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BATTERY UPGRADE

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Yes it is possible, not it's not plug-an play between 85 and latest 100, but you there are people who can do this for you (for an appropriate fee of course) but that will void your Tesla warranty. Elon also announced in 2015 that Tesla will offer battery upgrades soon (when 90 battery came out), but since it's only been 5 years, that's way too early for Elon's "soon", as there already is a long list of "coming soon", "coming sooner than people think", "3 months probably, 6 months for sure" items from years ago in the queue, which would be more profitable to Tesla if actually accomplished, and profit is Elon's #1 priority today.
 
Technically, the interconnection point on the 100packs is slightly different than all non-100kwh packs, so a little 3D printing would be needed to get it mated correctly.

Then, assuming the car is a Dual Motor car (AWD), you’d likely only need to update the car configuration in the gateway to tell the car it has a 100kwh pack. Doing so requires Tesla Toolbox (not available) or root access using other means (hard to come by).

If this car is a 85 RWD car, you cannot upgrade to the 100kwh pack without some custom firmware modifications (because there never was a factory configuration for rwd 100kwh cars) - and you’d be prevented from any future OTA Tesla updates. Don’t do this - service and updates would be real problematic.
 
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Technically, the interconnection point on the 100packs is slightly different than all non-100kwh packs, so a little 3D printing would be needed to get it mated correctly.

Then, assuming the car is a Dual Motor car (AWD), you’d likely only need to update the car configuration in the gateway to tell the car it has a 100kwh pack. Doing so requires Tesla Toolbox (not available) or root access using other means (hard to come by).

If this car is a 85 RWD car, you cannot upgrade to the 100kwh pack without some custom firmware modifications (because there never was a factory configuration for rwd 100kwh cars) - and you’d be prevented from any future OTA Tesla updates. Don’t do this - service and updates would be real problematic.
@kdday, thank you for both that explanation and very sane advice. I hope those folks asking this question heed your warning.
 
Most Teslas pre-2016 were unicorns - there way many more times more possible configurations than cars produced, and Elon was proud how they made changes in production every 2 weeks.

Not quite the same thing as two highly desirable performance upgrades in combination together. Having a more configurable options in many different possible combinations doesn't mean unicorn for rare configurations when those configurations are subsets of the usual maxed out config.
 
Not quite the same thing as two highly desirable performance upgrades in combination together. Having a more configurable options in many different possible combinations doesn't mean unicorn for rare configurations when those configurations are subsets of the usual maxed out config.
Ok, if you redefine "unicorn" from "rare configuration" to "desirable configuration", now you've blurred the definition of what a unicorn is, by making is completely subjective. Any car can be a unicorn to some people, and not to others. You could argue every custom order car is a unicorn because someone desired it enough to order that combination of options. Desirable always depends on "to whom". I have a P85DL+ (probably one of the last ones ever made, May-2015) and it isn't a subset of a maxed out configuration. For example I do not have the pano roof, or red calipers, or premium lighting, or premium leather (has standard leather, not textile or fake leather of today), or premium sound, or jumpseats, or even metallic paint (it's the default plain white). The lighter aluminium and less noisy roof is desirable to me (I once paid extra on a custom Porsche order to remove a sunroof), as are the black calipers, but I'm sure there will be people who would prefer pano and red calipers. So is it a unicorn, according to your definition? In other words, when someone says that a car has value because it's a unicorn, it means nothing unless that someone is offering you cash, because to an actual buyer it doesn't matter that someone else thinks that the car is a unicorn. :)
 
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This was always the definition I went by and others did by inferring context :)
Then we agree - even with different definitions almost every pre-2016 Tesla is a unicorn. By my definition because there not many cars with similar configuration, and by your definition because almost all of them were custom orders, therefore desirable to at least the person who ordered it and paid ~$100K for it. :)
 
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