Well, that should be obvious: the car stops. But even if that's what he wanted to do, he should have acknowledged it. At the end of the day, there's lots of reasons to not buy a Tesla or an EV in general. But this is a question of integrity, and when it starts to sound like the reviewer didn't provide a fair review, it brings a lot of collateral damage to the entire organization.
> Well there is a lot of wiggle room for both those statements to be true.
Agree. I went back and read that portion again. It's possible that he was falsely told that the range would be greater than indicated. Or he was told that a few minutes of charging would help the range, and simply assumed that what he did was enough, while ignoring the actual displayed range.
Clarification on this point is important because that's the headline and lead photo of this article -- that he was completely stranded.
Yeah but does it stop on zero? Does it brick the car?
As it turns out Tesla knows what they are doing, and there is a reserve, probably that's pretty disappointing as a car journalist. But hey, when did we think car journalists were on the side of car manufacturers?
But, then Broder should have mentioned it in his article, like: "I drove around for a few minutes on empty while right in front of the charging station to see what would happen. But Tesla's battery outlasted my patience and I decided just to charge instead."
As for driving that final stretch with 30 miles range showing - his story is that Tesla told him it would be fine because it would be regained through the battery conditioning. Tesla says that they told him not to stop charging. Well there is a lot of wiggle room for both those statements to be true.