North Carolina Tesla owner grabs supercharger plug, spots secret featured she didn't notice before

A Raleigh, North Carolina Tesla owner was floored to learn about a hidden supercharger feature she wasn't privy to previously. The woman, who posts under the moniker Kaybee (@prettydiamondbee) on social media recorded herself queuing her EV up for a fast charge at one of the automaker's recognizable red-and-white terminals.

At the top of the clip, she films herself removing the plug from the holder on the kiosk and holds it up to the camera. Also in the frame is the rear-driver's side portion of the vehicle, where the small flap that covers its charger port is located.

Anyone who's driven a Tesla before probably knows that they can tap this charger port cover to engage its actuator motor. Following this, this component turns upward, and then the driver can then insert the plug to begin juicing up the vehicle.

Similarly, Tesla owners can also open these charger ports by tapping on the option to do so from their Tesla mobile application. But Kaybee showed off another way folks can do this. It seems that Tesla vehicles are equipped with sensors that know whenever a Tesla charging port is nearby.

Kaybee demonstrates this functionality by holding the charger port away from her car and tapping the release button on the charger plug. Shortly afterwards, her car's charger port pops open, readying it to restore energy to its massive power pack.

Folks who saw the post said that this was old news. "Oh, you new to this squad?" one asked. Another person wrote that this same feature extends to home charging apparatuses from the automaker as well. "Wait until you find out your home charger does this too," they wrote.

Others shared different features and Easter eggs packed into their Tesla vehicles. Like one driver who showed off their vehicle's infotainment screen with "Halloween Mode" enabled. They wrote: "Halloween Mode is on too. When you lock it, it growls. The people walking are zombies, trash cans you pass are pumpkins or mummies," they said.

USA Today provided an overview of the update, quoting Tesla as stating that the mode "is a spooky update that turns your Tesla into a haunted house on wheels." The center in-car display shows a background of a scary house and gnarled trees beneath an autumn night.

There's jack-o-lanterns, a zombie hand protruding from the ground, and the image of the Tesla on the display is dressed in a ghostly costume. Its wheels are also missing in the picture, making it appear as if its levitating in mid-air.

What's more is that drivers can activate Trick-or-Treat mode, which activates a scary sounds and lights whenever someone approaches the car, turning the EV into an interactive driveway Halloween ornament. Additionally, Remote App Scaring comes with Halloween Mode, which lets Tesla owners record their voice and outputs them through the car's speakers with a frightening vocal filter.

A long-standing criticism of Tesla vehicles is that they're packed with a lot of neat features, but don't really stand well on their own as reliable means of transportation. And it's not hard to understand where these sentiments stem from.

For one, the brand, along with other EVs, typically fare much worse than their EPA-quoted range estimates. While internal combustion vehicles routinely get better real world mileage than the EPA quotes, electric cars often go fewer miles on a single charge.

Electric-Vehicles.com also performed assessments of various Tesla models and every one of them failed to meet the EPA estimated range of their battery packs. Quartz's findings showed that electric vehicles manufacturer in South Korea and Germany did log ranges better than the EPA ruled, anywhere from 5%-15%.

But Teslas consistently lagged behind, however, there has been improvements made in newer models. However Electrek did write about 2023 findings that aver "Tesla vastly overstates its vehicles' range." Recurrent also assessed the real world driving ranges of several Tesla models. This 2021 Model S clocked 88% of its claimed electric range.

A 2023 Model 3 was only able to get 78% of its EPA-quoted distance, and the Model Y of the same year got even less at 73%. This same 27% range drop was found on a 2022 Model S.

It's not just range that's a problem either, but build quality. Across 2023 and 2024, Tesla was the most recalled car brand in the world.

There are particular metrics dictating its placement on the top spot of recall lists. In '24, Tesla's recall volume was staggeringly high with some 5,135,991 vehicles as per NHTSA figures. PCMag also writes that for 2023, the car company took home the dubious honor of having the highest recall rate for the projected lifetime of its vehicles.

On a personal note, I owned a 2019 Tesla Model 3 and while I enjoyed my first 18,000 miles or so of driving, persistent issues with the vehicle kept occurring. My driver's side control arm needed to be replaced twice inside of 50,000 miles. Also, the 12-volt battery pack failed during a 2-hour drive during a snowstorm, causing my cars windows to open on their own.

Extending the steering wheel past a certain point prompted low-power mode, which was caused by a wiring harness failure. The vehicle's heavy frame also caused premature tire wear. And surges in supercharging prices, which, coupled with its dishonest advertised range estimates, ended up costing more than fuel fill-ups to power my EV on the go.

Thankfully, I was able to get rid of it at a high fetching price during gas cost hikes in 2022. Do you own a Tesla? Are you a fan of the brand?