Tesla Partially Rolls Back Supercharger Price Increase

Just one day after announcing an increase in charging prices at Supercharger stations worldwide, Elon Musk’s Tesla has now stated that the announced price increases are being rolled back after customer backlash.

Breitbart News reported yesterday that Tesla announced plans to increase the cost of electricity at their Supercharger stations worldwide; these are the stations where Tesla owners “fuel up” their vehicles. Now, one day later, Tesla has revealed that they will not be implementing the previously announced price increases. These were the announced increases from Breitbart’s article yesterday:

Tesla already increased the cost of Supercharger stations throughout the U.S. last year; some areas saw a 100 percent increase in cost but the average Supercharger station price increased by 20 to 40 percent.

Now prices are increasing again; in New York, Supercharger stations charged$0.24 per kWh following last year’s increase, now downtown New York City locations will charge up to $0.32/kWh. California saw prices increase from $0.26 per kWh to between $0.32 to $0.36 per kWh. Norway — one of Tesla’s most important markets — also saw a huge increase in Supercharge costs, increasing from 1,40 NOK to 1,86 NOK per kWh. On average, prices appeared to increase by approximately 33 percent worldwide.

Now, BBC News reports that the proposed 33 percent increase has been cut down by approximately ten percent. The price increase was rolled back after many Tesla and electric car owners complained that this move would make electric vehicles far less competitively priced than gas ones.

Apparently, Tesla took notice of complaints across their own online forums and multiple social media sites about the proposed increases and reduced the increase putting the average US Supercharger price at $0.28 per kWh. Norway, which is an important market for Tesla, was at 1,40 NOK per kWh last week before the increase which brought prices up to 1,86 NOK per kWh; now following the 10% decrease in proposed prices this should go down to 1.70 NOK per kWh.

While Tesla appeared to listen to some customers online complaints, those that attempted to reach out to the company directly often appeared to be out of luck. It would appear that Tesla’s customer support email inbox is full and is no longer accepting email

Confirmed. Tesla's customer support email bounces. This is what I got. Mailbox full. Perhaps someting to do with thousands of people being let go? pic.twitter.com/DuhytRJTB4

— Keubiko (@Keubiko) January 21, 2019

Given the company’s recent decision to lay off seven percent of its workforce, this does not bode well for the company’s future.