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timk225
Active Member
The results of this poll depress me. Nearly half of people will pay $1,5k more to get poorer performance? Geez.... it's like people in the 1930s saying, "That raked windshield looks so ugly. Can I pay more to have a normal-looking vertical windshield that will slow my vehicle down and make me have to stop for gasoline more often? And another thing... those lights built into the hood... why can't automakers have proper looking lights that stick out of the hood, like lights are supposed to?"
Big-T
Member
Amen brother - can't we just get some normal looking 18" - was that too much to ask?
Because 1) if you standardize inefficient wheels then the reported EPA range will be hurt; and 2) the rest of us don't want our ranges being hurt because you want to look "baller". What else, should we have the mass increased because you want to have hydraulics standard so the car can hop? Hey, let's standardize a giant wing on top so you can get more downforce (or at least look like you are), why not? Let's keep adding mass and drag standard until you think it's "baller" enough, so that we end up with a car that goes less distance per charge than a Leaf.
I feel for the Tesla aero engineers who worked so hard to get the aero drag down so that the vehicle could get a decent range and the pack not be obscenely large / expensive, only to have people want to ruin their drag coefficient for "bling".
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Those are images from the patent. The actual patent is for a wheel face, not the entire wheel.
The alpha that had this style had a center section that could be removed to access the lug nuts.
The production one does not have any noticeable way to access the lug nuts. They are not accessible buy removing the tiny little center cap.
That's because those are wheel covers. The actual wheels are a simple, and imho nice looking, spoke design.
I do care about performance, not efficiency. Will the car handle better and brake better with the lower sidewalls on the bigger wheels? Yes. Maybe Tesla should eliminate the Ludicrous feature on S/X because that is really screwing with the efficiency, but not the performance.
The cornering performance of the 19" wheels is probably better. The efficiency of the 18" aero wheels is probably 3% better; an extra 9-10 miles on the 310 mile battery option. Since only 3%, many people will go for looks over efficiency.
The 310 miles are for the base wheels, so the sport wheels would drop that to 300 (which is @KarenRei 's point).
I like them too, and there are some photos out there with them that look amazing! I'll use my $1,500 for something else.
FlatSix911
Porsche 918 Hybrid
This is another option ... the original Tesla Model S aero wheel
Model 3 without the Aero wheel covers ...
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I say to each their own, and why can't we all just get along. Aero lovers, and non-aero lovers all holding hands in a chain of love and support. LMAO. The harsh reality though is that people have, do, and will continue to place a high value on appearance. If they didn't, then Tesla wouldn't be designing EVs the way they do. P.S. I like the aero wheels.
boiler81
Member
I hope Evannex or some other third party is busy designing a hub/lug cover for the standard 18" wheels without the aero cover. That's how I'll roll.
Also a carbon fiber hub/lug cover for the optional 19" wheels (like the silver alpha) would also be marketable.
Also a carbon fiber hub/lug cover for the optional 19" wheels (like the silver alpha) would also be marketable.
I know. It's just that there's never any love for aero lovers. Everyone caters to the bling-lovers, but any time anyone wants something aero it's called a "weirdmobile" and rejected out of hand. Aircraft designers get to make these beautiful streamlined beasts, yet if you do the same streamlining with a car (rather than mimicking outdated ICE constraints) people mock it. What's so funny about shaping a car like an airfoil? Occasionally you get a company that makes a serious effort, like Aptera, but you never actually get to buy one. There's always a couple little no-hope-of-success garage startups, but never anything from a company that you know will actually deliver. The closest thing we ever got was the EV1, and they took those back and crushed them.
Weirdmobile? Yeah, I'll take a Tesla "Model W", thanks.
But knowing that that's not going to happen, and I need something to drive around, and that Tesla is at least putting more effort toward streamlining than other companies, I'll take what I can get. For all of the bling lovers, if you don't like Tesla's choice of bling and it's pricing, there's dozens of other companies focused even more on style over substance. Of course you won't buy them because you like the range and pricing stats that having decent aerodynamics gives you 
JeffK
Well-Known Member
Worse range, fewer miles per minute charging, worse comfort, more noise, worse wear, worse straightline acceleration and braking....
Do yourself a favour and pull up an image of, say, a nascar vehicle and look at the size of the wheels on it relative to the size of the tires. If you want performance, you want a small wheel with big sidewalls on the tire. It also happens that small wheels give you more range and faster charging speeds (mph per kW).
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JeffK
Well-Known Member
That's because consumer sports cars - not vehicles built specifically for competition and nothing else - are about bling. The same reason they put big grilles on them (most grilles today are cosmetic, cooling air comes from underneath) - for bling that stupid buyers mistakenly think relates to performance.
Look at competition vehicles - Nascar, F1, etc - if you want to see what vehicles designed for performance and not bling look like.
So choose bling if that's what you want. But don't kid yourself that it's about performance. You're messing up range, charge speed, comfort, noise, wear, acceleration and braking for bling.
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