Tesla warns against wet towel trick to speed up Supercharging

Tesla has warned against a trick that involves placing a wet towel around a Supercharger connector to speed up the charging process.

If you have been using a Tesla Supercharger lately or have Tesla stuff in your algorithm, you might have seen people place wet towels on a Supercharger connector while charging.

Many people have claimed that this can increase the charge rate.

For example, Out of Specs tested it and managed to increase the charge rate from 58 kW to 119 kW:

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! ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/0o6VGgdhc9

— Out of Spec Studios (@Out_of_Spec) August 31, 2020

Is this impressive, and should it result in faster charging? The answer is yes, but the better question is: is it safe?

The answer is no.

Tesla responded to the trend with a clear warning:

Placing a wet cloth on Supercharger cable handles does not increase charging rates and interferes with temperature monitors creating 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.

Thermal management is an important part of fast charging. Sending high-voltage current through small cables creates a lot of heat.

It may seem like a good idea to help the thermal management with a wet blanket, but a wet blanket can’t do much against that kind of heat. What it does is mess with the heat sensors on the connector and make the system believe it can send more current through. That can become dangerous quickly.

In conclusion, please don’t do it.

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