Deep Freeze in Illinois Strands Tesla, Electric Vehicle Owners in Parking Lots
“This is crazy. It’s a disaster. Seriously.”
My mom asked me if I saw the story about Tesla and electric vehicle owners stranded in the frigid Illinois weather because the weather froze the charging stations.
HI MOM!
Public charging stations have turned into car graveyards over the past couple of days.
“Nothing. No juice. Still on zero percent,” said Tyler Beard, who has been trying to recharge his Tesla at an Oak Brook Tesla supercharging station since Sunday afternoon. “And this is like three hours being out here after being out here three hours yesterday.”
Beard was among the dozens of Tesla owners trying desperately to power up their cars at the Tesla supercharging station in Oak Brook. It was a scene mirrored with long lines and abandoned cars at scores of other charging stations around the Chicago area.
“This is crazy. It’s a disaster. Seriously,” said Tesla owner Chalis Mizelle.
One man said: “We got a bunch of dead robots out here.”
A charging station in Skokie has 20 charging stations. People lined up to charge their cars.
Some ran out of power while waiting. The freeze also contributed to the batteries losing their juice:
“I saw my battery was getting low 20 to 25%. Went to the gas station there was a long line,” Tesla driver Wes France said.
France said he then drove to the station at the fashion outlet station in Rosemont, but it wasn’t in service.
“By that time my battery drained down to 5%, which is faster than normal,” France said.
France eventually had to load his car onto a tow truck to get it to a charger.
“Long story short here I am. We had to tow it out this way,” France said.
I get alerts on my phone about my security cameras in the cold weather. “Extreme cold weather can lead to battery drain.”
Don’t drive electric vehicles.
Maybe it’s worth reading that big manual the car came with.
Mark Bilek of the Chicago Trade Association told FOX Chicago the owners “have to precondition the battery, meaning that you have to get the battery up to the optimal temperature to accept a fast charge.”
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Comments
I recently saw a movie just like this. Those stranded in the frigid cold resorted to cannibalism.
They had better hurry up before everyone freezes and their electric knives don’t work, either.
Popsicles
Lithium batteries cone in may chemistry’s, most EVs use LIFePo4 batteries, they cannot be charged below freezing, it destroys that type of battery. That is probably why they will not charge. There are other lithium battery chemistries which charge at low temperature, but they have lower power density and cost twice as much per Kwh.
The folks pushing these things don’t want you in EV’s, they want you out of your car and on public mass transport and are using EV’s as a slippery stepping stone.
Dang. How dare you notice EV’s combined with those chips the last big spending bill included. Cars won’t work in the cold and even if they did, the government doesn’t like what you say on social media or just want to shut everything down then they turn off your car. Combine that with CBDC and you are a slave pure and simple. No car, no movement, no money. Do what they say or else.
That’s one of multiple attacks on the freedom to travel. Other methods that are either being suggested or implemented are mileage taxes, CBDCs, kill switches for cars, and 15-minute
citiesconcentration camps.Wait until they discover that running the heat drains their batteries twice as fact.
Ahhh! It’s Illinois in January. They don’t need no stinking heat!
😉
Yeah, not really feeling the pity for these folks. They got exactly what they paid for, just because they didn’t think to research it isn’t my problem.
LOL.
PLUG HARDER!!!
Trying to rely upon an EV in a location with harsh winter conditions is ….suboptimal.
“France eventually had to load his car onto a tow truck to get it to a charger.”
I bet that truck was run on diesel.
This 1,000%
Wife’s company is all in on electric trucks. Had one die at a store and a tow truck with a diesel gen showed up to charge it enough to get home. That truck is useless over 250miles a day and most semi’s run 500 or more. Local still sucks as they have to stop multiple times a day to charge it up.
You, sir, are a master of understatement. We salute you.
Anybody who’s ever used power tools in the winter time already knew this
meaning that you have to get the battery up to the optimal temperature to accept a fast charge
Well, from what I understand, that should be pretty easy to do with EVs. Especially with all that snow around. Right?
just wait ’til Spring
No, just take it home and plug it in. The ensuing fire should warm up the battery. . .
Whoops, the Globalists fed you a line of crap about those ‘vaccines’ huh?
Now you’re discovering that what they told you about EV’s was also a lie?
That whole thing about men having babies and menstruating have you scratching your head?
Are you beginning to question the Globull Warming narrative yet?
Here, take this red pill, it will make you feel mighty fine, that ringing in your ears from the cognitive dissonance will go away.
Truth!
Hopefully with the Cray Cray on full display from winter conditions foreseeable impact on EV, the caustic campus environment for anyone who doesn’t subscribe to coddling Hamas, the open border, the persistent and still rising inflation more folks will pay attention. If not then the current consequences being felt across the Nation from foolish policies will only exacerbate.
Ha, ha, ha
Keep in mind that Tesla offers the best charging experience of any EV manufacturer and second place isn’t even REMOTELY close. And yet, look at this disaster.
