This Tesla caused quite a buzz when it bummed a charge in a small town
An “Unidentified Electric Vehicle” (UEV) made front-page news in a small town paper in Montana when it charged from a public outlet on Main Street.
EV charging has gotten pretty easy these days, even when driving through less-populated areas.
But those of us who have been driving EVs for a long time, or who have driven them in places where routes are underdeveloped, remember having to bum charges in strange places from time to time.
Well, that happened to a couple, Chad Lauterbach and Allis Markham, as they stopped to grab some electrons from a public outlet in the town of Ekalaka, Montana, population 404. The, uh, “drama” was reported by the local paper, the Ekalaka Eagle, and then picked up by the Montana Free Press.
On the very front page, right beside stories about the upcoming pet parade and weekly cribbage meetup at the senior center, a large photo of a Tesla Model Y plugged into a public outlet appears with the caption “BORROWED VOLTS.” The caption refers to the Model Y as a “UEV (unidentified electric vehicle)” and states that this may be the first electric vehicle charger in town, but also muses about whether the UEV had paid for its illicit gains.
The couple, who are from Los Angeles, were actually in town for several days, volunteering at the annual Dino Shindig at the Carter County Museum. Markham is a museum taxidermist who was working on paleo-recreations for the museum. Montana has a rich paleontological history, with one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur fossils of any state in the US. They drove the Model Y instead of Markham’s ’89 Land Cruiser FJ62, since the latter gets ten miles per gallon.
On the way into town, the Model Y repeatedly warned that there wouldn’t be enough Supercharger availability to continue the trip. These are standard warnings when using Tesla’s in-car navigation, which automatically routes trips through the most convenient Supercharger locations.
They were staying at a farmhouse 20 miles outside of town, but were charging off a 120V outlet there, which meant a quick trip in and out of town would take a good ten hours or more of charging to compensate. Plus, moving the car along the dirt easement in the pasture that led to the farmhouse proved difficult – not because of the terrain, but because the cows weren’t interested in moving out of the way for a silent car.
The couple were offered an F-150 to get around, and thought they’d leave the Tesla at the farmhouse. But while in town, Lauterbach noticed a spare 14-50 outlet on Main Street, and decided to give charging from it a try, and use the Tesla to get around instead.
This outlet can deliver electricity about 5-6x faster than a normal US wall outlet, which means a recharge for a 40-mile roundtrip takes closer to one or two hours, instead of ten. And Lauterbach, who owns an IT company and has been driving a Tesla for two and a half years now, travels with a charging adapter kit which is, frankly, kind of overkill (and even includes a level 1 grounding adapter of his own design):
But when Lauterbach wanted to charge on Main Street, Markham warned that the locals might not take kindly to that, and might think that he’s “just some jerk from California, doing what jerks from California do.”
After a successful charge, Lauterbach went back the next day to charge again, but found the outlet had been shut off. A local in a Subaru noticed him and said he might want to check out the local paper, so he went across the street to find himself on the front page, being accused of the crime of electricity theft (he bought three copies).
Markham, feeling vindicated for her prophetic warning, walked over to the Southeast Electric Cooperative headquarters just a block away, and said she was “here to pay for the crimes of the UEV.” After everyone had a good laugh, the couple insisted on paying $60 for a few days of electricity use. They even got a receipt for it, which SECO said was their first-ever EV charging receipt:
It turns out that the outlet hadn’t been shut off as a response to Lauterbach’s “crimes,” but rather that it is only active a few weekends a year, typically used to help power events held on Main Street. So the couple said that their $60 could help pay for the electricity used to run the music at that weekend’s dinosaur festival dance.
After the encounter, SECO’s staff signed Lauterbach’s copy of the Ekalaka Eagle, seen in this article’s featured photo above. Staff said “we will need to get with the times!” and is now considering installing an electric car charger in town.
