Original subtitles

What the...

Oh, my goodness.

-[Bisi] Uh, Tory. -Hey, guys.

-What are you doing? -Nothing.

-[Faye] Actually... -[Bisi] Oh, my God, he has an EV.

Yes, destroy it!

No, no, no. That has lithium batteries in it.

Um, Tory, I don't think you wanna do... No, we can't...

-Are you going to crush it? -No!

Watch this.

[Bisi] Tory, please, no, no.

-Tory, please, wait! -[Faye gasps]

-Don't, don't... -Yes, yes, yes!

[narrator] Meet the team.

We'll be at work in no time.

This might be the miracle coolant that everybody's been searching for.

[narrator] With the mechanical expertise...

[Faye] My main concern is structural integrity.

I think this is going to work.

[narrator] ...to test all things automotive.

That was beautiful.

[Bisi] The more air we push through, the more fuel will siphon out.

And, boom!

[narrator] This is Motor MythBusters...

This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

[narrator] ...where science meets the streets.

-[Bisi] Don't, don't... -[Faye] Yes, yes, yes!

-Crush it! Crush it! -What is this?

What the hell is that pink little car with a Buster on it?

This is very confusing, Tory.

-What is he doing? -[Faye] He's going to destroy it.

-No, don't drive it. -[Bisi] What are you doing? Stop.

[Tory laughing]

[Faye] What-- What?

All right, there is some method to my madness.

-No. -Yes, yes.

[Tory] There is this myth.

A guy in Texas was driving an electric car during a flood.

The flood sweeped him down the road,

but because it was an electric car,

he was able to drive out of the flood.

Because it was an electric car?

-Yeah. -Yup.

Oh, was the car partially in the water, or completely submerged?

[Tory] If it's a flood, the car was probably completely submerged.

[Faye] I'm not buying it.

As a kid, you're taught, like, "Wash your hair, get out of the tub,

dry your hair outside the tub."

-You know, if you drop your hairdryer in, you know-- -Right.

You could get electrocuted.

Right, so the driver has a very good chance of being electrocuted.

Yeah.

So we're going to have to figure out a way to do that safely.

This is purely direct current,

but that also has DC batteries,

but the motor in that is AC,

-so similar to what you'd see in your hairdryer. -Right.

So, there's a converter that converts the DC current to alternating

for it to be able to move.

-Mmm-hmm. -So I don't know if this is going to work.

Depends on how well-sealed that EV is.

Well, I think the plan will be,

we'll dig a giant trench the size of the electric car.

-Okay. -We'll fill it with plastic, fill it up with water,

-and then, drive the car in, and drive it out. -Oh.

[Faye] EVs have tons of electrical connectors,

and manufactures will do their best

to protect these key components from the elements.

But with the high-voltage battery packs housed in the under carriage,

that makes them extremely vulnerable to deep water.

I mean, after all, these things are not meant to be amphibious.

All right, well, how deep are we going to have to make this thing?

-[Tory] Say, what, 6 feet? -Six?

[all] Yeah.

Oh, my goodness. Okay. And length?

Probably, maybe about 10 feet that way

-and then 10 feet this way. -Absolutely.

-I was going to say a car length. Yeah. -Make a little ramp.

-Drive in, submerge, drive out. -So this is how long

it's going to be... Yeah.

Yeah, let's see how long it is.

14.5 feet long,

and how much wider?

I mean, we're going to need some width here.

I would say, let's probably give it like a foot on either side.

-Oh. -Wait a second. Wait a second.

A foot is not enough

for one of us to open up the door

and save whoever the hell is stuck in here.

No one's going to be inside the car.

Oh, what are you thinking?

I'm thinking I'm going to build some kind of a rig

where I can drive the vehicle from the roof.

If something does go wrong,

the person inside isn't stuck and doesn't drown or get electrocuted.

Well, let's see how wide it is from mirror to mirror.

All right, sounds good.

I'll go on this side.

Uh-- we got about 6.5--

-a little more than 6.5 feet here. -Okay. Huh.

So that'll be the end of our ramp coming out.

