Model 3 Highland Performance/Plaid Speculation [Car announced 04.23.2024]

[Tha_Ape]

Real world PM3 numbers seem to outdo Teslas oem specs. Many videos on this.

IF… and i mean if Tesla has been slightly limiting the current output of the Perf 3, then it’s possible a ‘ludicrous mode’ remapping/unlocking of power delivery could irk out another .2 to .3 sec off the spec.

3.1 to 2.9/2.8…(2.6/2.7 real world) who knows
That and some tricks with lighter rims than the elephant Uber turbines.

One can hope.

Where are you seeing a M3P breaking 3s?

There are tons of threads in the M3P section that say wheel weight has negligible effects. People have gutted their M3Ps and put ultra light weight 18s on them. Still not breaking 3s. The thought is its software limited

 

[gearchruncher]

There is only one way to stop what's happening here.

Yeah, it's to post actual useful information, not run away.

When your students ask hard questions, do you "bow out"?

Could you at least suggest to the crowd here where they can learn more, and what kind of college courses teach how a 800V architecture enables faster charging so we can consider taking one?

 

[gearchruncher]

There is one thing I have always been excited about though. I remember when our cars didn't pre-condition the batteries before charging. The charging times were much longer. Then our testing showed that we could effectively reduce the charging time with temperature management alone. We started heating up the pack to 212F then chilling it down as soon as the charging started thereby reducing the time at the charging station without any adjustment in battery chemistry. It was exciting to see those Ions intercalate so quickly.

Are you claiming YOU did testing to figure out that pre-heating a battery enables faster charging? First you work "volunteer" at an emissions testing center, then you're a professor, and now you're someone that invented pre-conditioning? Are you George Santos? My Model 3 has preconditioned since 2018 FYI, and the idea has been known for decades.

212F, really? I'd think someone that is such an expert in batteries would know that 100C is WAY above the safe temperature for a NCA cell in a M3P. In fact, they are deep into thermal runaway at that temperature. Even 70C is pushing it. Which is why thermal conditioning in a Tesla is 50C, not 100C, which is easily seen via scan my tesla as you point out. I mean, this is basic stuff someone would know if they could really explain why an 800V pack voltage enabled faster charging than 400V. The irony is Porsche's own site says the reason they can charge faster at 800V is that they can keep the battery cool, and you're saying we need to heat it to 212F!

I really, really hope you are not actually a professor teaching your students this stuff.

(Oh, and look. A link to the source! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590174522001337)

 

[gtgarner]

I'm here to learn about the technical aspects and details as they're fascinating. It'smuch better than the back and forth speculation without any expertise. If you'd like to chime in, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one interested.

Daniel, here is an article I penned earlier for one of the classes I teach.

Lithium-ion batteries

Our absolute best battery friend these days is the lithium-ion battery.

www.science.org.au

 

[gearchruncher]

Daniel, here is an article I penned earlier for one of the classes I teach.

Lithium-ion batteries

Our absolute best battery friend these days is the lithium-ion battery.

www.science.org.au

You, an American living in the USA, clearly having lived here for years, "penned" an article for the Australian Academy of Science, and the only bylines on the article are people that live in Australia and are deep experts in their fields?

What was the reason this site refused to credit you as the primary author?

 

[Gauss Guzzler]

Before you answer thinking you know...

Good advice.

I see the same dumb stuff online like "800V charges twice as fast as 400V" which is complete ignorance... Does anyone really know why you can charge an 800V pack faster than a 400V?

I can't speak for everyone, but I'm sure a lot of people understand how/why an 800V car can theoretically charge much faster than an otherwise identical 400V model. There's simply a practical limit to the diameter of the charging cable. Yes, there's marketing and misunderstanding, but there's also some simple true physics there too.

I design electric aircraft for a living, am highly involved with battery management in thermal, electrical, and chemical areas.... I give "seminars" to the FAA on the future of electric flight.

Cool. So you're probably familiar with the term "copper fill factor" pertaining to stators and you can probably imagine the direct impact this metric has on efficiency. Furthermore, you can probably imagine why high-efficiency motors are built with the thinnest possible wire insulation, and why doubling the voltage would then double the required insulation thickness. And of course, for motors, higher voltages generally *require* thinner wires, further increasing the insulation/copper ratio. Manufacturing also becomes a challenge at some point. For example, the common "hairpin" style stator winding is only well-suited for modest voltages.

