Tesla Leaves Woman Stranded After Intentionally Blocking Her from Charging Vehicle
An Arizona Tesla owner became a spectator to the drama around her own car as a paperwork mistake led to her being unable to charge her car.
The drama began with what Erine Erickson of Scottsdale characterized as a fender bender and churned away in the background until she sought to have her car’s battery replaced, according to KTVK-TV.
She got her battery, but did not know that while her car was there, technicians turned off the supercharge feature that would let her charge the car in 15 minutes.
Oh, and no one told her.
In fact, she didn’t know she even had a problem until she stopped at a supercharger station and nothing happened.
“That’s when people saw me and came up to me and people were trying to troubleshoot it,” she said. “But nobody had ever seen anything like it.”
The result was, as she put it, “3,000 pounds of metal in a parking spot downstairs.”
An Arizona woman’s key system and charger no longer worked on her Tesla when she got it back from repairs, and she struggled to get the company to fix the problems. INFO: https://t.co/Qxj3MUDywi pic.twitter.com/TnJW5oF0oo
— KWTX News 10 (@kwtx) September 17, 2023
So why did someone do this to her? The long and winding road of the story goes back to the accident she had.
Tesla said that when the battery was being replaced, its technicians checked Carfax, which claimed the car had been totaled in a collision and had a salvaged title.
Tesla zapped the supercharger feature in the name of safety.
Oopsie. It turns out that Carfax was acting on bad information it received from an insurance company.
Meanwhile, Erickson was trying to get her car back in condition to drive.
“I am just hoping for some attention at Tesla and for somebody to look at all of the proof that I provided, from the insurance company, from the collision center, from the DMV, that my car is obviously not totaled,” Erickson said.
She said that even after dumping all the facts at Tesla’s door, nothing happened.
“I wouldn’t characterize it as customer service,” she said. “I mean, there’s not a way to email them. There’s a way to communicate on the app but they don’t respond.”
As she reviewed her efforts to iron out the mistake, she said, “I’ve sent over 30 emails, every single day I’ve been dealing with this and rarely getting a response.”
KTVK said that it went to bat for Erickson and contacted Tesla, claiming that the job was made complex by the fact that Tesla owner Elon Musk removed its PR department, leading to the issue being resolved.
Erickson’s tale adds to the pile of stories from Tesla owners, including one man locked out of his vehicle, another who found winter and charging a Tesla do not mix, and an owner who found himself trapped in his car.
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