Cool.

Oh, Bisi, looking good.

-Faye, getting a little snaky... -I'm a little wiggly.

[chuckles] It's okay.

[Tory laughing] All right.

So we have our electric car, we've just plotted out our pool.

Now what we need to do is actually dig out the trench,

cover it with plastic, put pavers in it,

fill it with water, and then,

drive this car, somehow, safely into the water.

That's straight.

Straight-ish.

[narrator] Yup, a controlled flash flood will allow the guys

to safely submerge the EV

and then test its ability, post dunking to drive right on out of the water.

[Faye] This sounds absolutely crazy to me.

I don't think there's any way this electric car is going to drive in,

and actually drive out under its own power.

I've dealt with a lot of hybrids in my line of work,

and a little bit of water, just the slightest bit of water,

and these things, they don't like it all.

The modules will explode, everything goes wrong.

So, I, personally, am very doubtful.

But, you know, I like big tractors, so I'm just happy to watch.

Look how serious he is, look at this.

I know, I know, he's all focus.

-He's all concentration. -He's all focus.

-I got something stuck in my tooth. -[Bisi laughs]

Hey, beats digging ditches, huh?

[Bisi laughs]

We're testing the myth, if you drive an electric car into the water,

you can drive it right out, and nothing will happen to the car.

Now, I want to drive this car,

but there is a very good chance that I could get electrocuted.

So, I had this idea of how we can drive still, and do it safely.

I'm going to extend the controls by building a set of mounts

that will attach directly to the cars pedals, and the steering wheel.

These are my pedals for the gas...

and the brake.

We'll just attach our rod,

and then I can just hit the brake

or floor it.

Okay, so, as you can see, the extended controls are coming together.

And now, I'm just getting the angle of the rod,

so that way, I can control it from the top.

[narrator] To protect himself from getting fried,

Tory's installing an insulated polymer bucket

fixed to a plywood platform.

Now, before we go any farther, we just want to make sure our deck is strong enough.

So Dave is going to give it a little strength test.

Hit it, Dave.

[Dave] All right.

[country music playing]

[Tory applauding]

Looks strong to me.

[Dave] I think so.

[narrator] Yup, and with the addition of a racing seat,

the rooftop cockpit is waterproof and non-conductive.

[Tory] Okay.

Yep, this feels ridiculous.

[vocalizes driving sounds]

All right, now that the chair is mounted to the top of the car,

we're going to make some last-minute checks

on the angle of our extension rod.

Once we have those in position,

we can cut holes through the roof,

and then, we'll attach it all,

and then, we'll be able to drive from roof of the car.

Oh, yeah.

[Tory] There we go.

That looks perfect.

Then it's just a matter of fitting

the fiberglass coated pedals, and steering wheel.

And sealing up the holes to make it watertight.

We have done nothing to modify this car

except extended the way we control it.

And all the materials are made out of non-conductive materials.

So if this car does decide to start shocking,

I won't be anywhere near it.

Last thing we have to do is button everything up, and go for a ride.

With the gearshift and power controls below deck,

this test run is a two-man job.

So Dave is in the passenger seat to put the car in drive

and also standing by, so if the car goes out of control,

he can stop it.

Here we go.

Oh, ho-ho, ho-ho, this is awesome.

Everybody should drive like this.

[Dave] Everything seems to be working fine.

[Tory] Oh, this is rad.

All right, it works.

It 100% works.

You want to throw it into reverse?

-[Dave] All right. -I have full control.

This is-- this is going to be perfect.

I'll be up here, nice and safe,

we'll drive the car into the water.

If it decides to explode,

let it.

All right, you want to go ahead and throw it into park?

That worked great.

-[Dave] It all looked good in here, too. -Yeah.

Good job.

-Yeah, you too. That was fun. -We did it. We did it.

This car is as safe as I think it can be.

Now all we have to do is drive it into a pool of water.

Wreck it all, huh?

[both laugh]

[Tory] When it comes to the full-scale testing

of our EV's ability to survive being submerged,

it won't be safe to have anyone inside the vehicle.

