YouTuber Warped Perception Goes 1,600 Miles in His Tesla Without Plugging In

There is a stating that if a dumb notion operates, is it a dumb idea? Effectively, in the scenario of this single-cylinder gasoline generator-driven Tesla Product S, indeed. It’s extremely, quite dumb, but that does not suggest I do not want to know more about it.

YouTube channel Warped Perception has carried out a whole lot of wild automotive-associated material, and this hacked Tesla might be the wildest nonetheless. The strategy at the rear of it was to be able to consider a Product S on a 1,600-mile road excursion without having needing to plug it in. To carry out this, things obtained a tiny additional complex than just jogging a charging cable from the generator and environment off down the road.

To the credit history of Warped Perception, the high-quality of the make is way previously mentioned what I was expecting when I clicked the hyperlink to enjoy the video clip. The generator alone sits in the area exactly where the Tesla’s rear cargo region made use of to be. It lives in an open up-topped diamond plate box to hold temperature and fumes out of the car’s cabin.

The generator is wired to a controller, so it behaves much more like a hybrid auto than an EV with a generator. The motor operates to charge the battery but can compensate for the load of the motors (type of) without having needing to be manually altered. The gasoline procedure for the generator is held in the Tesla’s frunk in the type of a fuel cell.

The fantastic news is that technically, the idea was successful in that Warped Notion was able to vacation much more than their 1,600-mile goal devoid of plugging into a charger, but which is kind of the place the wins cease since the car was nevertheless drawing additional than the generator would set out. Consequently, the generator experienced to be left on in essence regularly to charge the car right away when parked. That would be alright if it had been a tranquil generator, but it was not.

To be honest, the generator did get a muffler only it was a shitty, straight-by way of eBay-spec motorcycle muffler which did effectively absolutely nothing to dampen the audio. The total video is stuffed with the toneless blat of a solitary-cylinder industrial engine screaming its guts out. If I experienced been trapped at the identical hotel as this man, I’d have burned the car to the ground right away.

Also, the fuel mileage that the generator available about the trip was significantly worse than what you may expect to see from a relatively late-model car with a typical 4-cylinder motor, and it’s pathetic in contrast to what you’d get from a utilized Prius or some thing.

Still, as a evidence of strategy, it is rather neat, and it’s in all probability the only way to get your Tesla to shoot flames that is not going to outcome in a 4-alarm lithium fireplace, so hats off to Warped Notion, and I’m currently looking ahead to the up coming iteration.