What are people who don’t have garages – like those who live in apartments or mobile homes or one of the millions of pre-war homes that don’t have garages – going to do when they’re forced by the government to replace their car with an EV? Where are they going to charge those EVs? Has anyone in government thought about this?
They have. Everything is working exactly as planned.
It’s not that they haven’t thought about it, it’s that they have thought about it and they don’t give a shit. Your not being able to charge your EV is a feature, not a bug. Get on the bus loser
Ooops! The bus company switched over to EV buses last month. Hang around until warmer weather.
My gas powered car started right up yesterday in Illinois–it was 8 below with a windchill of about 28 below and the car had been out all night. To quote someone: We don’t need no stinkin’ EV’s.
Got a nifty unit on my Semi. When it detects the batteries draining down to a critical level the truck starts up automatically and runs till they are charged then shuts off. I can even set it to start up based on the temp in the truck. -40 and the truck starts and runs just fine so when I show up to work it’s 50 degrees in there. Too bad EV’s don’t have this.
They are called hybrids, battery + generator.
No, they are called TripPac or other name. Trucks that have them get a waiver on the 80,000 gross to have them on.
EV’s are such transparently inferior products, as compared to gas-powered vehicles — a truth that’s becoming more obvious to people, with each passing day.
Rational people who don’t have the luxury of burning money to place a virtue-signaling EV toy in their driveway, are realizing that the notion that EV’s present an allegedly technologically superior and more convenient driving experience and myriad benefits for the consumer, as compared to gas-powered vehicles, is manifestly and laughably false.
To purchase an EV and then have to worry about range limitations; charging time length and charging location scarcity; degraded battery performance in both cold AND hot weather; quick loss of battery power when running the car heater or air conditioner; the manufacturers’ own guidance that batteries only be charged to 80% of total capacity; electric fire risk, in the event of a crash; eventual battery replacement in a few years, at high cost; expensive repair costs; etc., etc. — is utterly absurd.
The EV presents zero practical benefits to the rational consumer, and instead presents many headaches, safety risks and costs. No intelligent person outside of wealthy Dhimmi-crat enclaves on the east and west coasts, is going to purchase an EV.
EVs can be ultra-quick. The genius of Tesla was to make the first EVs lightning fast – quickest cars in history, at that point. 0 to 60 times that were completely insane. That is what started this whole EV craze.
And EVs are essential tools for criminals since they are silent, which makes them basically invisible.
EVs are great for people who have the time and money to enjoy them as awesome toys, but, as you point out, they are not anything like replacements for a normal car.
Electric buses are kind of a funny part of the whole scheme. They’ve been around forever. We used to call them “trolleys”, with the acceptance of the fact that they really can’t carry their own electricity around with them.
Electric motors are great. Insane torque delivered uniformly. But we have long understood how this technology is dealt with – Diesel-electric locomotives; diesel engines to generate the electricity to power the electric motors.
I would add to your list diesel-electric oil drilling rigs. HA.
They are silly fast as long as it’s a balmy 70 out.
Sure, faster acceleration is cool and all. But, EV’s acceleration advantage over gas-powered cars doesn’t even begin to compensate for their myriad other costs, inconveniences, risks and time consumption. It’s just not a close call.
Can we all agree that going forward , no more changes to American society or infrastructure until the idea has been field tested somewhere. On a small scale. For an adequate duration of time.
Jeeezsh
The federal government does NOT have the power to change American society this way, to begin with – and most certainly the Executive branch has nothing even remotely close. Everything that Traitor Joe and his junta are doing with forcing America off of petroleum is ILLEGAL and completely un-Constitutional.
It does not have the LEGAL authority, but sadly, that no longer seems to concern it.
Agreed. Every candidate for every office from dog catcher to the Presidency should be explaining how they will cut red tape, bureaucratic BS interference masquerading as ‘helpful reforms for consumers’ and how they plan on massively cutting the budget of the office they are running for.
“I never thought I would say this” said stupid teleprompter reader. Everyone who has half a brain said this was the situation with EV’s. In the winter most of our country is not going to work for those nonsense vehicles.
On the other hand, today it took me 10min to pump 100 gal of diesel into my semi. I’m good to go for about 700 miles, no freezing temps to worry about and if the pumps stop working for some reason I’ll turn on the bunk heater and watch tv for a couple of weeks.
The device is called an APC used on big rigs. They power, heat and cool the sleeper, keep truck batteries charged and the warm.
TripPac (many call them that) but one brand is a TriPac. There are many variants. One I posted above, one I had just heated drawing on the diesel in the tank. Silent and kept the truck warm while charging the battery which allowed me to no idle down to 20 degrees or so saving a ton of fuel. One on my current 2023 Cascadia is a whole different type that heats and cools auto. Never have to idle the truck if I don’t want too. They are fantastic.
A 2023 Cascadia?
Diver64 is riding in style, folks
Sorry, that is APU.
Chemistry also doesn’t care how woke you are.
I drove off the wheels of my gas guzzler in Chicago, twice. The reality in Chicago is that, if you want to drive every day in winter, you must have a garage and possibly a battery warmer (yes!).
