EV Renter Hit With $418 Bill After Using Hyundai Dealership's Public EVgo Charger For 44 Minutes

One of the many advantages electric vehicles have over their gas counterparts is the fact that they're usually a hell of a lot cheaper to fuel up, but one man in Michigan had an experience that went totally against that norm. Stanley Kpenkann wanted to charge his rented Chevy Bolt at a public charging station, which is normally a pretty inexpensive experience, but he was hit with over $400 in charges after he unplugged. 

Kpenkann told WXYZ Detroit that he was down to his last "20 minutes" of battery, so he opened up the EVgo app to find the nearest charging station to him. It just so happened to be located at Elder Hyundai in Macomb, Michigan. Chargers being located at dealerships isn't uncommon — it's often a benefit the dealers offer to new EV customers that they can charge their cars there. I've charged at dealerships before without any issue. Unfortunately, Kpenkann can't say the same, as the 44-minute session cost him a whopping $418 — leaving him "flabbergasted."

Initially, he assumed it was an error. But EVgo confirmed the charges were indeed valid, and the dealer's chargers displayed the pricing on the screen: an eyewatering $5 per kWh and $5 per minute, WXYZ reported. Kpenkann says he never saw those prices, and even if they were displayed, it's fairly likely he wouldn't have noticed them. I mean, nobody expects a public charger to cost that much — especially when you are only renting an EV, and you're not an owner. "You don't go into a gas station where the average price of gas is 4 dollars, expecting they're gonna charge you 25 dollars per gallon," Kpenkaan told the ABC station.

A reporter at WXYZ spoke with a representative at Elder Hyundai, and they said Kpenkann used a charger reserved for its own customers and vehicles. That's not really a thing — especially when you've got a public-facing EVgo charger that shows up on the app. Apparently, the dealership set the prices high to deter outside use, which is uncool at best.

A spokesperson for EVgo said that the dealership can pretty much do whatever it wants when it comes to setting prices, as WXYZ learned:

[A] spokesperson said the company has a roaming agreement with ChargePoint, whose name appears on the chargers.

"Roaming is enabled at the Hyundai dealership in Macomb, and drivers can charge at that site through their EVgo account; however, all pricing is set by the dealership as the station owner," the spokesperson said.

Kpenkaan, as you may have guessed, wasn't thrilled with this reasoning, saying it "makes no sense," because if the dealer doesn't "want anyone to use it because of private use, then make it private, don't make it public." I've gotta say, I agree with him on this count.

Luckily, this story has a happy ending. With the help of WXYZ, Kpenkaan was able to get a "goodwill" refund from EVgo for $405. The remaining $13.27 is reflective of what the charging session would have cost with his subscription plan. That means, if he hadn't involved the local news channel and fought the chargers, he would've paid 31 times the regular rate.