Finnish Man Blows Up His Tesla to Protest $22,600 Repair Cost

A Finnish Tesla owner received a repair bill totaling almost half of what he initially paid for the car. His response? Have YouTubers blow up the car with 66 pounds of dynamite and post the video rather than pay the hefty bill.

The Verge reports that a Finnish Tesla owner named Tuomas Katainen recently received a quote on having the battery in his 2013 Tesla Model S vehicle replaced. He was shocked by the bill of $22,600, perhaps not knowing Tesla’s notorious reputation for massive repair costs. Katainen discussed his experience with the car stating: “Well when I bought that Tesla, the first 1,500km [932 miles] were nice. Then, error codes hit.”

Katainen brought his car to a mechanic who told him that the only way to fix the vehicle was to replace the entire battery pack for around €20,000, or $22,600. Katainen decided this wasn’t worth it, especially when considering that the base price for a new 2013 Tesla Model S starts at $57,400, later increasing to $59,500 when the car was first launched. A used model usually goes for $30,000 or more.

So Katainen went and picked his car up from the mechanic, simply stating that he was going to “explode the whole car away.”

Katainen donated the vehicle to Pommijätkät, a group of explosion experts on YouTube that regularly blows up various items. The YouTubers strapped 66 pounds of dynamite to the Tesla Model S parked in an old quarry in Jaala, Finland.

A crash test dummy wearing a helmet, a thick winter jacket, and a picture of Tesla CEO Elon Musk was dropped in via helicopter and placed in the driver’s seat. Katainen then triggered the explosion from inside a nearby bunker and watched as the Tesla exploded into a ball of flames.

When asked if he ever had this much fun behind the wheel of the car, Katainen responded: “No, never enjoyed this much with Tesla!”

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com