A pair of siblings claim they were forced to stop six times in just one day whilst driving their Tesla rental car in cold weather.
Xaviar and Alice Steavenson had heard about the Tesla experience and wanted to find out about it for themselves, so they decided to go off on a little road trip from Orlando in Florida to Wichita in Kansas.
Obviously, they are aware that the Tesla is an electric car and therefore needs to stop to charge when the battery runs out, but they weren’t prepared for how many times they would have to come to a halt during their day.
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There’s a serious factor at play here, which is the fact that the weather has been absolutely awful in the USA recently, with snow covering much of the country towards the end of December.
Still, they ploughed on with their journey, but had to stop on six occasions.
Apparently, things started off better and gradually got worse. At one stage, Xaviar told Insider the ‘battery would drain faster than it would charge’.
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He continued: "We ended up having to stop every one to one and a half hours to charge for an hour, then an hour and a half, then two hours.
"So beyond the lost time, it also got to the point it was between $25 and $30 to recharge. Just in one day, we stopped six times to charge at that cost."
Yikes, that’s a lot of money if what they claim is accurate.
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On their website, rental company Hertz says that renting one of Tesla’s electric cars is ‘always cheaper than gas’, but it doesn’t seem to have been that way for the Steavensons.
They even called up Hertz, where an agent allegedly told them that they’d been taking ‘nothing but Tesla calls today’ adding that they had ‘no idea why they're having issues’.
A spokesperson for Hertz said: "We have not experienced a significant increase in communication from customers about the battery of their EV rentals.
“However, battery range varies by vehicle manufacturer and can be influenced by multiple factors including weather and driving conditions."
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In the end, they were told to go to the nearest Hertz location for a new car, but didn’t get a Tesla and ended up driving back in a gas vehicle.
Xaviar explained: “"They [didn’t] have Teslas there or not even the equivalent, so I'm headed back in a Nissan Rogue Sport – at least it's economical."
UNILAD has reached out to Tesla for a comment on the matter.
Topics: US News, Cars, Tesla, Elon Musk, Technology
Tom Wood