Featured Image Credit: YouTube/Warped
Topics: Cars, Social Media, Tesla, YouTube, Technology
Ella Scott
Topics: Cars, Social Media, Tesla, YouTube, Technology
A man who became ‘stranded’ after his Tesla’s battery became critically low took matters into his own hands to see whether or not he could charge his vehicle on the go.
Tesla recommends you plug your vehicle into your home charger every evening to top off the battery.
But what happens if you forget? Or, what do you do if you’ve run the electricity down so much on a long trip and don’t have enough juice to get home?
Nobody wants to twiddle their thumbs at a Tesla Supercharger station for hours on end. But don’t fear, as one car YouTuber has done the hard work for you by finding an innovative solution to your charging woes.
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“The unthinkable happened. My Tesla ran out of battery when I was far away from home,” said popular YouTube user, Warped.
“I went to a public charger and realised I had to wait three hours to get enough charge to get back home.”
Not wanting to hang around for an extended period of time, the Tesla owner began brainstorming ways he could pick up the pace.
He reasoned that if he drove his car 70mph and let off the accelerator, while someone was towing it, the regenerative braking that was produced would be around 65,000 watts of charge.
“That’s almost as much as a Tesla Supercharger,” he explained in a 2021 video, titled ‘Tow Charging Tesla at 70MPH for 25 miles’.
After doing the calculations, the automobile enthusiast claimed that ‘all he needed’ was for somebody to tow his Tesla for 15 minutes straight and 70mph.
He claimed it ‘would be the same’ as hooking up his car to a nearby Supercharger.
“I’ve seen one other person do something similar on YouTube,” he confessed. “But it was weak. They towed the car around a track at 18mph. There’s people that run faster than that.”
In an effort to save himself some time and crucial funds, the Warped star gave his hypothesis a go in the ‘name of science’.
But instead of employing a designated tow truck for the experiment, a Mercedes-Benz E Class E55 was brought.
“I’m a little bit worried about the transmission overheating because 65,000 watts of horsepower is going to be the amount of braking force that the E55 has to overcome,” he confessed.
Despite his hesitations, the guy went ahead and hooked the two cars up to one another.
After making sure the connection was secure, the content creator headed onto the freeway with his associate where they attempted to hit the 70mph mark for a prolonged period of time.
“Hey it’s looking good, the battery is going up really fast,” the driver said. “That’s crazy.”
Eventually, the YouTuber informed viewers that his experiment had been a success - the Tesla had gone from 14 percent battery to 55 in 25 miles.
After confessing he didn’t think towing the Tesla would ‘work that well’, the social media star admitted the research task had been ‘awesome’ and that the charging ‘never let up’ on the regen.
“It was charging at 65,000 watts the entire time,” he gushed. “If you’re stranded somewhere and you have absolutely no choice…now you know you might not actually be stranded after all.”