EV Insanity: This Tesla "life hack" is the DUMBEST thing I've seen | MGUY Australia 

What a noob. I fully submerge my EV in a swimming pool for MAXIMUM charging speeds.

Don’t interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake!

A bigger problem with this hack is that they are cooling down the temperature sensor and not the actual cable - you are bypassing a safety feature. Heat increases resistance, resistance increases heat - you get a runaway thermal meltdown. then the insulation melts or weakens, adding more failure. This is how many electrical fires start.

At least we found the survivors of the tide pod challenge.

Please encourage this Life hack, it does the world a huge service

Darwinism at its best! Leave them alone.

"Save a few minutes during a top-up". But the EV guys told me once I grab a burger, have a coffee and go to the toilet the charging would be done. They wouldn't lie to me about EVs would they?!

The thermistor is located close to the power pins in case there is excessive contact resistance. Whatever heat the towel may be able to remove has to travel through ~1" of plastic to get out. If something goes wrong at the plug, which is the main reason it is there in the first place, you will need more than a wet towel to sink that heat. Chargers also measure temperature at multiple critical locations. If it gets hot enough for the cable itself to be at risk, one of the other thermistors will trigger current derating. The towel trick only works because the plug normally is the most vulnerable point.

That's as dumb as checking your gas level by lighting a match in the gas tank

If you don’t have a towel simply licking the cable also helps 😜

The charging cable is water cooled (the supercharger pumps liquid through two channels inside the cable) but the "NACS" connector is not water cooled. The electrical contacts inside get hot, forcing the supercharger to reduce the power after a short period of time as not to melt the contacts. The CCS connector is much larger because it's fully water cooled - liquid pumped through the charging cable is routed through channels inside the handle and around the electrical contacts. This allows the CCS connector to remain at it's full power indefinitely. (Guess which connector has become the standard?) Putting a wet towel around the NACS handle is an attempt at keeping it cooler, and if it worked, would delay how soon the supercharger has to ramp down the power. But the handle is insulated so you can touch it, so its hard to believe a towel will have much impact on the temperature of the contacts inside the connector.

POV your a ruffneck on a drilling rig. it's minus-34 C in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. Rigging in the flare tank line . Your using a tiger torch. The propane in the tank is gelling up . Your motor hand grabs the tiger torch from you and proceeds to heat the propane tank with a 3 foot flame 😳 I proceeded to walk away 😂🍻

This "death hack" perfectly illustrates the cognitive-intellectual deficiencies of the EV target group! *It"s precisely this lack of mental horsepower* which made them believe that EVs are a good idea in the first place...

Oh, how desperate they have become, Tesla Derangement Syndrome…

I always wonder why they don't put a roof over these charging stations, it could be literal murder in the rain when everything is soaked in including the charging point on the vehicle! Would keep them cooler out of the sun as well. I was always told "never mix water and electricity". Maybe those laws have changed and they didn't tell me!? No, I know Tesla knows best.

Imagine having to charge at 2am in the inner city. At least you can gas and go limited your exposure to miscreants.

I have found out that warming the gas pump hose with lighter makes the gasoline less viscous, and I can save up to 10 seconds when filling up the gas tank.

Aw, don't warn them. Let them do it. They might end up on 'The Darwinian Awards'.

Now, the bigger question is why haven't they just put a roof over the charge stations if this is a known issue for years?

Had we not mandated seat belts and helmets these problems would have sorted themselves out before we reached this level of stupidity!

These are probably the same people that tried to microwave their phone to charge it.

I Bet these people also take their baths With a Toaster to warm the water up quicker.

That these systems were allowed to be installed in public to charge vehicles without requiring an awning/hood or requiring the receptacle in the vehicle to be inwardly up-hill is mind boggling. Its literally illegal to recharge pallet jack batteries outside.

The number of times that I've put a wet towel around the hose of the diesel dispenser, in order to get faster flow and a couple of extra drops of diesel, is . . . NEVER!