At Montana’s average 12c/kWh electricity prices, $60 is enough for about 1,700 miles of driving, using Tesla’s optimistic estimates. A single, 0-100% charge of a Model Y battery would cost about eight dollars at this rate. Lauterbach said the 3,000-mile trip from LA to Montana and back cost about $300 total in charging fees.
Electrek’s Take
When I saw this story, I loved it… because I’ve done something similar myself, and remember stories like these from the early days of EV ownership.
Early on in my EV journey, back in 2011, my dad and I took our Mini E up to Laguna Seca for Refuel Races, an EV track day. We had ours in a car trailer, but fellow Mini E driver Matt Walton followed behind us and drafted the trailer to help with range on the drive up. Then, at the motel, I wanted to make sure the Mini was topped off before the track day, and we found a spare outlet at the bottom of a light post, and got a little extra juice there.
Another Mini E owner once used an outlet next to a vending machine in front of a grocery store to get an extra couple miles on the way home.
This actually highlights one of the things that I like to point out about EVs. Even in a town with no EV charger and no EVs, Lauterbach was able to find a place to charge.
The fact is, electricity is everywhere, even in the absence of official “charging stations.” You’re always closer to a place that you can charge an electric car than you are to a place where you can fill up a gas car – because even gas stations run on electricity.
With a little preparation, it’s easy to tap into this electricity and find a place to fill up, pretty much no matter where you are in the world. Though Lauterbach’s preparation goes above and beyond – the list of 11 different adapter kits he told us he carries would make this article too long if we posted it here.
Gas car owners might occasionally worry about the cost of this (to the public, to the friends or family you’re staying with, etc.), but that’s because the high price of gasoline (which still isn’t high enough given the cost of pollution) is all they have to compare against.
Since EV charging is so much cheaper than gas, most won’t particularly mind once you show them the cost of charging from a standard wall outlet is maybe 20 cents an hour. Give them a bottle of cheap wine to compensate and everything will be okay. Or, as Lauterbach and Markham did, clean up some dinosaur bones, pay for the entertainment, and offer a few test rides to the locals to smooth things over.
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Credit where credit is due: in a massive, 32-car multinational independent test, Tesla’s Autopilot ADAS came out on top, the new affordable Tesla turns out to be a corner-cutting Model Y, and one of the company’s original founders compares the Cybertruck to a dumpster. All this and more on today’s episode of Quick Charge!
Today’s episode is brought to you by Retrospec – the makers of sleek, powerful e-bikes and outdoor gear built for everyday adventure! To that end, we’ve got a pair of Retrospec e-bike reviews followed up by a super cute, super affordable new EV from China with nearly 150 miles of range for less than $5,000 USD.
PLUS: listeners can get an extra 10% off by using code ELECTREK10 at retrospec.com!
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Tesla is again teasing the new Roadster, which is now five years late, as “the last driver’s car” before self-driving takes over.
The chicken or the egg. Is Tesla delaying the Roadster to match the development of self-driving technology, or is it delaying the development of self-driving technology to match the delayed release of the Roadster?
The prototype for the next-generation Tesla Roadster was first unveiled in 2017, and it was initially scheduled to enter production in 2020; however, it has been delayed every year since then.
It was supposed to achieve a range of 620 miles (1,000 km) and accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds.
It has become a sort of running joke, and there are doubts that it will ever come to market despite Tesla’s promise of dozens of free new Roadsters to Tesla owners who participated in its referral program years ago.
Tesla used the promise of free Roadsters to help generate billions of dollars worth of sales, which Tesla owners delivered; however, the automaker never delivered on its part of the agreement.
Furthermore, many people placed deposits ranging from $50,000 to $250,000 to reserve the vehicle, which was initially scheduled to hit the market five years ago.
When unveiling the vehicle, CEO Elon Musk described it as a “halo car” that would deliver a “smack down” to gasoline vehicles.
That was almost eight years ago, and many electric hypercars have since launched and delivered this smackdown.
Tesla has partly blamed the delays on improving the next-gen Roadsters and added features like the “SpaceX package,” which is supposed to include cold air thrusters to enable the vehicle to fly – Musk has hinted.
