We knew the Tesla Model S was a very good eco-weapon, but we always took that as a metaphor. Well, somebody doesn’t like beating around the bush and so has turned the electric vehicle into the closest thing possible to an eco-tank.
The modified Model S comes with two “weapon platforms” - one in the back and one in the front - which pop out from the car’s body and pivot around, able to aim in any direction.
Louie Psihoyos is the man to blame for this gun-totting Tesla, and if that name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the director of the Academy Award-winning documentary “The Cove.” He’s not alone in this, though, having gathered a true team of specialists, each with their own skills and perks.
The Tesla plays a part in his latest documentary called “Racing Extinction,” a film which tackles the growing problem of the dwindling number of species, focusing particularly on marine life.
This last aspect explains the electro-luminescent paint job present on the special Tesla, even though it’s not really something new (no less than one year ago, LumiLor showcased this innovative type of paint that looks like any normal gray color during the day, but lights up in any imaginable pattern at night). For the eco-warrior Tesla, the paint was used to mimic the aspect of a bioluminescent fish.
But that’s just the beginning. Up front, an FLIR thermal camera jumps out of the frunk, and with the help of a few special filters, it can measure the CO2 emissions around it. We’re not even going to comment on the fact that there’s a Volkswagen Golf Mk IV in front of the Tesla as this feature is being mentioned...
But the main firepower is at the back, where a 15,000-lumen video projector sticks out through where the rear window should have been and wreaks havoc around it by blasting animations of endangered species on nearby buildings.
When the owners of those buildings are companies that, one way or the other, contribute to their extinction, the message suddenly becomes a lot stronger. When they’re not, it’s just a cool way of bringing nature into the city and making people more aware of the consequences of their actions.
Green-warrior or not, you have to agree this is one of the coolest Teslas around. It may lose some of its drag racing abilities that made it so famous, but it serves a bigger role in this guise. And you can’t really accuse it of being slow: that’s Leilani Münter at the wheel, a professional racecar driver.
Watch the “making off” clip and the trailer for Louie Psihoyos’ latest documentary below.
"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie) Full profile
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