Then there are the connectors. Your voltage stress example suggests a .060" web of plastic would be plenty of separation between connector pins, but clearly the designers opted for much more space and multiple layers of much thicker insulation separated by multiple air gaps.

And then there are the transistors, capacitors, etc. which have their own set of voltage limitations as you point out, which are also rooted in insulation thickness limitations.

The bottom line being that insulation is a driving factor in the 400V-800V range that the industry is converging upon, so we're not likely to jump to 1600V the moment someone starts producing suitable capacitors.

 

[gearchruncher]

but I'm sure a lot of people understand how/why an 800V car can theoretically charge much faster than an otherwise identical 400V model. There's simply a practical limit to the diameter of the charging cable. Yes, there's marketing and misunderstanding, but there's also some simple true physics there too.

The question was not a theoretical one for any arbitrary amount of power. We're talking real powers used in current cars, and the claim that 800V makes them charge faster. Nobody here is talking about trying to shove a megawatt into the car. 350kW is all anyone supports.

Tesla already uses liquid cooled cables. There are other options than just thicker wires and they're already used.
NACS already supports 900A+. At 400V that's already 350kW, the same peak that the 800V Tycan and 900V Lucid allow. We are not limited by current yet, even at 350kW.

Cool. So you're probably familiar with the term "copper fill factor" pertaining to stators and you can probably imagine the direct impact this metric has on efficiency.

Engineers choose higher voltage systems to keep the wiring size down as Ohm's Law V=IR shows that you can trade current for voltage to get the same power thru a smaller (more resistive) wire. Higher voltages require less copper but more insulation so there's an optimum balance, which today seems to be around 400-800V for EV's.

Got it. So when you said "engineers keep the wiring size down," "you can put more power through a smaller wire" and "uses less copper but more insulation" you were talking about the copper in the motor, not the rest of the wiring in the car? When was the last time you heard someone refer to the hairpins in a motor as "wiring"?

And you're contradicting yourself because as you point out, engineers don't want to keep motor wiring size down, they want to make it as large as possible. Inside a motor, your statement "higher voltages require less copper but more insulation" is false. Higher voltages just require more insulation, but it's the increase in insulation that forces less copper, and that's the tradeoff. Meanwhile your statement makes a lot more sense if you are talking about wires used to transfer power, instead of those used to generate a magnetic field, which is the context in which I took it.

If discussing the internals of a motor is truly what you meant when you first wrote it, you failed to communicate that well to your readers, using non-standard terms, and completely forgetting to tell the reader you were focusing on motor windings, not the other "wiring" in a car. Which is a shame, because this is one of the multitude of tradeoffs in picking the right voltage for a vehicle, and I'm sure people here would like to know more about it, even if it isn't the primary reason for the original question, which is why an 800V car isn't a lot more powerful than a 400V car.

From the outside it appears you are trying to go back and re-frame your answer in order to get it to be a bit more correct once faced with pushback.

 

[Gauss Guzzler]

The Taycan and Lucid are limited to 500A by CCS2 so the only way to get 350kW is to go to 700V.

I see no contradiction in my statement that "engineers choose higher voltages... but there's an optimum balance..."

No one would ever claim that motors should have the largest possible wiring and I most certainly did not state anything even remotely close to that. To assume that I don't understand eddy current losses and other issues with low voltage systems only shows your own lack of familiarity. Don't put words in my mouth. Focus on yourself and whichever part of "optimum balance" you misunderstood.

 

[mpgxsvcd]

Where are you seeing a M3P breaking 3s?

There are tons of threads in the M3P section that say wheel weight has negligible effects. People have gutted their M3Ps and put ultra light weight 18s on them. Still not breaking 3s. The thought is its software limited

I haven’t broken 3.0 yet but I have run 3.00 exactly. Yes it says invalid but it is in the same lane of the same track that I always run it so I know it is valid.

If I weighed 99 lbs instead of 195 lbs I would be hitting 2.93 or better for 0-60 mph probably.

