Nikola Tesla electric car hoax

This article is about an automobile power source said to have been developed by Nikola Tesla; it is not to be confused with the unrelated vehicle manufacturers Tesla, Inc. and Nikola Corporation.

The Nikola Tesla electric car hoax refers to more than one anecdote of a supposed invention of Nikola Tesla.

Description

One version of this anecdote is described by Heinrich Jebens. It was suggested to Heinrich to contact Nikola Tesla to inquire about Tesla's electric car. This suggestion was offered to Heinrich by Peter Savo while both were onboard a transatlantic voyage to America from Germany. In their conversation, Peter referred to Tesla - not by name, but - as his "uncle" causing many to doubt the credibility of this story since Tesla had no nephews.[1]

In all other versions of this anecdote, Peter Savo is claimed to be its author - not Heinrich Jebens.

According to the Peter Savo version, in 1931, Tesla modified a Pierce-Arrow car in Buffalo, New York by removing the gasoline engine and replacing it with a brushless AC electric motor. The motor was purportedly powered by a "cosmic energy power receiver" contained in a box measuring 25 inches by 10 inches by 6 inches, which contained 12 radio vacuum tubes and was connected to a 6-foot-long antenna. The car was claimed to have been driven for about 50 miles at speeds of up to 90 mph over an eight-day period.[2][3]

The story has been subject to debate due to the lack of physical evidence to confirm both the existence of the car and the misunderstanding over whether Tesla had a nephew named Petar Savo resulting from a misquotation. The correct quotation is: "Savo was a younger relation of Nikola Tesla and if not actually a nephew he would customarily refer to him as "uncle" (emphasis added).[4]

Tesla's grand-nephew, William Terbo, has also dismissed the Tesla electric car story as a fabrication.

A number of web pages exist that perpetuate the Peter Savo version of this anecdote.[5][6] The continuous recycling of reactive power is one possible method by which the car could have been powered,[7][8] though there is a lack of verifiable evidence contemporaneous to the story. Or, the car could have been powered by parametric amplification among its coils and/or capacitors.[9] If the car was powered (for the most part) by these alternate methods - instead of a battery pack, a thorough review of these anecdotes would be required to determine if an extremely high quality factor is responsible for significantly offsetting power losses.[10]

With the exception of these points, most versions of this anecdote are based solely on the Peter Savo story with additional embellishments added by subsequent retellings.[11][12][13][14][15][16]

References

  1. ^ Manning, Jeanne. "Did Nikola Tesla drive an EV?". Aether, or ... Substack. Retrieved 19 October 2025.
  2. ^ Robert Nelson. ""Information about an Invention by Dr. Nikola Tesla, which is said to have harnessed Cosmic Energy" (Unidentified document circulated in the early 1980s)". Rexresearch.com. Retrieved 2010-11-27.
  3. ^ Ford, R.A., Space Energy Receivers : Power from the wheelwork of nature, Simplified Technology Service, Champaign, IL, 1993 "Information about an invention by Dr Nikola Tesla, which is said to have harnessed cosmic energy" pp. 31–37.
  4. ^ Spajic, Igor (2004). "Nikola Tesla's Aether Powered Car" (PDF). Nexus Magazine. p. 2. Retrieved 20 December 2025.
  5. ^ Mathews, Arthur (2013-01-29). "Tesla's Last Known Living Assistant's Recorded Statement". NU Energy. NU Energy Staff. Archived from the original on 16 November 2018. Retrieved 14 July 2019. A new, and improved, primary zinc battery capable of powering an electric vehicle for a range of 500 miles before easily and economically replacing its cathode (negative terminal) plates by the car's owner from a year's supply of fresh, new plates which could easily be stored within the trunk of the car.
  6. ^ Tesla, Nikola (2013-01-29). "Nicola Tesla's View of the Future in Motive Power". NU Energy. NU Energy Staff. Archived from the original on 16 November 2018. Retrieved 14 July 2019. Tesla states that he made numerous statements in publications in regards to using electricity to power a car. Tracking down these statements should dispel the myth that his car was powered by radiant energy.
  7. ^ "Recycling Energy". Powersoft. Retrieved 24 February 2022. Higher power efficiency values are reached also by converting the speaker's reactive energy (BACK-EMF) into usable power and storing it in the condensers. This technology not only increases the efficiency of the amplifier, it also protect the loudspeaker from overheating by removing the reactive energy.
  8. ^ "Switched energy resonant power supply system, US10122290B2, United States, James F. Murray". Google Patents. Retrieved 28 September 2023. Various embodiments may achieve one or more advantages. For example, some embodiments may improve a system efficiency and/or reduce the cost of energy consumption by returning some energy back to an input source, for example, in the form of an assisting torque that reduces the average torque load on a prime mover.
  9. ^ Vinyasi. "Parametric Oscillations {among caps and coils}". Is Free Energy for Real?. Substack. Retrieved 20 December 2025. It's so simple to theorize the design of a parametric coil which varies its inductance over time regulated by the frequency of an oscillator, such as: a piezoelectric, quartz crystal. Imagine, if you will, a plunger — made of ferromagnetic material, such as: ferrite (for example) — is suspended within the central cavity of an air-cored coil of magnetic winding wire. An optional bifilar winding could be the addition of an insulated iron wire to preserve, against leakage, the magnetic field of the copper-based coil. This plunger is attached to the piezo-oscillator to vary the inductance of the coil over time.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ^ Hare, Alan V. (18 April 2019). "Free Energy". Makeshift Stories. Retrieved 24 February 2022. While tracking down a scam artist who disappeared with 200 million dollars, a freelance insurance investigator stumbles across an online video by the leader of a group called the Free Energy Coalition. She suspects the man in the video is her missing suspect and goes to a Free Energy conference to find out, but is quickly sucked into the murky world of conspiracy theories which claim the laws of thermodynamics have been faked to prevent the world from discovering perpetual motion machines which can generate free energy.
  11. ^ "Tesla's Electric Car" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-11-27.
  12. ^ "Tesla's Electric Car". Fuel-efficient-vehicles.org. 2000-01-01. Archived from the original on 2010-11-13. Retrieved 2010-11-27.
  13. ^ Gary Lee Armijo says (2010-03-04). "Tesla's Electric Car". Fuel-efficient-vehicles.org. Retrieved 2010-11-27.
  14. ^ "Tesla's Electric Car". Fevj.org. 2000-01-01. Retrieved 2010-11-27.
  15. ^ "Nikola Tesla's 'Black Magic' Touring Car". Evworld.com. Retrieved 2010-11-27.
  16. ^ "The Electric Auto that almost triumphed, Power Source of '31 car still a mystery, by A.C. Greene". Vangard Sciences. 1993-01-30. Retrieved 2014-10-12.

Further reading

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