After an incident where a gunman opened fire at an In-N-Out in Twin Falls, Idaho, which had a Tesla Supercharger plugged in, electric vehicle owners flooded social media with the same suggestion: buy an EVject.
See also: Tesla adds car vacuum cleaner to Supercharger for the first time
The detachable charging connector lets you walk away while the vehicle is still plugged in. It sounds like an obvious solution to a scary scenario — but it's a controversial device that doesn't really solve the problem and suggests something Tesla and every other car manufacturer should be building instead.
On August 1, a gunman opened fire on a crowd outside a newly opened In-N-Out in Twin Falls. A Supercharger is located in the same parking lot, and video circulating online appears to show the gunman shooting at a Tesla that was plugged in and charging. Three people were killed and several others were injured, including a driver who was charging his Tesla and survived.
The detail that has worried EV owners is real: when a car is charging, you can’t just step on the gas and drive away. The connector physically locks into the port while current flows. To move away, you usually have to tap “unlock charging port” on the screen or use the manual release and wait for the cable to disconnect. In a situation where seconds count, this is a real vulnerability.
That's where the EVject comes in. The $299 “Escape Connector” sits between your Supercharger cable and your port and is designed to detach when you step away, so you can leave immediately without disconnecting.
Immediately after the events of this weekend, hundreds of Tesla owners in X began sharing the EVject device with referral codes to promote it as a solution to this tragic event.
Here's where the viral posts miss: this is the same accessory that Tesla sued in 2024, calling it a safety hazard.
See also: Tesla plans the first Supercharger stations exclusively for Robotaxi
Tesla argued in a California court that the connector could reach dangerous temperatures — its filing cited surface temperatures of up to 100°C after 30 minutes of high-current charging — and that there was no overheating protection in the design. EVject later released an updated version with built-in thermal protection, and Tesla dropped the lawsuit.
So the product now being promoted as the answer to a gunshot is a third-party adapter that Tesla itself took to court less than two years ago. That doesn’t make it useless, but it’s odd to recommend it without the footnote. Even putting the controversy aside, EVject only helps if you recognize the risk and act on it in time.
That's the hard truth about the Twin Falls situation. A detachable link assumes you have the seconds and awareness to move and get away. In a sudden, chaotic attack, the people in those cars almost certainly had little chance to process what was happening, let alone execute an escape maneuver. No accessory changes that.
A tool that shaves a few seconds off a getaway is worth something. But selling it as the solution to accidental violence overstates what a $299 adapter can do and risks giving owners a false sense of security. It’s also important to be clear that this isn’t unique to Tesla.
The charging connector locks during a session on every EV. It’s a safety requirement built into the NACS, CCS, and J1772 standards — the connector locks so it can’t be pulled out while high-voltage current is flowing, which prevents arcing and accidental disconnection. Any EV connected to a DC fast charger has the same limitation. Tesla’s Supercharger is simply where most people encounter it because it’s the largest. That’s exactly why the solution shouldn’t be an afterthought.
See also: Google Maps: Live data for Tesla Supercharger availability
The real answer here is a native emergency disconnector, built into the vehicle, operated from the driver's seat. Well, actually, the real answer is more likely gun control and serious investments in mental health, but that's outside our area of expertise.
