News
Tesla owner racks up $1147 in Supercharger idle fees at valet-only parking garage
For Tesla owner James Salantiri, his Model 3 and the valet-only Supercharger station at the William Vale Parking Garage in Brooklyn, NY are intertwined. With his apartment just 10 minutes away by foot from the parking garage, Salantiri is a regular in the business. He would drive over to William Vale, hand his vehicle over to the valets, and drive away the next day, charged and ready for the road.
It was a system that has worked since he took delivery of his black Long Range Model 3 RWD on March 2018. Salantiri had waited long for his Model 3, having been one of the reservation holders who waited in line to put a deposit on the vehicle during the day of its unveiling. The parking garage has served him well, even when Tesla started rolling out strict Supercharger idle fees.
Tesla initially introduced a $0.40 per minute idle fee for its Supercharger Network on December 2016 to discourage owners from keeping their vehicles connected to the high-powered charging stations even when their electric cars are fully charged. Tesla raised its idle fees on September 2018, adjusting the fees to $.50 per minute. When a charging location is fully occupied, the company’s idle fees go as high as $1.00 per minute.
This system is particularly tricky for Tesla owners like James Salantiri, who regularly use valet-only Urban Superchargers to charge their vehicles. In a message to Teslarati, the Model 3 owner noted that William Vale’s valets would usually charge Teslas and unplug them as needed when the parking garage gets full as part of their service. At times when the parking garage is relatively empty, the valets would at times go the extra mile by plugging a vehicle overnight.
When the electric car maker rolled out its updated Supercharger idle fees, Salantiri was informed by a Tesla representative that since the garage is valet-only, and since owners have no control when their vehicles are plugged in or taken off the Urban Superchargers at the location, any idle fees incurred at the parking garage would be waived. This setup worked well. Even when the vehicle is left plugged in overnight and large idle fees are incurred by his Model 3, Salantiri would see the charges either waived or refunded.
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- (Credit: James Salantiri)
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- (Credit: James Salantiri)
Previous idle fees at the Urban Supercharger were previously waived or refunded automatically. (Credit: James Salantiri)
Things changed recently. Upon looking at his recent bank statement, the Model 3 owner noticed two Tesla Supercharger charges to his account amounting to $1,147.16, comprised of a $171.04 charge on August 1 and a $976.12 charge on July 23. This prompted Salantiri to contact the electric car maker, where a representative reportedly informed him that a refund wasn’t possible due to the Supercharger not being on Tesla property. In the following call that was escalated to a supervisor, Salantiri was told that the recent fees could not be waived or refunded since the company’s waive/refund policy for Supercharger idle fees only covers an initial charge. Attempts to contact the parking garage’s new management about the issue were also unsuccessful.
A look into Tesla forums such as the Tesla Motors Club shows that Salantiri’s issue was not an isolated incident. Another Tesla owner, who goes by the username choatie88, noted that he was also charged a notable idle fee at the same location since his vehicle was left to charge overnight. In a message, the Tesla owner noted that he eventually got a one-off refund once he explained the parking garage’s valet-only nature to Tesla. Unfortunately for Salantiri, his one-off refund/waive credit appears to have been used up over his regular trips to the location.
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- (Credit: James Salantiri)
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- (Credit: James Salantiri)
The Model 3 owner’s recent Urban Supercharger idle fees from the valet-only parking garage. (Credit: James Salantiri)
Tesla noted in its Supercharger idle fee announcement last September that there is no upper limit on the amount of fees that a vehicle could accrue. This is absolutely fair in public charging stations where owners have full control when they could plug in and remove their vehicles from a Supercharger, but this system hits somewhat of a gray area when it comes to valet-only parking locations. It would be difficult for owners to remove their vehicles from a Supercharger, after all, if they do not have access to their cars.