There is one guy in Belarus already below 3.0.

The more weight you remove the quicker the Model 3 Performance will accelerate for 0-60 mph down to a certain point.

My prediction is that on stock sized tires traction would start to be an issue at about 2.8 seconds 0-60 mph. Better tires or better track prep would get that even lower.

Lighter and smaller than stock wheels helps significantly. I have seen almost .1 seconds from that alone. However, once you get down to 18” wheels with 21 lb tires you will start to hit diminishing returns. Going to 19 lb 18” wheels vs. 22 lb 18” wheels won’t matter anywhere near as much as going from the 20” stock Uberheavy wheels to 22 lb 18” wheels.

 

[Apprunner]

I haven’t broken 3.0 yet but I have run 3.00 exactly. Yes it says invalid but it is in the same lane of the same track that I always run it so I know it is valid.

If I weighed 99 lbs instead of 195 lbs I would be hitting 2.93 or better for 0-60 mph probably.

There is one guy in Belarus already below 3.0.

The more weight you remove the quicker the Model 3 Performance will accelerate for 0-60 mph down to a certain point.

My prediction is that on stock sized tires traction would start to be an issue at about 2.8 seconds 0-60 mph. Better tires or better track prep would get that even lower.

Lighter and smaller than stock wheels helps significantly. I have seen almost .1 seconds from that alone. However, once you get down to 18” wheels with 21 lb tires you will start to hit diminishing returns. Going to 19 lb 18” wheels vs. 22 lb 18” wheels won’t matter anywhere near as much as going from the 20” stock Uberheavy wheels to 22 lb 18” wheels.

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Tesla's 3.2s is with rollout so you already are faster than that.

 

[SummerlinChiro]

I can't disagree more with the people who want more of an outward appearance difference for the Performance model.

The stealthy nature of my 3P is a huge advantage for keeping a low profile and reducing visibility to law enforcement.

Some wider fenders that can accomodate 355s would be great, but keep it stealthy Tesla.

One simple way Tesla could reduce the 0-60 time would be to increase the gear ratio. Changing the rotors to reduce back EMF would allow the power at higher RPMs.

Personally, I don't find a 150+ MPH top speed to be usful on the street - I'd rather have faster acceleration below 120 MPH.

 

[mpgxsvcd]

I can't disagree more with the people who want more of an outward appearance difference for the Performance model.

The stealthy nature of my 3P is a huge advantage for keeping a low profile and reducing visibility to law enforcement.

Some wider fenders that can accomodate 355s would be great, but keep it stealthy Tesla.

One simple way Tesla could reduce the 0-60 time would be to increase the gear ratio. Changing the rotors to reduce back EMF would allow the power at higher RPMs.

Personally, I don't find a 150+ MPH top speed to be usful on the street - I'd rather have faster acceleration below 120 MPH.

Changing the gear ratio would only help up to about 55 mph where peak HP happens. It would slow the acceleration down after that because HP decreases after 55 mph with the current car. I have tried going to a significantly smaller tire diameter(245/40/18) to change the gear ratio and it only made .01 seconds of difference on the same lane of the same track with the same car for 0-60 mph. It was slower in the 1/4 mile. Changing the gear ratio isn't as effective with this car as people think.

 

[pdx_m3s]

Personally, I don't find a 150+ MPH top speed to be usful on the street - I'd rather have faster acceleration below 120 MPH.

Agree. 0-50mph is already fast enough. What we need is better 50-80. Higher pack voltage would go a long ways at solving this.

 

[mpgxsvcd]

Agree. 0-50mph is already fast enough. What we need is better 50-80. Higher pack voltage would go a long ways at solving this.

Voltage increases from 55 mph on. The battery can output full power regardless of what speed the vehicle is doing. The motors are what limit power output at higher speeds. The battery may have limits on how long it can output full power but the motors in the Model 3 Performance are the current limiting factor.

 

[gearchruncher]

Some wider fenders that can accomodate 355s would be great, but keep it stealthy Tesla.

One simple way Tesla could reduce the 0-60 time would be to increase the gear ratio. Changing the rotors to reduce back EMF would allow the power at higher RPMs.