My car had to be towed to a garage, and the tires thawed 8 hours before they could be re-glued to the rims. What happens is that the tire may get a flat spot over night, and the car may start but the imbalance in the tire pulls it off the rim as the car starts to roll. This happened to about a thousand other cars, and was a regular feature of Chicago winters. Parking on the street in Chicago in winter is a chancy business.
At that time, people would buy essentially little electric blankets for their batteries and park their cars in some kind of shelter, often with an additional incandescent light (remember them?) to take the edge off the worst of the cold.
I specifically bought a new, smaller car so I could fit into the tiny garage for my 6-flat. Once in a while I left the interior light on, but I did nothing further. This solved my problem of being stranded in Chicago in the winter. The days were apparently warm enough that I could park outside for 9 hours without losing the ability to drive in the evening.
I read this story about Teslas and immediately wondered what else happened in Chicago during that cold spell.
“I read this story about Teslas and immediately wondered what else happened in Chicago during that cold spell.”
Jussie Smollet walked to Subway to get a sandwich.
And just think, everybody! There are people in our federal government and military who are eagerly working to replace the military’s various vehicles powered by conventional fuels with vehicles powered by batteries.
What could go wrong?!?!?
Yeah, I had forgotten about this idiotic scheme to electrify the U.S. military’s tanks, APC’s, artillery and rocket launchers, etc. A conceit so manifestly stupid, idiotic and self-destructive, it plumbs new depths of foolishness for the perennially dim-witted Dhimmi-crats.
Even the Soviet apparatchiks of old weren’t this incredibly witless.
Can’t get jump start?
lol
Isn’t it amazing it was Tesla and not the other brands? How wacky that chemistry works differently for them than all the other brands of EV.
Other brands will also be affected.
I know. That’s the joke. Tesla is the only brand mentioned (several times) even though this is a universal problem with battery technology.
Ever since Musk bought Twitter, Tesla has gone from being the darling of the green sect, to “How dare you?” evil capitalist tool oppressing the masses. It’s been something to see, for sure.
I had the same trouble with the AA batteries in my outdoor temperature transmitter. The reading stuck at 26 when the weather bureau was reporting 10. The batteries took the first really cold snap as the opportunity to fail.
I think the old NaCd batteries actually work better in the cold, if Tesla wants to look at a change.
Energy density is far too low with Ni cads.
Use lithium AA batteries. They’re a little pricey but they last a *long* time and work better at low temperatures.
.
I’m waiting for old Joe to ban gas/diesel tow trucks. Then next winter will be even more fun in an EV.
How is CA going to remove those stalled out 18 wheeler EVs from the CA highways? Gov newscum is smiling.
Watching all this from Florida through heavy lenses.
Yeah, we Floridiots get to yuck it up any time a snowstorm paralyzes transportation and kills several people “up North.”
It’s 36 here in Jacksonville, and my car won’t start. It’s the battery.
No yucking it up from me. Just observing.
It was 46 in Orlando at 7:04 this morning, so maybe you need to move a little further south. My car (not an EV) started fine!
Used to live in South Florida — no, thank you. A little cold weather isn’t so bad.
I swiped the wife’s hybrid, which started right up on its battery power.
Later I put a DVOM on my 30-month-old car battery and found it’s only pushing 11.8 volts, so it’s off to the auto parts store. Modern cars (even my 20-year-old pile of German engineering) are so electronics-dependent that even a small drop in voltage can leave you stranded. Hmm … sounds familiar.
When will the public realize that EVs are a way for the government to control movement? It isn’t about green energy, it is about control. With the flip of a switch, the government can stop all movement in a metro area or section of the country. With just a small device they can control the speed of an EV remotely. In a national emergency, they can control the escape from a dangerous event like a hurricane or tornado. In other words, they can control your movements at will. Then they can mandate the size of the batteries in EVs so that long-distance travel is no longer possible. Already they are experimenting with buried cables in roadways to control the speed and distance of any EV.
Elon Musk’s gift to the Democrat Party?
Sooo…. basically EV’s NEED global warming to work effectively?
that’s a conundrum…..🤣
USAF sent me to Plattsburgh, NY, in the 70s, a place so far north the closest big city is Montreal. I saw the temperature in the low -30s several times when I got up to go to work, close to -40 a few times. Like most others, I took the car battery in every night to keep it warm and *never* had a problem starting my ’73 AMC. I’m sure AF_Chief_Master_Sgt understands.
Dependability wasn’t too much to ask fifty years ago. Too bad it seems to be too much to expect now.
.
Plattsburgh? Puhlease.
Loring AFB, ME.
Where the nearest big town was in Canada, south of us.
Loring AFB. January 1979 through October 1983. The first day I arrived, 24 inches of snow, followed immediately by another 24 inches of snow that same week.
I was at 4 yrs at Minot, 16 at Plattsburgh, then 10 at Ft Ethan Allen when AGR with the VT National Guard.
I wonder how many of these EV dupes are Ivy League grads?