One Detroit-area Hyundai dealer wants $400 to charge your car — SkimNews
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- Stanley Kpenkann was charged $418 for a single EV charging session at Elder Hyundai's Macomb Township store after finding the charger listed as publicly available on the EVgo app, only discovering the charges after his roughly 40-minute session ended.
- Elder Hyundai charges customers $5 per kWh plus $5 for every minute connected, per EVgo's pricing — far exceeding typical residential electricity rates.
- Steve Birkett of Plug & Play EV reported in June being charged $15 per kWh at a Hyundai dealer in Union, NJ to charge his IONIQ 5, with many dealers also limiting access via security gates, closing outside business hours, and posting signs to deter public use.
- Reddit user C1rcuitBoard was billed $671.60 at an MES-branded charging station in Sycamore, IL; when they complained, the company "doubled down" and sent their power bill to justify the charge.
- EV charge point operators in many states are not required to clearly display per-kWh pricing before drivers plug in, unlike gas stations, which must post legible signage visible from the street.
- The article proposes four ground rules for publicly funded chargers: 16+ hours/day public-access priority, illuminated per-kWh pricing signs with 16–24" digits, capped energy markups with audits, and aggressive clawback of NEVI incentive dollars for non-compliance.
Why it matters: First-time EV drivers can be hit with surprise bills of hundreds of dollars at dealerships that list chargers as "public" on apps, with no pre-plug-in pricing-transparency requirement — and many of these chargers were funded by public incentive programs like NEVI, meaning taxpayers effectively subsidize the markup while new EV owners get soured on the technology.
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