So Bisi's getting busy on a modification

that'll allow me to kill the power from the roof if I run into trouble.

[Bisi] In the event of an emergency,

we need him to be able to disengage

this high-voltage cutoff switch

and have the vehicle dead in the water.

We have a safety tab here that'd be difficult for us to initiate,

so I'm going to remove this tab by simply breaking it off.

And that's it.

So now, our tab can pull up with a rope

and easily remove it in the case that something goes wrong.

So I'm going to put a nice hole into the ceiling.

I'm going to use this rope as a way to activate

a proper shutdown sequence.

[blows]

Okay, now I'm going to test the system and see if it works extremely well.

When I pull this up, it should disconnect nicely.

Okay, one, two, three.

Oh, easy. I even felt a nice jolt from it,

so it's working quite well.

I'm going to clean everything up, seal the hole,

and Tory will be ready to go.

Hold that there.

Perfect.

Let me set the scene.

We are about to test the myth

that you can drive an electric car into water and drive out safely.

So we dug a ditch, we have actually lined it plastic,

filled it with water.

We have our pool set, we have our car insulated,

and I have the controls on top of the roof.

What do you guys think is going to happen?

You think it's just going to drive right through?

Are you going to go fast, are you going to take it slow?

I think what I'm going to do is just, kind of roll in.

'Cause I think if I try to gun it in,

there's a good chance that I might flip the car.

But if I roll it in slowly,

it'll probably start filling up with water, and it'll allow it to sink.

I think you may get some buoyancy, just a little bit...

-[both] Yeah. -...before you settle down.

-I think it'll be successful. -[Faye] Yeah.

What do you think?

The batteries, the electronics are in the floor,

so I think it actually is going to short itself out

and not be able to drive back out.

-[Bisi laughs] -All right.

It's a very dangerous excursion, and to keep you safe,

I have this pull mechanism that you just grab with a rope,

and it completely disables the high-voltage system.

Okay, get those on.

Secondly, I have some sensors.

One I'm going to place in the water,

another one, inside the compartment

that will beep very loudly if any electricity

is witnessed inside the pool of water.

Hopefully, we never get to hear those go off.

[Faye] I also have some things safety-wise

that I think you're really going to need.

-Let's hear it. -I got some buoys.

-[Tory] Ah, I love it. -Yeah.

-You're going to attach buoys to the outriggers. -[Faye] Uh-huh.

This is going to help prevent the car from flipping over.

Whether it comes this side or this side,

it, sort of, acts as a buoyancy device.

-You won't flip over... -That way if I drive it, I don't flip the car.

-Right. -That's a good call.

All right.

You guys ready to drive this toaster into the water?

-Toaster? -[Faye squeals]

-Let's do this. -[Faye] Mmm-hmm!

[Tory] So this is just a safety precaution.

I'm going to be strapped in to this,

so that way, they can actually pluck me out of the car seat and to safety.

My life is in your hands.

I got nervous all of a sudden.

-[Faye laughs] -[Bisi] You do realize what we're doing here.

Okay.

-Good luck, brother. -Thank you.

-See you on the other side. -No, don't say that.

-No, the other side of the water. -Of the pond?

-[Faye] Yeah. -[Tory] Okay.

You guys ready?

This is "Electric Car Driving Into Water."

All right, here we go!

[screams, laughs]

[Bisi] Just take it easy. Nice and slow.

Stay on the path.

-Still moving. -[Tory laughing]

-Okay, he's going in. -Whoa!

See how deep that looks?

[Faye] Yeah, it's a lot deeper than it looks.

[Bisi] That's crazy, right? Like, it's an optical illusion.

-It looks like it's not deep. -[Tory] Oh...

-[Bisi] We see bubbles coming out-- -...I feel like I'm floating.

-Whoa, we are going deep. -[Faye] Oh! I totally love destruction!

-[Bisi] Okay, but so far, he's not moving at all. -[Faye] Yeah.

-Not moving. -[Tory] Oh, we are 100% floating.

-[Faye] Yup -So my wheels must be spinning right now because...

