Photo credit: WPBF News

From Popular Mechanics

This actually happened and is not a joke, as reported by WPBF 25 in Lake Worth, Florida.

A Tesla Model 3 was left outside on a homeowner's lawn for 12 hours to charge using his electricity, all without his knowledge or permission.

Please do not be this pathetic while driving an EV.

Driving an electric car can sometimes make a calm person slide into bouts of extreme desperation. That may be the kindest way to describe why a Florida man ditched his Tesla on another person's lawn, stole electricity from that house, and walked off to party with friends in the middle of the night.

WPBF 25 television reported this exact scene in Lake Worth, a seaside locale just south of West Palm Beach, that occurred last Friday. The Model 3 owner, who was lucky to be unnamed in the story and have trespassing charges dropped by the homeowner, said his car's battery had died on the way to a friend's house around midnight. So, he figured, why not pull up onto a stranger's front lawn and stretch a 120-volt cord to an external outlet—a grounded plug surrounded by well-manicured landscaping, just perfect—and leave the car for 12 hours?

Homeowner Phil Fraumeni said he woke up on that Friday morning to a call from his landscaper asking him to move his white Model 3 off the lawn. Fraumeni replied he didn't have a Model 3. Then he saw the friendly setup that had been draining electricity while he slept. WPBF 25 said he waited several hours for the car's owner to return before calling police, who then tracked down the owner's address and waited some more for the man to show up. He showed up, didn’t apologize, was told he'd committed a crime, and that was that. What's more, he didn’t pay Fraumeni a red cent for the free charge.

Low batteries can do something to the human psyche. Range anxiety is still a thing, no matter if a Tesla can comfortably travel 250-plus miles per charge, when you're not following the car's prescribed instructions to charge at precisely the right times. But when you screw up, you call AAA.

Story continues





You Might Also Like