Tesla owner in Virginia is forced to cancel Christmas plans because his EV wouldn’t charge

A Tesla owner in Virginia was forced to cancel his Christmas plans with his son after his electric vehicle failed to charge in the extreme cold gripping the country.

Domenick Nati, 44, told Business Insider how he plugged his Tesla S into a supercharger in Lynchburg on Friday as temperatures hovered below 20 degrees Fahrenheit. 

But as the hours went by, the percentage charge dipped as the temperature got lower, before the car stopped charging altogether.

He then tried again on Christmas Eve, but after a few hours of nothing happening, he decided to abandon his car at the lot and get a ride home.

Without his car, Nati said, he would not be able to see his son open Christmas presents. 

Nati, a local radio host, shared his frustrations with Business Insider on Sunday as he revealed he is not the only Tesla owner struggling to charge their EVs amid the arctic blast.

He said he went to a supercharger in town on Friday to charge the car ahead of the holiday weekend. The car’s battery was at 40 percent at the time.

‘Two hours went by and not much changed,’ he told Insider. ‘It was very slow and the numbers got lower as the temperature dropped. Eventually, it stopped charging altogether.’

After that, he said he tried to charge his Tesla S at home, but had no luck there either.

So he went back out on Christmas Eve, and posted a video to TikTok of his efforts to get the car to charge.

‘It is 19-degrees outside, I have 19 miles left before the battery is dead,’ Nati showed thousands of viewers.

He then explained that, after facing the same problem the day before, he was told he had to wait for the charger to heat up — so when he went to the supercharger on Saturday he had his heater and climate control settings on.

‘There is no way to charge this battery or let it warm up in the cold,’ Nati told viewers. 

At that point, Nati decided to document what happened when he tried to charge the Tesla S.

The TikTok showed that the supercharger displayed a message reading: ‘Battery is heating up — Keep charge cable inserted.’

But the message remained the same for the next two hours, as the time remaining increased from two hours 25 minutes to three hours and 15 minutes. 

Nati said he tried to contact Tesla for help, but did not receive an answer.

He was then forced to cancel his Christmas plans, and was upset he would not be able to see his son open presents on Sunday morning.

But Nati said he is not the only one who is experiencing this problem, as the United States experiences its coldest Christmas on record.

‘Since I posted the video, a lot of people have mentioned having the same issue,’ he told FOX Business on Sunday.

‘Some fellow Tesla owners have even messaged me to see if I have found a solution,’ Nati noted. ‘Unfortunately, my answer is no.’ 

The problem comes as bad news for American Tesla owners, as record low temperatures grip the United States.

At least 24 have died in the arctic blast, BBC reports, with seven in hard-hit Buffalo, New York, where strong winds have hampered rescue efforts.

Other storm-related deaths were reported in Vermont, Ohio, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas and Colorado as over 250,000 homes across the nation remained without power Sunday morning and blizzard warnings stretched from Canada to Texas.

Missouri was hit the worst by the cold, with temperatures there dropping to -50 degrees Fahrenheit on Christmas day. 

The trouble with charging Teslas is just the latest issue facing the EV maker, which has seen its stock plummet more than 65 percent over the year.

Earlier this month, CEO Elon Musk sold another 22 million Tesla shares, amounting to $3.58 billion worth of the company’s stock. 

He has now sold nearly $23 billion worth of Tesla stock since April, with much of the money likely going to help fund his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. He also sold almost $22 billion worth of stock in 2021.

The falling shares, meanwhile, have bumped Musk from his status as the world’s wealthiest person, with his net worth falling to $174 billion, according to Forbes. He was passed by French fashion and cosmetics magnate Bernard Arnault. 

Investors have been punishing Tesla stock of late as Musk has spends much of his time running Twitter, raising fears that he’s distracted from the car company.

‘It seems like Elon Musk is spending 100 percent of the time on Twitter and you know, it might need more capital,’ said Jay Hatfield at Infrastructure Capital Management in November.

Since buying Twitter, Musk has made very few tweets on Tesla, a practice that helped him gain traction on the platform.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said Musk is now a villain in the eyes of Tesla investors. He said Tesla’s fundamentals remain healthy, but his behavior with Twitter is hurting the company’s brand.

‘The Twitter overhang is a nightmare that is growing with no one but Musk to blame,’ Ives wrote in an email.

Musk had pledged to provide $46.5 billion in equity and debt financing for the acquisition of Twitter, which covered the $44 billion price tag and the closing costs. Banks, including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp, committed to provide $13 billion in debt financing.

The billionaire had tried to walk away from the deal in May, alleging that Twitter understated the number of bot and spam accounts on the platform. This led to a series of lawsuits between the two parties, before Musk ultimately agreed to take over the company in October.

At that time, the company was also seeing their value diminish as shares were down around 30 percent, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Rising inflation and fears of a possible recession did not help and the company’s stock, which has plummeted another 32 percent over just the last month.