If you didn’t read through the thread, I’ll summarize here: the Tesla owner was driving their Model S P85D on the highway, when the car begins to beep and warn that he needs to pull over immediately due to some power issue. Immediately after warning, all controls lock up, and the car comes to a halt, in the middle of a six-lane highway, leaving him no time to try and steer the car onto the shoulder, out of traffic.
The car will not budge from this point; it won’t go into neutral, the parking brake won’t release. It’s no longer a vehicle, it’s an immobile bit of sculpture blinking its hazard lights in the middle of the highway.
The driver was, thankfully, able to get to the shoulder, and thanks to some nearby Caltrans workers, was able to get the car coned off to help direct traffic around it, which was extremely lucky.
About 45 minutes later, a tow truck finally arrived. It’s also worth noting that Teslas (and nearly all other EVs) require a flat bed-type tow truck, so it’s not like just any tow truck would have done the job.
Also, based on this tweet, it looks like the tow driver didn’t get the car rolling, either, and just pulled it up, with the rear wheels still locked, onto the bed:
This particular incident involved a Tesla, but this is really an industry-wide problem with EVs. Every EV has some way to get the car into neutral, but based on the research I’ve done so far, all of the major EVs sold require the car to be at least partially functional to access the controls to get it into a tow or free-rolling mode, as these are usually accessed through the cars’ center-stack touch screen.
For Ford and Tesla, the procedures definitely require the touch screen to be functional, which means at least some 12V or main battery power must be accessible
