Tesla Model 3 owner receives absurd US$608,500 bill due to a Supercharger bug

Charging an electric car like a Tesla Model 3 usually costs way less than filling up the tank of a vehicle with a traditional internal combustion engine. Even though the widely available Superchargers do not provide free charging for Tesla drivers any longer, the resulting costs are usually much lower than the grotesque bill of a Tesla Model 3 owner from China.

According to a report by Electrek, the flabbergasted Tesla Model 3 driver stopped at a Supercharger in Shanghai for a mere 20 minutes, after which he noticed the unusually high charge of 3,846,306 Chinese yuan (about US$608,515) in the Tesla app. The corresponding screenshots show that his car was supposedly charged with almost two million kWh, which of course is technically impossible and indicates that the horrendous bill clearly was the result of a software bug.

Apparently, the Model 3 owner previously participated in Tesla's referral program and therefore received a certain amount of free supercharging. After his free miles were erroneously used up during the unfortunate charging session, his car was supposedly blocked from the charging network. But since the Tesla Model 3 was still plugged into the aforementioned Supercharger, the billing system somehow calculated enormous idle fees for blocking the charging space. Tesla's customer service promptly acknowledged the issue and is likely working on a fix for this quite peculiar Supercharger software bug.

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