YouTuber Buys Four Flood-Damaged Teslas Sight Unseen, Sparks Start Flying

B Is For Build is known for some wild car creations, and now he wants to modify some Teslas.

Iulian Dnistran

By: Iulian Dnistran

Jan 28, 2023 at 11:41am ET

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Buying a second-hand car is always a gamble, even when you get the chance to thoroughly inspect it at a garage or with a mechanic friend. You don't know what you're getting because you don't know exactly how the car was maintained and repaired before you bought it, so you bite the bullet and hope for the best.

Well, YouTuber B Is For Build went a step further and bought not one, but four flood-damaged Teslas without having any idea about what was wrong with them and without even seeing them in person.

The YouTube channel is known in the car community for creating some outlandish projects, such as an LS-swapped Lamborghini and a single-seater racing car designed from the ground up, and it was just a matter of time until the channel featured some electric vehicles.

Gallery: 2021 Tesla Model S Plaid Refresh

2021 Tesla Model S Refresh

2021 Tesla Model S 2021 Tesla Model S Plaid 2021 Tesla Model S Plaid Refresh

Chris Steinbacher, who runs the channel, says in the video embedded above that he got some of the damaged Teslas to source parts from them – like the batteries and motors – for some later electrically-powered projects.

He got three Model Ss in various degrees of neglect and damage, and a working Model 3 Performance, although this one has its faults, too, as you'll see in the video.

The problem is, once Chris tries to power up the 12-volt system of one of the cars, something goes wrong and sparks start flying, along with a deep smell of sulfur. This might be because the man in charge of the jump start momentarily put the jump leads the wrong way, which might have shorted the low-voltage system.

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In any case, it's an interesting lineup of damaged Teslas and although we don't know yet what the parts coming off them will be used for, we can assume it will be for something that will be enjoyed by both the EV community and the fans of the internal combustion engine, judging from past projects.

This isn't the first time someone on YouTube messed around with totaled Teslas, with Rich Rebuilds being one of the first out there to put salvage Teslas back on the road and even build the first-ever V8-powered Model S.