Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, criticized the Texas electric grid operator, amid a historic blackout, while several Tesla owners said they slept in their cars to keep warm.
Musk, who is building a new Tesla plant near Austin and moved to the area last December, criticized ERCOT’s reliability of the electricity company.
He wrote in a tweet on his page on the social networking site “Twitter” yesterday, Wednesday: “ERCOT_ISO does not win this R,” referring to the word “reliability” in the acronym for network operator.
Besides the contiguous states, Texas operates an independent electrical grid not connected to other states, in order to avoid federal regulations.
ERCOT, the grid operator responsible for the reliability of the electrical system, has come under fire after the state’s significant temperature drop cut generating capacity by a third, leaving more than 3 million people without electricity on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, some Tesla owners in Texas, who struggle with a lack of electricity to heat their homes, have resorted to electric vehicles to keep warm during the night.
In 2019 Tesla released its “Camp Mode” setting, which allows drivers to use the car’s climate controls for extended periods of time while the vehicle is parked in a parking lot. And Camp Mode can last more than 24 hours without completely depleting the battery.
A Reddit user wrote: “The power was cut for 6 hours last night. Our house does not contain gas, and we ran out of firewood … What shall we do?”
He added, “So my wife, dog, and newborn daughter slept in the garage inside our nice and comfortable car. If I didn’t have this car, it would have been a very difficult night.”
One Twitter user wrote: “I have slept in Tesla. Very comfortable. Most importantly, warm.” This user, Tesla owner, shared a photo of the back seat of his car being converted into a cozy sleeping area.
Other tweets also shared a video clip of a picture of fires burning on the touch screen in Tesla, another feature in “Camp Mode”.
Some Tesla owners even boasted that they could operate electric cars inside a garage without the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, a tragic fate that has already claimed lives in the winter storm.
Source: Daily Mail