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Tesla CEO Elon Musk slammed the Texas power grid operator amid a historic power outage, while several Tesla owners said they were sleeping in their cars to warm up.
Musk, who is building a new Tesla plant near Austin and moved to the area last December, criticized the reliability of the power company by ERCOT.
He wrote in a tweet on his social networking site “Twitter” page yesterday Wednesday: “ERCOT_ISO does not earn this R,” referring to the word “reliability” in the network operator’s acronym.
In addition to the contiguous states, Texas operates an independent power grid not connected to other states, in order to avoid federal regulations.
ERCOT, the grid operator responsible for the reliability of the power system, has come under fire after the state’s significant temperature drop reduced generation capacity by a third, leaving more than 3 million people without electricity on Wednesday .
Meanwhile, some Tesla owners in Texas, who are struggling with a lack of electricity to heat their homes, have resorted to their electric cars to warm up overnight.
In 2019, Tesla released its ‘Camp Mode’ setting, which allows drivers to use the car’s air conditioning controls for long periods of time while the car is parked. And Camp mode can last over 24 hours without completely draining the battery.
One Reddit user wrote: “The power was cut for 6 hours last night. Our house has no gas and we ran out of firewood … What should we do?”
He added: “So my wife, dog and newborn daughter slept in the garage of our beautiful and comfortable car. If I hadn’t had this car it would have been a very difficult night.”
One Twitter user wrote: “I slept at Tesla. Very comfortable. Most importantly, warm.” This user, the Tesla owner, shared a photo of the backseat of his car being converted to a comfortable sleeping area.
Other tweets also shared a video clip of an image of fires burning on Tesla’s touchscreen, another feature of “Camp Mode”.
Some Tesla owners have even bragged about being able to drive electric cars inside a garage without the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, a tragic fate that once claimed the winter storm’s life.
Source: Daily Mail
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