The temperature sensor exists and is in that position for a reason. By cooling the sensor and not the wire the charging system will be running hotter than expected. These dent heads shouldn't be allowed on the road in any type of vehicle. They're not smart enough.

You! Have just gone up in my respectfulness, not many people know that pure water is an insulator. Top marks. Good show too.

Water and electricity combined........I am preparing popcorn, a soda and getting ready for the show.

Anyone caught messing about with potentially lethal electrical equipment should be permanently banned from using such equipment! They are a danger to themselves and people around them.

I know a better trick ICE.

How do people believe the price of electricity isn't going to skyrocket? We are adding cooking, heating, EV charging, and AI (uses around 20 times the power of regular computing) demands to the grid while also weakening the grid by removing nuclear and fossil fuel generated power. Then add that to make solar and wind work reliably there needs to be HUGE battery backup for things like storms and night time, and those batteries, as demand goes up will get more expensive. Of COURSE the price of electricity is going to skyrocket. Before this "green revolution" I heard about oil being a limited resource and we had to save as much as possible because of those limitations. You know what is even MORE limited? The components that make up EV batteries. If you look at world wide green government plans they are literally impossible just based on available raw materials. Our collective governments are forcing us down a hole to economic collapse.

I hate it when I'm filling up with petrol and the pipe gets hot and slows the fuel delivery down, then I've got to wrap some damp cloths around it.

Death hack, maybe? Engineers added this sensor to make it safe. Overriding the sensor can cause cable overheating.

They say you can teach a stupid person..... But you can't teach them much.

I've known old school mechanics who would lower a nearly full 40 gallon gas tank with a lit cigarette in their lips and no fear, but who won't touch an EV. "Those things'll kill you before you even know you messed up."

This is the EV equivalent of siphoning gasoline out of a tank by sucking on a hose.

Another "life hack" doing the rounds in NZ is to drive your EV with your lights off to save range. LED Lights only use a small amount of electricity, around 50W or so. That's only around 250 metres of range per hour. But somehow people think they will get much better range.

Put a wet towel over your phone to charge it faster - For more anti-Survival Tips find me inside a wall socket using a knife.

Heat comes from resistance. It can happen any whare along the circuit, not gust the handle. Fooling the handle can make a different part of the circuit melt down. cable ends get loose over time because expansion from heat and corrosion which adds resistance which creates more heat....

Virtually all of the charging stations I have seen are not undercover which means when raining the charging unit, cable, vehicle AND driver will be soaking wet when the EV is being charged - add to it this “hack” of overriding a safety sensor - what could possibly go wrong?

EV fanbois thought they would be the cool kids on the block with their flashy EV status symbols, but they turned out to be the dumb kids on the block... 😂

The wet rag should be mandatory and provided free of charge at all supercharger locations.

as an electronician I appreciate you added the "due to impurities" water comment, if your goal was cooling the cable I'd use a large industrial fan but I wonder if it wouldn't generate static electricity problems which might bridge the gap between the charging and you p.s. I'm into mV and nA not high voltages lol

Totally agree with you. I worked for many years in electrical marine on large vessels, youtube is full of "would be" marine electrical experts. These people show you how to install wiring and equipment on large boats, they have no experience in what comes under marine laws. If you have an electrical fire out at sea, it can be fatal, especially if it was a DIY job.

Have you seen the video from China where all the people charging are fanning their charging port/cable to try and cool them down? No thanks.

Don't interrupt the Darwin Award candidates in their desperate quest to be removed from the gene pool. **facepalm**

It never ceases to amaze me the dangerous antics that these people think is a good idea. Having spent a lifetime working with voltages up to 25Kv safety is the first thing on your mind not trying to cool down a hot cable with a damp towel. Now that Tesla and probably a few others are loosing interest in charging sites, it will not be long until the maintenance contracts expire, then what will happen?

I remember when I lived in a shared house in the 1980s, witnessing someone heating bath water with a partially submerged electric kettle laid on it's side. The kettle was supported on a couple of bricks to get to the right height, and keep the electrical connection out of the water. They walk amongst us!

