Tesla vanity license plates - clever ideas for a custom plate

@smarlo35

When we get a new car we love to add those little touches that make it our own. Tesla owners are no different, except you’ll probably find a higher percentage of serious ride-pimpers amongst Tesla owners than other car brands.

And there are so many options. Want to organize the vast central console space more efficiently? Need to protect the boot carpets from your wet skis? Even upgraded hard drives for Sentry Mode and in-car refrigerators are available.

But all these perks and polishes are best appreciated by you, inside the car. What about projecting your personality to those around you? A custom wrap or a paint job is nice, but there’s another way. License plates.

What better way to let your sense of humor show, give a gentle ribbing to the gas guzzlers following you, or make a serious point about why you went green. Let’s take a look at some of the options you might want to consider for a custom plate.

Many countries allow you to purchase a license plate with your own choice of letters and numbers. Sure, you could go for your name or something that means something to you alone.

But why not lean into the Tesla vibe with your plate, and make a statement! Here are five genuine plates already out there.

LOL OIL

While quite a nice sentiment at the best of times, the recent skyrocketing of oil and gas prices has probably made this Tesla owner more ROFL OIL than a mere LOL.

3VOLVED

@Lucybri83

This Model 3 owner shared her new plate on Twitter, and admitted that she reserved this plate 2.5 years before getting hold of the car itself. That’s dedication to the cause: in this case throwing out a cleverly ambiguous statement that could be taken as an observation on Teslas, EVs, or EV owners’ level of evolution. Nice twist on replacing the E with a 3, a la Model 3.

THX 3LON

@sampagnepapi_

Continuing the ‘Tesla E’ theme of throwing in the number 3 instead, this owner knows who is responsible for this slice of happiness. I wonder if it’s appreciation for the vision and achievements of Elon Musk and his team, or whether the car was a personal gift from Elon?! Probably not the latter.

BUY TSLA

@sampagnepapi_

You don’t need to be a certified financial advisor to offer this advice. This Model X owner is clearly playing the long game, in more ways than one. Looking at the healthy level of dirt on the bodywork, this license plate is a commitment to the stock market strategy of going long on Tesla, and the owner doesn’t look like they’ll be changing their advice any time soon.

NOPLANETB

@smarlo35

Straight to the point, if you’d rather not beat around the bush with the environmental message through gentle humor, lest the message be lost, you could take a leaf out of this Australian owner’s book.

Unfortunately, some folk can’t get a vanity plate and are forced to go with a regular random assigned plate. Where I am in Switzerland, you can choose your number from a catalog, and it looks like that’s the case for @thevoltmonkey in Germany too:

Quite an inventive way of proclaiming this Tesla as not just any old Tesla, but ‘Dah Tesla’.

So maybe you can see if one of these options are available in your area, or perhaps you can think along some other pun lines. Model Y owners can have some fun with Y OH Y, Y BE MAD, or YNOT. Or any Tesla owner could consider an electricity pun, for example, OHM RUN, PLUG IN or SAY WATT.

There’ll be some limits, depending on where you are. There’s usually a minimum and maximum number of characters allowed. Often, nothing that can appear obscene or offensive will be allowed, and there are stories of people in Canada and some US states retrospectively being ordered to give up their plates due to bad language or perceived discrimination against an ethnic minority group. In the UK, you can’t have a Q at the start of your number (they are reserved for kit cars) or display a number that could appear to show the car as younger than it really is, as standard plates include the year of registration - so including ‘22’ on a car manufactured in 2020, for example.

Of course, whether or not you’ve got the perfect plate, there’s nothing stopping you from making a little nod to your likes and wants through the plate holder…

Now, when the full self-driving revolution is complete, will there still be a need for license plates anyway? If there are no more driving infractions, and the Robotaxi fleet means the end of parking fines, do the authorities need the plates anymore? Or will every car be identifiable through a unique identifier broadcast by the computer?

In the meantime, make the most of those customized plates.

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Tesla Talks Supercharger Improvements: Types of Cars Plugged In, Faster Data Refreshing and More

Not a Tesla App

Tesla recently published an article on X detailing some of the improvements they’ve made to the Supercharging ecosystem to make it better for everyone. And boy, have they made a lot of improvements just this year - and with the recent announcement of the V4 Supercharger Cabinets capable of 500kW, it's going to get even better next year.

Since Tesla began opening its Supercharger sites to approved third parties, one key point of contention has been the charge port location. Every Tesla has its charge port on the rear left side of the vehicle, behind the driver. Superchargers before V4 rely on this location, and thus, non-Tesla vehicles with a port in a different location sometimes have to take up two stalls to charge.

Supercharger Improvements

Tesla has been making many improvements recently, even looking beyond the more powerful V4 cabinets coming in early 2025. Let’s take a look at all the work they’ve done and what’s coming up as well.

Cars Plugged In & Faster Data

One of the key updates has been to improve the overall accuracy of stall availability - the backend system refreshes fairly quickly, providing an accurate stall count - which helps to improve navigation and trip planner improvements too. Tesla announced that it’s now able to detect what type of EV is plugged in so that it can better assess charging estimates and determine if a vehicle may be taking up two stalls and automatically takes this into account when routing vehicles.

