We live in a transition era, automotively. Electric cars have now become mainstream, and while they still really only are around 1% of cars on American roads, they command an awful lot of attention, and there’s no denying that the future will be at least largely powered by EVs, though there will certainly still be plenty of combustion cars around for decades to come. At this moment, though, we’re still at the beginning of the transition, and the automotive world is still very much designed with ICE cars in mind. That’s why this particular tweet, seen by over 640,000 people at the time of this writing, is so gloriously stupid and absurd. It was sent by a proud Tesla owner, forced into having to drive his daughter’s combustion-powered Honda Odyssey, and describes the grueling ordeal he suffered through to fill the car up with gas. Yes, this is just a tweet from some guy, but it’s also a fascinating document of a strange mentality among some EV owners, and especially among a very vocal subset of Tesla owners, who seem to live with a single-minded determination to prove that life without a Tesla is an unbearable, nightmarish slog. Let’s just take a look here.
Here’s the tweet in question:
Loaned my Tesla Model Y to my daughter for a road trip, and I get to drive her ICE SUV. Feels like I went back twenty years.
Decided to fill it up using Tier 1 gasoline, so …
1. Google the nearest @Chevron. Analyze the map for the station along my route home. Start route… pic.twitter.com/9ioDc0cpkn
— Chris Pierce ???????? (@ChristmasPierce) June 28, 2023
Right from the top, things seem off. The insistence on “Tier 1” gasoline I guess is fine, and just means that the gas (which is all pulled from communal sources across brands) has a particular set of additives and detergents and flavor crystals or whatever that may be beneficial for your car. Fine. Then, the person Googles for the nearest gas station, which, again, isn’t really something that regular drivers normally need to do since gas stations are, you know, absolutely fucking everywhere. The dude could have just gotten in and started to drive to whatever his ultimate destination was, and chances are really good, in most parts of America, that he’d encounter multiple “Tier 1” gas stations along the way.
He then describes some mishaps with an out-of-order pump, which, sure, happens sometimes. And he has some issues with the “negotiate payment” part, which sounds like he’s sitting down in a boardroom with the CEO of Chevron to close a lucrative 14-gallon contract. For the rest of humanity, this just means swiping a credit card in the little thingie.
Whatever. Dude had to go inside to pay, like a filthy animal. And he didn’t even get himself some Combos as a reward for enduring this considerable hardship. Anyway, after his nightmarish four-step process, he concludes with
“I miss my @Tesla ????”
Don’t cry-emoji, buddy. It’ll be okay.
All of this is so performative and absurd, I can’t even. It’s filling up a car with gas. It takes five minutes. You can do it pretty much anywhere. It’s not an event worth a multi-paragraph tweet. The forced, inane difficulties this guy had feels like how those informercials for crap have to set up the concept that somehow carrying two things to your couch can nearly kill a healthy, full-grown adult. You know, this kind of crap:
Plus, the guy tweeting isn’t some kid with zero experience with combustion cars: he has a daughter old enough to drive a Honda Odyssey! He’s been around a while, he has definitely filled up cars’ gas tanks many, many times, and has somehow lived to tell the tale. He sort of addresses this baffling notion in a follow-up tweet:
I’m the stranger moms warn about.
Granted, all the familiarity and routine of filling up was long gone. The smells, the sketchy people hanging around, the grunge and pump damage obscuring the price … I’d forgotten about. I was used to sleeping through the night as my car…
— Chris Pierce ???????? (@ChristmasPierce) June 28, 2023
He says
“Granted, all the familiarity and routine of filling up was long gone. The smells, the sketchy people hanging around, the grunge and pump damage obscuring the price … I’d forgotten about.”
This is all absolutely, patently absurd. The damage obscuring the price? Every gas station has the price in fucking three-foot-high numbers on a massive sign that if you can’t see as you drive in, you probably shouldn’t be driving. Sketchy people hanging around? Okay, that’s possible, but come on, this is not a major issue, and if it is, don’t forget you’re the one holding a super-soaker that delivers a stream of petroleum. The smells? Grow up. And somehow he forgot how to pump gas? Was he hit by lightning?
And what the hell does this mean?
“I’m the stranger moms warn about.”
That’s not generally a good thing to brag about?
Look, I get that charging an EV at home is very convenient. That’s great, I’m happy for you, enjoy that. But it’s not like public EV charging is even remotely as mature or easy as filling a car with gas. Tesla’s Supercharger network is by far the best of them all, but you’re not getting in and out nearly as fast as you would filling a car up with gas even in the best of circumstances, and the greater mass of EV charging stations are, charitably, a shitshow of reliability and accessibility problems.
