Gary Zhou 
Recently, a Tesla owner driving along the Qiantang River near Hangzhou in China came face-to-face with something no driver would ever want to see, a massive inland tidal wave. Yet as videos of the incident ultimately showed, the Tesla would prove to be quite resilient, seemingly functioning just fine after getting soaked by water.
A video of the incident recently made its way through Weibo, which was then shared widely across the social media platform. The sudden tidal bore (a form of tidal wave) rushed onto the lane, flooding multiple cars and damaging seven vehicles in the process, as noted in a post by the Zhenhai Traffic Police. Based on the footage, it appeared that numerous vehicles were inoperable following the incident.
A Tesla Model S was among the cars involved in the incident. Tesla’s Dashcam video showed just how aggressive the wave was as it carried the cars off the lane. However, as luck would have it, despite getting heavily soaked, the Tesla remained operating allowing the driver to leave the scene of the incident seemingly without any problem.
Of course, one might claim that the Tesla was very fortunate because a nearby bus ended up taking the brunt of the tidal wave. Nevertheless, before leaving a group of inoperable ICE cars behind, there is certainly something really impressive about seeing an all-electric car shrugging off a huge wall of water. After all, the incident was no joke, with insurance agencies for the vehicles involved already agreeing to settle the claims of the owners, as per a local police report.
Tidal bores such as those that were depicted in the video are actually normal for the region. The phenomenon is caused by seawater going upwards along the Qiantang River as a result of gravitational force from the moon and sun making the waves a daily occurrence for residents. The tidal bores of the Qiantang River are among the world’s largest, with tides rising up to 30 feet and moving as high as 40 km/h (about 25 mph). Although frequent, tidal bores could be extremely destructive in the Hangzhou region, particularly for those living near the river bank.
Tesla’s electric cars have been found to be capable during floods. In China alone, videos of Model 3s crossing deep waters made the rounds on social media platforms in the region. Elon Musk himself noted that, thanks to their sealed batteries and powertrains, Teslas could actually function as boats of sorts for short periods of time.
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