Each week I bring you the top stories in the auto industry along with my commentary or sometimes amusing thoughts about the craziness that goes on in the world of cars.
Stories you’ll find today:
The $418 Fill-Up That Didn’t Involve Gas. A Michigan man driving a rental Chevrolet Bolt learned that EV charging can occasionally make gasoline look downright economical. Stanley Kpenkann was returning home after taking a friend to the airport when the Bolt was running dangerously low on battery, so he opened the EVgo app and found a nearby charger at Elder Hyundai in Macomb Township. He plugged in for 44 minutes and afterward discovered he had been charged an astonishing $418.27. This was not a computer error. According to WXYZ-TV and Jalopnik, the charger displayed rates of $5 per kilowatt-hour plus $5 per minute. The dealership told WXYZ the charger was intended for its own customers and vehicles and that the extraordinarily high prices were deliberately set to discourage outsiders from using it. There was just one rather significant problem: the charger was accessible through the EVgo app. EVgo explained that it has a roaming agreement with ChargePoint, whose name was on the charger, and that the dealership, as station owner, controlled the pricing. Kpenkann said he never noticed the rates before plugging in and understandably questioned why a charger the dealership did not want the general public using was available through a public charging app in the first place. After he challenged the bill and WXYZ became involved, EVgo issued what it called a $405 “goodwill” refund, leaving him with $13.27—the amount EVgo said the charging session normally would have cost under his subscription plan. That means his original bill was more than 31 times the eventual charge. There is a useful lesson here for anyone renting or owning an EV: finding a charger on an app does not necessarily mean the price will be remotely reasonable, so check the rate before plugging in. At $5 per kilowatt-hour AND $5 per minute, somebody should at least come out and wash the car
The Stoplight That Got a Funeral. Most of us would celebrate the removal of a stoplight, but the residents of Wallace, Idaho, gave theirs a funeral. On Sept. 12, 1991, the last stoplight associated with Interstate 90 was retired when the final unfinished section of the highway was completed around Wallace, ending a strange chapter in Interstate Highway history. The reason a coast-to-coast Interstate still involved a traffic light that late was geography—and a town determined not to be destroyed in the name of progress. Wallace sits in a very narrow Idaho valley and building I-90 through town threatened to demolish buildings and divide the community. After multiple highway proposals and years of resistance, residents worked to have downtown Wallace recognized for its historic significance, and the entire downtown was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. Until the new section of I-90 was completed, Interstate travelers had to leave the freeway and follow U.S. Route 10 through downtown Wallace, where the famous traffic signal waited for them. Eventually engineers built an elevated freeway bypass that carried I-90 over the community, and the stoplight’s services were no longer required. Wallace residents apparently decided that simply unscrewing it and tossing it into a maintenance yard would be undignified after all those years of stopping interstate traffic. They held an actual funeral, complete with a horse-drawn hearse and bagpipes playing a dirge. The deceased was placed in a coffin filled with plastic flowers, where the traffic light remains today at the Wallace Mining Museum. Somewhere there is undoubtedly a motorist who sat through three cycles of that light in 1987 and still thinks the funeral was entirely too nice.
Houston Police Order an Uber—and Still Lose the Suspect. A Houston Uber driver unexpectedly became part of a police pursuit after two officers commandeered his car to chase a suspect—and somehow the suspect still got away. According to Jalopnik, Uber driver and U.S. Army veteran Anthony Baines encountered the officers shortly after midnight Aug. 8 while they were pursuing a shirtless, shoeless man on foot. Houston police said the suspect had allegedly threatened to shoot a woman and her two children during an argument at an apartment-complex swimming pool. Police had initially detained the man, but he escaped and took off running. Apparently, he was considerably better at running than the officers chasing him, because the two officers eventually jumped into Baines’ Uber and directed him toward the fleeing suspect. Baines said he simply did what he was told. After a couple of minutes, the officers got back out and continued their investigation on foot. Houston police said using the civilian vehicle did not violate department policy, and Baines said he was not paid for his surprise addition to the evening’s passenger manifest. The really unfortunate part is that even after receiving four-wheeled assistance, police still didn’t catch the suspect, who remained at large when the story was published. Somewhere in Houston there are two police officers who will probably be hearing about this one from their coworkers for approximately the rest of their careers. And Anthony Baines deserves five stars—although I’m guessing nobody tipped him.
Ohio City Makes Empty Tanks a Crime. There are plenty of reasons not to run out of gas, but in one part of Youngstown, Ohio, you can add another one: it’s against the law. The city actually has an ordinance requiring motorists driving within a designated congested downtown district to have enough fuel to get their vehicle completely out of that area. The zone is bounded by Chestnut, Walnut, Boardman and Commerce streets, and Youngstown Ordinance 331.44 says a person may not operate—or permit someone else to operate—a vehicle there without sufficient fuel to leave the district. In other words, Youngstown isn’t outlawing an empty gas tank everywhere in the city, but if your car sputters to a stop in this particular downtown area because you pushed the fuel gauge too far, you could have more to worry about than finding a gas can. A first violation is classified as a minor misdemeanor. A second offense within a year becomes a fourth-degree misdemeanor, and subsequent offenses within that same one-year period become third-degree misdemeanors. The potential maximum fines under Ohio law are $150 for the first offense, $250 for the second and $500 for subsequent offenses within a year. There is some logic behind the unusual ordinance: a vehicle that runs out of fuel in a congested district can block traffic and create a safety problem for everybody else. Still, it is one of those laws that makes you wonder what happened in Youngstown years ago that finally caused somebody at City Hall to say, “That’s it—we’re making gasoline mandatory.” So, if you ever find yourself driving through downtown Youngstown with the low-fuel light glowing, don’t treat it as a suggestion. Around there, “E” apparently stands for evidence.