In a message to Teslarati, Salantiri noted that it would perhaps be best for Tesla to roll out an upper limit for Supercharger idle fees, at least in locations that are valet-only. Or perhaps the electric car maker could just maintain its previous system, which automatically addresses idle fees in places where owners could not disconnect their vehicles from Superchargers. In places like the William Vale Parking Garage, which city dwellers depend on for their charging needs, perhaps Tesla could also roll out Destination Chargers instead, which are not as quick as Urban Superchargers, but do not accrue idle fees once a vehicle is fully charged.
Update:
The Model 3 owner has informed us that his vehicle’s idle fees at the William Vale Parking Garage have been waived by Tesla. A representative from the parking garage further explained that an error on Tesla’s backend caused the charge to be levied, but it has been reversed, considering that idle fees do not apply to valet-only Superchargers.
Investor's Corner
Tesla and SpaceX take “Terafab” Trademark fight to Federal Court
Tesla and SpaceX sue a small Illinois firm after cease and desist letters over Terafab.
Tesla and SpaceX are asking a federal judge to rule that their planned Terafab chip factory does not infringe a small Illinois company’s trademark, a request that arrives only after months of quiet negotiation broke down this summer.
The dispute traces to May 18, when Tesla filed three U.S. trademark applications for “Terafab” and “Tesla Terafab,” covering semiconductor chips and related chip making services. TERA-print LLC, a nanotechnology company that has held a federal trademark for “Tera-Fab” since 2021, responded five days later with a cease and desist letter. According to the lawsuit, first reported by Reuters, TERA-print argued that Tesla and SpaceX’s use of “Terafab” would confuse consumers familiar with its own trademark, which covers a desktop photolithography printer sold to researchers for sensor and bioengineering work.
What stands out in the filing is the timing of TERA-print’s own paperwork. One day before sending that cease and desist letter, on May 22, TERA-print applied to expand its existing registration to cover semiconductor materials, silicon chips, nanoelectronic devices and AI design services, categories it had not previously claimed. Tesla and SpaceX call that filing opportunistic in their complaint, noting it arrived two months after Tesla’s public Terafab announcement and just days after Tesla’s own trademark applications went in.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
By June 10, TERA-print was threatening to sue for federal trademark infringement, false designation of origin and unfair competition, the complaint states. Rather than wait to be sued, Tesla, SpaceX and SpaceXAI met with TERA-print six separate times between June and August trying to resolve the dispute directly. Those talks collapsed, and the companies filed for declaratory judgment this week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, asking a judge to find that “Terafab” does not infringe TERA-print’s mark before TERA-print can file a claim of its own.
TERA-print isn’t backing down. The company told PCMag it discussed a settlement with Tesla as recently as September 2 and feels misled by what it called Tesla’s professed interest in settling. Its CTO, Andrey Ivankin, said TERA-print holds a Defense Department contract to fabricate semiconductors and partially owns Mattiq Inc., an AI company built on TERA-print’s products, and that the company will vigorously defend its rights.
Tesla and SpaceX argue the overlap is superficial. Terafab is planned as a $16.8 billion complex spanning roughly 100 million square feet at the Grimes County site SpaceX confirmed last month, built to produce chips for Optimus robots, Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s orbital data center ambitions, a scale and purpose the companies say no reasonable consumer would confuse with a tabletop lab printer. TERA-print’s product line has stayed focused on lithography tools for biological and sensor research since it registered its mark in 2021.
The trademark fight is the second legal dispute tied to the Terafab project in the past week, following a separate SpaceX suit aimed at keeping company records about the facility out of public view, as KBTX reported. Whether construction proceeds under the Terafab name now depends on a federal judge in Austin.
News
NHTSA just escalated its Tesla Cybercab investigation in a big way
NHTSA escalated its Cybercab audit into a sworn Special Order with a September 30 deadline.
Federal regulators have moved from asking Tesla questions about its Cybercab to demanding sworn answers. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a Special Order that requires a Tesla officer to sign an affidavit attesting to the completeness of the company’s responses, with a deadline of September 30.
