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Teen Offers Shuttle Service To Vegas In His New Tesla
Tesloop founder Haydn Sonnad and his new Tesla (via Facebook)
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Forget about raising money for a new car with a paper route or fast food gig. These days you have to be a bit more entrepreneurial to raise some serious cash. To help pay for his own Tesla, one L.A. teenager launched a company to shuttle people back and forth to Las Vegas in the luxury electric vehicle, reports KTLA. Haydn Sonnad, the 16-year-old entrepreneur, started the shuttle service called Tesloop to help pay back a loan from his dad for his own Tesla Model S. For $85 each way, passengers can take the multi-hour ride in style while a "pilot" drives them from L.A. or Orange County to Sin City. And while Sonad is not yet old enough to legally carry passengers as a driver himself, he plans to expand the service with drivers eventually shuttling people to Palm Springs, San Francisco and elsewhere.
"I just finished my sophomore year of high school and my options for a summer job were a fast food-type thing or this," Sonad told VICE's Motherboard earlier this year at a Tesla shareholders meeting where he discussed his plans. "Most cars are not put to good use, especially Teslas. They're capable of saving carbon emissions and gas, but they still sit around most of the time."
Tesloop began offering rides to Vegas this past summer and the service has continued to expand, mostly on the weekends with the help of his father, Rahul Sonnad. Besides renting out the three available seats in the Tesla, the eco-friendly shuttle also benefits from Tesla's Supercharger Stations along the route to Vegas, which allow the electric vehicle to recharge in a matter of minutes for free. And the ride sounds pretty sweet with comfy seats, Wi-Fi, noise-canceling headphones, snacks and drinks to enjoy along the way. They're also planning to offer a program where a customer can ride for free if they volunteer to drive. And with Tesla's new auto pilot software, the ride to Vegas just got even smoother.
While the ride may cost a bit more than a bus ride and take a bit longer than a flight, it's certainly an eco-friendly ride share that is likely to appeal to some travelers.
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