I’ll keep my gas powered vehicle.
As the frosty winds of Chicago’s winter turned brutal, the city’s Tesla owners found themselves in a chilly predicament. Electric vehicle charging stations, usually bustling with activity, transformed into eerie landscapes of immobility. The plummeting temperatures, diving into negative double digits, left many Tesla cars helplessly stranded and owners scratching their heads.
Tyler Beard, a Tesla owner determined to juice up his car, stood forlornly at an Oak Brook, Illinois supercharging station. “Nothing. No juice. Still on zero percent,” he lamented to Fox Chicago, recounting his fruitless three-hour vigil at the charger, a repeat of his ordeal from the previous day.
Across the Chicago area, similar scenes unfolded. Long lines of electric vehicles queued up at Tesla charging stations, with many owners abandoning their cars in despair. “This is crazy. It’s a disaster. Seriously,” exclaimed Chalis Mizelle, another Tesla owner who had to forsake her car for a friend’s ride when her vehicle refused to charge.
Witnesses described the surreal scene as akin to “a bunch of dead robots” idling in the cold.
Kevin Sumrak’s tale added to the narrative of distress. Arriving on a Sunday night at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, he found his Tesla unresponsive and ice-cold. His only recourse was to summon a flatbed tow truck, carting his electric chariot off to a working charging station.
An expert weighed in on the phenomenon, shedding light on the electric vehicles’ frosty dilemma. “It’s not plug and go. You have to precondition the battery, meaning that you have to get the battery up to the optimal temperature to accept a fast charge,” explained Mark Bilek of the Chicago Auto Trade Association.
As the biting cold rendered high-tech marvels into motionless hunks of metal and circuitry, Tesla owners in the Windy City gained a newfound respect for the challenges of electric vehicle ownership in extreme weather conditions.
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