Tesla has added a feature called Emergency Drive Away that lets a car shift into Drive while the Supercharger cable is still locked in the charge port. Tesla Charging announced it on October 1, and it ships in software version 2026.38.3 for U.S. Superchargers only. Model S and Model X cars built before 2021 don’t get it.

The feature exists because of what happened in Twin Falls, Idaho, on August 1. A 24-year-old gunman walked through a parking lot shared by an In-N-Out and a Tesla Supercharger with an AR-style rifle, fired into the charging stalls, and then attacked the restaurant. Three people were killed and seven were wounded before he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Tesla owners who watched the surveillance video asked the same question afterward: a Tesla at a Supercharger cannot drive until the cable is released, so how does anyone get away?

Tesla’s answer took two months. Its own warning for the feature says using it “will damage your vehicle and the Supercharger,” and a follow-up from the company puts the repair bill as high as $25,000.

Emergency Drive Away Overrides the Charge Port Lock With Two Taps

A charging Tesla normally refuses to leave Park until the driver releases the cable from the touchscreen, the app, or the button on the Supercharger handle. With 2026.38.3, shifting into Drive while plugged in brings up an Emergency Drive Away prompt instead of a refusal. The driver holds the brake, taps Activate, and the car moves with the cable still attached.

The handle breaks away from the port and drops to the ground, The Verge reported, and both the car and the handle are damaged in the process. Tesla’s on-screen prompt says as much before the driver confirms.

In two replies to its own post, Tesla Charging added the limits. The first: “Use of this feature will damage your vehicle and the Supercharger.” Deliberate misuse, it added, “will invoke additional penalties,” without saying what those are. The second reply: the feature needs 2026.38.3, pre-2021 Model S and X are not supported, and it applies to U.S. Superchargers “only for now.” Tesla has given no date for other markets. The feature is a software gate, not new hardware, so nothing in the car stops it from working in Canada or Europe once Tesla flips it on.

The Escape Costs Up to $25,000 and Tesla Won’t Say Who Pays

In a reply to a follower, Tesla Charging said the damage “depends on the Supercharger, but electrical & civil cost can be up to $25k,” and that a service visit for the charge port is mandatory afterward, according to Engadget and Shacknews, which both quoted the reply. That reply sits below the main thread and is not visible without an X login, so the figure here rests on those two reports.

What Tesla has not said is who gets the invoice for the Supercharger side when the use was legitimate. “Deliberate misuse will invoke additional penalties” implies a distinction between misuse and a real emergency, and the obvious reading is that an owner fleeing gunfire is not billed for the stall. Tesla has not stated that. Tesla’s own replies leave the question open, and that gap matters more than the feature itself for the people it is meant to serve: a driver who hesitates over a $25,000 bill is a driver who hesitates.

Twin Falls Turned a Design Choice Into a Safety Problem

Twin Falls police identified the August 1 gunman as 24-year-old Chad Williams, who died of a self-inflicted wound after an off-duty state trooper and a bystander returned fire. Surveillance footage reviewed by MotorBiscuit shows him firing three rounds into the Supercharger stalls before moving on to the In-N-Out. A Tesla owner who was charging his car was among the seven wounded, per The Verge, and the owner requests for a quick-release mechanism followed within days. Tesla’s announcement never mentions the shooting.

The locked cable is not a bug. A Supercharger pushes up to 250 kW through that connector, and the lock exists so nobody yanks a live cable or drives off and drags a stall across the lot. Tesla did not build the lock to trap anyone. It built a system in which the only way out ran through a software menu, and until this week there was no exception for the case where the menu is the problem.

EVXL has reported this pattern before, on the other end of the car. Tesla’s electronic door handles leave occupants and rescuers unable to open the car when power fails. That record is why the SAFE Exit Act cleared its first vote in Congress in February, the same month China banned concealed door handles outright. The charge port lock is the same design philosophy: a physical exit that depends on the software agreeing to let you use it. Emergency Drive Away is Tesla adding the exception without changing the philosophy.

EVXL’s Take

Tesla did the right thing, two months late, and then buried it under a repair estimate. I put a lot of Supercharger miles on a Model 3 Performance, and the locked cable never once registered as a risk until Twin Falls made it one. A software override that moves the car with the cable attached is the correct fix for a one-in-a-million event, and the damage is the point: a torn cable and a bent charge port are cheap against the alternative Twin Falls demonstrated.

The $25,000 figure is the problem. Tesla put it out in the same breath as the launch, attached a penalty warning for misuse, and left owners to guess which side of that line a real emergency falls on. My read is that Tesla would never send a bill to someone who drove away from a shooting, because the headline would cost more than any stall. But a feature meant to be used in the worst five seconds of your life should not require the user to guess at the company’s billing policy. One sentence from Tesla Charging, “legitimate emergency use costs the owner nothing,” would fix it. Until that sentence exists, the feature is half shipped.

Watch the 2026.38.3 release notes when the update lands in cars, and watch whether the rollout reaches Canada and Europe. “Only for now” is not a reason, it is a schedule Tesla hasn’t published.

Sources: Tesla Charging on X, The Verge, Idaho News, MotorBiscuit, Engadget, Shacknews.

EVXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.