Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
More than one-year after the release of the Tesla Model S, one eagle-eyed Instagram user has discovered the Easter egg to end all Easter eggs: how to turn the electric car into a Lotus Esprit S1 submersible, as featured in the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me.
Well, sort of. The trick won’t actually make your car able to go underwater and pull off amazing spy-gadget-type stuff, but it is pretty darn cool nonetheless. All you have to do, according to the folks at The Verge, is hold down the ‘T’ logo, enter the access code ‘007’ and return to Controls, and the display will make it appear as though your car is the Bond submersible.
Telsa CEO Elon Musk, for those who are not aware, is a big fan of James Bond and purchased the original Lotus Esprit S1 submersible for $866,000 in October 2013. The vehicle was actually found, quite by accident, by a guy who had purchased a storage locker for $100. That individual found the car buried beneath a pile of blankets, and did not immediately recognize it.
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In fact, he had apparently never seen a Bond movie before, but someone else let him know just what an amazing find he had on his hands. The car was sent to RM Auctions and was purchased by a ‘secret buyer.’ That individual turned out to be Musk, who as the story goes, actually based the design of the first-ever Tesla vehicle on another Lotus product, the Elise.
As CNN.com later reported, however, Musk was disappointed to find out that the Esprit did not actually transform into a submersible – so he decided to take matters into his own hands. Not content with owning just a (very expensive) movie prop, he told the website that he planned to “upgrade [the vehicle] with a Tesla electric powertrain and try to make it transform for real.”
The Model S Easter egg is not that effort, but automotive website Jalopnik confirmed that it is real and is part of a software update (version 5.9) that was released for the car in 2014. Entering the code as described above makes it look as though the vehicle has entered submarine mode.
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Bond isn’t the only intellectual property receiving the proverbial tip-of-the-hat in the Easter egg, however. As Business Insider pointed out, the suspension becomes ‘Depth (Leagues)’ and in a nod to Jules Verne, the maximum depth is 20,000 leagues. What else you would expect from a company that made it so that the volume of its stereos go up to 11, ala This Is Spinal Tap?
Of course, Easter eggs aren’t all that that the Tesla Model S has going for it, as it was recently named the best overall vehicle by Consumer Reports for the second consecutive year, calling it “a technological tour de force” and a “high-performance electric vehicle with usable real-world range, wrapped in a luxury package.”
“For all of the impressive new vehicles released in 2014, none was able to eclipse the innovation, magnificence, and sheer technological arrogance of the Tesla,” the publication added. “Through the course of their life cycles, cars become obsolete quickly as newer models appear with updated gizmos. But with Tesla’s over-the-air software updates, a Model S that came off the line in 2013 has many of the same new features as one built today.”
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