as long as we're imagining scenarios, let's imagine he DID get the car to go completely dead in the parking lot. How do you think he would have reported it?
Would he have said "I decided to drive around in circles for a little while, and eventually, after a while it died, and I pushed it to the charger"?
Or would he have said "I was barely able to coast off the highway into the parking lot, and I had to push two-and-a-half-tons of dead batteries the last quarter-mile to the charger head"?
By saying “He did this for nefarious reasons!” you are equally imagining scenarios. We do not have to consider those hypotheticals if we do not even have an explanation for this we can agree on.
That’s the first step. What could explain the data?
1. He wanted to see how much reserve the car has and how it handles running out of juice (with no intention of lying about what he did to get the car empty).
2. He wanted to see how much reserve the car has and how it handles running out of juice (with intention to lie about what he did to get the car empty).
3. The pattern in the data exists for unrelated reasons (e.g. driving around searching, etc.).
Since he didn’t actually lie about this (he merely didn’t say anything) you are speculating about his character. That seems a bit too uncertain for me.
Plus, after considering this question a bit more, I think we are wrong in focusing so much on options 1. and 2.: The third one seems very plausible to me, actually.
Would he have said "I decided to drive around in circles for a little while, and eventually, after a while it died, and I pushed it to the charger"?
Or would he have said "I was barely able to coast off the highway into the parking lot, and I had to push two-and-a-half-tons of dead batteries the last quarter-mile to the charger head"?