The Tesla Model X is the world’s best $150,000 minivan, and with that sort price you might expect some nifty features. Features like a Bioweapon Defense Mode, perhaps, which Tesla says can actually save you in the event of a biological attack. Here’s how you turn it on.
Whether or not it will actually save you is, of course, a matter of debate. Mostly because there’s no real way to test it outside of a lab until you take a lovely Sunday drive through some Ebola-infested excrement, but also because the best way to know if you’re under biological attack is because your eyeballs are bulging out of your head and your body is suddenly covered in gaping open sores, and by then it’s too late.
But here’s how it works, anyway, as our techy bretheren over at Gizmodo reported a while back:
“The biodefense button is designed to allow clean medical-grade air into the cabin and keep contaminated air out. When deployed, it pushes the system into full fresh mode, pulling all HVAC air through the HEPA filter. The fan goes to max speed 11, pulling in enough air to slightly pressurize the cabin, keeping other air from entering Model X.”
It’s probably mostly useless in a real attack (despite Tesla’s protestations otherwise), but I can say it made the noxious smell from an idling semi nearby go away. That’s a neat trick.