Trending · Flying Roadster Part 3: What holds all that air?
COPVs hold air at about 380 bar (170x a car tyre): about 600 L of tanks and 250 kg of air that empty in seconds.
What holds all that air? 🫙💥
1️⃣ HUGE PRESSURE: carbon-fibre tanks at 5,500 psi (about 380 bar). A car tyre is about 32 psi — so that's around 170 times more!
2️⃣ HOW IT'S BUILT: a thin liner wrapped in carbon fibre (a "COPV" tank): light but super strong. Tesla says there are about 600 litres of tanks in the car.
3️⃣ THE CATCH: full thrust empties them in seconds. And a failing tank can explode — in 2016 a tank failure destroyed a SpaceX Falcon 9 on the pad — so these tanks are pressure-tested hard.
Light tanks, huge pressure!
Read the voiceover (transcript)
- What holds all that air?
- Carbon-fibre tanks at five thousand five hundred psi. A hundred and seventy times a car tyre!
- A thin liner wrapped in carbon fibre: light but super strong. About six hundred litres!
- But full thrust empties them in seconds. And a failing tank can explode, so they're tested hard.
- Light tanks, huge pressure!
- Next: how it drives upside down! Follow for part four!
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