The title is misleading "Trapped" made me think they were stuck inside the car for 10 hours. No, only their car was stuck.

Yeah, a better word would be "stranded," but that would get fewer clicks.

Bugs like to crawl into little holes like on the charging plug/car and can increase resistance enough to cause this issue.

When I built a robot that had to plug/unplug things 1000s of times it had an air-gun to clean out the plugs each cycle.

I am not sure arc-detection would help you that much in case of a bug because by the time it starts arcing the pin has already melted.

So we should bring a can of air, when using a public charging station, and blow it clean before use?

Metrovac makes an electric plugin duster that is the bees knees. Never have to buy a can of air again. It's powerful too. Powerful enough that you feel what little torque the motor has when it powers on.

This is the model. https://www.webstaurantstore.com/metrovac-ed-500-datavac-ele...

Buy a bag of thermite and set of sparklers to avoid being kidnapped by a charger.

a heavy-duty cable cutter, or an axe.