Plus, gas pumps almost never trap your car when they’re not working right:
hey @ElectrifyAm i just plugged in my @Rivian r1t and 1 minute later i hear a loud boom and now i have a bunch of error codes and i can’t even unplug my car…. took you guys 7 hours to get a guy out and that even wasn’t help. what’s the deal???? now my car is fried too… ???? pic.twitter.com/6I7RsmZG0S
— Anson (@snkrticians) January 29, 2023
I’m not anti-EV by any means. They have so many advantages, and the charging infrastructure, while not there yet, is and will improve. Charging at home, if you have the sort of property that allows it, is great. But the idea that filling an ICE car up with gas is somehow hard? Come on. That’s just absurd, and debases everyone interested in EVs by even making the claim.
This era is interesting; the amount of people who have, for reasons I’m not fully able or qualified to fathom, have tied their identity up in something like a car company such as Tesla is far greater than anything I’ve seen in the automotive world before.
This tweet is such a perfect example of this. Why would someone so exaggerate such a mundane activity as getting gas, and then publicly describe the incident to anyone who will listen? Why is this man of a certain age so invested in you holding the same opinions he does as he tries to convince you an act you perform without thinking about it at all on a roughly weekly basis is somehow a labor on par with a spelunking rescue?
I debated about the newsworthiness of covering all this, but it was pointed out to me by enough people, and the number of views this is getting was enough to make me realize what we’re seeing here is a unique by-product of so many things: the transition to EVs, the influence of brand identities, the wild reach of social media, the fragility and insecurity of our own identities, the state of our refueling and EV charging infrastructure, and likely more.
It’s a deeply stupid tweet, sure, but it’s also a really effective mirror showing a genuinely perplexing subset of automotive culture.
What a goofy time to be alive.
Maybe this shitburger does this with all minor inconveniences.
I hope he writes a Tweet the next time he has to mail a paper check.
And you know what? We all have our own struggles. What is difficult for one person is easy for someone else. I’m not here to judge (but I totally judge, I’m working on it). However. If this is the hardest thing that happened to you in a day, then go fuck yourself right off a cliff.
Judging things is a symptom of a working brain.
Im not one for the overuse of cussing we seem to get here but with this guy I agree.
I’m sure most interactions with this person are just exhausting for the rest of us.
Can you imagine suffering this oaf at a party? You know this story is going to make the rounds at every gathering for at least the next two years.
I’d rather not. As someone else in this thread stated, this is just plain narcissism and I do my best to avoid people like him in real life.
Narcissism is the new norm.
My last 2 public charging experiences were:
I’ve never had a single problem filling my car up with gas.
Just another reason I drive a plug-in hybrid instead of a full EV. I charge at home and put gas in it every couple months, but I never need to count on the public charging infrastructure.
Loaned my iPhone to my daughter, so here I am typing this comment on a desktop PC. Feels like I went back twenty years.
Decided to type using Tier 1 keystrokes…
I miss my iPhone. 🙁
Literally old man yells at cloud (cloud being the internet)
As someone driving my second EV (no Teslas), I have also gotten slightly annoyed on the few occasions when I’ve been forced to buy gas when driving a loaner or a relative’s car. That’s mostly been because I had no longer had any idea what a “good” price for gas was, so didn’t know if I was paying too much or not. That’s on me. I could easily have looked up prices on Google or GasBuddy, and just gotten on with my day.
But this is patently absurd. This dude is my age, and super over the top. His complaints are ridiculous and mostly specific to the gas station that HE HIMSELF chose. Sketchy people? Drive for another three blocks, dude. Pump broken? Ditto. Card reader not working? Maybe pick a better gas station! No receipt?? Do you get nightly receipts when charging your Tesla???
The cult of Tesla is strong and weird. Based on how their owners talk about them, I guess driving one must be like having a nonstop orgasm for the entire ride. Double power if you’re using “full self-driving.” Short of that, get over yourself and just try to be a human, dude.
A meet and greet party of Teslastans. That must be what hell is like.
I wonder if by “sketchy” he means all the people giving him the stink eye because he’s taking up a pump for way too long while putzing around with his phone and loudly complaining about every simple thing like it is a bizarre new novelty.
Next stop on his road trip should be Oregon where he can cry in alarm at the attendant who dared to do all the complicated gas pumping for him.
Also if everyone was driving EVs, said “sketchy” people would have to use his beloved EV chargers too. This is straight elitism.
Nailed it.
Damn, there were fellow “sketchy” people there buying Icees and existing there. Better tweet how uncomfortable I feel about sharing a public space with other. Got to have empathy for the earth, but all the people on it, please refrain from view.