-[Bisi] Yeah, it was. -[Faye] No, they're not moving at all.

Your foot's on the gas?

I'm flooring it right now.

-[Bisi] Oh... -[Faye] Oh...

[Faye] It's dead.

-Is it not moving? -No.

Not moving at all?

No, no, your wheels are not turning.

-Oh, my gosh. -[Bisi] But my sensors are not going off.

-[Faye] Yeah. -But something shut everything off.

-[Faye] Yeah, yeah. -Uh, I think it's called water.

-Yeah. -Yeah.

[Bisi] So there's a arrow on the dash with a battery logo.

-Yup. -And that's not that much depth.

[Faye] That really isn't.

[Bisi] It's all the way to Buster's knees almost.

[Faye exclaims] Yeah.

I'm surprised, I really thought that there would be more protective capabilities

-for such a shallow depth, but... -Yeah.

It didn't even make it halfway.

But what I'm curious about is if we dry this out, will it run again?

[Faye] Yeah, and then maybe we can see where the damage occurred.

We'll tow the car out,

let it drain, and see if it starts up again.

[Bisi] Sounds good.

Well, that was anticlimactic.

We had everything working perfectly.

The car drove into the water.

I was expecting to see something.

Maybe sparks, maybe smoke.

But nothing, the car just died as soon as we hit the water.

Maybe it just short-circuited, I have no idea.

[Faye] What we do know is our shock detectors did not trigger.

So Buster wasn't electrocuted because the EV's safety system likely kicked in

and shielded the high-voltage system before it died.

And I think what we need to do is pull it out of the water, let it dry,

and see if we can figure out what exactly happened.

I think that's good there, we'll just chock it.

[Bisi] So we're here back at the shop,

and I let the vehicle sit for quite a while to dry out.

We're going to take a look and see if we can find out what exactly happened.

As you may recall, as you were driving to the pool of water,

when we got up to this level, the vehicle completely stopped.

[both] Yeah.

Water, which had a bit of ways to connect our positive and negative terminals,

pretty much killed our entire 12-volt system

and rendered the vehicle inoperable.

-You think that was the main problem? -That was the main problem.

Because the 12-volt system controls everything.

It controls the controller itself,

our DC to DC converters,

everything that has to do with the functioning of the vehicle properly.

It's not just the high-voltage system, but also the 12-volt system.

So if we replace that battery, you think this car will start up?

It's possible, but I want to test this first.

I want to connect the old battery, now that everything is dried out,

just to see what happens.

Will the electronics activate again? Will it start at all?

-He's so optimistic. -I am, I am.

Okay, so let's see.

-Ready? -Yeah.

-[beeping] -Ah.

-Sounds like death-- -Hey, it's doing something.

[Faye] No, that's a noise you do not want to hear.

Yeah, but that alarm is not very promising.

-[Tory] All right. -Let me take a look and see.

Start her up, Captain Electric--

Something must still be wet in there, you know--

-Oh. -Its whistling-- Its whistling just died. Ooh.

-[Bisi] Nothing's happening. -[Tory] Okay.

-Well, we tried. -Uh-oh.

Okay, I'm going to get a multimeter, and check the voltage now,

and if it's not where we need to be,

Faye, I may need your help in getting a fresh battery,

-so we can try it again and see what happens. -[Faye] Okay.

-This is supposed to be 12 volts, Faye-- -[Tory] Ah!

...but we're hovering in the 3-volt range.

-It's 3 volts. -Yeah.

-Yeah, that's not good at all. -I think this battery is done.

Well, it may not be the battery's fault.

Maybe we still have some connectivity going on

with some water in the critical components.

[Faye] Yeah.

So I guess the best way to evaluate that is to get a fresh battery.

-Sounds good. -Monitor it again.

-Mmm-hmm. Yeah. -And see what happens.

[Tory] Right now, it is not looking good for this myth.

Driving an electric car into water.

We tried it.

I drove in, sunk, and then all of a sudden, the car died.

But Bisi's holding onto hope.

He is very optimistic.

