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.