Fenders for a 355's on a car that comes with 235's stock? That's a heck of an ask! Where are you even going to drive that thing with all 136 miles of range? What kind of racing do you currently do that needs 355's? The Corvette Z06 puts 680HP down to just the rear wheels and only runs 345's in the rear and 275's in the front and has some of the widest tires ever put on a street car.

As mentioned above, gears do almost nothing on an electric motor. The only way gears can make you faster is to enable you to integrate more power under the RPM curve, and the torque curves of the Model 3 electric motor doesn't align itself well to spinning higher RPM's if you want more total power.

If you assume the current Model 3 motor is maxed out already and software couldn't unlock more, then we have flat torque from 0-40 MPH, and then reducing torque from 40-60. How are you so sure that gearing it so 0-30 occurs faster but then 30-60 occurs slower would lead to a quicker overall time?

 

[Whatstreet]

Agree. 0-50mph is already fast enough. What we need is better 50-80. Higher pack voltage would go a long ways at solving this.

Higher pack voltage results in more efficient power delivery so as power is increased a higher voltage is beneficial. Motors that would improve performance from 50-80 would be welcome as throttle response is an important attribute for a sporty road car.

 

[terranx]

Higher pack voltage results in more efficient power delivery so as power is increased a higher voltage is beneficial. Motors that would improve performance from 50-80 would be welcome as throttle response is an important attribute for a sporty road car.

Of all the things the model 3 is lacking, throttle response isn’t one of them.

 

[gearchruncher]

Higher pack voltage would go a long ways at solving this.

We have to stop coming back to it being this easy, or this even being the best/economical way to make the car faster if you assume it's built on the Model 3 Highland platform.

First, Tesla Model 3 motors are already rated at 320V. There's no data that they can take advantage of higher voltages.
The Plaid motors are known to put out much more power in the same size package as Model 3 motor and keep it flat to very high RPM, even with only a bit more voltage. The Plaid motors and their very different magnetic design tell us that there is more too it than voltage.

We already know the Highland uses the same battery as before. So we know Tesla thinks 82kWh is reasonable for this platform. Tesla does this in a 96S46P pack. That's 4,416 cells.

Let's say we re-arrange these to the Plaid voltage- 110S. But we're not adding cells. So now we're 40P instead of 46P. We know the current pack does about 1300A, so a 40P would be limited to 1,130A.

Hmm, well our peak current just went down, since parallel cells get current (torque) and series gets voltage (RPM).

So how sure are you that 402V at 1,130A would be faster to 60 than 350V at 1,300A with the same motor?

Meanwhile, we know the Plaid motor can do something like 400HP flat rated to 200MPH on a 402V pack. Which logically means it could do 400HP flat rated to 170 MPH on a 350V pack. The trick is that it probably needs Amps to do this- which is why the plaid pack is 72P, although that's for 1000HP total. Well, let's re-arrange the Model 3 cells to be 72P, and now we have 61S, or about 225V. Arguably that would still flat rate 400HP to 110MPH.

And to point out just how well this math works out: Model 3 is about 1,300A on 46P. 1000HP is 737kW, which at 402V is 1,830A. 1300A / 46P = 28A per cell. 1830 / 72P = 26A per cell. Tesla is clearly loading each cell at peak about 100W per cell, and there's no free lunch.

The only point here is that the Plaid motors use volts and amps differently that other Model 3 motors, and it's not perfectly clear what would make a Model 3 faster on the same number of cells, and it might be more current, not more voltage, and that I bet a plaid rotor means a lot more to the car than a different battery voltage, and a plaid rotor is WAY cheaper to do in low volumes than a different battery pack. Hence the reason the 2021+ Model S/X all have identical battery packs, but different motors. That makes much more sense for the M3P as well, and given we've already seen different motor numbers for the M3P, but no data on a new battery PN, I'm pretty sure this is the way Tesla is going.

 

[gearchruncher]

Higher pack voltage results in more efficient power delivery

Citation needed. This argument just happened in this thread last week and it's far from clear that is true. If you are going to argue it, please be very careful with your language as people have some very different definitions in this space. I mean a professor says the primary reason 800V is better is just for "input" not "output" and someone else says it's because you can get the same power through a smaller wire but with more insulation (and by wire, they clearly mean windings in a motor, not the power distribution). Yet now you are saying higher voltages have less loss, which would only be true if we kept the same wire size and didn't trade off smaller wires.