Sketchy people who cant afford $60,000 poorly built tin cans. But driving $80,000 10 foot tall pickups.
Ugh it’s so inconvenient to have to locate the nearest apothecary on a paper map of all things when planning a trip, and then I have to talk to a person who may or may not be agreeable and purchase some gasoline which he may or may not have made well for my Daughter’s 1896 Duryea horseless carriage, and of course the price is written on a sign I can’t be bothered to look for so it’s basically hidden.
I miss my @Morris and Salom Electrobat!!!1!!1! :,(
But at least you didn’t die of dysentery.
Man, now I want some Combos. Pizza flavored.
mmm, grab a Spicy Honey Mustard while you’re in there please.
I’ll take a Buffalo Wing!
I’m a fan of the seven layer dip flavor. Surprisingly spot on.
This is bananas – the whole problem we have making the transition from ICE to EV is the ubiquity and ease of locating and paying for any flavor of processed dinosaur juice in every nook and cranny of the modern world. If ICE ownership were as difficult, confusing, and costly to the consumer as this twit suggests, we would have all transitioned to EVs years ago.
As a Tesla owner I would never tweet anything like that (even if I ever actually tweeted) if fueling my kid’s car. In fact, I suspect that 99.999% of Tesla owners wouldn’t tweet that. So, where does that leave things with regard to this article? I think it further amplifies some guy’s dumb tweet (doing the math from my very reliable data above: .001% of Tesla owners represented here) and further exacerbates a problem where the average Tesla owner becomes guilty by association with a very vocal yet small number of doofuses.
Performative and disturbing.Who on earth would spend the time and energy to post this? This is why social media is off limits for me. Everyone has a voice has turned into every ahole has a megaphone. Make it stop!!!
I am so embarrassed for this man that my stomach hurts.
Imagine how his kids feel.
And you know he is typing it one finger at a time.
And sometimes they use numbers. 😉
When people prattle on like this, I get the impression they’re not trying to convince the readers/listeners of [X]; they’re trying to convince themselves.
Absolutely. They need their purchase to be the smartest one possible. There can’t be regret, because they spent the money, so it must be worth it.
On a tangent, it’s fascinating to me that gas prices are one of the few things that are displayed like this – in giant numbers (letters maybe even) on billboards designed for everyone to see. It’s hard to think of another good or service advertised at the point of sale like that.
It’s one of the reasons why gas prices are so influential on general consumer sentiments.
I think govt regs do it so huge gas taxes arent broken out and we see government gets more money per gallon than the manufacturer makes after costs.
Why would he do this? Because he’s a fucking narcissist. That’s what social media has turned so many people into. He wants all the fucking attention and he wants Elon to pay for all his future purchases. He’s an adult child that craves attention so badly he’ll blatantly lie to get it. Fuck this guy and fuck social media for giving him and his ilk a voice.
If we all woke up tomorrow and Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok were suddenly gone the world would be an exponentially better place.
100% correct.
Then what are we gonna do? Start to care about and nurture our flesh and blood communities and social networks that are decaying around us?
True but given most under 30 are addicted to it this is how the Zombie Apocolypse starts. Phones i need phones gotta find a signal gerrrrrr
Oh, we’re doing the “father I cannot click the book” thing?
Ha, not hard to see what you did there:
“a labor on par with a spelunking rescue?”
“Analyze the map”? Really? Is driving around ones town that difficult at this point that analysis is necessary? Wonder if he was doing this 20 years ago.
Let’s be honest, he probably wasn’t even doing this for this outing. It just makes him feel superior to think that EVs will find charging stations on their nav (because they need to, at least as long as EV charging isn’t ubiquitous, like gas stations). He made the process seem as difficult as possible, and that means a little lying seemed justified.
The funny thing is that my last two vehicles – both ICE-powered – will automatically switch over to display gas stations on the nav map as soon as the low-fuel light comes on. Magic!
Y’know, I think mine would, too, but I don’t use the built-in nav or let my gas light come on (or, y’know, need help finding a gas station). I might have to look into that. It is funny how easily this guy’s points are undermined.
Now that I know this a thing car can do, I think mine did a few days back when it was low? I didn’t need it to, because as Torch so perfectly put it, gas stations are absolutely fucking everywhere, but I guess it might be nice if I was somewhere unfamiliar.
My 2010 SUV will find all local gas stations and display the prices. It’s old AF. And I don’t ever use it because it’s so easy to find gas.
“It just makes him feel superior to think that EVs will find charging stations on their nav”
Does…does he NOT know about Gasbuddy?
When you’re as ignorant as this jackass the answer is yes.
