A project with a lot of potential.
Besides electric vehicles, we're also suckers for recycling. So, when a project puts both of these things together, well, we're in. What you see in the video above is a trailer made from the aluminum shell of a battery pack pulled from a salvage Tesla Model S. And it's awesome.
More recycling action
Rich Benoit is the host of the YouTube channel Rich Rebuilds (formerly, Car Guru), and he uses the platform to showcase his passion for rebuilding Tesla electric vehicles. In this latest episode, he shows us how he and a friend, from a suggestion made on Facebook, took the empty carcass of a battery pack and turned it into a functioning trailer. Not only is this a pretty cool project as a simple accessory to pull behind a car but because of its unique origins, it could be returned to at least part of its former glory as a battery pack while retaining its newfound hauler functionality.
Now, if you haven't watched the video, just know that the project looks a lot better by the end than it does in the screen capture image above. It's got fenders and a lip running along its outermost edge to help keep things in place. It's also been painted. Future modifications will add LED lights, along with, perhaps, a Tesla battery module to power them.
If it does anything, the video whets our appetite for more. Not just more trailers, but more variations on this theme. We can imagine turning one of these into a mini pop-up camper. With more modules reinstalled, it could not only power everything you might want to bring on a weekend getaway into the wilderness, it could possibly even act as a reserve storage for the electric vehicle pulling it. The roof could have solar panels to help keep it charged up.
While we continue mulling the potential variations for this rig, feel free to share your own thoughts in comments. If you're curious about the man behind the video, we've embedded a recent (and very awesome) episode from Vice that tells his story. Enjoy!
Source: YouTube
