‘EV virtue signaling has a cost’: Skepticism abounds when Tesla owner claims no charge in cold weather

A Virginia radio host is questioning his eco-friendly choices after he discovered his Tesla S — an electric vehicle with more than a $100,000 price tag — wouldn’t charge in the below-freezing temperatures, leaving him stranded on Christmas Eve.

Domenick Nati, 44, posted his plight on Twitter and promptly had the written equivalent of lumps of Christmas coal thrown his way in response.

https://twitter.com/KingOfContacts/status/1606774948860682241?s=20&t=DjJLVU25J1orFBMe5nubAw

Nati tried to juice up his Tesla on Friday, when the temperature was a bone-chilling 19 degrees Fahrenheit. The car’s battery was at 40% when he plugged it in and, after two hours, “not much changed.”

“It was very slow, and the numbers got lower as the temperature dropped,” the radio host told Insider. “Eventually, it stopped charging altogether.”

Hoping Santa would bring him some luck, he tried again to charge the Tesla on Christmas Eve.

“Battery is heating — keep charge cable inserted,” the car instructed him.

An hour later, the situation still hadn’t improved.

“I have no other vehicle, so I decided to see if it just needed more time,” Nati explained. “Hours went by, and with only 19 miles left to empty, I chose to leave the car plugged in and get a ride back to my house.”

According to the frustrated owner, Tesla’s customer support didn’t respond to his Christmas crisis. With no available ride shares, Nati had to cancel his holiday plans.

Online, schadenfreude seemed to saturate the holiday spirit.

“I can pick you up with my 14 year old civic diesel,” offered one Twitter user with a winking, tongue-out emoji.

“Merry Christmas…wherever you are stuck with [your] status symbol,” tweeted another.

“Sorry bro,” said a slightly more sympathetic user, “electrical stuff doesn’t work in cold weather. There’s a limit to how cold it can get before electricity just stops being able to flow, no matter what the wokies say.”

The owner’s ruined holiday weekend is nothing compared to what the people of the Congo must endure so Nati’s big battery could let him down.

As BizPac Review reported, the Congo is the main source of cobalt, a necessary ingredient for the manufacturing of the batteries that charge the worlds electric vehicles, iPhones, and other “smart” cordless toys.

Siddharth Kara, a visiting Harvard professor and modern slavery activist, told podcaster Joe Rogan that the conditions the impoverished Congolese — many of them, children — are forced to work in for “a dollar a day” are “absolutely subhuman” and “gut-wrenching.”

“We can’t function on a day-to-day basis without cobalt, and three-fourths of the supply is coming out of the Congo,” Kara told Rogan. “And it’s being mined in appalling, heart-wrenching, dangerous conditions.”

Given the reality of the so-called “green” vehicles, it’s hard to muster much warmth for Nati, who presumably paid six figures for what is essentially a very expensive paperweight in frigid temperatures.

As one Twitter user noted, “EV virtue signaling has a cost.”

https://twitter.com/SaveRHomes/status/1607162249780813824?s=20&t=DjJLVU25J1orFBMe5nubAw

 

Melissa Fine

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