Funny thing is, I don’t own an EV yet I can tell you where a number of chargers are in my general area right off the top of my head. B/c good to pay attention to what’s around while driving since getting to things is a common reason for said driving.
I also can remember things like grocery stores, that one dry cleaner that’s open later, and that place that used to be that adult store with the opaque windows but is now something else but is anyone going to actually go in there…
Just occured to me. This guy may come the city. I can a public transportation rider having these issues.
These people are so fucking insufferable. They’re like the old South Park parody of hybrid owners except they’re real. I think they actually gather around to sniff each other’s farts. Listen…we all love cars here, clearly. But making any hobby or interest into your entire identity is never healthy.
As I’ve said for a long time, the Venn Diagram of car enthusiasts and Tesla Stans is pretty damn close to being two separate circles. I’d compare these folks more to like…psychotic sports fans, K Pop stans, hardcore Swifties, stuff like that. They take parasocial relationships to levels of extremes that aren’t normal or healthy. It borders on cult-like.
And the one thing that none of the subgroups I mentioned seem to understand is that being freakishly obsessed with something to the point that it takes over your entire identity doesn’t make it seem more appealing to the masses. No one wants to hear you rant about (X) for 30 minutes straight wide eyed and barely taking time to breathe. It makes the average person significantly less interested.
Shit if you would’ve asked me 3-4 years ago what car I wanted I might well have said a Model 3. But the goddamn subculture around these vehicles is so over the top and ridiculous that I refuse to even consider being a part of it. Same goes for giving fascist dickbag Elon Musk so much as a cent of my money. Go to Mars already and take all these whackos with you to make the dream libertarian dystopia you’re all craving.
They’re like the natural evolution of gaming console superfans. They need to prove that their choice is the best possible choice.
“The Playstation has a super-popular exclusive? Well, it sucks, and the XBox has GamePass.” (I actually don’t know what console arguments happen these days.)
“Your gas car can fill up faster on road trips? Well, my daughter wanted the Tesla for her road trip and gassing up a car is shitty, anyway.”
She just didnt want to pay for gas. Still probably had daddys credit card. And you know he still calls his 30+ daughter princess and he is daddy, not dad.
I was going to say Tesla People remind me a lot of Air Fryer People – they both need to constantly tell everyone else how great their latest purchase is and gush over it at every opportunity as if it just descended from heaven onto a velvet cushion at their doorstep, like they have to constantly justify their decision to themselves and seek reassurance from others.
At one time, Atkins dieters were also like this- I’m convinced the main way people lost weight on that was from all the calories they burned from blabbing to everyone about how they were on Atkins. You hate bagels, I get it, shut the hell up
The hardcore Tesla enthusiasts like this aren’t car people, they’re tech people. They never talk about any car related things pertaining to their Tesla other than “it go fast as soon as I push the pedal”. It’s just all performative nonsense like this to make every ICE car seem like something from the stone age where every single thing on it is a struggle but everything is a breeze on their Tesla because it has the latest and greatest tech.
Much like you, if you asked me 5 years ago if I’d like a Tesla, I probably would have taken a Model S. A friend of mine had one back before Tesla owners got really insufferable online and while I only rode in it once, I thought it was pretty nice and it seemed like it would be a great daily. These days, no shot would I ever want any Tesla solely because I don’t want to be grouped in with the Tesla owners.
But this guy is so old he is from fax machines and mimeographs no computers growing up. Maybe just proud he can operate this new gadget shit?
I think it’s harder to find a gas station that isn’t top tier than one that is. Chevron, 76, Sinclair, Shell…basically any gas station that you think of off the top of your head sells top tier gas. (https://www.toptiergas.com/gasoline-brands/)
And you definitely don’t need to go in when the pump is out of order. You can just try another pump (as he’d probably suggest if someone found a charging station out of order at a Supercharger location).
And it sounds like he’s just bad at everything. He had the nozzle in his vehicle before he swiped his card? The instructions at the pump would have instructed him to pay first.
But he’s gotta remind everyone that EVs are easier, except for charging taking longer than refueling, availability of refueling/charging, and apparently your newfound inability to navigate the newly unfamiliar world.
I like EVs. I do believe that the ability to charge at home makes up for slower charging on longer trips. But I cannot get behind this sort of absurdity.
I’m impressed this guy even knows Top Tier (or Tier 1, as he put it) gasoline even is, given how bewildered he seems by all this.
That’s how you know this is performative bullshit. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
I drive a car that requires Top Tier. It’s virtually ubiquitous now.
I think pretty much every new car requires Top Tier now. My Kia does. I don’t even know whether I could find a gas station without it at this point.
