It would appear that if you wrap the handle of the Supercharger with a moist cloth, you are increasing the likelihood that it would overheat.
The culture of Tesla automobiles is full of tricks and quick cuts, some of which are more efficient than others. One of these tricks, which is commonly referred to as the “wet towel” trick, required the Tesla Charging department, or whatever is left of it, to publicly advise customers to stop using their charging devices.
What is known as the “wet towel” method involves wrapping a moist, cool cloth around the handle of a Supercharger cable in order to supposedly shorten the amount of time it takes to charge the device. At the same time that it is charging Tesla automobiles, the Supercharger is equipped with temperature monitors that prevent it from overheating. There are some Tesla owners who believe that if they cool down the charging handle, the temperature monitor will be fooled into thinking that their vehicles will be topped off more quickly.
The following is the issue, at least according to Tesla’s explanation: the towel-wrapped charger has the potential to generate a “risk of overheating or damage” if the sensor in the charging handle of the device perceives that the temperature is lower than it actually is when it is charging.
Even though it became a well-known “hack” on other auto news websites and Reddit forums, it took Tesla more than two months to advise its customers not to do the “wet towel” trick on their vehicles. This may sound like the most obvious statement in the history of technology news, but it is actually the longest statement in the history of the industry. On Wednesday, the official Tesla Charging account on X issued a caution in reaction to a piece published on InsideEVs.com that provided an explanation of the potentially hazardous strategy for charging automobiles.
Yes, you can put a wet towel on a Supercharger handle to get faster charging speeds https://t.co/bw0lQZKXiA
— InsideEVs (@InsideEVs) May 7, 2024
This kind of catastrophic communication failure is what occurs when a big automobile manufacturer does not have a department that is responsible for public relations. It was reported by Electrek that Tesla terminated their entire public relations team in the year 2020, and Elon Musk publicly declined to employ a public relations professional for his X account the following year, stating that he did not want to “spend money on advertising and manipulating public opinion.”