Survive a military grade bio attack by sitting in your car, Tesla says

IF YOU’RE in the market for a car, Tesla’s latest hi-tech feature could force your hand. It sounds like something out of the zombie apocalypse.

Tesla says you can survive a biochemical attack with its new air scrubbing filter.

THOSE weighing up whether to buy a Tesla should add the ability to survive a biochemical attack to the ‘pro’ column, the company says.

Tesla has been testing a new in-car filter to “scrub” the air both inside and outside the vehicle in an effort to combat the growing problem of air pollution plaguing major cities.

The HEPA filtration (High Efficiency Particulate Air) was inspired by technology used in hospitals and the space industry.

According to a blog post by Tesla, it is “capable of stripping the outside air of pollen, bacteria, and pollution” before the driver enters as well as systematically scrubbing the air inside the cabin to eliminate traces of such particles.

Statistically speaking, air pollution is more likely to be detrimental to the world’s motorists than car accidents given the huge number of people living in cities with dangerous levels of air pollution.

According to the World Health Organisation, “air pollution is now the world’s largest single environmental health risk” and is responsible for 5.5 million people dying prematurely every year.

Elon Musk’s company is notorious for tackling some of the biggest challenges facing humanity, so the latest feature of the Tesla Model S and Model X shouldn’t really come as a surprise.

Regardless of the outside state of air, drivers will be sitting in a pristine oxygen environment. The company said the filter system has undergone rigorous testing by being placed in what amounted to a bubble full of pollution.

“A Model X was placed in a large bubble contaminated with extreme levels of pollution (1000 µg/m3 of PM2.5 vs. the EPA’s ‘good’ air quality index limit of 12 µg/m3). We then closed the falcon doors and activated Bioweapon Defence Mode,” the blog post explained.

That’s right, it’s called Bioweapon Defence Mode.

Within two minutes it cleaned the air inside the Model X to allow Tesla workers to safely sit inside the vehicle. In the following minutes the filtration system began cleaning the air outside the car reducing the number of unwanted particles by 40 per cent.

“Bioweapon Defence Mode is not a marketing statement, it is real. You can literally survive a military grade bio attack by sitting in your car,” the company said.

Not a bad selling point at all.

Graph supplied by Tesla showing air quality inside the Model X during testing.