So, we're going to swap out the old battery, put in a brand-new one,

and see if this car will turn on.

My guess, this car is dead.

[Bisi] All right. Nice.

-[Faye] All right. DC volts. -What is the voltage now? What is it now?

-Healthy! -[Bisi] 12.8.

-Okay, ready? -[Tory] Fresh battery.

Okay, so, I'm going to connect this, and if our battery drains,

-then we have a circuit that's still... -[Faye] We know-- Yeah.

-...misbehaving. -Yeah, there's some sort of parasitic draw--

-[Bisi] Ready? -Yeah, go ahead.

-[beeping] -[Bisi] Ah, lights came on, that's good.

[Faye] 12.6. 12.5.

-[Tory] It's freaking out. -Oh, my God.

5.4, 5.0, it's going down. 4.9, 4.5... Oh--

See if it starts! Come on, Bisi.

Please, we all know it's not going to start.

-Bisi's hopeful. -No.

-12.23. -[Bisi] Okay.

So the fact that the voltage is going down

means that we have really bad connectivity somewhere that shouldn't be happening.

So the moral of the story is don't get your electric car completely drenched.

It's busted. You can't drive an electric car underwater.

Busted. Absolutely.

I reluctantly concur. Busted.

But I think maybe we should see if we can take it to the next level.

See if we can drive the electric car underwater.

I like how you're thinking.

-[Faye] Okay. -If we protected vital components,

and left others, let's say mobility components as is,

maybe we'll have some success.

[Tory] Wee.

[Faye] Since the first test car is officially dead,

we've sourced another one that's identical.

Son of a...

[Faye] Now, we need to make some mods for the next test

and keep that water out of the interior for as long as possible.

Wow, that's good. Okay.

This one failed.

And my goal is to prevent this one from failing.

12-volt system's got corrupted with lots of water in the connectivity.

I'm going to prevent the same thing from happening with this vehicle.

Now, I'm spraying some rubberized sealant.

Now, it takes a few hours to cure,

but in this liquid form, it can really get into very tight spaces.

Because all you need is a small seepage, and a lot of damage can occur.

Now we're just transferring everything over to this new electric car.

We put the controls on the top,

and, hopefully, this time, we can get it into the water

and see if this car will survive.

We need all hands on deck.

We got to carry the control chair over to this car.

All right.

Touchdown.

So we have the rooftop control system

transferred from the old car to the new car.

We're just going to make some fine-tuned adjustments to make sure we can drive it.

And then, it's time to waterproof this thing.

Okay, so, I have some insulation foam here.

I'm just going to start hitting some of these cavities

to make sure that this undercarriage is watertight.

So I see an orange wire which denotes high voltage

-going into this module. -Yeah.

And that module doesn't look like it's sealed very well.

-So, if you can squirt in there for me. -Yeah.

After that, you can seal to your heart's content.

[Tory] This what James Bond did to his car?

[Bisi laughs]

I don't know.

[Tory] All I'm doing is, anywhere I see a connection

that might allow water in,

I'm just hitting it with the foam.

Oh, that looks good.

-[Tory] Yeah, I think we're-- -Everything is covered!

And I agree with you in not covering up

the heat exchanging mechanisms up front,

because we still need to be able to cool the vehicle down.

Even when charging, the DC-DC convertor needs cooling.

So we need to be able to have fluid flow and heat exchange to occur.

So this is actually perfect.

[Tory] Why don't we bring it down, take a look at the top of the motor,

see if we need to cover anything else.

All right, Bisi, it looks pretty sealed over here.

Yeah, nothing was damaged in our attempt to seal everything up.

She's good to go.

I think the next step is getting it out to the pool and driving it into the water.

And I'm really optimistic on this one.

Me too.

[narrator] In the first experiment,

the humble electric vehicle hit the water

and survived for just 25 seconds before going kaput,

thereby confirming the age-old adage,

"Water and electricity do not mix."

-[Bisi] Oh... -[Faye] Oh...

It's dead.

[narrator] But where there's a myth, there's a way.

