It is <i>possible</i> to modify an EV to drive for several hours under salt sea water .. but it does take a bit of effort and talent.<p><i>'Rust bucket' 1978 LandCruiser converted to EV to drive 7km under water across Darwin Harbour — again</i><p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-22/underwater-drive-darwin-harbour-aims-for-new-world-record/102622048" rel="nofollow">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-22/underwater-drive-darw...</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TD5uuUAhCY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TD5uuUAhCY</a><p><pre><code> On July 29th 2023 the underwater driving world record was broken by the Mudcrab Landcruiser. The team drove the heavily modified electric powered Landcruiser 7kms & 30 metres underwater across Darwin Harbour with 30 divers rotating behind the wheel.</code></pre>
As much as I love Electric cars, this part of them freaks me out a little. You could say it's a minor problem, but Electric cars haven't reached saturation point. In future events (which will become more frequent), what happens then ?<p>A whole carpark will go up because of flood waters in the basement?
They're going to have to waterproof them like they do with Jeep 4xe's. Well, excuse me, they SHOULD waterproof them. But I don't think someone will like the extra cost.
Homeowners with powerwalls or similar will have the same issues in floods. I would never have one of those in my house. Outside well away from house, maybe.
IIRC in this case the water had been REALLY high and this happened when it was receding.<p>There's also an anecdote floating around about Elon complaining that installing the gasket that would protect from this specific issue took too long on the manufacturing line and he axed the feature.