San Francisco resident Siraj Raval is using his 2018 Tesla Model 3 to mine the cryptocurrency Ethereum. He told CNBC in an interview.
According to the crypto enthusiast, he launched free mining software on an Apple Mac mini M1, connecting it to the car’s central console. Five graphics cards are powered by the Tesla’s battery.
Raval estimates that he mines for about 20 hours a day. Monthly charging costs for the car, assuming normal use for its intended purpose, run from $30 to $60.
For additional earnings, the American never cashes out the cryptocurrency, and transfers Ethereum to a custodial investment platform to earn interest. In his rig he uses only used graphics cards bought on eBay.
Siraj Raval claims that in 2021 he earned between $400 and $800 a month, which made mining on a Tesla profitable even during the bear market.
Nevertheless, an early hacker of the Model 3, Thomas Somers, questioned the possibility of earning such a high income.
“The best estimate I would give for the GPU hash rate of the Model 3 would be about 7-10 MH/s. Currently, at 10 MH/s, this would yield an income of around $13.38 in Ethereum, not counting any expenses,” Somers said.
He also criticized Raval’s approach, which required hacking the car’s internal firmware to run his energy-intensive system. Somers is convinced that this step was unnecessary.
“The car is already built to deliver more than 100 kilowatts, and anything connected to it will be only part of that power. There is no technical necessity to do what [Raval] says,” the hacker said.
Experts noted that the profitability of mining on a Tesla would depend on when the owner purchased it, since until 2017 cars could be charged for free at Tesla’s Supercharger network.
The creator of the YouTube channel K-Man, Chris Allessi, in 2018 also used the Tesla battery to mine altcoins via an Antminer S9 connected to it. By his estimates, over 60 hours of mining at that period he could mine bitcoins worth $10, and this would be profitable thanks to free electricity.
Yet even with such an advantage, Allessi questions why one would deliberately wear down a car worth between $40,000 and $100,000. He calculated that today mining Bitcoin on a Tesla could bring the owner at best $1 or $2.
The skepticism of bystanders does not deter Siraj Raval. He hopes to turn his Tesla into a fully autonomous robotaxi that earns cryptocurrency when he is not behind the wheel.
“The car will use the revenues from transport services and from mining cryptocurrency to cover its own costs, such as maintenance, electricity and upgrades, and invest them in various assets,” Raval said.
Earlier, Tesla CEO Elon Musk spoke about plans to turn autonomous vehicles into four-wheeled robots, but the concept has not yet been realized.
In June 2021, the Canadian car company Daymak announced the release of a three-wheeled electric vehicle with a mining option.
By the end of the month, the prototype began test mining of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies. In early 2022, the Daymak vehicle took its first test drive.
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