So with some astute precipitation protection,

a set of dune buggy tires,

and an unswerving rooftop pilot...

[Tory laughing]

[Bisi] Oh, dang, look at that.

[narrator] ...can this mighty-modded EV

possibly punch above its weight

and endure a flash flood?

What do you guys think?

[Faye] This is brilliant.

I hadn't even thought about doing anything with the tires.

I figured if it does float,

at least some way, I can get across the water.

Yeah. I mean, we're giving this thing the best chance we possibly can.

I'm really hoping I'm not going to be disappointed again.

-[Bisi] You ready? -I'm ready. You guys ready?

-I'm going to... -Yeah! Oh! Where should we--

-...stand water fest. -[Faye] ...to avoid a shower.

This is it, the moment we've all been waiting for, EV Rider II.

Yeah, 'cause the first one died, so...

We sealed it, we put the giant tires on it.

I'm going to be driving from the top.

I'm going to get in position,

I'm going to hammer down,

see if I can get it across the water.

Oh, I love this part of the show.

All right, one last thing.

[Bisi exclaims]

You know, Texas.

-I mean, the myth took place in Texas. -[Faye] Heck, yeah!

Yee-haw.

-Y'all ready for this? -Yup.

-[Faye] I'm like getting nervous. -I know.

Can an electric car get across water?

Well, we've done everything in our power to make it happen.

Whether or not it's going to work, we're about to find out.

Three...

[both] ...two, one.

-[Faye] Go! -[Bisi] Engage!

[Faye whooping]

[Bisi] You can do it. He's doing it, doing it!

-He's moving! He's got it! -[Faye] Go, go, go!

[Tory] Come on, baby, come on.

-Come on. -[Bisi screaming] Keep going!

Come on, come on.

-Come on. -[Tory] Come on.

[Bisi] Oh, my God, oh, my God!

-Is it moving? Is it moving? -[Tory] Come on, baby!

-[Bisi] It's going, it's going. -[Faye] Go, go, go!

-It's going, it's going. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Faye] EV Rider I survived just 25 seconds,

while EV II has powered halfway across the pool.

But with the deeper water, it's losing traction and momentum.

It's still going.

-Oh, my God. -[Tory] Oh, wait. I think I just died...

[all screaming]

Oh, he's driving! Oh, my God.

[Bisi] For every second the terminals are submerged,

there's a higher risk of short-circuiting.

-Come on, come on! -Oh, I just wanna-- Go!

[Tory] Come on.

[Bisi] It's still going.

[Faye] I can't believe it's still going.

That is amazing.

And we have no beeping yet.

This is amazing.

-The fact that it's still going. -It's still going.

Oh, it's cutting-- It's getting to the bottom of the tarp.

-Oh, it is, yeah. -Oh.

-[Tory] It's dead. -[Bisi] Aww.

She's done.

[both exclaiming]

That was incredible.

-Can you believe how long it went? -That was a long time.

Like, halfway submerged.

Wow.

Unbelievable.

[Tory] We gave it every possible chance, but this was an epic fail.

I mean, driving into that water,

I slammed on the accelerator, and it felt like a log ride.

I hit the water, it splashed off, my hat took off.

Uh, but the crazy thing is the car kept going.

And it got to the point where it was up to the windows,

and the wheels kept spinning.

Uh, yeah, it didn't work.

Eventually, water got into the batteries

and the electrical system, and it killed the car.

[narrator] Okay, so the results are in.

EV Rider II, equipped with undercarriage waterproofing

and dune buggy tires,

undeniably outperformed the stock standard EV Rider I.

But the added protection was only successful in delaying the inevitable.

-[Bisi] A moment of silence. -A moment of silence for EV Rider II.

I think the moral of the story here is

if there is a flood in front of you,

don't try driving through it.

[Faye] Absolutely. I mean, just like all the signs in Texas say,

"Road may flood. When in doubt, turn around."

And that myth is busted.

[laughs]

I'm ready to get off this thing, you guys.

-Go ahead and crane me off. -[indistinct conversation]

Guys. Hey, guys?

Bisi, Faye.

Hello?