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Tesla Adds Emergency Drive-Away Feature After Idaho Supercharger Shooting

Tesla has added an emergency drive-away feature that lets owners override a charging lock and leave mid-charge, after an August mass shooting at an Idaho Supercharger.

AI News Feed · 2026-10-03 02:26

The shooting left seven people wounded and four dead. A Tesla owner who was charging his vehicle was among the wounded, The Verge reported. The 24-year-old gunman later took his own life.

Under normal operation, a Tesla’s charging plug locks into the charging port and the car cannot be driven while charging. To put the car in drive, the charging cable must be manually released from the port. After the Idaho shooting, Tesla owners asked for a quick-release mechanism that would let them escape in an emergency, The Verge reported. This week, Tesla released a software update that responds to those requests.

The new 'emergency drive away' feature allows vehicle owners to override the charging lock and drive away while the handle is still attached. Shifting into drive activates an emergency drive away alert that asks the driver to confirm they need to get away.

According to The Verge, the handle will break away and fall to the ground, and both the vehicle and the charging handle will sustain some damage in the process, which underscores why the feature should only be used in an emergency.

'Deliberate misuse will invoke additional penalties,' Tesla said on X, without specifying what kind of penalties. The Verge reported that the feature is only available in the United States for now, and noted that an estimated 500 million firearms are owned by private citizens in the US.

Tesla did not mention the mass shooting in its announcement. The Verge said it was not hard to draw a connection between the update and the Idaho shooting.

The new feature follows earlier aftermarket attempts to solve the same problem. Some companies have tried selling breakaway adapters for electric vehicles, including Teslas. In 2024, a startup called EVject built a breakaway adapter designed to let a driver leave a Tesla Supercharger or another station without getting out of the car in a dangerous situation.

Tesla sued EVject after the automaker’s testing found that the adapter could overheat. Tesla eventually dropped the case later that year, and EVject maintains that its product is safe, according to The Verge.