By Illustration by Sisi Kim for The Verge
Every day, Mitch Stults commutes about 60 miles each way from his home in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a town of 17,000 people, to his job as a sales manager for a manufactured homebuilder in Cullman.
Stults was driving a King Ranch pickup 110 miles per day, spending an estimated $1,000 on gas per week, and getting just 13 miles to the gallon. “That was when I decided to give a Tesla a try,” he said.
Stults, 29, began hunting for a Tesla Model Y and found one at a dealership in Tupelo, Mississippi, 87 miles away. He traded in his King Ranch a few days later.
But the thrill of an electrified ride didn’t last long. Three months later, Stults returned the Tesla and traded it in for a GMC half-ton Duramax diesel pickup.