The encounter between a Rivian driver and uninformed Tesla owner highlights 'a need for better education and communication within the EV community,' the Rivian driver says.
There's no question that Tesla's signage and policies should have been made more clear, but the main problem I see here is neither of those things.
The problem here is the aggressive and hostile Tesla owner, who chose to pick a fight and call the cops rather than communicating, or even just minding his own business.
genuine question: why call the police anyway? say the tesla driver was right and there was no compatibility. what were they thinking the rivian driver is gonna do? worst case scenario is they are gonna realize their mistake and… leave?
like how is this different from me seeing someone accidentally filling a minivan with diesel and calling the fucken cops about it? i feel there is something more malicious going on here than “a need for education” unless i am missing something.
It was actually quite well planned out, opening up the network in stages to see that everything worked as intended before a wide rollout. You can even see in the app which chargers are open to other car brands. This mistake is 100% on the driver, the info is easily available to that person.
'a need for better education and communication within the EV community'
That Rivian driver is being way too nice about the situation.
Imagine someone calling the police on you because you bought pepsi instead of coke. It's not about education and communication. It's about a fucking asshole doing asshole shit. You can't reason with people like that. You tell them to fuck off.
Edit: hm, he was taking two spots. Not exactly his fault, but I can understand 0.00001% more the Tesla driver. Still an asshole, though.
Edit 2: If I was in a charging station that said "For Ford vehicles only" and I saw a BMW coming in and using it, I'd be more like "How is that possible? Huh. Interesting!" Then I'd mind my fucking business.
The Tesla owner was complaining that he (incorrectly) thought Rivian wasn't allowed to charge there, not because he was upset someone bought a Rivian at all.
Also, from the article - am I reading this right? The guy just assumed that the other dude actually called the cops? After he left? There's no evidence he did?
Yeah, I know that. But why get mad at that, though? Like, if I am in a restaurant that said "For Android users only" and I see an iPhone user being served, why the fuck would I care? I'd be puzzled and intrigued. Not enraged.
Ultimately, the Rivian owner's adapter didn't work, so he decided to leave and head to a nearby EVGo charger. That's when the Tesla driver confronted him. Trying to "steer the conversation towards a constructive dialogue only seemed to aggravate him further," so the Rivian driver got in his car and left. "As I drove away, I saw him angrily talking on the phone, presumably to an unfortunate 9-1-1 operator."
when a Model Y driver approached him, "demanding to know why I was there,"
insisted that it was ILLEGAL for me to be there and that he was CALLING THE POLICE! I was taken aback by his extreme reaction," the Rivian driver writes.
They had signage saying tesla only, and the car was parked across two spots, so I can believe the owner looked like a massive dick without additional context.
The charge ports on non-Teslas, meanwhile, are also in a different spot on the vehicle, meaning they may have to park parallel to a Supercharger, taking up two spots. That's what happened here; "I had no choice but to park in a way that blocks two stalls," according to the Rivian driver.
Yep. Tesla charging cords are stupidly short, and are designed to force tesla drivers to back into the space for charging, so when you have several tesla charging, the esthetics is better and looks like you're in a dealership with all the cars uniformly facing out.
I get that there are probably better power delivery perks to a short cord. But this is classic "form over function" design that reeks of Musk.
Specifically, they have to park on the next spot to the right of the charger they are using, as the port on a Rivian is on the left front corner and the Tesla cables are really short. This happens basically on any EV that has the port on anywhere else except the left rear corner, or the front right corner.
Which is most of them, as it seems the standard spot to put it is in front of the drivers (left side) door.
Calling the police becase somones a dick ? If he double parked at CostCo woukd he have called the cops, or taken a pic and posted in /c/assholedrivers ?
This is an article about a dumb argument between two random people, not to mention the title is misleading anyway (the Rivian driver only assumes cops were called). Why post it here?
Wow, what a wack job. I wish I had that much free time to worry about petty bullshit.
Like how could he come to the conclusion that it's illegal for anything other than a Tesla to charge there? Tesla equipment is private property, owned by a private business. State law doesn't give a fuck about that.