Tesla Finally Launches Queue Feature After A Fight Broke Out Between People Waiting For Superchargers

Tesla's Supercharger network is the best around. With nearly 30,000 charging ports across more than 2,5000 Superchargers, it's easy to see why it's been made the North American Charging Standard. Unfortunately widespread use by Tesla owners and the networking being opened up to EVs from other brands means many Supercharger users have been dealing with long wait times. Because of this, Tesla owners have been asking the automaker to come up with some kind of queue to make charging easier.

This week Tesla finally announced the good news that, starting in Q2, it would be rolling out a queue at select Supercharger sites across the country, Electrek reports. But rather than listen to its owners' calls for a queue, it seems that a recent fight over a Supercharger that made the rounds on social media is the reason for the company's sudden pivot. 

The viral social media video was recorded by a woman who was with the owner of a Tesla that was waiting to use a Supercharger. According to the video, it appears that a misunderstanding erupted after another Tesla owner was waiting to use that very same charger that the video recorder was waiting to charge with. It would seem that neither waiting party could see the other from their positions in the parking lot. The video shows the two men arguing, with one snatching away the charging cable from the other while saying, "Dude I was waiting!" It's honestly not that serious, as the woman in the video remarks. It was all enough to force Tesla's hand so this kind of thing won't happen again. Tesla's statement, from Electrek:

Virtual queuing pilots starting in Q2 at select sites. Goal is a net customer experience improvement for the ~1% cases of a wait time. Wider rollout this year if feedback is positive. We also continue to expand the network 20%+ year-over-year, closely tracking site-level demand.

It's not exactly clear how this queue is supposed to work as Tesla didn't give any further details, but it should be rolling out soon. Even putting aside the owners who have been wanting this feature, it's still strange it took the automaker this long to roll out a waiting feature, considering this incident isn't the first or the worst altercation that has happened over a Supercharger. In May 2023, a fight over a Supercharger in Denver resulted in a shooting that left one man dead. Owners have been dealing with the mess of Supercharger waits for years, with owners asking questions on platforms like Reddit related to waiting to charge at Supercharger. This thread, for instance, has owners talking about the most "civil" way to wait to charge. Hopefully this new queue system brings an end to all this unnecessary charging drama.