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Why is raising the striker plate slightly to raise the rear of the door a fraction of a millimeter a bad idea? (Tesla did that on three of my doors to raise the rear, just a fraction of a mm.) In my mind it would be easily within the tolerance of the hinges and just add a tiny amount of the...

See above.

All modern assembly line paint processes have slight orange peel. It's a normal result of putting paint on a very clean surface. Manufacturers actually prefer slight orange peel also because it helps hide very minor sheet metal defects. To get rid of orange peel on a Rolls Royce, custom paint...

I would classify that as very minor. Major changes would be removing or signficantly changing parts of the crash structure (really any part of the central body, door beams, or longitudinal crash beams). It might be interesting to see if they redesign the unit body for the China Model 3. I...

I will bet you the price of a new Model 3 that there will be no major changes to the Model 3 unit body chassis within the next 5 years.

One way to improve the discussion would be clearer language. As the original poster mentioned weight doesn't shift. Load transfers. Weight does not. (Weight isn't really the right term either; technically it's mass subject to gravity.) Use the team load and not weight when referring to...

I would propose that the car is not overbuilt, and in fact is very well designed. It would be nice if a few kilograms could be saved, but all modern car makers do extensive weight reduction, including Tesla. They reduced weight to the point where it met their design goals. One of Tesla's top...

Body panel alignment of recent Model 3s is much better than early ones. I took pictures of many cars showing that, which I have not published. Telsa did adjust my body panels under warranty, as they have done for others. Most people probably would not have noticed or cared about the few...

To be clear, are you saying that you want the car to perform worse in crashes? Because that's what you're implying. I say the proof is in the results, which are measurably excellent. Model 3 has the lowest probability of injury ever measured by NHTSA. That is a measureable, objective fact...

If he were more interested in facts, he would check the gaps and finish on recent cars. His very early car probably was not as good as recent cars. My own inspection of dozens of Model 3s had horrible gaps on the first dozen early employee cars, major improvements in the first few thousand...

Sandy says the car is overbuilt. Crash testing shows Model 3 is probably the safest car ever built. My hypothesis is that Tesla designed the body the way it did for very specific reasons and Sandy may not fully understand those reasons. I do wish we would stop perpetuating and spreading his...

Fair enough, but I expect Tesla may have some novel arrangement of high strength steels in Model 3. Bottom line: it physically outperforms all other cars in crash tests, so it very well may be doing something different from them. I do see that Volvo has been using mixes of high strength...

Yes, it probably comes from a physics equation.

He probably means the motor has a higher top speed, but that's not the same as much more torque than the other motors of similar weight. The square root of 2 is about 1.41, so it's about 41% faster, presumably than if the permanent magnets were not used in a more conventional reluctance motor...

Thanks! Musk fires a lot of people. It's not clear who Munro referred to. The Model 3's unit body design is excellent and performs objectively well both in tests and real world crashes. Munro's criticisms of it seem unfounded both in terms of results and also in terms his understanding of...

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it already, but Sandy keep complaining that the Model 3 unibody is poorly engineered because it's heavier than it needs to be. TBH he seems confused by Tesla's largely novel use of high strength steels in the body to create a sort of steel composite that...

If @MountainPass experience with 10 inch wheels with 275 mm tires up front is indicative, it may fit with no problems. Somewhat depends on specific tire shape and size too. (Tires of different designs, even of the same nominal size, do vary in shape: how broad the shoulders are, how tall the...

Tires are lighter than metal.

The factory 20 looks like a relatively heavy design to me with very thick spokes. A larger wheel of given construction will always be heavier, but this design (which seems to be an extension of the 19s) is probably not particularly light to begin with.

Consider that everything a wheel does, other than when on a perfectly flat road at a perfectly constant speed (which never truly happens in the real world), is an acceleration. That includes moving vertically over a bump or pothole. Lighter wheels not only accelerate and decelerate more...

Though rolling resistance may be higher for a wider tire, the larger effect may greater aerodynamic drag from wider wheels. That said, the Aero wheels and Primacy energy tires are definitely more energy efficient than the factory 20 inch wheels and Pilot Sport 4S tires. So tire type and...

Sasha Anis ran 10s up front: The Future – Tesla Model 3 He swapped the 10 to the front for the hot lap at: That said I think I did hear some tire rub at one point at:

@laughdamon Why do you want 20s? If you like the looks, fine, but be aware they're heavier and more likely to get damaged by potholes, etc. It's important to understand what your goals are. If you're looking for performance, racers almost always go for smaller wheels since they're lighter (for...

Thanks so much for the heads up @Zippy_EV ! I'm 95% sure I'm going to order the Evasive 19 x 9.5s for track use. This is a good price for fully forged wheels, and it's really nice to have an exact fit to the Model 3 Performance Upgrade brakes. Question: does anyone have feedback on the real...

