Posted on 09/05/2023 6:03:23 AM PDT by Red Badger
An electric vehicle abruptly stopped in the middle of a busy road near Salisbury, England, and remained immovable for most of the day, causing a nine-hour traffic bottleneck.
The nightmarish gridlock began when a Tesla Model 3 Performance car ran out of power and broke down as it was making a turn off a high-traffic thoroughfare Tuesday afternoon, according to The Telegraph of London.
A team of workers was unable to move the stranded EV because “the handbrakes of electric cars, and some other modern cars, are controlled electronically, unlike those of traditional petrol and diesel cars which are mechanical,” the report said.
“This means that the handbrake often locks when the power fails and the car cannot be pushed or towed,” it said.
Matt Grigg, the landlord of a local pub, said the stranded Tesla obstructed traffic for most of the day before it was taken away to be recharged.
“A number of local workmen along with the policeman attempted to push the car to safety, however, despite their best efforts they could not move it,” Grigg told The Telegraph. “The obstruction caused delays throughout the rest of the day.”
He said officers had to stop at several different charging stations before finding one they could use to recharge the vehicle.
According to Grigg, the electric car stopped working mid-turn even though its battery gauge showed it still had several miles of charge left.
He said the road was not cleared of all recovery vehicles until 11:15 p.m., or roughly nine hours after the Tesla abruptly halted.
This type of sudden engine failure is not something consumers would expect of a Tesla Model 3 Performance, which cost £60,000, according to The Telegraph — or about $75,000.
This is yet another damning anecdote spotlighting the drawbacks of electric vehicles, which have been touted as the superior alternative to gas-powered cars.
In May, a Tesla broke down at a McDonald’s drive-thru in Ottawa, Ontario, and could not be moved.
A TikTok user captured the incident in a video that went viral: “So the Tesla died in the parking lot of the McDonald’s drive-thru. They can’t push it out because they can’t put it in gear.”
And it’s not just Tesla EVs that have experienced bizarre mechanical failures. In January, a GMC Hummer EV — which costs roughly $115,000 — broke down in the middle of a busy highway.
On the surface, the idea of an eco-friendly, sustainable electric vehicle sounds fantastic.
But so far, EVs have failed to live up to the hype — and they certainly have not earned widespread consumer confidence for reliability, safety or efficiency amid reports of:
Spontaneous battery fires.
Recharging nightmares.
Limited towing capacity.
Range malfunctions in cold weather.
Ironically, another major drawback of electric vehicles is how environmentally costly it is to produce them.
“Like any vehicle – they have to mine materials to make the car,” physicist Mark Mills told CBN News in November 2022. “You have to mine a lot more materials, metals, to make an electric vehicle than you do a conventional vehicle. By about 1,000 percent on average.”
He explained that miners must use heavy machines that burn diesel oil to dig up 500,000 pounds of earth to make a single, 1,000-pound EV battery.
While left-wing activists claim EVs are better for the environment because they supposedly generate zero carbon emissions, their environmental impact is massive.
President Joe Biden said during the 2020 campaign that he wanted to “transition” the U.S. away from oil in order to advance “green energy” programs.
It’s clear, however, that transitioning 332 million Americans from fossil fuels to less-reliable green energy will be inconvenient and expensive — and it isn’t even guaranteed to be better for the environment.
This does not mean EVs should be scrapped — but they certainly are not ready to replace gas-powered cars.
Cars can be drug on to flatbeds with a winch. Even with all four tires locked up. No reason for it to tie up traffic for nine hours.
Also running out of power is not the same as “bricked”.
Running out of battery, like running out of gas, is not the car’s fault.
and it’s much easier to get Gas , for now ,LOL
I wonder if this could happen to an Amish Buggy.
This does not mean EVs should be scrapped
Actually we should double down and require as a Term of Employment that every Public Employee in America be forbidden from using, owning or possessing any ICE powered vehicle.
this story does not add up.
If not juice, how did the car say it had several miles left?
Why not drag it onto a flatbed tow truck?
I remember back in the day all the articles written about another “SUV that rolled over and killed it’s occupants”.
Get a bazooka and blow the damn thing up.
Exactly. This sounds like a law and towing contract issue, not a disabled vehicle issue.
The tow companies likely wouldn't touch it after losing lawsuits in the past for damaging such a vehicle.
Mercedes-Benz in particular had an issue where after a collision, even a bumper tap, the car wouldn't start and would be locked in park. Tow companies quickly refused to tow them due to claims against them, which caused multiple instances of disabled Mercedes-Benz left blocking traffic.
I believe it was action on the part of states' attorneys general that forced Mercedes-Benz to change the programming in the car where a disabled vehicle could be taken out of park.
There are interviews with Elon Musk where it's shocking how much the engineers at Tesla had to learn after putting cars out on real roads in real situations. Watching the interviews is like being in a time machine listening to someone from the 1920s figuring it out for the first time. It shows they're amateur at best, deficient as a norm, commonly negligent, and criminal on occasion.
My brother and his wife have a Tesla Y, they aren’t greenies. I rode in it recently and was very impressed. The only reason we don’t have one is we live on gravel and the roads can be terrible. We need better clearance.
Yeah, I can’t believe how much faith people put in the range estimate on gas cars too. I’m wanting to fill at 1/4.
Do like Patton did, shoot it and have it thrown off the bridge!
Mmmmm, imagine this in the middle of an evacuation. You know, Hurricane, tornado, fire.
Exactly.
Drives me crazy, my wife tells me the car is down to like 20 miles, and I have to be the one to go get the gas.
You can put a Tesla into ‘tow mode’. Which releases the electronic brake and allows the car to be push/rolled by one person.
More driver ignorance. Not the car’s fault.
Must not have read the article. The car still showed a charge for several more miles.
Ain’t gummit subsidies wonderful.
Why didn’t 4-5 big guys just flip the car over to the bar-ditch? It might pi$$ off the owner but his insurance company would rather replace his vehicle than pay for any other accidents that were the result ...
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