Finnish Man Blows Up Tesla Car Rather Than Pay $22,000 To Fix Faulty Battery

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NEW YORK (VINnews) — What do you do when faced with a repair bill for a car which comes to more nearly half the cost of the car? Do you go through with the repair, or decide to sell the car to a junkyard for parts? A frustrated Finnish man faced with this predicament decided to do something a little more extreme: Detonate his car and watch it go up in flames. In an age when such stunts will bring millions of clicks and serious cash to go with them, the man might even succeed in recovering the cost of his car at the same time.

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Tuomas Katainen handed his 2013 Tesla Model S over to Pommijätkät, a group of explosion experts on YouTube who loves to make things go “boom,” after he was quoted $22,600 for a battery replacement. “Well when I bought that Tesla, the first 1,500km [932 miles] were nice,” Katainen recounted. “Then, error codes hit.” After Katainen brought his Tesla to a mechanic, he found out that the only way to fix the car would be to replace the entire battery pack, which would cost him at least 20,000€, or around $22,600. Katainen’s warranty had apparently expired over this period.

The base price for a new 2013 Tesla Model S is $57,400 but a used model would not be worth near that amount. Katainen decided instead to “explode the whole car away.”

The Pommijätkät group strapped 30kg (66 pounds) of dynamite to the car and parked it in an old quarry in Jaala, Finland. Even Elon Musk was there — well, at least in spirit. A crash test dummy outfitted with a helmet, thick winter jacket, and a picture of Musk’s face was dropped in by helicopter and then stuffed in the driver’s seat.

Katainen triggered the explosion from inside a nearby bunker, and the Tesla erupted in a ball of fire, with thousands of pieces scattering throughout the snowy landscape. The group picked up whatever was left of the car, which amounted to a pile of scraps. When asked whether he’s ever had this much fun behind the wheel of a Tesla, Katainen replied, “No, never enjoyed this much with Tesla!”

One responder to the Youtube clip quipped: “That’s how they Finnish a Tesla. Nicely done!”


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SloMo
SloMo
2 years ago

I am not here to defend Tesla but there are two sides to this story, as reported elsewhere.
This particular Tesla was modified by unqualified people. This caused water to enter many areas including the battery. tesla had no obligation to replace or help repair damage caused by outsiders, in fact they were not willing to get involved without rebuilding and retracing every wire to see that it was done right.
teslas might be problematic but pin this on the owner.

Kollelfaker
Kollelfaker
2 years ago

Sooo the battery packs are almost the cost of the car. A née gas engine is much cheaper and quicker to replace

Brainiac
Brainiac
2 years ago

Photobomb

Educated Archy
Educated Archy
2 years ago

Bottom line when we are all forced into only buying electric cars how will I afford repairs? You say I am not forced. But we are. The govt seems to be pushing this a lot. Their solution to the chip shortage is go electric. There has to be other work arounds. One idea is push car companies not to be si high tech. So you won’t have a fancy electric dash board with navigation and Siri. Good olde cars with fewer gadgets. The chips are needed bec we became so obsessed with gadgets and computerization. Skimp on that but make cars more affordable again. Of course they won’t do it because the crazy climate change conspiracy theorists buy into EV. But this is just unaffordable