Can You Charge A Tesla While Driving?

The answer to whether you can charge Tesla while driving OR can you drive Tesla while charging comes to be Yes in certain conditions and No in certain conditions.

There are many ways you can charge your Tesla and the same with any EV. And whether you can drive while charging depends on how you are charging.

Here is the list of ways you can charge Tesla, and will see for each way whether you can drive while you charge or whether you can charge while you drive, 

1. Charging at EV Charging Station at home or public station by plugging charging connector to charge port 
2. Charging with regenerative braking 
3. Charging with solar roof over car using sun’s energy
4. Charging with a wireless EV charger
5. Charging with a mobile power generator in car itself
6. Charging with a high powered mobile charger or power source in car

Now let’s see which way of charging allows you to drive altogether.

Can you charge Tesla with a fixed EV charging station while driving?

The answer is, No, you can’t charge Tesla while driving if you want to charge at a charging station. To charge Tesla at any EV charger the vehicle needs to be parked in static motion. 

In addition to this if charger is plugged-in to Tesla and you try to drive, you won’t be able to. That’s a safety mechanism in Tesla that when it’s plugged into charger connector it can’t drive. 

Can you charge Tesla with regenerative braking while driving?

Yes, with regenerative braking you can charge a Tesla while you’re driving.

Regenerative braking generates power and transfers it back to Tesla battery while decelerating or while moving on a downhill road.

It converts the vehicle’s kinetic energy to electric energy then the power stores back in the battery in the form of chemical energy. 

So instead of spilling out energy in the form of heat it charges Tesla’s battery while you take your foot off the accelerator.

But this cannot make any significant difference. This can charge the battery just a bit. Because power getting generated while you decelerating is so small that’s not enough to charge battery for significant charge level. 

While driving on downhill for few miles can add again few miles of range to car but generally this does not add significant amount of power to battery.

Can you charge Tesla with Solar roof over car while driving?

Now, as Solar roof being installed at home, the solar panels can also be installed over roof of car. 

It uses Sun’s energy to generate electricity. 

And this is proven method many EV’s have installed solar roof over car. 

And the electrical connection made to charge Tesla’s battery with generated electricity from solar power.

But again this not a significant amount of power to charge EV’s high-voltage battery significant. This adds to battery but this is not something you can rely on avoiding charging at EV charging station.

Can you charge Tesla with wireless EV Charger while driving?

Now, Tesla is developing this technology to make it enable to charge with a wireless charger.

There are two kinds of wireless EV charger. One is static and another is dynamic.

Let me brief you how wireless EV charging works. Then will clear whether Tesla can charge while driving.

EVs with wireless charging capacity come with a magnetic charging receiver pad.

The way wireless charger works is, it gets electric power from power source from external charging unit, converts it to magnetic energy . This magnetic energy then through charging pad transferred to vehicle’s receiver charging pad. This process is called electromagnetic conduction.

Here the vehicle has to park upon charging pad to receive magnetic energy through conduction. And then it converter it to electric power to charge the battery in electric vehicle.

Case with Static Wireless charging 

Static wireless EV chargers charger has to be installed at a fixed place with charging pad installed over the ground surface.

Now in static wireless charger the Tesla has to park over charging pad to start charging. 

So it cannot drive while charging going on. If it drives the charging will discontinue. So answer is with static wireless charger Tesla cannot charge while driving.

Case with Dynamic Wireless charging 

Now, dynamic wireless charger unlike static, are installed over the road. Whole road has charging pad installed over a long distance.

So this kind of dynamic wireless EV chargers are designed to charge EVs while it is driving on the road. 

So the answer is, with dynamic wireless EV charger you can charge your Tesla while driving.

Can you charge Tesla with mobile power generator in car while driving?

Now, this is something, not a conventional way of charging an Electric Vehicle. 

What is done here is, a gasoline powered generator is installed in the trunk of Tesla and it generates power with gasoline as fuel. 

That power then transferred to EV’s battery to charge. 

Now this can be done while Tesla is driving. So at one side battery is being consumed and from another side power is being transferred to battery from the generator installed in the trunk. 

This requires a lot of customization in Tesla and engineering and technical skills to fit a power generator inside Tesla’s trunk. 

If you can do this, then yes you can charge your Tesla while driving. 

Here’s one guy who experimented with this you can look at his video below.

Can you charge Tesla with mobile charger or power source in car while driving?

This is something different than a mobile power generator. 

Here what is being done is a mobile power source is used like EcoFlow’s device does.

But the thing is such mobile  power source only has power stored like battery inside it and you can draw that power source with a portable EV charger like Tesla’s mobile connector and then plug it into Tesla. 

This was Tesla charges with a mobile power source.

A limitation with this

But again as this method requires to plug-in EV charger to Tesla’s charge port, this won’t allow you to drive Tesla while it’s charging because of it’s safety measures.

As Tesla can’t move/drive while it’s actively plugged-in for charging.

So no plugin-in mobile power source with a portable EV charger won’t make you drive Tesla while charging.

BUT one more thing can happen which is an experiment. 

An Experiment for Technical PROs

By any chance this mobile power source directly charges the Tesla’s battery without plugging-in then this can make it possible to drive the EV while it’s actively charging.

Just like how it’s done with a mobile gas-powered generator.