No, Wrapping Wet Towel Around Supercharger Is Not The Solution

Homemade remedies often can’t stand the technical arguments where engineering is involved.

You must’ve come across this weird trend of Tesla EV owners wrapping a wet towel around the Supercharger handle. They claim that this increases the charging rates. In fact, some people have posted on social media platforms with visual evidence that this trick works. I guess, everyone wanted an official answer from the largest EV maker on the planet. And, the verdict is finally out.

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Is Wrapping Wet Towel Around Supercharger Effective?

A tweet from Tesla Charging on X mentioned, “Placing a wet cloth on Supercharger cable handles does not increase charging rates and interferes with temperature monitors creating a risk of overheating or damage. Please refrain from doing this so our systems can run correctly, and true charging issues can be detected by our systems.”

In fact, an InsideEVs tweet said, “Yes, you can put a wet towel on a Supercharger handle to get faster charging speeds.” This was the answer to the previous tweet. Going into the details of this interaction, many Tesla EV owners came forward and confirmed that this technique works. They have recorded a significant increase in the charging rates. However, it is clear that Tesla doesn’t promote or endorse this practice at all.

Finally, an Out of Spec Studios tweet informs, “Another extreme wet rag supercharger test. Plugged in at 2% SoC – ramped up to 147kW as normal and thermal throttled at 34% down to 58kW. Slapped that room temperature soaking wet rag and it climbed back to 119kW where it hit the internal charge profile limit. Amazing!”

The reason for this new wet-towel technique is that the handles of the V2 Supercharger used to get very hot. This is true especially when parked in direct sunlight. However, the new V3 Supercharger comes with actively cooled cables. Hence, the same issue doesn’t crop up. On top of that, as mentioned in the Tesla Charging tweet, the sensors could get confused while taking accurate readings leading to a potential malfunction.

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Learn Electric Cars Says

I understand that charging an EV is a constant worry that remains in the back of the mind of EV owners all the time. In fact, it is the single biggest reason why electric cars have eluded mass adoption. The need for quick charging and long range is what the customers need. That could be the final push the fence-sitters need to transition to electric cars eventually. Therefore, it is clear why EV owners would be testing out anything and everything to charge their cars faster. However, we must ensure that we don’t end up doing anything foolish which might harm our machines in the long run.