"Actively cooled cable"?? As an electrical engineer, I am appalled that the cables and connectors are not sufficiently large to safely handle the electrical load WITHOUT excessive heating due to conductor resistance ("I-square-R losses"). In the US National Electric Code, there are standards for cable insulation and conductor temperature ratings. I guess Muskians have found a way to bypass those standards. Furthermore, if the car chargers have active cooling, I wonder how they plan to cool the cables used to charge tractor-trailers. Megawatt-level charging for trucks must have huge cables....or liquid nitrogen cooling.

It's an entry to the Darwin Awards

Agreed 100%, It is extraordinary that petrol/diesel cars can sit for years, and you can do a minor refresh of the fuels, batteries and things, and they will start straight away, and be totally useable. For many, many years. EVs, on the other hand, just decline constantly whether they are sitting there or being driven. Chinese manufacturers unloading EVs at ports all around the world without securing forward contracts is just crazy.

Even ignoring the obvious electric hazard of using a wet cloth on a super charger cable, which is what a 400 volt or better line? You also have to consider how useless a wet towel would be. Even if it was soaking wet in decent weather and the heat of the cord it would dry out to uselessness pretty fast... It's like using an ice cube to cool down a swimming pool.

They won't listen. They think they are so smart buying the junk boxes in the first place.

I wouldnt be concerned too much about the damp towel, but rather cheating a security sensor circuit is never a good idea.

fooling the temperature sensor on a small part of the high current charging cable, is most dangerous because it will fool the charger into thinking the actual main conductor in the insulated cable is running cooler, when it is not. That could fool the charger into overloading/overheating the cable (relative to safe temperature). Exposed to excessive temperature could actually lead to some nasty consequences for the charging cable.

I wondered about charging rates and temperatures when EV proponents were claiming a few years ago that 10 minute charging times would soon be possible. All that energy pumped into the batteries in 10 minutes?!

Thieves target new neighborhoods in the denver metro area, stealing copper . Eventually they got into a live pad mount transformer. The 2 bodies were there in the morning.

New movie and a sequel to Dumb and dumber. It’s called dumb and dumber and EVen dumber…😂😂😂😂😂😂

I discovered when Gassing up my car, if I apply a naked flame it "pre combusts" the fuel which can provide additional horsepower.

Great idea! Cool the sensor while the rest of the cable is heated beyond the safe operating range. What could possibly go wrong? The engineers try to make this stuff fool proof, but the fools get cleverer and cleverer all the time!

What this highlights to me more than anything, is that people nowadays have so little general knowledge about pretty much anything. When I was growing up, my parents taught me things like how electrical appliances worked, and how water and electricity don’t mix. I could change a lightbulb and wire a plug before I was ten years old, and I knew it was a bad idea to make toast in the bathroom. Something got lost because today, later generations know nothing useful because their parents knew nothing useful to pass on (the education system doesn’t help either, but that’s another rabbit hole!). I struggle with the the fact that so many people nowadays have zero practical knowledge about things they use every day. Like cars. And I mean ICE cars. Cars that have been around for a while. How to turn around this downhill spiral of stupidity?…. EV owner: “Let me just add a wet towel to the charger” Natural selection: “And my work begins”

Water and electricity. What can go wrong?

Despite what they say, the charging time is such a problem that people will risk electrocution to shorten it.

I remember about 25 years ago there was an old guy who was washing his house (on a ladder) with the garden hose. The power cables were there going into the house (near the top at the front) so he threw some towels over the wires . Now have a think about this... Water spraying from the garden hose onto the building and onto the towels. He's standing on an aluminium ladder. Water is no doubt splashing off the building and wetting the ladder and the ground below (perhaps even his shoes). Guy then pushes the towel to the side to reach over more.. What could go wrong ? Well he found out ! He actually survived as he fell off the ladder but was on the ground. An ambulance was called. I'm not sure if he ceased to be alive later on, but my gosh... I'm sure that 150 + ??? Amp HRC fuse on the pole would have eventually blown 240 Volts @ 150 + Amps but even 15 mA can make you cease to be alive .

