One of the benefits of owning a Tesla is access to its public supercharging network, but what happens if you’re a lone Tesla owner in an area outside the supercharging network? Well, for most people, it means that you have to just suck it up and deal with it. But, that isn’t the case for one Russian man who’s commute – which is ridiculously long – falls just outside of his Tesla’s maximum range.

The man of the hour goes by the name Alexander Shavrin, and he lives in Perm – a city that is about 20 hours east of Moscow by car and about five and a half hours or 225 miles northwest of Shavrin’s employer in Yekaterinburg. With a daily commute like that, owning an all-electric Tesla is a no-brainer except for one thing – there are absolutely no EV chargers in the entire region. That’s clearly a problem when you run out of juice just 15 to 20 miles before you get to work or home, so Shavrin decided to reach out to the regional energy company – IDGC of Urals – and asked them for some help.

Surprisingly, the company – after what had to be an intriguing conversation – was happy to oblige. The plan is to add the first EV charger in the region in a small village along E22 that is known as Achit. Not only is it exactly what Shavrin needed, but it’s pretty close to the half-way point of his journey in each direction. Talk about a win-win, right?

Why it Matters

At this point, It’s unknown whether or not there is anything in play to persuade IDGC to install the charger, but I doubt there are too many energy companies out there who would be willing to do it in the name of customer service. Shavrin could have offered up a decent donation to the company or maybe he knows someone that has some say within the company. Who knows; maybe he even offered to pay for the charging station himself. According to EKBTV, a Russian media outlet, the charger station should cost about 300,000 Russian Rubles, which translates to about $4,702 at current exchange rates. That said, it isn’t too much out of anybody’s pocket, and maybe it will increase the interest in EVs in that region.

And on another note, why the hell does this guy commute five and a half hours to work? That's 11 hours out of a 24-hour day! Let's hope he telecommutes most of the time.