Battery 3.0 Upgrade

[hcsharp]

I'm from the deep south where there are no Roadsters, so yes, all we have around here are Leafs and they are actually called "Leaf Chargers" (you know, like a Xerox is a copy and Kleenex is tissue paper).

Want them to be called Roadster chargers

I'm trying to say "Leaf charger" with a deep southern accent. Yeah, I've supplied a few adapters to TN Roadster owners and they all complained about a lack of chargers for long trips. Tesla's Destination chargers are starting to populate the area though, including two 64A locations near Chattanooga.

 

[PhilMantel]

I received a very good, detailed, and intelligent response on the Tesla forum (not to be confused with the Tesla Motor Club's Forum) about the Roadster.

I think the point is that the Roadster was originally built using completely different techniques, strategy, philosophy, and tactics. They got it to work, but the learning process simply taught them to do things differently in the future. So they have. The Model S, Model X, and even the upcoming Model ☰ are all larger platforms. There is more space and volume to work with to conceal, hide, stash, or put away an accessory devices that are needed to make those vehicles work better than was possible with the Roadster. The exercise at hand was to increase the overall range of the Roadster by replacing the battery pack with a version that uses never, higher capacity battery cells. That's it. Tesla made that rather plain well over two years ago. From the very outset they were asked whether the new battery pack would be Supercharger capable and they gave a firm "No." as an answer. The cooling systems and DC Fast Charging hardware simply has nowhere to go in the car, and even moving to the battery management system would require redesigning the whole car again. That's why Tesla had instead considered releasing a completely new spiritual successor to the Roadster around 2019 or so. They learned from their exercise with the Roadster, smart EV, RAV4 EV, and B250e that building an electric car out of an existing platform is far more trouble than it is worth, and it is far better to start with a new project from the ground up. It is highly unlikely that there will EVER be a Supercharger compatible upgrade to the original Tesla Roadster. And if there was to be something like a Model R or Model Z, those have been postponed indefinitely due to the need to release Model ☰ and Model Y, and any new pickup truck products first.

 

[miimura]

I don't know if you caught it up-thread but there is an aftermarket CHAdeMO charging setup under development for the Roadster that will be available soon. One of the things that they learned about the Roadster battery pack in the process of developing it was that the internal resistance of the original pack is relatively high. What that means is that while charging with the higher power available on DCFC, the pack voltage is significantly higher than the resting voltage. This also causes the tapering to be more severe because you have to stay below the voltage limit. This may be another reason that Tesla didn't want to attempt Roadster Supercharging.

In any case, the CHAdeMO network looks pretty good in the Tennessee, so it may be worth considering.

 

[hcsharp]

... The cooling systems and DC Fast Charging hardware simply has nowhere to go in the car, and even moving to the battery management system would require redesigning the whole car again. ...

The DCFC system requires very little room and there's plenty of space for it. I don't know what you mean by "moving to the battery management system" but it already has a BMS and it's very similar to the Model S. The cooling system looks like it would be adequate for most DCFC and it could just slow the charge rate for those few times that it's necessary. You certainly wouldn't have to "redesign the whole car." Regardless it still would need a lot more testing and engineering resources that Tesla doesn't have to spare right now.

 

[dhrivnak]

Welcome to the forum Phil. I share your pain as I am here in NE Tennessee. As you likely know Cracker Barrel's in TN have CHAdeMO chargers. It would be nice to use them but I think the 3.0 would actually work better when combined with Tesla destination chargers. Make sure you get a CAN SR from Henry Sharp so you can use them.

 

[bobinfla]

For me and my situation it is totally worth it. Roundtrip from home to Orlando and back is about 220 miles, so with the upgrade I can make it, without the upgrade I would have to stop and charge at a public charger. And once you've gotten used to using the Supercharger network with the S and X, waiting for hours on slow public charging is just way too painful. With the CAN Sr and the ever growing number of destination chargers, it makes a lot more Florida accessible to me on one charge at my destination. So it boils down to whether or not the upgrade lets you do something with your Roadster that you wouldn't do otherwise, and whether that is worth the price tag. In my case it is, but it comes down to your own individual situation.

Of course this is still theoretical for me, since I don't have the 3.0 yet. But I've been on the list for 12 1/2 months, so must be any day now...............