Tesla has a new “Fair Use” Policy at their Supercharger stations and it bans users who use their cars for commercial purposes. This means that if you use your Tesla vehicle as a taxi or in a ride-sharing service like Uber, you can’t use the Tesla Supercharger stations. The new policy stipulates that the Supercharger stations are for “personal long distance travel” in cases where access to chargers is “impossible or inconvenient,” BGR reports.
According to BGR , the justification is that they don’t want their Superchargers to be clogged with people who use their vehicles commercially and prevent regular drivers from gaining access.
“When Superchargers are used beyond their intended purpose, it negatively impacts the availability of Supercharging services for others,” the company says in the policy document.
The rule also applies to drivers who use their Teslas to transport commercial goods, or for government purposes. It isn’t just a U.S. rule. It’s in force at all Supercharger stations all over the world. As BGR notes, Tesla has close to 1,050 Supercharger stations all across the globe with approximately 7,500 individual charging stalls
But there’s some leeway for Tesla owners who are also Uber drivers. The new rule will only apply to drivers who bought their vehicles, new or used, after December 15, 2017.
New #Tesla #Supercharger : Shangrao, China https://t.co/HlWJ31dY4a . Total: 1078 #bot pic.twitter.com/dGlaKHTqsh
— Teslaliving (@teslaliving) December 6, 2017
According to Electrek , this will have a negative impact on lots of companies whose vehicles regularly use Tesla’s Supercharger stations. One company, Tesloop, uses these stations to provide transportation services. The rule won’t apply to the Tesla vehicles they already use but will affect any vehicles they buy in the future.
As Electrek notes, some Tesla owners had been complaining that cars from companies like Tesloop were abusing the Supercharger stations by leaving their cars there for extended periods of time and sometimes overnight. This isn’t the first time that they’ve implemented a solution to address this problem.
They introduced a new text-based alert system earlier this year to prevent owners from leaving their cars plugged in at Superchargers after their vehicles are fully charged. Tesla sends the owner a text message to let them know that their car battery is charged and resends the message every five minutes if the car remains plugged in.
But, it looks like the alert system did not work as Tesla ended up having to introduce their new “Fair Use” policy for their Superchargers.
