Photos showed Tesla Supercharger stations faced long lines during holiday travel, revealing a big hurdle for EV makers

• As electric vehicles become more common, access to charging stations can increasingly result in long lines.

• Tesla owners posted videos and photos of long lines and broken chargers at Tesla Supercharger stations on social media around Thanksgiving.

• These complaints indicate that Tesla and other electric vehicle manufacturers will have to build more charging stations, and convince customers that they're reliably available before the cars really take hold, Business Insider transportation reporter Mark Matousek wrote.

• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel times of the year, and some Tesla and other electric vehicle owners faced extra inconveniences when it came time to charge their vehicles.

Tesla owners can typically do most of their charging at home, but at certain points demand spikes, according to Karl Brauer of Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book, via Business Insider transportation reporter Mark Matousek. One of those times is around holiday travel when road trips are more common and people would need to stop to recharge.

Like other electric vehicle companies, Tesla is expanding its charging network, although apparently not fast enough to prevent long waits over the holiday.

Here are some of the complaints that popped up on social media over Thanksgiving.

One California charging station had a line down the block of cars waiting to charge.

One person estimated the line was at least half a mile long.

Most posts centered around the lines in Kettleman City, California, although this driver noted that there were lines at chargers throughout the state.

Not only were lines long, but many chargers were not functional over the holiday.

At one station, five chargers were out of service

Thanksgiving is one of the biggest travel days of the year, and many Tesla owners were not happy that the company didn't prepare for extra users.

Some even called it a "Tesla energy crisis."

Commenters on Twitter and YouTube said that they didn't face problems on the East Coast, but West Coasters continued to face long lines for chargers.

Some did see Tesla's efforts to install extra chargers, although too late to be helpful in the moment.

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