In the electric vs. gas wars, score one for the new generation.
This week, a Tesla owner showed his Model X SUV could tow a Chevy Silverado out of an electric charging station if it's blocking up the spot.
In our tribal society, the Tesla is the natural enemy of the pickup truck. And for a while now, pickup owners — especially bro-trucks with lifted suspension and chrome wheels — have been deliberately parking their behemoths in e-charging stations designed for electric cars, at airports and convenience stores, just to piss off the we're-saving-the-planet crowd.
They call it ICE-ing or ICE-ing out — ICE for internal combustion engine. Sometimes the pickup truck dudes — you know it's always dudes — harass the electric car owners as well: in a Tesla supercharging station in North Carolina not long ago, three gas-guzzlers blocked out a Tesla owner and chanted "fuck Tesla."
In Arizona, now, it's a crime for a fossil-fueler to park in an e-charging spot.
But, this week, a Tesla owner proved he could get 'em back himself. In a parking lot in Loveland, Colorado, a YouTuber named Tesla Trip — Patrick Lawson — had his sister park her Chevy Silverado in a Tesla Supercharging station. Lawson hooked up a tow rope and slid the truck out of the way like an angry parent pulling a tantrum-throwing toddler out of a ball pit.
Teslas are strong, man. (Also, fast.)
Most of the Internet took the side of the Tesla owners. After all, there's just no justification for trucks that are cock-blocking .. er .. spot-blocking. It's incivil. It's needlessly dickish. It's pointless.
Lawson's YouTube video of Tesla vs. Truck conflict seemed like justice, revenge, and perfect karma. We collective web surfers are now hoping for more beefs, more Tesla vs. Truck demolition derbys, tug-of-wars, and — why not? — full speed head-on collisions.
But … you sort of get the truck dudes' anti-Tesla emotion. It's human jealousy. Envy. Resentment. They know electric car owners have been the spoiled little rich kids of the automotive world. Getting tax credits of $7,500. Driving free in the HOV lanes in California. South Park ridiculed them as all smelling their own farts.
Plus, these electric charging spots are primo parking lot real estate, and they're reserved just for these eco drivers, directly out front of hard-to-park places like museums and arenas, and almost already open. A lot of the stations give electric cars free electricity. Nobody's handing out free gas.
Even before this charging-station battle, big-boner trucks have gone agro against the treehuggers. The history of pickup-on-enviro crime and harassment is long and slightly hilarious.
Their biggest weapon is "rolling coal." Dudes — again, always dudes — soup up diesel trucks so their pipes belch dark sooty storms of exhaust, like a coal-fired power plant on New Year's Eve.
The drivers direct the smog pretty well, and there are montages online of diesels rolling coal on their enemies. Here they are rolling coal against Priuses:
Here rolling coal against people, especially protesters:
I've personally felt the truck-drivers' wrath. Riding my bike around my city, Denver, back in the day, a truck tossed a coke can at my head. Another rolled coal on me. They hated that I was taking up a whole lane, driving slow. Maybe it was my bumper sticker that read "the more cylinders, the fewer balls." (Kidding.)
This YouTube clip might signal, finally, Tesla owners saying: This aggression will not stand, man. Park in our spots, you road-hoggin' trucks, and we will tow your asses ourselves.
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