A new 24-hour Tesla charging station in Cow Hollow has become a late-night den of loud music, line-cutting, and Tesla bro arguments, and now the station's neighbors are getting exasperated.
You may have noticed there are a few unattended, unstaffed electric car charging stations at various San Francisco grocery stores and other parking lot areas that have sprung up across town the last few years. Some are general and for any kind of electric car, while others are specifically and exclusively for Teslas. Our story today is about the one seen below, in Cow Hollow between Lombard Street and an alley called Moulton Street, which transformed into a 16-spot chargng station in early 2026.
And that’s when the trouble started, as SFGate reports that the charging station has somehow become a hotbed of boorish behavior once midnight hits on the weekends, as Tesla drivers take advantage of the station’s popular discounted late-night charging rates.
Of course this has also provided another occasion for stereotyping Tesla owners, in the post Elon-in-the-White-House era.
“Tesla owners are arrogant as hell,” says Laurel Calsoni, a neighbor who lives near the lot, speaking to SFGate. “They think they are at their ‘Own Private Idaho’ out there.”
It’s a combination of loud music, apparent line-cutting among the Tesla drivers who then quarrel with one another, and a great deal of horn-honking. Making matters worse, the station has two-way entrances on both Lombard and Moulton streets, making for chaotic entry and exit patterns to the lot.
SFGate points to a charging station review site called Plugshare, where one reviewer writes that the station “Gets extremely crowded at night when the cost is lower. The entrances are poorly designed and there's cars coming from multiple directions, leading to a lot of confusion about who's next. Witnessed lots of arguing and line cutting while I was here.”
Neighbors have complained to the SF Planning Department, and to the district’s Supervisor Stephen Sherrill.
“I’ve heard and appreciate the concerns raised by residents along Moulton Street,” Sherrill told SFGate. “While conversations are ongoing and it’s too early to speak to specific interventions, my team is working closely with the property owner, the Planning Department, and SFMTA to identify solutions that address increased traffic on Moulton Street and evening noise, while allowing the electric vehicle charging station to continue serving the community.”
Not unlike with self-driving robotaxis, these unanticipated skirmishes and conflicts may just be a part of San Francisco serving as the petri dish for new automotive technologies. But add to this the fact that Teslas tend to be purchased by people with, ummm, certain “personality types,” and you can see why being the new frontier of 21st Century burdens some of San Francisco with unintended consequences that the electric car manufacturers didn’t see coming, and might perhaps just prefer to ignore.
Related: Elon Musk Wants to Open One of Those Tesla Diners in the Bay Area [SFist]
Image: Tesla vehicles are seen charging at a Supercharger electric vehicle charging station, Walnut Creek, California, September 10, 2024. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