The order builds on Audit Query AQ26002, which NHTSA opened on September 3, the same day Tesla began commercial Cybercab service in Austin. Teslarati covered that initial inquiry when it surfaced, noting the agency wanted to understand how Tesla certified a vehicle with no permanently attached steering wheel, pedals, or mirrors as compliant with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. A Special Order is a different tool and converts a fact finding review into a legally enforceable demand, the same mechanism NHTSA used against Tesla in 2023 during its Autopilot investigation.
Several of the 21 requests target a specific gap in Cybercab’s design. One asks whether Tesla used temporarily attached human controls at any point to help certify the vehicle, and if so, which standards depended on that equipment being present. Another quotes an existing rule directly: “The service brakes shall be activated by means of a foot control.” Cybercab has no foot pedal. NHTSA wants a detailed explanation of how the vehicle satisfies that requirement, and how it complies without the kind of exemption granted to Zoox in July under Part 555, the regulatory pathway built for steering wheel free vehicles.
The order does not claim Cybercab is unsafe or that Tesla broke a rule. It requires Tesla to explain, under oath, the reasoning behind decisions the company already made when it self-certified the vehicle. That distinction matters, but so does the exposure. Motor1’s reporting, summarized here, put potential civil penalty exposure as high as $139 million if NHTSA later finds the certification was flawed, on top of whatever criminal risk comes with a false sworn statement.
Tesla has not said publicly how it plans to respond. Cybercab is still carrying passengers in Austin through the Robotaxi app while the September 30 deadline approaches, and the company has continued expanding the vehicle’s footprint even as the regulatory question remains open. The Special Order does not pause any of that and just sets a date by which Tesla has to put its certification logic on the record, with a company officer’s name attached to it.
In a new interview on Wednesday, Tesla uber bull Ron Baron said that anyone looking to buy the company’s stock should do so as soon as they can.
Baron, founder and CEO of Baron Capital and one of Tesla’s most persistent institutional bulls, used a CNBC Squawk Box appearance on Wednesday to deliver a familiar message with fresh urgency: In his opinion, Tesla stock is a buy:
“The time to buy the stock is now. FSD is catching on, and it’s going to be bigger and bigger. 55% of new buyers are buying it (Teslas) with FSD. It’s going to be everywhere. It’s safer.”
The Baron Capital frontman’s case is built around Full Self-Driving. Tesla reported 1.48 million active FSD subscriptions in the second quarter, up 56 percent year over year, and company officials have said roughly 55 percent of new North American deliveries left with a subscription enabled.
Baron framed that attach rate as proof the product is moving from enthusiast extra to default expectation, and as a reason software, not just vehicle volume, should drive the next phase of value.
His conviction on Tesla shares is not theoretical, as Baron Capital made its first Tesla investment in 2014, after years of meetings that began around the 2010 IPO roadshow. The firm later built a large SpaceX position starting in 2017.
Ron Baron today in new interview on Tesla:
“The time to buy the stock is now. FSD is catching on, and it’s going to be bigger and bigger. 55% of new buyers are buying it (Teslas) with FSD. It’s going to be everywhere. It’s safer.” pic.twitter.com/Rv5PB0bVZ2
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) September 16, 2026
Baron said those Musk-led bets have generated about $30 billion of the $71 billion in profits Baron Capital has produced for clients. He put the firm’s current exposure at roughly $25 billion in SpaceX and $5 billion in Tesla. Personally, he described SpaceX as his largest holding, at about $5 billion, with about $1.5 billion in Tesla and additional Tesla exposure through the firm’s funds.
That concentration is also a statement of loyalty. Asked about talk of a SpaceX-Tesla combination, Baron said he had already walked Elon Musk through arguments for and against a deal, then declined to repeat them on air. His public position was simpler: “Whatever you decide is better is what I’m going to support,” he said to Musk.
Baron also said that he picked up the farewell edition of the Model S after Tesla decided to sunset the vehicle earlier this year, calling it his favorite car he’s ever driven.
Tesla and SpaceX take “Terafab” Trademark fight to Federal Court
NHTSA just escalated its Tesla Cybercab investigation in a big way
