Although coverage in some areas still remains patchy, the improving state of the U.S. charging network is helping to ease range anxiety for EV owners planning longer trips. However, outside the country, charging still remains a real challenge in less well-traveled areas. YouTuber Everyday Sandro found that out the hard way in the Atacama Desert in Chile, when he became stranded after his Tesla Model X ran out of charge. 

Sandro, whose full name is Sandro van Kuijck, is attempting to drive across the entire length of the Pan-American highway, from northern Canada right down to the southern tip of Argentina. Chile is the fourteenth country he has visited on his journey, and it has proved to be particularly tricky to traverse.

The YouTuber equipped his Tesla with a long list of modifications to help make the journey easier, including food preparation and sleeping facilities. Its hood is also fitted with a custom solar panel, which usually feeds a battery that powered van Kuijck’s in-car equipment. 

Until his trip across Chile, he hadn’t needed to use it to power the Tesla’s high voltage battery, but in an attempt to claw back some range, he connected his solar setup to the car’s charging port. Unfortunately, the panel only delivered a charge equivalent to around one kilometer per hour. That wasn’t much help considering the car was stuck around 30 kilometers away from the nearest charger.

Van Kuijck attempted to call a tow truck to take his car back into town, but initially had no luck, and eventually the solar panel setup couldn’t juice up the car any further. Luckily, he encountered a highway construction crew who let him borrow their generator. That saved the car from shutting down completely, and van Kuijck was eventually able to find a tow truck company to rescue him from the roadside.

While the YouTuber got out of trouble with little more than a dent in his wallet and a good story to tell, it’s a good reminder that solar panels aren’t a substitute for a good public charging network. Several modern EVs feature factory-installed solar panels on their roofs, but most of them don’t add a significant amount of range, even if they’re larger and more powerful than the custom setup on van Kuijck’s Tesla.

That said, the YouTuber could provide at least a minimal amount of power for his car using only solar power, which is still a step above what any combustion-powered car could manage. While EVs still have plenty of problems that need solving before they become the default mode of transport for American drivers, the fact that van Kuijck could even reach the Chilean desert before he needed to test out his roadside solar charging setup speaks volumes as to how much the EV charging network has improved in recent years.