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Using a Tesla model S as a donor.
Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2014 9:45 pm
by Rory166
Reading on the internet I was fascinated to read about a guy buying a damaged Tesla S to use the chassis as the basis for his stretched camper-van to be converted to electric. It cost him $40k to buy the car. After buying spares from Tesla for a while they suddenly refused to sell him any more saying he would have to get his car inspected by Tesla as it might not be safe. Interestingly he found the range rover evoque steering rack was close enough to repair his Tesla one.
rory
Re: Using a Tesla model S as a donor.
Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 4:58 pm
by skooler
Rory166 wrote:Reading on the internet I was fascinated to read about a guy buying a damaged Tesla S to use the chassis as the basis for his stretched camper-van to be converted to electric. It cost him $40k to buy the car. After buying spares from Tesla for a while they suddenly refused to sell him any more saying he would have to get his car inspected by Tesla as it might not be safe. Interestingly he found the range rover evoque steering rack was close enough to repair his Tesla one.
rory
This is Otmar who is the main man behind the 'Zilla' motor controllers. I have no doubt he would be capable of doing this.
Jack Rickard of EVTV seems to have a problem with him and Otmar seems to have disappeared...
Re: Using a Tesla model S as a donor.
Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 7:30 am
by Grumpy-b
Its a freelander steering rack, and even has the Landrover part lable on it. The chassis in the Showroom at West drayton has it on display. A number of the parts are from other vehicles, like the ABS Pump, Suspension air pump, Some of the switch gear is Mercedes Benz.
It makes a lot of sense.
Otmar managed to buy all the parts he needed from TESLA, at what he considered reasonable prices, EVTV did cover the early stages of the project.
He took the largely frontal damaged car, replaced the mechanical parts, fooled aircon CAN etc so that he could run and test the operation of the car, and get it licenced in his state. This he did with an aftermarket headlamp bolted into the NS roughly where a headlight should be. Not sure our VOSA would approve.
He fell out with Jack Rickard at EVTV as he refused to divulge info he had and could get from some TESLA contacts, re the CAN codes etc that makes the car work.
The plan was to take the Stretch Van and put the body over the lenghthened floor pan of the TESLA,
Its an interesting case as TESLA could turn off the car remotely, but can they as he is its rightful owner. I guess thats part of his reason for not divulging data he had found out. His desire to build his stretchla is more important than letting others know / obtain the data and information he has got from the car. Why push TESLA when he didnt need to.
The EVTV episodes earlier in the year are worth a look. Not sure of the dates.
Grumpy-b
Re: Using a Tesla model S as a donor.
Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 9:40 pm
by willfromsussex
If Tesla made something a bit more utilitarian.. put the motor and batteries into something useful like an estate or small van I might be interested, if they fitted some proper knobs and stuff, not the overgrown tablet in the middle of the dash.
Wouldn't mind a go in a Tesla though, there's a showroom in Crawley apparently, about 10 miles from me. I'd not sure i'd have the balls to ask for a test drive having no realistic prospect of buying the car. I've watched all the videos online and the range on a charge is what impressed me more than fancy gadgets.