More importantly, who chooses a Tesla over a Honda Odyssey, FOR A ROAD TRIP?
This guy’s potentially fictional daughter, that’s who! (Maybe she is a budding journalist writing about the experience of road-tripping an EV? Maybe she is simply invented for the narrative? Who knows!)
Somehow it would not shock me to find out that this guy’s “daughter” is the service writer at his local shop and the Odyssey is their loaner vehicle while his Tesla is in getting its bumper replaced after it fell off in the rain.
We have chosen our Model 3 over our Grand Cherokee twice for road trips. It mostly comes down to the cost per mile and what vehicle best suits the trip. Towing anything or leaving the pavement? That’s Jeep territory. Just moving ourselves and luggage, Tesla territory.
Superchargers aren’t cheap. If you drive anything that gets 40MPG or better, the ICE will be cheaper. The Jeep gets 20MPG, plus it’s 10 years old and the repair bills have been getting bigger as the miles rack up.
Yeah, even though it doesn’t appear to be an Odyssey, I don’t feel like it would be that weird? I’m assuming the space wasn’t needed for the trip, or she would have stuck with the larger vehicle. If it’s just a couple people, no sense lugging the extra space around, most any car would do, and while Odys are decent on gas let’s say mid-20s for the road trip to your point about the cost.
Plus more whataboutisms like maybe it needs a big service or something.
Meant to also add my original thought about people questioning the vehicle switch…I get the sense he’s probably a big fan of Autopilot and whether it was offered by him or requested by her, the thought was to use the vehicle with that included for the trip.
Someone who is paying for gas but charging is on daddys credit card.
Beyond the hyperbole, I kind of get this. I have a PHEV and fill up maybe once a month in winter then only on road trips in the summer.
Going to the gas station sucks:
It is worth twittering about? No, but that’s the point of twitter: yell and complain about stuff that doesn’t matter.
But is it worth defending going to a gas station? Not really… because going there sucks too. Refuelling (gas or ev) is a necessary evil, not a benefit of driving.
I didn’t own a car for 36 years and had no trouble once I did. Granted, I rented occasionally, but seldom.
However, I remember the joy when I read in some random place that there’s an arrow in the fuel gauge that indicates which side the filler is on. This was one of the most exciting days of my life…and of many of my car renting friends. No more pulling over on the way to returning the car!
His post went off the rails even before the Tier 1 stuff when he referred to an Odyssey as an SUV.
In fairness, Tesla stans also think the model x is an SUV when it’s also a minivan.
I admittedly am just skimming the tweets because the whole thing is silly, but I can’t find the Odyssey mention in them, and the white vehicle in the original photo doesn’t appear to be an Odyssey?
Mystery solved, appears to be a 2nd-gen Pilot in the original photo.
Good catch. My faith in Torch to be able to identify a car from any photo with a foot or more of the exterior has been shaken to the core.
I mean to be fair gas pump uses a weird card payment flow that’s counter intuitive the first time. I was on a road trip with a friend who doesn’t have his license and for convenience I taught him how to pump gas and it was A Thing
Is it weird? I don’t think it’s weird. Prepay, pump, go.
you’re skipping like 7 steps but okay fine I concede
That’s a exhale-slightly-from-nose-laugh quip, but I pay/pump/go is really all there is to it. If you want to try and stretch it out you can, but seven steps were not missed.
I don’t recall ever hearing a real human being be confused by the “counterintuitive” “weird card payment flow” required when pumping your own gas. You pay for the product, take the product, and then leave. Pretty intuitive to me.
If you were a time traveler from 1970 it would be the reverse. Back when you pumped first then went inside to pay. The only time I’ve seen that in the last 15 years was in bfe Yukon territory at a very old station (where I was quite happy to find fuel and you’d never find a charger).
The other big miss in that nonsensical tweet was that charging an EV is not easier. You first have to setup an online account and payment method. If you just show up randomly to a Tesla charger – you won’t get any electricity until you do that. And if you show up at any other charger, then you’ll need adapters and account setup, etc. It’s far more onerous than buying gasoline in many cases.
Yes and not exclusive. Paying at a store same thing, using an atm same thing
Enter card zip code
Fat finger it because the buttons are worn, enter zip code again
Do you want to use your Mega Fuel Rewards? Yes/no
Do you want a car wash?
Hit button second down on the right to mute the GTV.
I could pump before i could drive, legally
We have to pay for food at Mcdonald’s before we eat vs. eating before paying at Applebee’s. Different yes, but that’s about as strong a description I would apply to this situation.
My BFF had never owned a car, and I had to teach him how to fuel it at the ripe old age of 61 when he bought one.