Tesla is now testing a virtual waitlist feature at five Supercharger locations, allowing drivers to join a queue through the Tesla app instead of physically lining up at crowded stations.
The pilot comes over a year after Tesla promised the feature following a viral video of a fight between Tesla owners at a full Supercharger station.
How the virtual queue works
Tesla’s charging team announced the pilot on X yesterday, listing five test locations and asking drivers to share feedback through the Tesla app:
- Los Gatos, CA — Los Gatos Boulevard
- Mountain View, CA — El Monte Avenue
- San Francisco, CA — Lombard Street
- San Jose, CA — Saratoga Avenue
- Bronx, NY — East Gun Hill Road
Four of the five sites are in the San Francisco Bay Area — arguably the highest-density Tesla market in the world and a logical stress-test environment. The fifth, in the Bronx, is a notable addition. New York City Superchargers have been overwhelmed by ride-hailing drivers in the past, making it a real-world congestion hotspot.
When a driver arrives at a Supercharger that’s at capacity, they can join a virtual queue. The app tracks their position and displays the number of cars ahead of them, through a Live Activity notification.
Tesla uses both the vehicle’s location and the driver’s phone location to determine eligibility. The app states: “While the app is closed, Tesla uses your location to notify you of accurate wait times at Superchargers when you arrive.”
One interesting detail: Tesla doesn’t appear to be able to block a driver from plugging in out of turn. The app includes a message asking: “There is a waitlist to charge. Are you sure you want to start a charging session now?” That means the system relies on drivers respecting the queue — not enforcing it technically.
A long time coming
Tesla first announced virtual queue pilots in February 2025, saying they would begin “in Q2 at select sites.” That was Q2 2025. The pilot is now launching in Q2 2026 — a full year behind schedule.
The trigger for the announcement was a viral video showing Tesla owners physically fighting at a crowded Supercharger station over who was next in line. At the time, Tesla acknowledged that wait times occur about 1% of the time across the network, but conceded the experience needed improvement.
Tesla has taken other steps to manage Supercharger congestion over the years. In 2023, the company launched a congestion fee of $1 per minute for drivers who continue charging past 90% at busy stations. The virtual queue addresses a different problem — not how long people charge, but how they wait for an open stall.
The feature also supports non-Tesla EVs through the Tesla app. That’s an important detail given that roughly 70% of Tesla’s 80,000+ Supercharging stalls are now open to other automakers’ vehicles, contributing to increased station utilization.
Electrek’s Take
It’s good to see Tesla finally launching this, but the year-long delay from the original Q2 2025 timeline is hard to ignore. This is a software feature — not hardware — and the code was already showing up in the Tesla app months ago.
The 1% congestion rate sounds low, but with 53 million charging sessions in Q1 2026 alone, that translates to hundreds of thousands of instances per year where drivers arrive at a full station with no organized way to wait. The fact that it took a viral fight video to get Tesla to prioritize this feature is telling.
We also note that the system doesn’t actually enforce the queue — it just asks drivers to respect it. That’s a reasonable starting point, but if the honor system doesn’t hold up (and anyone who has waited at a busy Supercharger knows it might not), Tesla will need to find a way to actually gate access to stalls. I beleive Tesla has the capacity to do it.
Still, this is a step in the right direction. As the Supercharger network continues to grow and more non-Tesla EVs gain access, congestion management tools like this will become essential — not just nice to have.
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