At the launch of the new Tesla Model X, company founder Elon Musk at one point had a chart out showing the car’s worthiness in case of a bioweapon attack. Well, now experts have come out to dismiss his claims, negating everything he said on the subject.
Gizmodo asked actual military guys that had experience with bioweapons ifa there was any weight behind Musk’s claims. The short answer is no, there isn’t any, as confirmed by Colonel Randall Larsen, who served in the US Air Force and was the director of the Institute for Homeland Security.
Apparently, the filtering system used by the Model X is worthy and capable of protecting its occupants from bacterial contaminants such as anthrax. What the all-electric SUV uses is called a HEPA filter, short for high-efficiency particulate arrestance, but it doesn’t stand a chance against a virus.
Colonel Larsen says “I first thought about this right after 9/11 when we were just looking for a lot of practical things for people to do, and one of them is, you just push that button that most cars have, that says you stop pulling in outside air.”
He continues by explaining that “any good car that has a good seal on the doors and windows and everything, and if you went to the inside air to recycle, I think it’s going to provide you a lot of protection.”
The bottom line is the filtering system is useful, but only if you`re really close to where the bioweapon is set off, and even then it only protects you from larger agents but not viruses. You’re really better off just shutting off the outside air supply completely in a bioweapon emergency and hoping that the car itself is properly sealed.