The Tesla owner said getting stuck in his driveway was “annoying as hell,” and he tried everything from hosing the car down to jumping the battery.
I’ve seen this exact issue end up as a mainstream news story more than once now. I don’t completely understand it either. The process to unlock if the battery is dead takes maybe 10-20 seconds, and from there you charge or replace the battery just as you would if your battery was dead in a standard car. This would be the equivalent to someone with a standard vehicle that has a FOB with the backup key hidden inside. If that person didn’t know that key existed and complained that they were locked out of their vehicle because the FOB had a dead battery, it would be just as odd if it made it to the news.
Hate the car/brand if you choose to, you do have that right. Just don’t hate based on misinformation.
Some of it is that a 12v failure is much more of a pain in an EV, since you need low-voltage to trigger the high-voltage battery contactors in order to recharge the low-voltage battery. Many people don’t know this, and then panic when their car appears very broken. Some non-Tesla EVs will throw downright bizarre errors and lights at you in this condition.
I’m optimistic we’ll all learn about EVs and their common failure modes like we have with ICE vehicles over time.
