Following a shooting at an In-N-Out with an attached Tesla Supercharger in Twin Falls, Idaho, that left three people dead and seven injured, EV owners have been discussing 'EVject,' an aftermarket breakaway charging connector that lets a car drive off without unplugging first. It's a real design conversation worth having — but it's not a complete answer to what happened.
On August 1, 2026, a gunman opened fire outside a recently opened In-N-Out on Blue Lakes Boulevard in Twin Falls, Idaho — a location with a Tesla Supercharger station in the same lot. Police say three people were killed and seven others were injured before the shooter, 24-year-old Chad Williams, took his own life. Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said an off-duty Idaho State Police trooper and a civilian who exchanged gunfire with the suspect "helped drive the suspect away from the scene, preventing further casualties." Our thoughts are with everyone affected.
Among those hurt was a Twin Falls taxi driver who was sitting in his Tesla Model Y while it charged at the Supercharger when the vehicle was struck. He survived and is recovering. In the aftermath, EV owners on social media turned their attention to a specific, uncomfortable question: if you're plugged in and charging when something goes wrong, how quickly can you actually drive away?
Under normal circumstances, releasing a Tesla from a Supercharger takes one of two steps: tapping "Unlock Charge Port" on the car's touchscreen, or pressing the physical button on the charging handle itself. If neither is accessible or working, Tesla also includes a manual emergency release cable located behind the charge port, reachable after opening the trunk — but that requires physically exiting the vehicle and walking to the back of the car, which defeats the purpose in a fast-moving emergency.
EVject is an aftermarket accessory, not a Tesla-built feature, designed to let a driver simply put the car in drive and pull away without going through any of the normal unlock steps — the connector is built to break away from the charge port under force rather than requiring a deliberate release first. It's the kind of product that sounds like an obvious idea once you learn Superchargers otherwise expect a clean, intentional disconnect before you drive off.
Some Tesla owners have floated a related idea: a software-based option that would let a driver shift into drive while still plugged in, triggering an on-screen confirmation and a small fine for improperly ejecting the connector, with the charger releasing automatically. That's a community proposal circulating online, not a confirmed Tesla product or roadmap item — there's no indication yet that Tesla is building anything like it.
Beyond the connector question, this incident is renewing a broader conversation about charging station placement as EV infrastructure increasingly shows up in busy commercial parking lots, sharing space with restaurants, retail, and heavy foot traffic. That's a real infrastructure and site-design conversation, separate from any single accessory, and one that charging networks and property developers will likely face more as EV adoption grows.
The bottom line: A tragedy exposed a real, narrow design gap — Tesla's charge port isn't built for a driver who needs to leave in the next two seconds, not the next twenty. That's worth Tesla examining, and a faster software or hardware release option would be a reasonable, achievable fix. But it's important not to oversell what a $100 connector or a menu option can solve. It addresses being physically tethered to a charger; it does nothing about the far larger problem of gun violence in public spaces, which no automotive engineering can fully solve.
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