Three Tesla Cybertruck Owners Were Driving From Florida to the Arctic Circle and They Had a Crash

Like a big North Pole And Antarctica exploration nerds, I can confidently tell you that it’s hard. A few guys on Twitter are intentionally making the trip to the Arctic Circle harder by trying to complete the trip using a Tesla Electric Truck and honestly, they’re pretty awesome to try.

The trip began in South Florida and took the Cybertrucks all the way across the United States and into Canada. The intrepid EV warriors encountered problems along the way to the start of the nearly 500-mile journey from the Arctic Circle to the shores of the Arctic Ocean. No, it wasn’t that their Cybertrucks stopped working. after car washit is a big shortage charging infrastructure in Yukon. From Futurism:

One of the team members, who goes by the X-formerly-Twitter nickname Bearded Tesla, documented how difficult it is to fully charge the Cybertruck’s battery, especially when using non-Tesla Supercharger stations.

Tesla’s official map of the charging network shows that the company’s Supercharger stations are virtually absent in Canada’s northern provinces.

“We’re in the Yukon, which is pretty cool because all the chargers are free,” he said in a recent videos. “It’s free because it only takes one charge. I waited an hour to plug it in here and it takes me about two and a half hours to change to the next charger.”

Even before arriving in the Yukon, the Bearded Tesla struggled with a charger. off every five minutes.

Another member of the group, known as Teslatino, has reached sent to the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority asking when the province would receive Tesla-compatible connectors (NACS) for new charging stations.

In one separate videoIt took five tries and two stops at a BC Hydro charging station to get the converter for the station’s CCS connector to work, he revealed.

Oh my God, Tesla has a beard. Charging is usually bad here. where there are people who really need to use it. That far north? Electric vehicles and fellow humans are even fewer and further between. But it would be a great opportunity to highlight how rural communities are often left out of major infrastructure projects, like the latest broadband internet and mobile phone service, as well as electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

I spoke with the Explorer Club’s Transglobal Car Expedition in January about the daunting task of driving around the world, via both poles—a 31,000-mile journey that took us through nearly every habitat on the planet. They were quite proud of the hybrid Ford F-150 they brought along… as far away as Yellowknife in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Aside from that last bastion of civilization, the Explorer team told me everything ran on diesel.

There’s a good reason for that—driving through such wilderness isn’t for the faint of heart, nor is it the time for civilians to experiment with untested technology. You can get into big trouble driving around the Arctic in an unreliable car, as our Raph Orlove learned on his own Arctic expedition:

Driving to Alaska for the first time, I learned a few things about driving up north. Don’t drive at dusk or at night, because that’s when the big animals come out and that’s when you run into them. (Someone we knew had their car wrecked by hitting a moose while doing the same trip up Alcan as we were driving through Cassiar.) Be careful of bears. (A person was also killed by a bear in British Columbia while we were driving through.) Always stop for gas if you have gas, no matter how full your tank is.

But I wasn’t sure about the Klondike Highway, or what it would be like to go all the way to the ocean. I googled it and found out, oh, there’s a polar bear tour in Inuvik. Polar bears kill people.

“That’s right,” my friend told me over the phone when I mentioned this. “There’s probably not zero polar bears.

“You’re in an area where brown bears and polar bears mate,” he continued, “and produce healthy offspring.”

Oh yeah. “Healthy kids.” Always nice to hear that.

“They probably don’t bother you, just the smell,” he encouraged me, referring to any food or food-like material I might have. I remembered being warned about toothpaste on my old hikes in the Sierras.

“I’ll sleep in the car,” he explained. “There’s no bad smell in the car. Maybe the beef jerky should be in the bear can.” How far away should the bear can be? “100-200 yards.” Great.

Cold can also have a affect the operating range of the truck. Cybertruck hasn’t really proven itself badly yet. reliable or bear evidence. A breakdown in your vehicle can lead to a number of terrible consequences. But if many VW Beetles can conquer Antarctica, so why not the Cybertruck? Surely Bearded Tesla will be going in with eyes wide open in a souped-up Cybertruck:

It’s not every day you see a Cybertruck with a cargo box on the side.

This may seem unwise, but driving to the Arctic Circle is something I’ve wanted to do for the rest of my life (probably in some big rented diesel truck). I can’t help but admire their courage and wish these Cybertruck drivers nothing but good weather and no bears. You can follow their journey here. @teslatino, @beardedteslaAnd @blueskykites.