The issue of “stealing” a charging opportunity through the disconnecting of someone’s car to connect their own vehicle happens everywhere.
Recently, we saw reports from the U.S. (some are pretty bizarre), but now let’s take a look at how it happens in Germany, which just like in most of Europe, has a lot of charging points with AC Type 2 outlets.
Those charging points have only outlets, which means that an EV driver has to bring his/her own charging cable and connect it to the car at one end, and to the station at the other end.
There are also AC Type 2 charging points with fixed cables, just like in the U.S., where all Level 2 AC charging stations have cables and plugs.
According to the Wham Baam Dangercam‘s video, recorded by a Tesla Model 3, an Audi e-tron driver appeared at the charging point with dual Type 2 outlets. He first tried to disconnect one Tesla Model 3, but then moved to another one, pulling out the plug from the charging point (the other end of the cable was still attached to the car and locked, we guess).
The Tesla Model 3 owner received a notification that charging has been interrupted, but ignored the info.
As it turned out later, he was ripped off from a charging opportunity and found his private charging cable on the ground, after it fell from the car (Audi driver hung it on the charging port flap).
That’s not too good of news for EV users. Especiall if there aremany examples of other drivers that perhaps run out of energy and then usurp the right to charge at a higher priority than others.
Who knows, maybe soon it will become a bigger problem than the blocking charging stations by ICE vehicles?