Max de Zegher, Director of Supercharging North America, mentioned on X that the stall availability now refreshes every 15 seconds, and with mapped Supercharger site layouts, Tesla can see which stalls are available.

The updated stall availability algorithm is a big improvement, with nearby refresh rates now every ~15 seconds. We know car types plugging in and mapped out Supercharger site layouts, to know which stall is not available at short cable sites. Your Tesla's touchscreen now shows… https://t.co/5PF7wruNhQ

— Max de Zegher (@MdeZegher) November 22, 2024

V4 Chargers to Outnumber V2 & V3 Combined

As part of the V4 Supercharger stall upgrade, Tesla has been deploying stalls with longer cables and stalls with built-in adapters for CCS vehicles. These new longer cables mean that Tesla’s Supercharger sites can serve more vehicle charge port layouts without having to block a stall. That increases site availability, and Tesla expects to have more V4 charging stalls in the next 18 months than it has V2 and V3 stalls today. Some of these will be due to new locations, but Tesla is also updating current Supercharger locations.

Modifying Current Superchargers

Tesla has also been working to modify its site planning and layouts—both sites that are already built and sites still in planning. Over 1,500 sites have been altered to better serve drivers by widening the parking spaces, ensuring that drivers never have to use more than two ports to charge.

Pull-Through Trailer Chargers

Another big one is the deployment of pull-through Supercharger Trailer spots. These spots mean you don’t need to unhitch your trailer from your vehicle before supercharging, which is excellent for vehicles like the Cybertruck when you’re towing a trailer and need to charge up before continuing on your trip. Tesla update 2024.44 also adds the ability to see which Superchargers have trailer-friendly charging stalls.

The Pull-Through Priority Signs

Not a Tesla App

Standardized Port Location

The last - but one of the most important - things that Tesla is doing is encouraging manufacturers to move their charge ports to either the rear left or front right of vehicles, thereby helping to improve compatibility with Supercharger sites. Manufacturers have already taken steps to standardize in Europe, but these changes really haven’t rolled out globally yet. Rivian recently announced that the charge port for their upcoming R2 and R3 vehicles will be in the rear driver’s side, matching Tesla’s port location.

We hope to see more improvements in this space, especially as NACS becomes the de facto standard in North America.

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Tesla Adds Charge Port Heater Option in Update 2024.44

Not a Tesla App

Sometimes, in extremely cold weather, especially if it’s actively snowing and you’re Supercharging, the charging cable can freeze and get stuck to the vehicle. That can be a bit of a hassle at a minimum—or cost you dearly if the cable is stuck at a Supercharger and you’re accruing idle fees.

If you use the “Rear Defrost” button in the Climate Controls, your Tesla's charge port will also automatically defrost. However, it’s not obvious to most users that the rear defrost button also turns on the charge port heater. While we’re talking about what’s not obvious, the Front Defrost button also turns on your heated mirrors.

There are other ways to turn on your change port heater, but none of them are dedicated to the function. Preconditioning your vehicle or hitting the “Defrost Car” button in the app, will also turn on the charge port heater.

Sadly, the last two options also heat your cabin, which isn’t exactly needed every time. That can be annoying - because it’ll heat your cabin very fast, given the strength and effectiveness of Tesla’s heat pumps.

Your vehicle will also defrost the port if you’re en route to a Supercharger, so it’ll have the port warmed up and ready to receive the connector - ensuring the flap isn’t stuck. However, it’s not helpful if the cable gets stuck while your’re charging.

Charge Port Defrost

Tesla has finally added a solution to this problem. You can now manually turn on the charge port heater by going to Controls > Service > Charge Port Heater. However, the feature is not available on all vehicles. It’s only appearing in the release notes for a very small segment of vehicles. We’ve confirmed that it is showing up on a 2024 Model X and some 2023 Model Ys on Tesla software update 2024.44.3.1.

Which Vehicles Have Charge Port Heaters?

Every Tesla has been equipped with a charge port heater since late 2020, and some older vehicles may or may not have the necessary equipment. The cut-off date for charge port heaters appears to be approximately September 2020, but some vehicles produced earlier may have it.

However, the release notes only show the charge port heater option for a small selection of vehicles. If your vehicle was manufactured after 2020, you can check if you have the new option by going to Controls > Service or looking under the “Minor Updates” section of your release notes. The release notes will state the following item if the new option is available:

“Heat your charge port in case your charge cable is frozen stuck. Go to Controls > Service > Charge Port Heater.”

This is a great addition for people who live in colder climates - and super useful. If you happen to have parked with your charge port facing blowing snow, you’ll know the struggle of the port and cable freezing together - and some people even buy third-party shields to cover the connector port while charging to keep this from happening. The next step for Tesla will be to automatically heat the charge port when you’re nearing your scheduled departure state of charge to allow for easy unplugging.

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