A Boeing Dreamliner taxiing at Melbourne Airport has received a helping hand, with Tesla's brawny Model X towing the airliner across the tarmac as part of a Guinness World Record attempt.
The vehicle deployed for the stunt was a Model X P100D, which in Tesla speak refers to a 100-kWh battery pack and the D denoting a dual-motor, all-wheel drive. This makes for an on-road towing capacity of 2.5 tons (5,500 lb), but the car went above and beyond that by some margin when it tugged the 130-ton (260,000-lb) aircraft across the tarmac.
It covered almost 300 m (1,000 ft) while dragging the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner along for the ride. That aircraft is a relatively new member of Qantas' fleet, hailed as a game-changer by the airline with the ability to carry out longer-haul flights, including a first ever non-stop commercial service between Australia and London that began in March.
There's no official word from Guinness just yet, though that does appear to be just a formality, with Qantas and Tesla gunning for the record for the "heaviest tow by an electric production passenger vehicle." It is the first time a passenger airliner has been towed by an electric passenger vehicle, although Qantas does already use some electric aircraft tugs at airports in Sydney and Canberra in a bid to reduce its carbon emissions.
See the record-attempt play out in the video below.
Source: Qantas