Have they tried going out in a thunderstom with a big metal pole attached to the roof of their EVs?

The ultimate expression of EV meltdown.😂

High charge ⚡️ plus water 💦 = 💀

This is also a public service announcement to avoid parking or charging next to these people! Truly though, I think the main reason the mode of charging is a self-service hand-held charging plug is that it's simply cheap and similar to sticking a gas pump in the car, and we're used to that. It's easy to imagine a different, better mode of hands-free, weather-protected, automated charging infrastructure that could become a design paradigm in the future. Not next week, next year or maybe even the next decade, but it doesn't have to be this way forever.

I used to install EV chargers. The big rig truck chargers use enough electricity when charging to run 4000 residential houses, and they are not made with the best materials. We also installed units in warehouses that get very hot in the summer, and I remember at the time thinking this place is gonna burn... Time will tell.

Can’t immunise against stupid

Last time I visited a petrol station to fill my car with diesel, (took less than 5 mins and gave me 570 miles range) I didn’t cover the hose with a wet towel because there was no need to dick around with ‘hacks’ like that. 🤷‍♂️

Wait until Work Safe get involved with charging you’ll have to wear high vis and put cones around the vehicle.

When I fill up my ICE car I don't have to "little hacks" to put fuel in the tank. Put the nozzle into the tank nozzle, press the trigger, fill up then put the pump back in it's holder. None of the stupidity or hours spent plugging the thing in. Fill up and go about 5 minutes tops, plus of course no range anxiety until I need to top up again in about 500 miles.

After spending the last 25 years working in a specialist industry that mixed electricity and water on a daily basis this is one of the most insane and dangerous things I’ve ever heard. This website might just find itself facing some serious criminal charges if somebody is harmed using this insanely dangerous advice.

Also when your EV is done charging its a good idea to use wet gloves to avoid burning your hands when removing the plug-in.

If you stand in a puddle of salt water and lick the charger cable, you won't have to pay for your charge.

Pilot Debrief is a brilliant YT channel. One of my favourites

You can test if the charger is working by placing the plug on your tongue.😊😊

Anyone who has touched an electric fence, for animals ( low current) knows what it feels like. And this is only 0.001% of an EV charger. I bet you will get blown 10 feet away from the cable, if, you are not unlycky the current locks your fingers on your hand and, well, you know the rest. French fries.

What's also concerning: cooling down only the handle and sensor makes the charger think it's okay to still pump a lot of power through the cable. Meanwhile the rest of the cable doesn't get the same cooling and might get too hot. Over time the insulation will propably give up sooner than it's supposed to.

4:50 Re: Swiss cheese model. So long as all the slices have at least a hole in them, there will always be a chance that the holes line up, no matter how many slices you put or how small the holes are. This is why in most industries people today look at safety from the standpoint of "acceptable risk". Nothing is flawless. At some point the realization has to come that the only way there's no hole is if there's no cheese at all. So the holes will from time to time line up, and everybody who's involved at the design level understands this. Their job is to make it so that the holes line up at statistically acceptable intervals. E.g. if it's acceptable for something to happen once in 100 years, but the event happens more frequently, then they've failed. If it happens once in 10,000 years, that's nice, but probably inefficient. Water and electrical devices don't mix from "first principles" so from that point of view, yes, it's blatantly stupid to put a wet towel on a charge cable. However, the designer and manufacturer of the car are already taking on risk by producing this system in the first place -- which could be exposed to all sorts of rain and moisture, even if they prohibit it. As the end-user, we all have a great degree of choice in what risk we are willing to accept. If the person charges their car in the rain (which the vast majority of EV car owners do), they are already taking on some level of risk (knowingly or unknowingly). So, if I was trying to conform to your logic, I'd argue that you shouldn't charge EV's in the rain at all. As a parallel, numerous basic safety rules are commonly ignored at petrol gas stations (e.g. filling jerrycans in the boxes of their trucks, cars left running, etc.) which can and have led to tragic situations... rarely. Many people do risky things on a daily basis probably not realizing the risks.

