Tesla Stuck In Car Park: Could ZAPME Have Saved Blushes?

EV haters had a three course meal slagging off EV drivers last week thanks to a hapless Tesla Model S driver getting stuck in a shopping centre car park. There is technology out there to prevent such things happening, and fewer EV drivers may regret their decision to go electric in future! 

Tesla Gets Stuck In Car Park 

The Mirror and other tabloids were all over the poor soul when they made the mistake of leaving a shopping centre car park when they had all but run out of battery. Frustrated shoppers had been stuck in the car park for three hours when the Tesla ran out and got stuck. 

Teslas cannot be towed when their batteries go flat. This is because their wheels are directly connected to the motor and unlike fossil fuel cars there’s no neutral gear so the wheels can run without the motor. Consequently, the wheels act as generators when they move and thanks to the electrical system being as it is, they send a charge to the battery when they roll. This can cause a fire. 

Eventually the Westfield Shopping Centre staff managed to push the car out of the way (it can be pushed manually but not towed) and let the stricken shoppers out. 

What If A Local Tow Company Had A ZapMe? 

The story might not have made the news if a local recovery company had a ZapMe mobile fast charging solution in their fleet of recovery vehicles. No one would have been ranting on Twitter or Facebook telling people how miserable they were having spent £200 on clothes and having had no means to get home to wear them. Why? 

The ZapMe mobile charging solution can put up to 120 miles of charge in a car in an hour. Given that the shopping centre has Tesla Superchargers in the car park, the bulk of the time waiting for the hapless driver would have been while the recovery van turned up. If that took half an hour then a quick 5 minutes of charge would have been plenty to get back into the car park to hook up to the Supercharger! 

As a comparison, the RAC’s EV Boost system could well have made the shoppers wait for another hour. Their Type 2 mobile charging system can only give around 15 miles charge per hour.  Our guess is that the peeved shoppers’ online rants would have only made the local newspaper and not the nationals! 

Recovery Company? Call Us! 

If you’re a recovery company and want to help save hapless drivers’ blushes by having the most powerful mobile charging system on the market in your tool chest, get in contact. We have a range of solutions that can fit in the space of an estate car’s boot or a medium sized van, depending on what sort of gear you think would complement your business needs.