I Have a Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Received My Tesla Supercharger Adapter but I’m Stunned to Discover the Cables Are Super Short and Now I am Wondering if All Tesla Supercharger Stations Are Useless To Me - Help

Owners of Hyundai Ioniq 5 cars are discovering that Tesla Superchargers have cables that make it almost impossible to connect to the car. Here's some good advice from fellow owners on how to adapt to deal with this unexpected Tesla Supercharger challenge.

One great thing about owning a Hyundai Ioniq 5 is that the vehicle is now compatible with the Tesla Supercharger network. Tesla gave away its single-biggest Tesla ownership benefit and opened up the network. Hyundai has sent owners adapters that allow for the CCS-equipped Ionic 5 to charge on the NACS Supercharger Network. The only problem is that Superchargers were designed to connect to Tesla's models, and other brands like Ioniq 5 from Hyundai have the charge port in a very inconvenient area. Here is S.C.’s full comment on this subject.

So I received my adapter from Hyundai and was excited to go try it out at a Tesla place near me with twenty chargers. I was a little stunned to find that the charging cables were quite short and would not reach my right side port. I guess Teslas are all left-side ports? Now I am wondering if all Tesla charging stations are this way and thus useless to me. As far as I could tell, the only way would be to park in the adjacent space and plug in, essentially using two spots, which I of course, didn’t want to do. Am I missing something?

As you can see, this Hyundai Ioniq 5 owner is motivated to use the supercharger Network. However, the vehicle is not optimized to connect to the supercharger. So, what is the practical solution? Many fellow Ioniq 5 owners have some suggestions. Let's examine some of these suggestions and see which ones make the most sense in the real world.

J.M. - “The way Tesla designed them, very proprietary. You'll be joining a long list of car owners who will occupy two spaces because "longer cable costs money". They've been experiencing this for years over in Europe, either double-spacing or driving into stalls the "wrong way" at Tesla parks. Once the V4 stalls come out, you'll get full speed (hopefully) and longer cables.”

D.C. - “Your only solution, and mine too, since we own an Ioniq 9, is to either look for level 4 chargers or to park on the adjacent spot (taking two spots) so you can have the cable reach your port.”

C.Z. - “If the chargers aren’t against a curb, I will back up behind it. I’m happy that my at-home charger, set up for a Model 3 initially, has a long cable!”

L.B. - “Yes, have to use two slots, which Tesla acknowledges.”

K.L. - “It took me a week and help from this group to figure it out. When I did, I had to take up two spaces and got yelled at by Tesla drivers. Wait until the adapter rips the caps off your charging port. I'm still dealing with that.”

Owner B.S. offers the very best answer for S.C. He says, “They are not useless. Just back in and hug the side.”

Although B.S. seems to have found a workable way to achieve charging at the Supercharger network, not all owners have had success. One owner says, “I'll stick to Electrify America for now. The last time I tried a Supercharger, it charged for six mins, and it failed, and I got charged like $9. So, no thank you.”

Hyundai started its adapter program back in March, saying, "To show appreciation for its EV customers, Hyundai is offering one DC fast-charging adapter per eligible vehicle at no cost to existing customers who purchased or leased their vehicle on or before January 31, 2025."

Although opening up its network to other brands is great for non-Tesla owners, it seems very short-sighted of Tesla to have designed its Superchargers to work easily with just its own brand of vehicle. It almost looks as if the company stumbled into the idea of opening up the network to other brands. Tesla has commented on this. Here is the full comment offered by Tesla:

Most Supercharger cables at NACS Supercharger sites should be able to reach your EV charge port; however, in some cases, you might have to park over the line in order to charge comfortably. Avoid parking diagonally to reach the cable and try to obstruct as few charge posts as possible. Charge port locations vary by EV model, which requires cable sharing between adjacent stalls at many sites. Tesla is rapidly deploying our latest V4 Supercharger post, which reaches all EVs in the same Supercharger stall. Additionally, we encourage all vehicle manufacturers to standardize charge port locations to the rear driver side or front passenger side.

The above image is courtesy of Tesla, Inc., and you can find it at this link. As you can see, Tesla has shown one car blocking three supercharger stalls!  This is a terrible waste of capacity, particularly in areas where Superchargers are busy. Can you imagine pulling into a Supercharger and doing this? One might imagine that Tesla owners would justifiably be angry if one did so.

Interestingly, Tesla admits to the issue and offers one solution that would be sensible for the auto industry to adopt: Put the charge ports in the same place on all cars. Or at least opt for one of the two options. In a world with four different charging port handles, this seems like a stretch. Automakers want to differentiate their products, not make them all the same.

Tesla’s long-term solution is to make its V4 (Version Four) Superchargers with longer cords. However, there is a very large installed base of existing versions that all have this infuriating problem. With Tesla’s reputation as a problem solver and innovator, this issue seems to be out of place with its culture of cleverness.

Call us crazy, but it almost seems as if Tesla intentionally designed its Superchargers to work only with Tesla vehicles. Perhaps the idea was that it would preclude other brands from participating?

What do you think of this issue? Have you experienced short-cord hassles when using the Supercharger network with your EV? If so, please tell us how you dealt with it in our comments section so that you can help a fellow EV owner. 
 

John Goreham is a long-standing member of the New England Motor Press Association and an expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on LinkedIn and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ grammar and punctuation software when proofreading and he also uses image generation tools. 

Top of page image courtesy of Hyundai. Image of Tesla Supercharger parking options courtesy of Tesla, Inc.