A ¥634 Tesla glovebox USB hub fixed the most annoying part of running a dashcam on our Model YL. The car records to a USB stick sitting inside the glovebox.
We do not subscribe to Premium Connectivity, so the only way to watch that footage is to pull the stick out, walk it over to a computer, then put it back.
It is not something I do often. But getting the stick back into the port was a small ordeal every single time.
Then I spotted a glovebox hub on AliExpress for ¥634 (approx. $4 USD), which would put the ports somewhere I could actually see.
The stock USB-C port is easy to unplug, hard to plug back in
Here is how it looks from the factory.
Open the glovebox lid, look up at the ceiling of the compartment, and there is a single USB-C port.
It is hard to tell from the photo, but the port sits deep inside the shelf facing downward, with no room to get a finger in front of it.
Pulling the stick out is fine. You grab it, you tug, it comes free.
Putting it back is the hard part. You have to line the plug up with a downward-facing port you cannot see, working entirely by feel.
USB-C being reversible saves you half the trouble, yet I still ended up jabbing at the ceiling of the glovebox several times before it clicked home.
The days I want to check the footage are usually days when something happened, so knowing this little wrestling match was waiting at the end made it worse. That is the whole reason a Tesla glovebox USB hub appealed to me.
The AliExpress Tesla glovebox USB hub cost ¥634
What I found was a dock shaped specifically for this compartment.
The screen is in Japanese: item price ¥740 (approx. $5 USD), discounted to a ¥634 total (approx. $4 USD), free shipping.
Even by AliExpress interior-parts standards that is cheap, so I placed the order knowing I could shrug it off if it did not fit.
This is the one I bought.
If that listing ever disappears, a search for glovebox USB hubs turns up plenty of near-identical docks.
Unboxing plus install
I placed the order on 18 July. It showed up about two weeks later.
It is called a Glove Box Expansion Dock, in a plain white box with a line drawing of the product on the front.
Two USB-A ports plus one USB-C
This is all that was inside.
It fits in the palm of your hand, machined from aluminium with a brushed finish.
The front face carries two USB-A ports plus one USB-C. A male USB-C plug sticks out of the back, which is what goes into the factory port.
For ¥634 I was braced for something toy-like. The real thing is solid metal, cold to the touch.
The glovebox trim is grey, so the colour does not stand out much either.
Installation is just pushing it in
There is no job here to speak of. You push the plug into the USB-C port at the back.
The body is cut at an angle to match the shelf, so it sits neatly once seated.
Exactly as hoped, all three ports now face the front of the compartment.
The socket is somewhere I can see, which means no more feeling around blindly. With the Tesla glovebox USB hub in place, the most tedious part of pulling dashcam footage is gone.
Recording carried on normally after the hub went in, for both the dashcam plus Sentry Mode. I had half expected the car to stop recognising the drive with something in between, so that was a relief.
What to do with the two spare ports
This is arguably the interesting part. Even with the dashcam using one port, two are still free.
So I went looking for what a Tesla glovebox USB hub can actually feed.
- Play music files (a USB stick loaded with tracks works from the media player, sharing one drive with dashcam footage as long as the folders are separate)
- Charge a phone out of sight inside the compartment
- Split the dashcam onto one drive with Sentry Mode on another, so a failure only takes out half
- Keep a spare recording drive plugged in, ready to swap over
According to Tesla’s owner’s manual, a recording drive needs to be formatted as exFAT with a folder called TeslaCam at the root. Tapping Controls → Safety → Format USB Drive on the car’s screen builds that for you automatically.
What I would really like is to plug in something much larger.
The catch is heat. A Tesla dashcam writes continuously, cabin temperatures climb hard in summer, so I am not sure how an SSD would hold up in there. That question is why I have not pulled the trigger yet.
I will decide how to fill those two ports once I have read up a bit more.
Final thoughts
That is a ¥634 Tesla glovebox USB hub from AliExpress, fitted to a Model YL.
- ¥634 total (approx. $4 USD), down from ¥740, shipping included
- Two USB-A ports plus one USB-C on the front, with a male USB-C on the back for the factory socket
- The ports face forward, so you plug in where you can see instead of by feel
- Dashcam plus Sentry Mode recording carried on with no trouble
Without Premium Connectivity, every look at the footage means pulling the drive out then putting it back. Taking the pain out of the second half alone was worth ¥634.
Once I settle on a use for the two spare ports on the Tesla glovebox USB hub, I will write that up too.
This article is also available in Japanese.
