It appears that one can now plug a charging cable into the car when the car is locked

I don't remember ever having to unlock the car to plug in the charging cable.

My charge port opens up when pressing the button on the plug even if the car is locked.

A couple of months ago, I went out to a new Supercharger site. It wasn't energized and the electricians were still working on it. I went to lunch with another owner and when we came back, a third owner who showed up had plugged us in after the electricians finished, but while I was still in the restaurant. I was surprised this was even possible. I was on earlier firmware (6.0 or 6.1 I think).

Depends on whether the car is sleeping. Sometimes at night I go out to plug my car in without the key and the port opens immediately. Other times I have to wait a considerable time (30 s) in order for it to wake up and read the signal from the cable head.

Mine seems to be sporadic for unplugging. Most of the time I can walk up from the rear, press the UMC once and the car clicks and does its thing. A couple seconds (at the most) I press the UMC again and it opens right up. Other times I have to do the Tesla Shuffle to unlock the car the car first. Seems to have gotten better since 6.2. No idea why. I have no problem at all opening and plugging her in. It really doesn't bother me. I have SO MANY other bigger issues in daily life. If they were all this simple, I would be in heaven!

Yes, I was at a SC to use their HPWC and get a charge during a lunch meeting. They had to go with me to Unplug the cable from a demo car. Asked me to just pop open the charge port and plug it in when I was finished. Explained that I didn't need key to charge, just to disconnect.

mknox said:

A couple of months ago, I went out to a new Supercharger site. It wasn't energized and the electricians were still working on it. I went to lunch with another owner and when we came back, a third owner who showed up had plugged us in after the electricians finished, but while I was still in the restaurant. I was surprised this was even possible. I was on earlier firmware (6.0 or 6.1 I think).

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TexasEV said:

I don't remember ever having to unlock the car to plug in the charging cable.

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Same here.

mknox said:

A couple of months ago, I went out to a new Supercharger site. It wasn't energized and the electricians were still working on it. I went to lunch with another owner and when we came back, a third owner who showed up had plugged us in after the electricians finished, but while I was still in the restaurant. I was surprised this was even possible. I was on earlier firmware (6.0 or 6.1 I think).

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Pretty strange, right? I'm surprised they never fixed that. I can see the benefit for some, but the RF to open the port is common to all cars. You can open any locked non-sleeping Model S charge port with the Tesla charge cable, or a device that imitates one.

Lolachampcar made a little fob that opens your charge port, but it had astounding range. I always imagined taking it to the factory and pressing the button, taking in the sound of a hundred charge ports opening simultaneously. :biggrin:

What's 'fun' is pushing the button on the connector when there's a row of other non-charging Teslas next to your car; I accidentally popped the charge port doors open on the next 4 or 5 cars. It was hilarious.... I guess you had to be there;

So, this is interesting. Would the reason for being able to open the charge port and conceivably plug someone's car in on their behalf a courtesy thing?

andydoty said:

So, this is interesting. Would the reason for being able to open the charge port and conceivably plug someone's car in on their behalf a courtesy thing?

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Or could be prepping for the automated retractable charge cable that Elon mentioned at the D launch. He was half joking, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a skunkworks project in R&D to have the car plug itself in.

andydoty said:

So, this is interesting. Would the reason for being able to open the charge port and conceivably plug someone's car in on their behalf a courtesy thing?

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Yes, I can see that happening. ... I return to my car, see a note saying "please plug in the Tesla xxxxxx when you are finished charging". Now I can do that.
I remember before that you could not plug in when the charge port/car was locked.

This is a good thing. I've walked out to the garage several times to plug in just to realize that I don't have the key on me.

strengthcoach4 said:

This is a good thing. I've walked out to the garage several times to plug in just to realize that I don't have the key on me.

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Depends on your situation. I'm a little sick of closing my charge door almost daily when neighbors plug their cars in. It sits open so often I had to dust it out recently.

I agree! Doesn't take much to entertain me though.

nwdiver said:

What's 'fun' is pushing the button on the connector when there's a row of other non-charging Teslas next to your car; I accidentally popped the charge port doors open on the next 4 or 5 cars. It was hilarious.... I guess you had to be there;

Click to expand...