A few months ago, Gentari not only announced price hikes for its public EV chargers but they have also introduced overstay fees with the objective to create a “better charging experience for everyone”. It appears that not all users are aware of these overstay fees and some had faced bill shocks amounting to a couple of hundreds of ringgit.
Most EV users would have probably heard about idle fees which are typically imposed if you do not move your vehicle after charging is completed. These fees are meant to deter hogging and to ensure that the chargers are available to those who need them.
For Gentari, the overstay fees have a similar objective but it is implemented differently. The overstay fees are imposed once a user has exceeded the set time limit, regardless if your EV is still charging or not.
Overstay fees of RM1.00-RM1.50 per minute are applied at selected Gentari EV charging stations
According to Gentari’s announcement made before 17th of March 2025, they are imposing an overstay fee of RM1.00 per minute (RM60 per hour) after 4 hours at selected AC charging stations. Meanwhile, a higher overstay fee of RM1.50 per minute (RM90 per hour) is charged after 1 hour for selected DC charging stations.
For example if you’re charging at an AC charge point for exactly 5 hours (1 hour over the time limit), you’ll have to pay the charging session plus an hour overstay fee of RM60. If you’ve left your EV plugged in for 8 hours, you’ll have to pay overstay fees for 4 hours (4x RM60) which is equivalent to RM240.
Similarly, if you’ve left your EV plugged in at a DC charger for 2 hours (1 hour over the time limit), you’ll have to pay overstay fee for 1 hour (1x RM90) which is equivalent to RM90. These overstay fees are imposed on top of the standard fees for the EV charging session.
Take note that the overstay fees are only applicable at selected EV charging stations. From what we’ve noticed, most of these chargers have the overstay fee signs attached to the cable. In addition, the overstay fees are also listed with the price in the Gentari Go app as shown below.
Lately, the Gentari Go app has been updated to include a notification if overstay fees are being applied.
Besides Gentari Go, the overstay fee charges are also listed on other roaming-enabled charging apps such as ChargEV and JomCharge as shown below:
Gentari should make exemptions for EV chargers at hotels/accomodations
While overstay fees are great to prevent charger hogging and faster turnaround, we hope Gentari could make some exemptions for EV charging locations where users tend to charge overnight. For example if an EV user plugs in at 12:00am, you don’t expect them to wake up in the middle of the night just to move the car to avoid the overstay fee.
Besides, the 4-hour time limit for AC charging isn’t enough for EV owners with slower single phase onboard chargers (up to 7kW) as they may need at least 8 hours to get sufficient charge for their next long distance journey.
Perhaps, Gentari could follow a similar fee structure as ChargeSini for EV chargers located at hotels and serviced apartments/residence. For example, ChargeSini imposes an idle/high occupancy fee only when 50% of chargers are being utilised at the location. In addition, ChargeSini also waives idle fees between 12:00am to 9:00am, to provide users a greater peace of mind to charge overnight and they have ample time to move their vehicle before 9:00am the next morning.
