Tesla's Emergency Drive Away Lets Cars Leave a Supercharger Still Plugged In, Two Months After Twin Falls

Tesla has shipped a feature called Emergency Drive Away in software 2026.38.3, letting a driver shift into Drive while a Supercharger cable is still latched to the car, Electrek reported on October 1, 2026.

Tesla's own warning, as quoted by Electrek, is blunt: "Use of this feature will damage your vehicle and the Supercharger." Deliberate misuse brings "additional penalties", which Tesla has not defined.

What changed in 2026.38.3

Until now a Tesla would not leave Park with the connector attached. A driver had to unlock the charge port from the touchscreen, the app or the button on the handle, then wait for the latch to release. Electrek's August 3 report puts that wait at several seconds. Tesla Oracle adds a third route, an emergency release cable behind the charge port, reached through the trunk.

The new option works at all US Superchargers with no hardware upgrade, per Electrek. Model S and Model X built before 2021 are excluded. Tesla gave no engineering reason, and the feature is US-only "for now".

The Twin Falls shooting behind it

Electrek dates the attack to August 1, 2026, at a Supercharger beside an In-N-Out restaurant in Twin Falls, Idaho, and reports three people killed and seven injured. Tesla Oracle's account, published August 3, describes a gunman firing through the windshield of a Model Y that was charging; the person inside survived.

The latch is the point. It exists so a cable cannot be pulled out under load, and in that case it also held a car in place.

Four ways out, compared

Method	What it takes	Cost to the driver
Touchscreen, app or handle unlock	Tap, then wait several seconds	None
Manual release cable	Reach behind the charge port via the trunk	None
EVject Escape Connector	Third-party breakaway adapter, bought in advance	$299
Emergency Drive Away	Shift into Drive on 2026.38.3	Damage to car and Supercharger, not priced

The EVject adapter is the closest precedent. Electrek's August report says Tesla sued EVject in 2024 over surface temperatures it said could reach 100°C after 30 minutes of high-current charging, then dropped the suit once EVject added thermal protection.

What Tesla has not said

The number that matters here is not the feature's existence but the repair bill. Tesla has not published what ripping a connector from a latched port costs the owner, the charger or the network, and it has not said what the penalty for non-emergency use will be. An owner proposal reported by Tesla Oracle floated a $100 to $300 fee; that is a suggestion from owners, not a Tesla figure.

Tesla has also not said when the feature reaches vehicles outside the US or whether the pre-2021 Model S and Model X will get a different fix. The first published penalty schedule, or the first reported use, will show how Tesla intends to price the damage.

For another case of an EV charging network behaving badly when its assumptions fail, see our report on the unpatched Monta charging platform authentication gap. Ford's own timeline in its Fathom report shows how far a new vehicle architecture sits from owners.