Tesla supercharging payment issue

Last updated 03-Jan-2023

Some Tesla owners are finding that they are blocked from supercharging, even after they have updated their payment card.

What is typically happening is the old payment card has expired and in the process of updating payment card details, a transaction is left pending without payment.

This is a quirk in the system and can result in the supercharger still refusing to charge even after the card details have been updated.

Expired credit/payment cards

All credit and payments cars expire and it's therefore going to happen that the one logged in your Tesla account will expire at some point. Remembering all the places where you have logged your payment card, such as Amazon and other retailers, etc is near impossible and while most transactions where you use a credit card will prompt or warn you if the card has expired, when supercharging, this doesn't usually happen until afterwards.

What seems to happen is:

  • You supercharge your Tesla or if you have free sueprcharging, incur an overstay charge.
  • Tesla try to take payment and find the payment card has expired.
  • Tesla advise you to update the payment card details, which you do.
  • The transaction where the payment failed however is not automatically charged to the new payment car
  • The next time you supercharge, Tesla refuise as there is an outstanding payment issue even though you feel you have corrected the issue by updating the payment card

How to clear the issue.

To clear the block, you not only need to update your credit or payment card details, but you also need to view your supercharging history and press the "Pay" button to use the updated payment details for any previous unpaid supercharging sessions. Once done, supercharging should be enabled.

Therefore when you update your payment details at home, it is worth checking your charging history and clearing any unpaid charging sessions before trying to supercharge again.

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