A life hack of unknown veracity that claims to speed up charging by wrapping a wet towel around a Tesla charger has gone viral, leading Tesla to officially warn people not to do so

A life hack that is popular among the Tesla community is that if you wrap a wet towel around the handle of a Tesla charger 'Supercharger', the towel acts as a coolant and enables fast charging. Tesla has officially warned against this life hack, saying, 'It will not increase the charging speed.'

Tesla Owners Are Putting Wet Towels On Supercharger Handles To Get Higher Charging Speeds
https://insideevs.com/news/718718/tesla-supercharger-wet-towel-improve-charging-speed/

Tesla advises against using wet towels to accelerate Supercharging | TechSpot
https://www.techspot.com/news/103989-tesla-advises-against-using-wet-towels-accelerate-supercharging.html

The Supercharger has a temperature sensor inside the handle, and when the temperature of the handle rises, the charging speed is reduced to maintain a safe temperature. Taking advantage of this logic, a life hack is used to cover the handle with a wet towel to shade the handle from sunlight, keep the temperature lower, and charge faster.

One Tesla owner conducted an experiment and reported that wrapping a wet towel around the battery actually increased the charging speed.

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

Another user used an app that graphs the charging rate and reported, 'It's pretty clear when you wrapped the towel around it, right?'

I assume it was right here? Might have to start keeping a rag in the car if it makes that big of a difference… pic.twitter.com/FQ25mvJdaV

— Austin ??????? (@AustyUSA) May 6, 2024

Superchargers are advertised as safe to use even in rainy weather, so there is no risk of electric shock from wrapping a wet towel around it, but the unspoken understanding in the community was that anyone using them would do so at their own risk.

However, Tesla has issued an official warning against this lifehack. In a response to X's post, Tesla said, 'Placing a wet cloth over the Supercharger cable handle will not increase charging rate and may interfere with temperature monitors, causing overheating and potential damage. To ensure our systems work properly and that any charging issues are detected by our systems, please refrain from doing so.'

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…

— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) July 25, 2024