I'm so confused! Which one is it!?

Engineers choose higher voltage systems to keep the wiring size down as Ohm's Law V=IR shows that you can trade current for voltage to get the same power thru a smaller (more resistive) wire. Higher voltages require less copper but more insulation so there's an optimum balance, which today seems to be around 400-800V for EV's.

The most significant reason for Porsche having an 800V architecture is for charging - for input current to the battery pack. Not output.

 

[mpgxsvcd]

We have to stop coming back to it being this easy, or this even being the best/economical way to make the car faster if you assume it's built on the Model 3 Highland platform.

First, Tesla Model 3 motors are already rated at 320V. There's no data that they can take advantage of higher voltages.
The Plaid motors are known to put out much more power in the same size package as Model 3 motor and keep it flat to very high RPM, even with only a bit more voltage. The Plaid motors and their very different magnetic design tell us that there is more too it than voltage.

We already know the Highland uses the same battery as before. So we know Tesla thinks 82kWh is reasonable for this platform. Tesla does this in a 96S46P pack. That's 4,416 cells.

Let's say we re-arrange these to the Plaid voltage- 110S. But we're not adding cells. So now we're 40P instead of 46P. We know the current pack does about 1300A, so a 40P would be limited to 1,130A.

Hmm, well our peak current just went down, since parallel cells get current (torque) and series gets voltage (RPM).

So how sure are you that 402V at 1,130A would be faster to 60 than 350V at 1,300A with the same motor?

Meanwhile, we know the Plaid motor can do something like 400HP flat rated to 200MPH on a 402V pack. Which logically means it could do 400HP flat rated to 170 MPH on a 350V pack. The trick is that it probably needs Amps to do this- which is why the plaid pack is 72P, although that's for 1000HP total. Well, let's re-arrange the Model 3 cells to be 72P, and now we have 61S, or about 225V. Arguably that would still flat rate 400HP to 110MPH.

And to point out just how well this math works out: Model 3 is about 1,300A on 46P. 1000HP is 737kW, which at 402V is 1,830A. 1300A / 46P = 28A per cell. 1830 / 72P = 26A per cell. Tesla is clearly loading each cell at peak about 100W per cell, and there's no free lunch.

The only point here is that the Plaid motors use volts and amps differently that other Model 3 motors, and it's not perfectly clear what would make a Model 3 faster on the same number of cells, and it might be more current, not more voltage, and that I bet a plaid rotor means a lot more to the car than a different battery voltage, and a plaid rotor is WAY cheaper to do in low volumes than a different battery pack. Hence the reason the 2021+ Model S/X all have identical battery packs, but different motors. That makes much more sense for the M3P as well, and given we've already seen different motor numbers for the M3P, but no data on a new battery PN, I'm pretty sure this is the way Tesla is going.

They could easily get the Model 3 into the 10s for 1/4 mile and well below 3.0 for 0-60 mph simply by adding a proper launch control.

Tesla already leaked the wider rear tires 275/30/20 which could definitely help with a proper launch control.

Right now my best 60’ time is 1.73 on Dragy. Just imagine if that was 1.60 or better. .13 seconds on 60’ is .43 seconds on the 1/4 mile in the current Model 3 Performance.

I ran an 11.55 1/4 mile with a 1.83 60’. Then I ran an 11.65 1/4 mile with a 1.86 60’. Only thing I changed was I added a 100 lb passenger. Adding .03 seconds in the 60’ added 3.333x the time to my 1/4 mile.

Then I ran an 11.43 with the same 1.83 60’ simply by fully preconditioning the battery. Adding 1.67 mph trap speed only subtracted .12 from my 1/4 mile time.

This 3.333x times the 60’ difference rule also holds for my absolute best time. I ran 11.17 with a 1.75 60’ time compared to the 11.43 with a 1.83 60’ time which was my best 100% stock time. That .08 second 60’ reduction was exactly .26 seconds off of my 1/4 mile time.

There is so much to be gained on the launch compared to trying to make the car trap higher speeds.

There is so much room for improvement by just changing tires and software.