Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Tesla Model X Breaks Electric Towing Record By Pulling Boeing 787 (inverse.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the showing-off dept.

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.

13 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. Should be useful for most drivers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I towed my 787 the other day and lamented the lack of power my vehicle had.

    1. Re:Should be useful for most drivers... by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 5, Funny

      Many gas or diesel vehicles going down the highway can pull this plane.

      Yes, but this was just one car pulling it by itself; not many gas and diesel vehicles. ;)

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    2. Re: Should be useful for most drivers... by Junta · · Score: 5, Informative

      You would stand a better chance than you think.

      There are generally three things about towing capacity weight:
      -Ability to *accelerate* at acceptable road speed. Note that in this case, they only accelerated it to slow walk speed.
      -Ability to *stop* the mass behind you, which is all about brakes and nothing to do with the engine/motor (here the 787 is responsible for stopping itself.
      -Tongue weight. This is generally specified separately, but there is some assumption about a trailer's tongue weight. Again, this is not about the motor/engine. Of course here there's negligble tonge weight.

      This isn't an *anti* tesla view. The truck industry has *long* done stunts like this to 'prove' how much better than their ratings they are. This is the same sort of stunt as people pulling a train with their teeth, a very difficult thing to be sure, but more plausible than one would intuitively think.

      Of course, I wouldn't call it an 'anti-ad', but it's also not 'only the model-x can pull this sort of weight' in reality.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    3. Re: Should be useful for most drivers... by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 4, Informative

      and I wouldn't stand a chance if I attempted to pull sixty times my vehicle's curb weight.

      USAF, we used to push or pull F-16 or F-15, by hand. 4 guys, 30,000 lbs of aircraft. Not far, and zero grade. But it was done.
      You do the math.

  2. Re:not much friction by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 5, Funny

    In fact, the weight of the unladen 787 with a minimal amount of fuel came closer to around 300,000 pounds.

    So was it and African or European Model X . . . ?

    You have to know these things if you're a King, like Musk.

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  3. I don't mean to rain on Quantas' parade, but... by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
    1. Re:I don't mean to rain on Quantas' parade, but... by swb · · Score: 4, Informative

      You can go to any airport and see a tiny tug vehicle moving a giant airplane around.

      To be honest, I often wonder why those tugs didn't go electric years ago, like giant golf carts or something. Traction motors can deliver torque at extremely low RPM, they don't need any range and can be plugged in easily. I'd wager the tugs they use now have diesel engines that will run off jet fuel which is abundant at an airport.

    2. Re:I don't mean to rain on Quantas' parade, but... by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Informative

      The problem is if you have to brake in a turn, if that trailer starts going sideways or yanking you sideways you'll have no control at all.

      Towing limits are affected by literally every part of a vehicle which is involved in its actual function. The frame or unit body, suspension, brakes, powertrain, wheels, and tires all play their part. Tow ratings are limited by all of these components. Further, each of these components has multiple factors; the frame/body not only has to be able to handle the stresses involved, but its size is a factor; increasing the distance between the tow hitch and the rear axle means decreasing the amount of weight you can place on the tongue, for example, because too much will lift the front axle off of the ground and prevent steering. Consequently, shorter vehicles tend to have higher tow ratings, all else being equal. However, a longer wheelbase is also better for towing, because it means more end-to-end stability...

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. People Pulling Train Car by sycodon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:People Pulling Train Car by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We see this type of stunt all the time. Often with Pickup Truck commercials. But this plays to Tesla's marketing strategy, of Showing their all electric cars to be just as powerful if not more so, then the best gasoline cars in their classification.

      Which is opposed to other electric car makers who show off these cars as just Electric, but nothing really exciting about them, and rather lack luster in comparison of other cars in their class.

      The stunt of pulling a 747 or a freight train... When using a flat surface and properly conditioned low friction wheels. Just needs enough energy to get past the static friction, then energy to account to the existing friction. Now if the Testla would be able to accelerate the plane from 0 to 15mph in 10 seconds that would be impressive.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:People Pulling Train Car by Luthair · · Score: 4, Interesting

      People have pulled planes, in fact the record is a guy pulling one weighing 418,000 lbs. Seems hard to know why we'd care about a car doing it.

  5. the real trick will be ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    The vehicle pulling Tesla into financial viability

  6. MUCH easier with electric motor drive. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way