A Dark Night...All Alone At a Supercharging Station in the Middle of Nowhere!

[LoveMX]

If you are a woman (or man, I suppose) who find yourself all alone at a supercharging station unexpectedly late at night in the middle of nowhere and you suddenly have someone scream at you out of nowhere, what would you do? You can't get out to unplug the charger so what is a solution?

Tesla should really come up with an emergency release feature for the charger in cases of an emergency where you can just drive off without the need to get out of the car.

I understand that this feature could also be abused sometimes, but why not have a software update to make it available as a pay-per-use feature? It could sometimes really save people from being a victim of a crime.

Anyone with a twitter account, can you please tweet a link of this post to Elon? Please vote in this poll. Thanks.

 

[totoro722]

Anyone on this forum ever experience something like that? How did you handle it? Would emergency unplug have helped?

 

[bhorn]

I think that's what horns are for.

How often does this kind of thing actually happen?

 

[Big Dog]

or maybe an emergency button (somewhere) that turns on lights, flashers, horn, and immediately dials 911 from the mcu thru the web (phone not needed), like OnStar?

 

[LoveMX]

I think that's what horns are for.

How often does this kind of thing actually happen?

Not always, especially if it's a really secluded spot, and there are such supercharging locations mainly outside of the major cities. You can't stop a violent crime with a horn in such places.

 

[bhorn]

Not always, especially if it's a really secluded spot, and there are such supercharging locations mainly outside of the major cities. You can't stop a violent crime with a horn in such places.

And you think a charger eject is going to stop a violent crime? You should probably get a hand gun and a concealed carry permit.

 

[TigerNinety]

And you think a charger eject is going to stop a violent crime? You should probably get a hand gun and a concealed carry permit.

Yep. A gun is always the best solution. Let's all get 'em, skip everything in between.

 

[bhorn]

<- not actually a gun proponent. I was simply pointing out the absurdity of expecting a technical solution to being scared. If you feel powerless, you should address that issue.

 

[animorph]

Haven't wanted this feature, other than trying to put it in drive before disconnecting. Simply releasing the charge handle would still leave it pressed into the charge port and likely to damage the car if you pulled away. So I think this is a hardware mod as well.

 

[SSedan]

This has come up before and I think people underestimate the technical challenges of implementation.

I would avoid such places, if travels dictate I might choose a well lit hotel with destination chargers vs. a sketchy supercharger ,would think staff could escort you from vehicle back to the building if need be, get some rest and carry on in daylight.

 

[mathwhiz]

The only Supercharger at which I felt the least bit uncomfortable was April 2015 at Bridger Ave in Las Vegas, after-hours... But that was after thinking to walk to the closest pharmacy -- then changing my mind after taking in the surroundings (thought better of it and did a 180, returning to my car)... Technically, Tesla will have to deal with this problem eventually, to make robotaxis work...

 

[henderrj]

An automated connection would, of course, solve this issue. And as was mentioned it will be needed for the robo taxi. I invented one called the power docking port system years ago. No takers yet! Part of the sales pitch was the women alone with her little baby at night driving up to the superchargers in the dark. Of course you wouldn't even have to get out of the car. To disconnect, should she get scared and want to leave, she'd just push the button on the screen and off you'd be.

 

[jboy210]

911 works on my phone. No need to engineer for every possible situation.

 

[aesculus]

Well there could be other reasons to stay in your car and drive away while connected. For example the unheard of car fire in a vehicle next to you.

Of course if it was really important to drive away I suppose just driving off and letting the charge plug take a hit on your car is an option.

 

[Feathermerchan]

This seems the same as filling up at a gas station.
Why not just plan not to do it if you are concerned?

 

[ElectricSteve]

I live in western Europe. No need for solutions to problems we don‘t have.

 

[bhorn]

There you go, OP. Steve is willing to pay for you to come live in his country and protect you from the bad people.

 

[jdchi]

Tesla shared that prototype of an automated charging connector several years ago. But I would submit that the automated connector is far more terrifying than anything you may encounter in your travels:

 

[Janus]

In many regions, standard gas station connectors have emergency break-aways to disconnect the hose (and cut fuel flow) should someone drive off while still plugged in. At some point in the development of modern EVs, someone instead decided the simpler solution would be for the car to detect that it's connected, and then simply prevent the car from being placed into gear.

The question to ask, how many gas station hoses are removed due to careless drives, vs. legitimate emergencies?

 

[totoro722]

The question to ask, how many gas station hoses are removed due to careless drives, vs. legitimate emergencies?

Quite a few if you can believe what you see on YouTube!