
Tesla’s bioweapon mode is a stroke of genius for developing markets - CapitalistCartr
http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/02/tesla-bioweapon-mode-for-whiffy-cities/
======
dang
The original announcement is discussed at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11617945](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11617945).

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xoa
I wonder if Tesla is considering a potential regulatory advantage as well,
which though by nature more iffy (since it's down to the whims of leadership)
could still be a very potent marketing point. One technique for pollution
reduction that China at least as implemented is to simply brute force reduce
the number of allowed cars on the road (though even for them it's hard to
enforce), for example by having odd/even license plate days. However, an
electric car obviously contributes nothing, and it seems like a number of
genuine interests would exist to exempt them from any road restrictions. To a
lot of people a guaranteed license to legitimately drive when a traditional
vehicle would be banned could be worth a major premium. It could make a lot of
sense for Tesla to go very, very hard on a full package environmental
protection (both internal and external) offering, because a lot of favorables
line up for them. The most polluted places simultaneously make their
advantages far more important and also contain higher percentages of people
with the money to pay for a Tesla, even in countries that are lower on the
average nationwide GDP/capita or HDI scales.

~~~
slg
>However, an electric car obviously contributes nothing...

Electric cars are the future and are much cleaner alternative, but can we not
bend the facts like this? Electric cars use electricity to charge. Lots of
electricity comes from fossil fuels (about 2/3 in the US and higher in China).
Using your electric car in turn almost always results in using fossil fuels.
Reducing driving results in less electric which results in less fossil fuel
which results in less pollution. The quantities are certainly different but
the equation is still the same.

~~~
r00fus
Power stations are much much more efficient than that tiny ICE engine in a gas
car... even including transmission losses.

Furthermore, decoupling the (potentially) pollution production of energy with
the emissions at the tailpipe allow situations where power production can be
slowly transitioned to cleaner while gaining an immediate pollution reduction
local to the vehicles (in city center).

~~~
estreeper
I was curious how much more efficient, and it seems that a good measure is
"well-to-wheels" efficiency, which encompasses the full cycle of fuel
production through consumption. It turns out it depends a lot on how dirty
energy production is, and the article I found [0] (from 2012) argues that for
greenhouse gas emissions for the U.S. population:

\- 18% will have lower impact with an efficient gasoline car

\- 37% will have about the same impact with EVs or efficient gasoline cars

\- 45% will be better off with EVs

So, if you live in an area that uses a lot of coal for production, the benefit
is not likely to be large on greenhouse gas emissions, but localized pollution
becomes less of a problem, though in many countries (like China) large
populations live near power plants anyways. However,

> power production can be slowly transitioned to cleaner

This is an important argument, since the impact of cleaner generation is
further leveraged by the amount of EVs out there.

[0]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/automobiles/how-green-
are-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/automobiles/how-green-are-electric-
cars-depends-on-where-you-plug-in.html?_r=0)

~~~
foota
For those curious the report the article is based on can be found at:
[http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/docu...](http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/electric-
car-global-warming-emissions-report.pdf)

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kosmic_k
I originally thought the bioweapon mode was a gimmick. Now that I think about
China, India, and the air quality common there I feel that Tesla really is
onto something very clever here.

~~~
eklavya
They really are, commerical diesel vehicles just got banned in Delhi by the
supreme court. The situation is favorable to Tesla. An affordable electric
vehicle could be an instant hit. Even in other cities there has been a drastic
reduction in air quality with a booming middle class and the number of cars
increasing. (In my city it increased to 1.5 times in a year!!).

I am not holding my breath for Tesla to make an appearance here (with an
affordable to middle class) offering but it would be awesome if they did.

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27182818284
I feel like the bioweapon filter is going to go down as one of those features
Engineers were like "Why not, haha?!" about that ends up being ubiquitous.
Akin to 20% time projects that end up growing into actual projects

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Aelinsaar
The "Bioweapons" pitch is a little laughable, but as someone with allergies
I'm still totally on board for the actual product and what it actually can do.

~~~
jd20
Agreed, this has good potential for developed countries as well. Makes me
wonder what the home equivalent of "bioweapon mode" is too, looking at the
main filter in my home's HVAC system, it's certainly far from advanced...

~~~
extrapickles
You would also need to mod your homes HVAC system to pull in air from the
outside so it can positively pressurize the house with filtered air as houses
are very leaky[1], especially when doors are opened.

[1]:
[https://www.energycodes.gov/sites/default/files/documents/BE...](https://www.energycodes.gov/sites/default/files/documents/BECP_Buidling%20Energy%20Code%20Resource%20Guide%20Air%20Leakage%20Guide_Sept2011_v00_lores.pdf)

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Raphmedia
I would buy a Tesla for this feature alone. Allergies in the summer are
terrible, especially when driving through rural regions.

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Unklejoe
Is there some fundamental difference between this feature and the built-in in-
cabin air filter that my 2002 Nissan Maxima had? It seems like it's the same
exact thing, but maybe the Tesla has a better filter and a more air tight
cabin?

I bet my 2011 BMW 335i would probably perform just as well since that cabin is
much more air tight. All air passes through a massive filter which I believe
contains a normal paper element as well as a charcoal element for odor.

Cars have had cabin filters for a long time now. The primary purpose is to
reduce dust an allergies.

I have a hard time believing that the car is air tight enough to prevent
actual bioweapon particles from entering after any extended period of time. Of
course, the amount of particles required to be harmful plays a big role in the
overall effectiveness of this.

Is there some other aspect that I am missing?

[EDIT]: It seems like HEPA specifications are more strict than that of the
average cabin filter in terms of particle size. This clearly separates the
Telsa from other implementations.

