Ohhh… I was supposed to plug it in?
By now, you have likely heard of the Tesla owner with a battery that died because it wasn’t plugged in while he left it unattended for several weeks. Hello? Have you never owned a battery powered device before?
We here at Living LEAF are generally not sarcastic, and we generally try to maintain a positive approach to our articles and our presentation of ideas. But as my daughter would say – “Really?”
First, we are big believers in personal responsibility. We certainly understand that owner’s manuals are not particularly pleasant reading, and that there are any number of pursuits that many of us would find more fun and interesting. But when leaving a $100,000 plus battery powered device (with a significant portion of that cost being the aforementioned battery) unattended for weeks on end, taking even just a few minutes to check out battery care instructions seems like a good thing to do.
“Nobody told me I had to do that!” See our previous paragraph. We have to think that Tesla did not seek this owner out to sell him the car. It is highly more likely that he sought out a dealer, made his own way to the store, and wrote the check. Just as when we bought our LEAF, we are sure that the Tesla owner signed a pile of documents, most of which he did not read, just as we did not read all of ours. In that stack of paperwork was a warning that exactly this scenario could occur, and if it did, the battery would not be covered under warranty. Also, as is the case with the LEAF, all of this information is provided in the owner’s manaul – you know – that several hundred page document that nobody ever reads. In present day vernacular – Man Up.