with the imminent arrival of the firm's 'budget' model - thought to come to the UK in 2017 - demand to use the network is likely to massively outstrip the supply.
Currently, the cheapest Tesla on sale in the UK is the £63,000 'entry level' Tesla Model S 70D.
Within the first week of the vehicle being revealed, Tesla received more than a quarter of a million pre-orders worldwide for the BMW 3-series rival.
The 'package' Musk refers to will likely be marketed as a bolt-on extra to allow Model 3 owners to use the network at a cost, though pricing information has not been revealed yet.
"Free supercharging fundamentally has a cost," Tesla CEO Elon Musk said at the firm's annual shareholder's conference. "The obvious thing to do is decouple that from the cost of the Model 3. So it will still be very cheap, and far cheaper than gasoline, to drive long-distance with the Model 3, but it will not be free long distance for life unless you purchase that package."
"I wish we could, but in order to achieve the economics, it has to be something like that," he added.
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