As Joulee the Free Salvage Tesla was sent back to the big port by the shipper, we’ve been trying to figure out what is going on. The first Matson representative we spoke with was kind and helpful, taking time to try to explain why they didn’t just plug the car in when it got to our island, or why they didn’t at least call us before deciding to ship the car back, though the logic was kind of hard to follow. Once Joulee reached the big port, we got a call from Matson that said “the car wouldn’t start.” Uh… we knew that, that was what you told us prompted your decision to send her back to the big port on another island a couple of hundred miles away.
“We were told that you would try to charge her when she got to the big port. What happened?”
“It didn’t work. We suggest you call Tesla and have them come fix the vehicle.”
Okay, that sounds reasonable, but it would be helpful to me in figuring out if calling Tesla is the right move, and helpful to Tesla if they’re going to troubleshoot the vehicle, if we knew what happened when you tried to charge it.
“There wasn’t a plug available.”
So you didn’t try to charge it? I had explained to the previous representative that there were a number of adapters in the front trunk, you should have been able to plug it into anything, including a regular wall socket.
“We tried everything.”
Then can you tell me what happened?
“No. We suggest you call Tesla.”
Is there someone else at Matson who might be able to tell us what was actually tried, and what happened when it was tried?
“There isn’t anybody else.” And he hangs up. I guess Nathan must be the CEO.
At any rate, the car is still out-of-range: I don’t know anyone who lives on the island where she is, I don’t know any towing companies or service providers on that island, I just have to do everything by remote control. (She’s also out-of-range in that her battery is now completely dead.)
What followed was a scramble to get in touch with Tesla. They insist that you request service through their app, but the app — for me at least — often just drops service requests after acknowledging getting them. The Tesla app won’t let you copy messages other than by screenshot, so I’ve learned to compose my requests in an offline editor so I can paste the request in again after it disappears. So after a couple of attempts to submit a service request, I got an actual telephone call from an actual live, friendly person at Tesla who agreed that this is a mess. We formulated a plan.
After some back-and-forth and revisions, the plan ended up being that I’d call a towing company (they recommended one) and have the car towed from the port to Tesla. But that takes money, and the towing company is out-of-range. So they’ll email me a form I can fill out and return to give them my credit card information.
In the wee hours of the morning (six minutes after midnight), I got the form as a non-fillable PDF. Normally not a problem, but I don’t have a printer (it’s on the boat and thus out-of-range) nor do I have or know of a good PDF editor for Linux. I have a great one for macOS (the underrated if buggy and crash-prone Apple Preview app) but my MacBook Pro is… on the boat and thus out-of-range.
I finally found a cool Android app that could fill out and insert a signature into the PDF called PDF Reader - PDF Editor. Worked a treat, and I got the info to the towing company early this morning so they could pick up the car. Tesla verified that the car was out-of-range. They replaced the 12-volt battery and are now charging the traction battery. That still leaves the problem of getting back to the big port and on a barge for here (the latter is still Matson’s responsibility) in less that the six weeks or so it will take the battery to discharge again.
In the mean time, I’m trying to get the studio (an outbuilding on my property) ready for the installation of a usable solar generating solution. Right now we’re subsisting on a few panels I installed in a shady location when I had a broken wrist, and they feed into an inadequate stack of lead-acid batteries and an old inverter. We have to use a generator more than I’d like. A good spot for a better array of solar panels, though, is out-of-range of the house so will, instead, be installed near the studio.
I’m expecting a delivery of building materials to get things ready for the solar installation. HA went swimming in town, and I realized that the building materials company only had her phone number, not mine. She said she’d relay any messages to me, but obviously she can’t while swimming. I can’t just watch for the truck, because the studio is out-of-range of the house (I did put up a big sign to let the driver know to take the alternate road). So I decided to go work in the studio (there are electrical fixtures that need to be installed) so Luna the Big Dog™ and I went across the pasture to the studio and began working. But…
The studio is out-of-range of the WiFi at the house, and the entire island property is out-of-range of any cellular service. Which means that if I’m working in the studio (1) I can’t respond to Tesla when they have questions or need approvals and (2) I can’t get any information from the building materials company even if HA is able to relay them. I would, however, be able to hear if the delivery truck pulls up so I can show the driver where to go.
I was pretty stressed, sure that I was going to miss the truck or a critical call about the delivery or a message from Tesla. Luna and I settled into a rhythm of installing electrical fixtures, then racing out to the road whenever we heard a truck, and periodically climbing the hill so we could temporarily mitigate the WiFi out-of-range problem to check for messages.
Eventually, the truck came. The driver did an amazing job of backing through my too-small gate, even though I’d told him it was okay to offload on the drive and I’d carry the stuff in. He felt that would be leaving it out-of-range, and he didn’t want me to have to carry it so far. So now we’re ready with most all the plumbing supply and waste pipe, some fixtures, and 350’ of welded wire fencing.
Once the fence is in, We can run a fiber optic cable along it so the studio will no longer be out-of-range of WiFi and phone service. The Free Salvage Tesla is charging up, and will soon (with luck) be on a barge and be brought to where it’s no longer out-of-range for us. Our shipping container should get unpacked soon (“two days to three weeks”) and tools and printers and a bed and such will no longer be out-of-range. We can run an underground cable along the fence line so the house won’t be out-of-range of abundant solar energy.
Progress is being made, but right now a lot of things still seem out-of-range.
—2p
addendum 2024-10-06
It turns out that LibreOffice Draw, included or easily installed in most Linux distros, would have done what I wanted with the PDF.