Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Tesla has made a power bank for your phone, and it's rather interesting.

  • Designed by Tesla of course, this normally costs about $45 US dollars, but it's completely

  • sold out at the moment.

  • It's interesting that inside the box, this Tesla charger comes with very specific instruction

  • to not disassemble or repair it.

  • So I think it's time to disassemble and repair it.

  • Let's get started.

  • [Intro]

  • This particular charger comes with the lightning port for iPhones, and a detachable micro USB

  • for all those Android phones from 2015.

  • Maybe Tesla will ship a USB-C dongle for their next batch of chargers for the more modern

  • Android phones.

  • The black surface is made from plastic.

  • And the silver protrusion mimicking a cylindrical battery is made from a thin metal.

  • Getting inside this thing is rather difficult and actually involves breaking some of the

  • plastics.

  • It's not designed to be opened up.

  • Once inside we get our first glimpse of the 18650 lithium-ion cell, with a 3300 milliamp

  • capacity.

  • This is the same exact battery found inside many of the Model S and Model X Tesla vehicles,

  • except for, you know, there's thousands of batteries inside those cars and this phone

  • charger just has one.

  • Two screws hold in place both circuit boards on either side of the battery, and the whole

  • contraption can pull away from inside the plastic housing.

  • The neon green battery itself is soldered onto the main board with leads headed to each

  • of the terminals on each side of the battery.

  • The copper wire strung up the side is probably for the temperature sensor.

  • These 18650 batteries are actually extremely common and can be purchased in bulk from Amazon

  • or Ebay for really cheap.

  • So from a repair-ability standpoint, if you can solder, this thing can be replaced.

  • I'll plug it into a power source and we could see the green LED at the end start flashing,

  • indicating that the lithium-ion battery is charging.

  • I'll plug that micro USB port into one of my Nokia phones, and we have power.

  • It's definitely not the biggest power bank, and probably more of a collector's item than

  • anything, but it's still cool that the same technology charging your cell phone is powering

  • some of the coolest and fastest cars on the planet.

  • I'll go ahead and plop the singular cell back into the plastic housing.

  • To restore the plastic housing back to the perfect condition, I'd need some glue since

  • the plastic tabs holding this closed weren't meant to be opened and broke off during my

  • intrusion.

  • I'll toss a link in the description for these Tesla power bands when they become available

  • again.

  • Would you ever get one?

  • Or would you rather save your money and just buy the whole car.

  • I'm still trying to get my hands on a real Tesla to tear down.

  • I'll keep you updated on Twitter.

  • And thanks a ton for watching.

  • I'll see you around.

Tesla has made a power bank for your phone, and it's rather interesting.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it