One way to balance the genepool

STUPIDITY is INFINITE

One thing that's quite scary is I have met more than 1 EV driver who thinks that DC electricity is safe because in their words "You can't get a shock off a battery." I think what they are thinking of is a 1.5V or maybe 9V battery you put in your radio, not a 200V or maybe 400V 100+ Kw battery in your car.

“A gas filling nozzle is highly unlikely to kill you.” That’s only true when people use it properly. We have all seen/heard warnings about filling improper containers, handling gasoline around ignition sources (including running vehicles,) using it as an igniter for open fires, breathing/drinking/putting your hands in it, etc. every gas pump and every container has at least a few of those written on them. Those warnings are there because someone did each of those things and had some kind of fire or poisoning as as a consequence.

The people that are flying electric ultralights and paramotors better have a quick release and a chute.

My simple rule of thumb is: " Don't get any closer than 100 feet from high voltage electricity"

And here I was thinking that the ultimate limiting factor was the temperature of the batteries. That's why they have thermistors and passive monitors to ensure they don't overheat (in theory). What's the point in doing stooppid tricks when it makes zero difference in charging time? Once (once only) I embarrassed myself in front of my entire elementary/primary school. Not just my classroom but the entire school. My dad gave me a great quote that's prevented me from doing this again, "Everyone is ignorant about many things, but some people insist on broadcasting their ignorance to the world."

I've never had to dick around with a petrol bowser when filling my car - it just works. Admittedly, petrol bowsers are a very mature technology. They've existed for how long? A century by now? But that just means we need to be cautious when dealing with dangerous and immature tech like these EVs and charging stations. They're just not ready yet, assuming that they ever will be.

already liquid cooled charging cables, and they want to be able to charge a car in 5 minutes? I get it, with the amount of current going through the cables, it's kinda inevitable, and now this life hack? we are ready for the SMOD. No wonder these charging stations are barely breaking even.

These people grew up with zero ability to fix anything and therefore have no sense of what is going on inside that cable. They're the Walmart return generation that grew up expecting anything broken can just be returned for a refund. News flash, you aren't returning after a few thousand volts go through your body.

Leave the wet towel at home and only recharge in the rain...at the chargers that don't have canopies.

I wonder how approvals were done for ordinary people, not trained trades people, to use and handle cables and equipment that flows up to 300,000 watts of energy. I can't think of a single thing that could go wrong, LOL. I worked 30 years in heavy industry and any power over 240 volts was generally only serviceable and accessible to electricians trained and qualified to even be near those kind of power levels.

Be sure to add plenty of salt to your electrical cooling water.

As an added bonus you get to pay for all the electricity lost to heat as well as the bit used for charging

There is also a temperature sensor in the charg port inside the car too but I don't see why tricking the charger into doing that

I guess that there's a relatively small amount of water in the towels used. When that water warms up and eventually vaporises it will draw energy from the hot cable. But how much energy, and would this significantly cool the cable for any length of time, unless you kept topping up the water? As I recall, the amount of energy dissipated by the water in the towel would be a function of the amount of water in Kilograms, the Specific Heat Capacity of water and the temperature change of the water after it reaches 100 C. Then we add the energy needed to vaporise the water which involves the Specific Latent Heat of Vaporisation. This is not a small number in Joules, but the amount of water involved would make the energy dissipated and the cooling effect negligible. I once tried to cool my tobacco pipe stem by wrapping it in wet string. Didn't work.

Electrocution - an EVangelist's fast track to electric heaven.

You can test if your EV is fully charged by putting your tongue on the battery terminals.😁

The thermal energy dissipated by a wet towel equates to precisely bugger all.

The 70s had Pet Rocks. The '20s EV(il)s. At least Pet Rocks cost less and looked nice in the garden; And didn't take out the garage and/or house.