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3.7 and 3.9 0-60 Times
- Thread starter Pantera Dude
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DrComputer
TeslaClubLA President
The original 1.5 and 2.0 and 2.5 cars without the Sport option were supposed to achieve 3.9s 0-60 times. The sport option on the 2.0 and 2.5 lowered the time to 3.7s. The reality is that the 1.5's were never able to achieve the 3.9s times but the 2.0 and 2.5 standard models could. Originally Tesla marketed the Sport models as having a special "hand wound motor" but that mumbo-jumbo got quickly erased from history. The reality is that there only difference between the standard 2.0/2.5 and 2.0/2.5 Sport is just a firmware difference (and appropriate Sport badging). My hope is that since they are no longer selling any new Roadsters they will just offer a reasonably priced firmware upgrade to all 2.0 and 2.5 non-sport customers to get the Sport firmware. When I say reasonable I mean less than $1K.
dhrivnak
Active Member
Those are the Sport version and have a special handwound motor. It was a $20,000 option. I had a chance to do 4 1/4 mile runs against a sport and i was very surprised i won 2 of the 4 heats. And they had their hard top on and no passengers. I always had a rider and had my top off both of which hurts time. When i did lose it was less than a car lenght. Not worth the extra money in my book.
What??? The 1.5's can't do the 3.9s as advertised? Should I be upset? What can it do? 4.0? 4.1? I never tested it or anything.
I believe you are incorrect. The PEM is the same between Sport and non-Sport, but there is a hardware difference to the motor. I believe they were wound with more turns of copper wire for the Sport, and I think that was possible because at the time humans were able to wind more densely than machines.
Subsequently Tesla may have machine-winding to the same level.
A senior engineer at Tesla told me that the cables coming from the battery on the Sport are bigger than those on the base. So whether or not there are differences in the motor, there definitely are other hardware differences.
dhrivnak
Active Member
I think you are wrong here as a 1.5 can hold its’ own against the 2010 Sport, any other “performance” car.
My first data point is from Road & Track which in their tests say 0-60 in 4.0, not much difference than the advertised 3.9 Road Test of the 2009 Tesla Roadster - Full Authoritative Test of the 2009 Tesla Roadster at RoadandTrack.com
A second data point is four 1/4 mile runs against a Roadster Sport one day last year. I won two races and he won two. He also had the advantage of no passenger and the hard top which is more aerodynamic than the open top I was running with. In the two I lost I was less than a body length behind. I concede the Sport was faster but not by much.
My third data point was a night at "Street Fights" at the Bristol raceway where amateurs get to run down the ¼ mile. I raced against a Corvette, a 2011 Shelby edition Mustang, a Cadillac CTS and beat them all. My only loss was to a Chevy S-10 (it had a big block with nitrous injection I later found out).
DrComputer
TeslaClubLA President
Eric VFX and I both took our cars to the Irwindale Speedway drag strip about a year after having our cars and I beat him consistantly on each run by the same amount of time every time. He has a 1.5 and I have a non-sport 2.0.
dhrivnak
Active Member
Curious do you remember the times? My 1.5 is between 13.1 and 13.4 in the quarter with a final speed between 98 and 104 the top adds 2mph for me.
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