Tesla Model S Goes 1,000+ Miles Without Recharging, but There's a Caveat

Electric vehicles promise lower operating costs and smoothness that no combustion car can match. Add to that supercar performance, and you get why Teslas are the most popular electric vehicles. Following a recent refresh, the Tesla Model S is one of the most efficient cars on the market, with a coefficient of drag of 0.21. It's only matched by Lucid Air, with a figure of 0.197, which also helps the Lucid sedan to go further on a charge than its Tesla rival: up to 520 miles instead of just 405 miles.

To be sure, 405 miles is still a respectable figure, which many carmakers would love to achieve with their EVs. Most EV makers are happy if their cars go more than 300 miles on a charge, which is reasonable to expect these days. But that doesn't mean people wouldn't want their vehicles to go further, even if they don't make road trips more than once or twice a year.

Famous YouTuber Matt Mikka from the Warped Perception YouTube channel is famous for trying to push the boundaries of what his Tesla Model S can do. After installing jet engines on its back, Mikka designed a gas-powered generator that charged the Tesla during driving. The endeavor involved modifying the car since the Model S was not designed to accept a charge while in motion. It was a good effort, although the 24-mpg fuel efficiency was nothing to phone home about.

Mikka promised to find a more efficient solution to charge its "hybrid" Tesla Model S, and he thought a diesel generator would do. He aimed to drive for 1,500 miles straight without stopping for charging or refueling. Eight months later, Mikka's new setup was ready to be test-driven during a 2,700 miles road trip. Remarkably, Mikka designed and manufactured all the components for the generator except the diesel engine.

Given his experience with the previous setup, there's no wonder things worked as expected. Mikka said the Tesla's energy consumption of 52 Wh per mile at peak performance, giving it a theoretical range of more than 1,600 miles with the diesel range extender. Mikka drove 2,700 miles during this road trip, using 77 gallons of diesel fuel. This aligns with his initial goal and translates into roughly 35 mpg efficiency. Considering we're talking about a performance sedan with 700 horsepower, the result is still impressive.

There's only one problem, and that is the noisy diesel engine. Mikka wants to address this in a third iteration of the Tesla hybrid. Hopefully, we'll see the improved version tested on another road trip soon. Watch the video below and see how the hybrid Tesla Model S was built and tested.