Possibly. Have you seen Sasha's track videos of his modified Long Range Model 3? Keep in mind that his suspension, brake, wheel and tire and traction control defeat upgrades worked together to greatly improve track performance over stock. Note that this is a modified Long Range Model 3...

Bigger brakes are needed for track use due to: 1. Their use in the traction/stability control in braking particular wheels to send torque to other wheels 2. For slowing down a car going faster into each turn. In that sense, the cars (without the Performance Upgrade option or an aftermarket...

I like this idea, but changes to the front airflow would likely mess up the very low drag of the Model 3, which in turn would reduce the efficiency and range. So that's probably not practical for a daily driver street car. Being able to run 6 full laps at full power using Track Mode without...

While tires are critically important to the performance of a car, brakes do stop the car. Brakes stop the car by reducing the kinetic energy of motion by converting it to heat. It's brake fade due to overheating that prevents a race car from stopping over a longer time period than any short...

Looks like you're right if the EPA filings Electrek found are correct. LR and P have 211 kw rear motors. AWD has 188 kw rear motor. P and AWD add a 147 kw front motor. Apparently all of the power is not available at the same time. 147 kw at the front would be a lot. Tesla Model 3 Dual...

Still want 19 x 9.5 or 10 for track use.... Please ask them to add those on their web site so they can better judge demand.

Whoops I misread your original post and saw 285 rears. 285 all around should stick like glue. And yes, strip out everything to get the weight down. And since engine mods are allowed put the P motor and controller in back. But then "hybrids" are not allowed to modify the motor, battery...

@MountainPass's testing at his home track seemed to indicate that traction at the front was the most lacking due to insufficient camber (and a lack of camber adjustment). Lacking camber adjustment he put wide tires up front and seemed to have better results. Due to the relatively balanced...

A tall wing would operate in the cleanest air but long struts and the endplates would add some drag. A diffuser might be lower drag but lower downforce also. If so, a wing might work better at slower tracks and a diffuser at faster tracks. Raise the corner speeds without too much high speed...

Thanks! I guess Cameron's Long Range Model 3 was also Blue. Tricked me! :)

A taller tire (or gears) would move more of the speed range of that track under the torque curve of the motors and therefore should be faster, everything else being equal.

Cameron went with a 18 to get the lightest wheel. (I think I don't see red calipers, so no PUO?) As Sasha pointed out, if you go with a wider tire it offsets some of the weight advantage of the smaller wheel. His 275/19 on Advan racing wheel came out about the same weight as the stock 235/18...

A larger rear diffuser could also add some downforce at back. Agree a proper wing would be good too. I would probably use both, in addition to a longer front splitter.

They did not use any fuel and they did not modify "the drive, control or battery systems." Therefore they were within the rules. Protest.

Because the drag of the stock car is so low, it may also be possible for aerodynamic changes to actually make things worse. Would need to experiment. Presumably with a fairly slow track you could trade off some top speed for downforce for more grip in turns (corner speeds matter a lot), but it...

Outrageous; they disqualified Cameron. Something about fuel. (The microphone and video cut out during the awards ceremony.)

Thanks guys, I gave a little coverage of the lap time, track announcer comments and interview above. Congrats to Cameron and Sasha and the MPP team on a great start for Model 3 racing!

The live stream was up a: | Live and I happened to catch Cameron on the track with his MPP Model 3 Performance. Cameron ran an unofficial 02:00.995 first lap, then ironically an ICE engine fire shut down the track. The driver seems ok, and the fire was reportedly small. Congrats on a quick...

Track mode presumably allows larger slip angles, uses individual wheel braking to send torque to different wheels, uses slight amounts of front or rear motor torque changes to add or remove torque from particular wheels, and uses more air conditioning to cool the system. Those all do require...

Because it expects its users to be responsible and intelligent enough to read and understand warnings and use tools correctly.

You should not be using autosteer on a road without a center divider.

Keep in mind driving is highly dynamic. At low power cruising (i.e. typical driving), Tesla almost certainly sends (the low) power to only one motor, and almost certainly the rear one, to divide up the work of the tires better (rears power, fronts steer). If so, then only at high power would...

@sperkin @skrtskrt Yes, Tesla runs both the motors and the fully assembled drivetrains on the car through high power and/or high speed dynamometer runs at the factory. They do that to confirm the performance of those systems. At least they do for S/X and almost certainly also 3. (In addition...

I can't speak for the AWD, and I don't have much experience with AWD in general, but my Performance Dual Motor feels like the rear motor is doing much more work than the front, particularly at high power. Maybe the rear bias isn't as strong in the non-P Dual Motor.

I mean don't tweet about going private when funding is not actually secured. Also the personal attacks on the cave guy. Etc. You seem to assume any change would be worse. I assume change can be an improvement. It really depends who they get to be on the board and who the board elects to...

Not asking for a cookie cutter chairman. Asking for a little wiser use of Twitter by Elon. Small changes, more maturity. A little bit wiser. There are many excellent tech executives and board members who could help Tesla. All potentially positive, not negative.