We *def* don't recommended this, but Model S floats well enough to turn it into a boat for short periods of time. Thrust via wheel rotation.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 19, 2016
Preppers take note.
With increased coastal flooding and extreme precip, might be a good sales point.
OK. Now it’s a car-boat. I suppose a car-boat-airplane is next.
I still prefer the Volt, especially in light of some info I read the other day regarding Tesla’s being ‘bricked’: even when off, battery power is still being consumed by the car’s other systems, such that if you leave the car unplugged for weeks, the battery can fully drain and enter a phase where it is no longer chargeable. At that point you have to pay Tesla lots of cash to trade out the battery. Conversely Chevy claims the Volt can stay unplugged for months.
I’ve yet to here a good explanation of why the Tesla battery is susceptible to this phenomenon. It uses Li 18650 batteries like you have in a laptop pack, and there are folks that construct home made EV and Powerwall batteries who go through the painstaking process of buying old batteries, testing their charge, perhaps even discharging and recharging them individually, then using the best ones to construct a set of parallel packs that can be hooked up in series to run a car or home.
Maybe someone can debunk this, but I also have an anecdotal source that claims she was building a powerwall out of used Tesla batteries and after fully discharging them she was unable to recharge them, even by trying to charge the individual 18650’s by a small charger.
http://jalopnik.com/5887265/tesla-motors-devastating-design-problem
And PS I’m not standing by the cost of a replacement battery in that article; I’m skeptical of that particular point of information.
*yet to hear…
Reblogged this on A Green Road Daily News.
That’s good as sadly, I see floating cars caught and carried in gushing torrents of floodwater all too often in the news these days.
The V.W beetle was the original nearly water tight car and some owners even fitted a propeller which drove off the crankshaft.
Great news is that Tesla X has now invaded China.
Tesla recently held an event in Beijing to mark the official delivery of the first Model X to the Asia-Pacific region. The regional launch event at the historic Diaoyutai State Guesthouse saw the attendance of around 400 people. Despite our earlier reports on the possible delay of Model X deliveries to the region, it appears that things are roughly on track. Tesla’s Vice President of Asia Pacific, Robin Ren, was quoted by the China Daily as saying that the company is actually more than 6 months ahead of schedule, and that first deliveries are expected by the end of the month.
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/06/19/1st-tesla-model-x-china-arrives-video/