Tesla Motors Club

For many years, Australia, as well as many other nations and states, have been struggling to fight fires with mobile ground assets. Most of the vehicles used are converted commercial trucks and pickups, that have limited off-road, or in particular poor sand driving ability in the bush. They also have quite limited functionality, with 10ton trucks only carrying 3tons of water, and the smaller LandCruiser based units with 500-700L onboard. The question is would a Cybertruck Firetruck be a viable, better performance solution, and if so why?

Cybertruck would be for firemen, volunteers and farmers. Farmers make up most of the volunteers here so outfitting them with a firefighting pickup module would be simple and make more sense as they could use their own farm CT for firefighting and could self dispatch from home. This would also significantly reduce the cost and improve capabilities overall.

CT benefits:

• Upgraded Biodefense mode HVAC for filtering smoke - This provides safety for crews and evacuees
• Stainless steel body is heat resistant - but would need thermal insulation to offer better protection from radiant heat
• Pass through bed storage could mean that a water tank could be mounted into the rear of the cab for better weight distribution - leaving much of the bed area clear for gear and still enough room for 3 crew if required
• 240V powered 10kW firefighting water pump can run off main battery - more than one could be used if required
• Full Vehicle irrigation system can be used, also protecting the wheels, without body corrosion issues
• ROPS should be fairly good and together with the SS body, and if the Amour glass holds up, would offer good penetration protection for users from falling branches, small trees etc
• CT could have a front mounted hose reel in the frunk - along with a "fireman summon mode", where the CT could follow a single operator on the hose
• A integrated automated water cannon shouldn't be too hard to fit in the bed
• A flamethrower for back burning too
• Ability to outrun 60MPH grass fires - (many trucks max out beforehand)
• Built in Starlink could potentially offer through fire comms as it's unlikely to be parked under a fire (fire severely impacts radio performance)
• Electric motors will continue to drive in oxygen deprived environments (like driving through a fire front - not a good idea normally)
• No fuel onboard for vehicle or firefighting gear
• Cybertrailer could be used as water tanker - electric propelled version would increase water capacity

CT potential drawbacks:

• Battery recharge times and locations - Although a mobile Megapack with 250kW chargers should offer similar performance to ICE firetrucks
• Battery temperatures - will they significantly degrade performance, or will they in fact be a safety risk in a fire situation?
• ??

Comments welcome as I'd like to develop the idea into a solution as there is bound to be another catastrophic fire season in the future.