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Tesla Model X Breaks Electric Towing Record By Pulling Boeing 787 (inverse.com)
A Tesla Model X has set the world record for heaviest tow by electric production passenger vehicle when it pulled a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner at the Melbourne Airport in Australia. The video can be viewed on YouTube. Inverse reports: As probably expected, the plane far exceeds the Model X's recommended tow limit of around 5,000 pounds. In fact, the weight of the unloaded 787 with a minimal amount of fuel came closer to around 300,000 pounds. The airline pulled the Dreamliner around 1,000 feet down the tarmac. The stunt was part of a wider campaign around Qantas' new work with Tesla, which involves offering high-powered chargers at its Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide facilities as well as offsetting miles for Tesla drivers that are also frequent flyer members.
I towed my 787 the other day and lamented the lack of power my vehicle had.
Reminds me of the time a Toyota Tundra pickup truck towed the Space Shuttle Endeavor... https://www.motor1.com/news/34...
I think there must not be much friction in the system of large airplanes, because people do the same stunt with their teeth. On a flat surface, all you need to do is apply a constant force for a while, and the thing starts moving.
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I read this as a publicity stunt for Qantas mainly. I don't think Elon himself was involved...
Caterpillar, Komatsu, John Deere are all going to be piling on against him, shorting Tesla,
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The towing limit on most cars is because cars accelerate and brake going up and down hills, and have to cope with lateral acceleration forces on the trailer in turns.
In this case, the Tesla is pulling a lot of weight on a dead-flat surface at low speed. All it has to overcome is the inertia of the airliner's mass when accelerating to the 2 mph it seems to be doing in the video, and then overcome the friction of the plane's tires and wheel bearings once up to speed. Electric cars would be especially good at this, as they have no clutch and the highest torque at low rpm.
If you're not convinced any vehicle can tow heavy masses on flat ground with limited frictional forces, check out this video. Or this one...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
What is the ground speed velocity of an unladen Boeing 787 pulled by a Tesla model X ?
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On a flat section of track, your average NFL lineman could pull a train car.
It' not about the weight,. It's about the Friction Force.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The vehicle pulling Tesla into financial viability
A typical tractor for large aircraft weighs up to 54 tonnes (119,000 pounds) and has a drawbar pull of 334 kN (75,000 lbf).
For comparison the weight of an M1 Abrams main battle tank is around 62 metric tons.
The truck industry has *long* done stunts like this to 'prove' how much better than their ratings they are.
Towing enormous loads from a dead stop (on a level surface) is much easier with an electric motor drive vehicle than with one powered by a combustion engine.
An electric motor (absent some pathology in the power supply to it) produces maximum torque at stall. This is ideal for gradually accelerating enormous weights on low-friction level surfaces. (Also great for sprint races, and getting started from a dead stop in general.)
An internal combustion engine has no torque at its output shaft if it's not running. You need some mechanism for driving the stopped wheels from the must-keep-turning engine.
Clutches are a friction brake (with a SMALL length of of spring, so you can recycle most of the energy initially lost to pushing torque through a shaft-speed difference IF you get moving right away.) Try to tow an enormous weight from dead-stop and most of the energy goes to heat the clutch - which quickly fries unless you only engage it in pulses.
Transmissions with torque converters are better. But get moving quickly (in a very low gear, because much of that energy is still turning into heat in the transmission fluid.
Electric motors make heat, too. But only in proportion to the (square of) the torque they produce. So it's the same heat they'd make if they were accelerating the car with the same torque, which they're able to dump quite nicely. Also: They aren't stuck absorbing a LARGE amount of heat because of the minimum speed of the engine shaft. Their controller can apply enough current to get the torque, but this results in much lower voltage (and thus much less total energy) when they're not turning (no back-EMF from the moving motor also acting like a generator to oppose the incoming current). So max torque and only enough HP/watts to produce it.
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