As Ukrainians are fleeing their homeland, many are opting for roadways. Electric vehicles or Teslas have been going on in the country since 2020-2021 now, especially as new charging stations are opened. Recently it was observed that a Ukrainian Tesla Model S driver was slow charging at a Supercharger station in the historic central Romanian town of Sibiu. After which, it looked like the car could no longer move.
The older Model S, which looks like it could be a 2014 or 2015 model year vehicle, reportedly ran out of juice before being able to make it to a charging station. It is not known if the vehicle could no longer move and it was stuck in the place shown in the photo, or if the driver decided not to risk it and asked for help in the gas station – but then again, they would probably not have left the vehicle on the road, blocking one of the two lanes of traffic.
Sibiu actually got its first Tesla Supercharger station in the summer of 2021, and it’s quite possible that’s where this Ukrainian Tesla driver was trying to go. However, the Supercharger is actually located along the same avenue where the Model S was stopped, but the car is pointing in the wrong direction – if that’s where it entered the town, then it passed the station on its way in.
Inside EVs reports that the ending is not known, but since the Tesla was getting juice, albeit, at a very slow rate, it eventually moved (it is no longer there), and hopefully it was directed to the nearby Supercharger so that the driver and occupants could continue on their journey, which like in the case of many Ukrainians with means will take them to somewhere in western Europe.
Deactivate all Tesla cars
A few days ago, Twitter users urged Elon Musk to deactivate all Tesla cars in Russia. As Elon Musk has made superchargers free for people fleeing Ukraine in electric vehicles, he has been asked to “turn off” Tesla cars in Russia. Following Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine, the entrepreneur received countless requests from his followers to shut down his company’s electric vehicles in the country.
@elonmusk could you turn off every single tesla in Russia?
— brian schatz not the senator (@bschatz83) February 27, 2022
Also, Tesla recently announced that both Tesla and non-Tesla electric vehicles can use the Tesla charging stations free of charge in Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary in order to evacuate the Ukrainian refugees from the borders. The United Nations Refugee Agency estimates that 660,000 people have fled the fighting in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. With more than 30,000 electric cars on Ukraine’s roads, many evacuees were able to charge their cars at Tesla charging stations for free and escape the war zone.