Tesla introduces fee for lazy owners who leave their cars at Supercharger stations

There’s nothing like driving your nearly-empty Tesla up to a Supercharger station for a top-up and finding every spot taken by other cars — probably all charged up and ready to go. Where are their drivers? How dare they? Tesla shares your anger and will soothe it by giving those drivers a different kind of charge.

You know, the money kind.

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The company announced today that until it can make the cars move themselves once charged — probably not that far off, actually — drivers will need to undertake that task, and do it within 5 minutes of the car hitting 100 percent. Once that 5 minutes passes, a $0.40 per minute fee will begin to assess — retroactively inclusive of the first 5, so you’re looking at $2 right off the bat.

“One would never leave a car parked at a gas station right at the pump and the same rule applies with Superchargers,” read Tesla’s announcement.

How will one know that it’s done and you need to scoot? Why, one will get an alert on one’s phone, of course, via the Tesla app. One already does, in fact. So one never had any excuse.

“To be clear, this change is purely about increasing customer happiness and we hope to never make any money from it,” the announcement also reads. What an odd thing to say! Get that money, Tesla. I predict a couple thousand bucks in the first month. If you don’t want it, give it to someone who does.