An American man has been billed an astounding US$418 ($580) for charging his car for 44 minutes at a Hyundai dealership – and when he queried the amount, assuming it was a “glitch”, he got another shock.

Stanley Kpenkann was driving his rental Chevrolet Bolt last month when he noticed that the battery only had 20 minutes of power. He looked for a charging station on his EVgo app, which directs drivers to the nearest outlet and offers lower rates, and was sent to a Hyundai dealership in Macomb Township on Detroit’s north-eastern outskirts.

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After the 44-minute refill, he noticed he’d been hit with that astronomical fee. “I was flabbergasted. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be saddled with a bill of $418 for a charging session,” Kpenkann told local news outlet WXYZ Detroit.

When he inquired about what he assumed was an error, EVgo informed him that the amount was correct. The dealership displayed pricing on the charging machine’s screen, with rates set at $5 per kilowatt-hour and $5 per minute. 

A representative from the dealership told WXYZ that the prices are so high because the charger is only meant for its own customers and vehicles, and the high cost is meant to prevent other use. An EVgo spokesperson explained that “all pricing is set by the dealership as the station owner”.

That, of course, didn’t sit well with Kpenkann, who said, “You don’t go into a gas station where the average price of gas is $4 [a gallon] expecting they’re gonna charge you $25 … It makes no sense for you to have it on the app, but say we don’t want anyone to use it because of private use.”

There is a happy ending to the tale, however: EVgo gave Kpenkann a “goodwill refund” of US$405, and said the remaining US$13 represents what he would usually have paid under his subscription plan.