Many people don’t believe any of it, as Tesla has said that it would launch the new Roadster every year for the last 5 years and never did.
Now, Lars Moravy, Tesla’s head of vehicle engineering, made a rare new comment about the next-generation Roadster during an interview at the X Takeover event, an annual gathering of Elon Musk cultists, last weekend.
He referred to Tesla’s next-gen Roadster as the “last best driver’s car” and said that the automaker did “some cool demos” for Musk last week:
We spent a lot of time in the last few years rethinking what we did, and why we did it, and what would make an awesome and exciting last best driver’s car. We’ve been making it better and better, and it is even a little bit more than a car. We showed Elon some cool demos last week and tech we’ve been working on, and he got a little excited.
The timing matches Musk’s recent claim that Tesla is going to have ‘the most epic demo ever, ’ but we heard that one before.
We suspected that the comment might be about the Tesla Roadster, as the CEO made the exact same comment about Roadster demos in 2019 and 2024. You will not be shocked to hear that these demos never happen.
Electrek’s Take
The “last best driver’s car” before computers are going to drive us everywhere. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if you continue to delay the car. It might literally be the last car ever made that way. How would we ever know?
The truth is that the Roadster was cool when it was unveiled in 2017, but that was a long time ago. Tesla would need to update the car quite a bit to make it cool in 2025, and I don’t know that cold air clusters are it. You will have extreme limitations using those.
The Roadster is almost entirely in the “put up or shut up” category for me at Tesla. They need to stop talking about it and make it happen; otherwise, I can’t believe a word.
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The PV5 is already available in several markets, but will Kia launch it in the US? After Kia’s electric van was spotted testing in the US again, a US debut could be in the works.
Is Kia’s electric van coming to the US?
Kia launched the PV5, the first dedicated electric van from its new Platform Beyond vehicle (PBV) business, in South Korea and Europe earlier this year, promising it will roll out in “other global markets” in 2026.
Will that include the US? Earlier this year, Kia’s electric van was caught charging at a station in Indiana. Photos and a video sent to Electrek by Alex Nguyen confirmed it was, in fact, the PV5.
Kia has yet to say if it will sell the PV5 in the US, likely due to the Trump Administration’s new auto tariffs. All electric vans, or PBVs, including the PV5, will be built at Kia’s Hwaseong plant in South Korea, which means they will face a stiff 25% tariff as imports.
Following another sighting, a US debut cannot be ruled out. The PV5 Passenger model was spotted by Automotive Validation Engineer Chris Higa (@Chrisediting) while testing in Arizona.
There’s no denying that’s Kia’s electric van, but it doesn’t necessarily confirm it will launch in the US. But it could make sense.
Despite record first-half sales in the US, Kia’s EV sales have fallen significantly. Sales of the EV9 and EV6 are nearly 50% less than in the first half of 2024.
To be fair, part of it is due to the new model year changeover, but Kia is also doubling down on the US market by boosting local production. Earlier this year, Kia said the EV6 and EV9 are now in full-scale production at its West Point, GA, facility.
The PV5 Passenger (shown above) is available in Europe with two battery pack options: 51.5 kWh or 71.2 kWh, rated with WLTP ranges of 179 miles and 249 miles, respectively. The Cargo variant has the same battery options but offers a WLTP range of either 181 miles or 247 miles.
During its PV5 Tech Day event last week, Kia revealed plans for seven PV5 body types, including an Open Bed (similar to a pickup), a Light Camper, and even a luxury “Prime” passenger model.
Kia is set to begin deliveries of the PV5 Passenger and Cargo Long variants in South Korea next month, followed by Europe and other global markets, starting in Q4 2025. As for a US launch, we will have to wait for the official word from Kia.
Do you want Kia to bring its electric van to the US? Drop us a comment below and let us know your thoughts.
Source: Chris Higa, TheKoreanCarBlog
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