Tesla Model X Tows Really, Really Big Airplane!

7 years ago Steve Hanley 0 Comments




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Tesla tweeted a video a few days ago of a Tesla Model X towing an airplane. “Big deal,” I hear you say. “Probably a Piper Cub or something.” Actually, no. Something a trifle larger. A Boeing 787 Dreamliner, in fact — an aircraft that can weigh up to 975,000 pounds at takeoff!

That’s the main story — a Tesla Model X is capable of towing just about anything that may be lying around your house, whether or not it’s on wheels.

The side story is the tweets that followed. Some people were underwhelmed by the achievement, including a Twitter user named Frances.

Well, that lit the fuse, so to speak. Others were soon weighing in with other fantastic feats of heavy haulage from the annals of history. There was this 1972 Chevy pickemup towing a 747:

And a Volkswagen Touareg with a 10 cylinder diesel engine having its way with a jumbo jet:

All of those completely off-topic submissions riled a Twitter user by the name of Andrew.

https://twitter.com/AJYTweets/status/996298806210641920

Andrew is correct, of course. The point of all this is not to parse the coefficient of friction of the tires on a jumbo jet or even to compare the strength of a human to that of an internal combustion engine. The point is to show that if a production car with a pair of electric motors can trundle down the tarmac with a half-million-pound load behind, it can probably handle any task you need doing.

People are still skeptical of electric vehicles and many have never experienced the immense torque an electric motor has on tap. This demonstration is intended to dispel any of those misconceptions.

Personally, I was very much impressed with Andrew’s graphic. I have stored it away for future use, believing it will come in handy for some of the debates that happen frequently here on CleanTechnica.

Addendum: The Tesla Model X has also been known to tow semi trucks stuck in the snow and approximately 250,000 pounds of muck rail cars out of a tunnel.

Tesla Model X Tows Semi Truck

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Steve Hanley

Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his home in Florida or anywhere else The Force may lead him. He is proud to be "woke" and embraces the wisdom of Socrates , who said "The secret to change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new." He also believes that weak leaders push everyone else down while strong leaders lift everyone else up. You can follow him on Substack at https://stevehanley.substack.com/ and LinkedIn but not on Fakebook or any social media platforms controlled by narcissistic yahoos.

Steve Hanley has 5918 posts and counting. See all posts by Steve Hanley