~~~
bryanlarsen
The Tesla in bioweapons mode maintains positive pressure -- ie, the air inside
the car is pressurized to a higher pressure than the outside air.

~~~
Unklejoe
Makes sense. That should help keep outside air (other than through the main
filter) out of the car.

However, there's also positive pressure inside my BMW when the HVAC system is
running. This is one of the reasons that the windows slide down ~1cm when you
open the door and slide back up after you close it. It makes it easier to
close the door. Even with that, it takes a considerable amount more force to
close the door when the HVAC system is running.

The HVAC system in the BMW was probably not designed with the intent of
stopping bioweapons, but what I'm alluding to is that I'd be curious to see
the same air quality tests performed on other cars which include in-cabin air
filters.

Maybe they all work that well?

I don't think the BMW has a HEPA filter though. However, it should be good
enough. I found the following online (though not from the best of sources):

\----- Cabin air filters are very efficient and have electrostatically charged
fibers that can trap particles smaller than 1 micron in size. Most quality
cabin air filters will stop 100% of all particles that are 3 microns or larger
in size and 95-99% of particles in the 1-3 micron size range. \----

[http://www.underhoodservice.com/tech-tip-cabin-air-
filter-q-...](http://www.underhoodservice.com/tech-tip-cabin-air-filter-q-a/)

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mmaunder
Tesla will take the pain of innovation and China will just copy the IP and do
it themselves.

There is simply no way the Chinese market (and it's authorities) would let a
foreign company come in and become the dominant incumbent in a nascent market
like electric cars.

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LoSboccacc
Unsubstantiated claim can result in lawsuit in developed markets tho.

~~~
Analemma_
It's not totally unsubstantiated, Tesla did post this:
[https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/putting-tesla-hepa-
filter-a...](https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/putting-tesla-hepa-filter-and-
bioweapon-defense-mode-to-the-test). Of course you should have a healthy
degree of skepticism regarding tests Tesla did itself and maybe the numbers
are massaged a little, but I doubt they'd straight-up lie. It seems like this
test would be pretty easy to replicate by an independent source too, if
someone wanted to try.

Edit: I did not see that there's already an entire HN discussion thread about
this post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11617945](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11617945)
which discuss other possible weaknesses. Still, even with the usual HN
nitpicking, I think it comes out pretty good.

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jsingleton
If they are successful in getting the world to switch to electric vehicles
(and I hope they are) then they may not even need these in the future.

~~~
wolf550e
Fossil-fuel power plants that charge a Tesla pollute quite a bit, so you need
to switch to electric vehicles and non-polluting energy generation to fix air
pollution.

~~~
r00fus
That's a red herring, unless you're going to do a full EROEI and compare the
cost of petroleum extraction and delivery with the power generated from a
power plant.

Electric cars are simply cleaner - and by far. It gets far more interesting
once you add in externalities like wars for oil or the nascent pervasiveness
of solar power.

~~~
seanp2k2
Someone did: [http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electric-cars-
green](http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electric-cars-green)

TL;DR right now EVs pollute about as much as a normal car getting 40MPG. There
were ICE cars in the mid 80s doing better than that on combined mpg:
[http://www.motherearthnews.com/green-transportation/green-
ve...](http://www.motherearthnews.com/green-transportation/green-
vehicles/miles-per-gallon-cars-zb0z11zblon.aspx)

Edit: solar was 0.6% of total power generated in the US in 2015 :
[https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3)

Solar panels aren't the easiest thing to manufacture. Consider how much energy
mining and refining the toxic components and intermediaries of cells uses.
[http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-
isnt-...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt-always-
as-green-as-you-think)

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coherentpony
Why the focus on China and India? By their own graphic, the Republic of Korea
is the country that features the largest number of polluted cities, yet it
isn't mentioned once in the article text.

~~~
duskwuff
The large dark blue segment in the top left, labeled "17.5%", is "other
countries". The slices of that pie chart are labeled in clockwise order; Korea
is one of the tiny unlabeled slices in the lower left.

~~~
coherentpony
Oh wow. I am an idiot. Thanks for pointing that out. I withdraw my previous
criticism, but I'll leave it there so people can rightfully downvote it.

~~~
stellar678
Nah, it's a terrible graph. I had exactly the same understanding as you did.

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ctdonath
Will this be the norm on the Model 3?

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collias
Almost definitely not. The filter is currently part of a $3000 option package
on the Model S and X. It may be an option, but I would be incredibly surprised
if it came standard on the Model 3.

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CptJamesCook
You can get the equivalent of this inside your home with the IQAir HealthPro
Plus Air Purifier.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Except you don't get positive pressure, which would require a really big fan
or very tight seals.

~~~
CptJamesCook
That doesn't stop it from removing 97% of the pollutants from the air.

~~~
bryanlarsen
According to the linked article, the Tesla hits 97% in less than 2 minutes,
and hits unmeasurable after 3, which is 99.9% or better.

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sickbeard
Does nothing for the common man. Are you gonna hide in your car all day?

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FreedomToCreate
Only available to the rich. They have quite a bit of work to do to make this
affordable enough to became a standard feature on sub 40K cars.

~~~
joezydeco
What does it cost to replace the filters? Never seen that mentioned anywhere.

~~~
plorkyeran
A replacement HEPA filter for my room air filter is ~$10, so I'd be surprised
if it was even $100 with labor.

~~~
joezydeco
Your $10 filter is made by the millions. The Tesla one is going to be highly,
highly custom and in low production quantities. It's also very large:

[http://i1.wp.com/evobsession.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/09/...](http://i1.wp.com/evobsession.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/09/Tesla-Model-X-air-filter.png)

I'd go a few Benjamins higher if I had to guess.

