Tesla owner blows up his car over $22k battery replacement: Report

In a bid to protest against the cost of a replacement battery, a Tesla Model S owner in Finland decided to blow up his electric car with dynamite along with an effigy of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, media reports say.

According to the Daily Mail, Tuomas Katainen blew up his Tesla S Model 2012 with 66 lbs of dynamite after its battery failed and he was faced with the $22,000 repair bill.

Instead of stumping up the cash, the 26-year-old contacted local Youtubers to blow up the car -- for which prices now start at $100,000, the report said.

The Finnish Youtubers agreed to blow up Katainen's car and even put a dummy with Musk's face inside the motor, it added.

The car was strapped with explosives on rugged, snowy terrain in Katainen's native Finland, with the Youtubers training high-definition cameras on the car to capture the explosion in all its glory, from as many angles as possible.

Tesla and Musk have faced a wave of complaints about the cost of replacing a battery, with third party garages providing replacements for a quarter of the cost, as per the report.

According to the auto-tech website Electrek, another Tesla owner in the US was told a battery pack replacement would cost him $22,500 at a Tesla service centre. However, he took it to an independent garage who provided a working replacement battery for $5,000.

The report mentioned that Tesla's warranty covers battery replacements if the capacity drops below 70 per cent within 150,000 miles or eight years of purchase.

However, owners of older models are being left with large repair bills from Tesla as their batteries lose power and give their cars a reduced range, the report said.

--IANS

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