Tesla has announced it would levy a new fee on drivers who do not take their cars off the Supercharger space within five minutes of finishing the charging. The fee will be forty cents per minute after the charging is complete. However, the fee will be waived if the car is disconnected and moved within five minutes.
The move is being undertaken to accommodate the ever-increasing number of Tesla cars. The company said that the effort would improve the availability of Supercharger for all the Tesla drivers. Tesla drivers are alerted when their car is fully charged through its dedicated app.
In a statement, the electric car company said, "A customer would never leave a car parked by the pump at a gas station and the same thinking applies with Superchargers."
The company said that the fee would be levied irrespective of whether there are other vacant Superchargers available or not. Tesla said that once its cars are fully autonomous, it is likely that the idle fee would be waived as it believes that the cars will be able to leave the spot on their own.
The Supercharger infrastructure is one of the most enticing perks for Tesla owners. The company built its first charging station in 2012. It currently has 769 charging stations scattered across the US and Canada. However, since then, the number of Tesla cars on the road has increased dramatically as well.
Tesla had offered free charging to its buyers. However, earlier this year, the company announced that from 2017, new Tesla owners will have to pay to use its Supercharger facility. Current owners of Tesla cars would continue to enjoy the facility for free.
Tesla has said that the move is not related to generated revenue but is more about creating better experience for owners of its cars.