The Righteous EV Owners Who Won’t Let Their Broken Cars Die

On an October evening in 2024, a gardener named Svein Hodne was driving home from vacation on a wind-buffeted coastal road in southwest Norway when his electric car began behaving strangely. Yellow and red warnings lit up its display. An alarm went off. The car lost power. Hodne barely managed to turn off the road and into a bus stop, right next to a graveyard and a church, before the car came to a stop. He was alone.

His phone battery running low, Hodne quickly found a tow service online and called. He was told it would be about an hour wait. He went outside to stretch his legs, but it was dark, rainy, and in the mid-forties; he got back inside the car and closed the door behind him. Then ...