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I'm sure somebody used a motorcycle to escape. Doesn't mean it's a good idea.
I saw bicyclists in the middle of Miami on CNN in the hurricane after the evacuation. No, not a good idea either. But the question wasn't about what was a good idea, just did it happen and the answer is, again, yes. MANY EV drivers did, with no problems. Many with gas powered cars didn't. Again, not an indictment of gas powered cars, just the facts. Drivers of gas powered cars were having problems finding gas before and during the evacuation. Making the question of what was or was not a good idea moot.
Hell, the fact that people had to evacuate the east coast of Florida due to the path looking like it was going right up the coast, only to get to their destination in the center and west coast and find that the storm followed them shows that simply getting out in a gas or electric car wasn't a foregone conclusion.
The Tesla supercharger stations were working through the evacuation period and during most of the storm (the one in key Largo got shut down for a short period during the storm), and the Tesla owners there that used their Teslas to get out had no problem using them, spending less time at the charging stations than the drivers of gas powered cars did at lines at gas stations. Don't see where in the facts you might get the idea that evacuating in their Tesla was any worse an idea than evacuating in a gas powered car. They seemed to have no problem.
I saw bicyclists in the middle of Miami on CNN in the hurricane after the evacuation. No, not a good idea either. But the question wasn't about what was a good idea, just did it happen and the answer is, again, yes. MANY EV drivers did, with no problems. Many with gas powered cars didn't. Again, not an indictment of gas powered cars, just the facts. Drivers of gas powered cars were having problems finding gas before and during the evacuation. Making the question of what was or was not a good idea moot.
Hell, the fact that people had to evacuate the east coast of Florida due to the path looking like it was going right up the coast, only to get to their destination in the center and west coast and find that the storm followed them shows that simply getting out in a gas or electric car wasn't a foregone conclusion.
The Tesla supercharger stations were working through the evacuation period and during most of the storm (the one in key Largo got shut down for a short period during the storm), and the Tesla owners there that used their Teslas to get out had no problem using them, spending less time at the charging stations than the drivers of gas powered cars did at lines at gas stations. Don't see where in the facts you might get the idea that evacuating in their Tesla was any worse an idea than evacuating in a gas powered car. They seemed to have no problem.
How many gas powered cars didn't make it?
I've actually been in massive hurricane evacuations and I can tell you this much.
For one you don't always have control of your destination. Sometimes storms change course, and hotels cancel reservations last minute.
On the way back the roads you evacuated on aren't always the roads you come back on. Roads get flooded and washed out. Trees block roads. You may be forced to take back roads back home just to find a hour down the road it's flooded or blocked then have to backtrack back. Superchargers may be knocked out completely or lose power. Cell phone towers may be down which hinders Tesla's cell phone dependent navigation system. Then you get home and find you have no power for 2 weeks so you can't charge your car anyway. Using an EV without sticking to a script is almost always a bad idea. You can get lucky, but luck isn't a plan.
If it goes wrong, don't expect a Tesla owner to report it on YouTube.
Shall we use percentages, as that might be more accurate.
How about percentage that started, but then had to be abandoned because they couldn't finish the trip?
Teslas are too rare for that. That's like saying the guy in the bicycle made it, so that's a 100% success rate. Doesn't mean I'm doing it.
I still haven't heard of any cars not making it out at all.
So they don't let you use all the battery, which you did pay for and continue pay to carry around, unless you fork over a $5000 fee.
Classic definition of hostage fee.
Why do traditional car companies not allow you access to the computers black box? Car companies keep some information private and some features locked unless you pay for them. That is true on some regular cars too.
So far, it sounds as if the vast majority who owned Teslas or any electric car did not use them to evacuate. Unless you are telling us there are just 2 of them in the state of Florida.
There were a dozen people who mentioned they evacuated in their Teslas in the one forum post I linked to. And that is clearly a subset of all electric car owners as they self reported. No one claimed it was all of them. Statistically you have NOTHING to base the statement "the vast majority" since you have no idea how many Tesla owners there are in Florida, and have no idea what percentage of them evacuated.
It is weird that you think they someone is keeping track of tesla owners and how they evacuated.
Teslas are too rare for that. That's like saying the guy in the bicycle made it, so that's a 100% success rate. Doesn't mean I'm doing it.
I still haven't heard of any cars not making it out at all.
The answer really is that the vast majority of people that own EVs simply do not have an EV as their only vehicle. It is bought as a second or third vehicle.
People that used them, used them successfully. So again, I don't know where you get the idea that it was a bad idea, other than the general what-if-ism of modern society. And we can what if any sort of scenario where taking ANY sort of car would have been a bad idea. But it didn't happen that way. Tesla owners took their cars out of the area successfully. Tesla temporarily opened up the capacity of the smaller car's battery packs to help them get out of the area (the equivalent of carrying a jerry can to extend your gas car's range).
The OP asked if anyone used Teslas to escape Irma (and then argued about how many). The answer is yes, many did. And none got inconvenienced any more than drivers of gas powered cars. None got stranded that we know of. Just like you know of no gas powered cars that got left behind because they couldn't find gas.
How many gas powered cars didn't make it?
I've actually been in massive hurricane evacuations and I can tell you this much.
For one you don't always have control of your destination. Sometimes storms change course, and hotels cancel reservations last minute.
On the way back the roads you evacuated on aren't always the roads you come back on. Roads get flooded and washed out. Trees block roads. You may be forced to take back roads back home just to find a hour down the road it's flooded or blocked then have to backtrack back. Superchargers may be knocked out completely or lose power. Cell phone towers may be down which hinders Tesla's cell phone dependent navigation system. Then you get home and find you have no power for 2 weeks so you can't charge your car anyway. Using an EV without sticking to a script is almost always a bad idea. You can get lucky, but luck isn't a plan.
If it goes wrong, don't expect a Tesla owner to report it on YouTube.
You can play this game all day long. For every scenario you make up about how an EV can fail you, we can do the same for a gas powered car. Pretending that a gas powered car has no limitations is as stupid as pretending an EV has no advantages and vice versa. But the reality is more important than the type of car you drive, was planning and leaving early.
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