Calling P85D owners world-wide for survey and complaint letter

[yobigd20]

So here is what they are saying about the acceleration: Our P85D took 1.4 seconds to reach 30 mph and a scant 3.5 seconds to get to 60 mph in "Insane" mode—a bit short of the advertised 3.1 seconds. Tesla promises the new “Ludicrous” mode will lower that to 2.8 seconds, but based on our testing, we're not convinced. The quarter-mile mark blew by in 12.1 seconds at 111.9 mph. Interestingly, we didn't see a drop off in acceleration times after multiple runs.

That is in lines with what we are seeing in Denmark. It is interesting how they before testing is sceptical about the Ludicrous mode ...

I didn't scan the whole thread, but are people doing their tests while at 100% SOC? I would imagine something like > 95% charge might do the 3.1 but once SOC gets lower it that timing may start to slow down a bit...hence maybe if you're doing testing at 70 or 80% SOC is that the reason why you see 3.5sec?

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also another question to all, are the standard P85D 21" tires the same in the EU vs US?

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As far as I'm concerned, Tesla has easily lived up to it's 0-60 performance claims in the US.

maybe our clocks just run faster on this side of the world (actually, they'd have to run slower wouldn't they? damn...)

 

[Andyw2100]

Well, I think a review from Consumer Reports, which has been one of Tesla's strongest advocates to date, that shows the car doesn't meet performance specs is probably going to be pretty damning.

Excellent point.

It may not mean much to the people who already understood the 1-foot roll out issue and have come to accept it, but there are plenty of people out there who have never heard of 1-foot roll out. I hadn't four or five months ago, and initially I was annoyed, as the Danes are now. So you are correct.

 

[Law&Disorder]

I'm staying away from the horsepower controversy for now, but the 0-60 w/rollout vs. 0-60 w/o rollout strikes me as one that should be resolved by industry custom and practice. If all manufacturers claimed 0-60 times include a rollout than you can hardly blame Tesla for measuring the same way.

This old article about rollout from Car & Driver raises an interesting question to me--was it even possible to test 0-60 times without rollout prior to the introduction of hyper-accurate GPS-enabled instruments?

 

[dsm363]

No, apparently you don't. The ludicrous upgrade consists of a new fuse that can handle up to 1500A AND a SW control. IF the new fuse turns out to be the only fix Tesla can come up with that's their problem, but they would still be able to SW disable it to INSANE.

So he is asking for a hardware fix under warranty or free. I do understand.

 

[dsm363]

It doesn't matter how they test it. If Consumer Reports says X and Tesla says Y people are going to believe Consumer Reports regardless of rollout/no rollout/unicorns/etc. They've been established and well trusted for something like what, 80 years?

I'll be very curious to see how Tesla reacts to this, if at all.

Well physics is physics. If Consumer Reports didn't use a rollout and Tesla did it of course makes a difference. You don't think so?

 

[wk057]

My P85D does not deliver anything close to advertised numbers. I honestly don't give a crap how they fix it, as long as they fix it or otherwise do SOMETHING about it.

If that turns out to be a contactor and fuse replacement under warranty, so be it, that's their problem to figure out how they're going to fix it. They've already done a contactor replacement on my wife's P85 for other reasons (proactive part upgrade or something).

 

[joer00]

... If all manufacturers claimed 0-60 times include a rollout than you can hardly blame Tesla for measuring the same way.

ALL models but the P85D meet or exceed 0-60 times WITHOUT a roll out.

If I can't compare products from a manufacturer because each one is tested with different standards, then specs are useless.

 

[Law&Disorder]

ALL models but the P85D meet or exceed 0-60 times WITHOUT a roll out.

If I can't compare products from a manufacturer because each one is tested with different standards, then specs are useless.

Edmunds.com says that some car magazines as well as some manufacturers do test with rollout even if they disagree with the practice:

Nevertheless, some car magazines and some automobile manufacturers use rollout anyway — and fail to tell their customers. We've decided against this practice. We publish real 0-60 times instead. But in order to illuminate this issue and ensure we do justice to every car's real performance, we've begun publishing a clearly marked "with rollout" 0-60 time alongside the primary no-rollout 0-60 time so readers can see the effects of this bogus practice.

How We Test Cars and Trucks

Edmunds own test of the P85D shows 0-60 times with and without rollout:

But insane? Hardly. Flip the switch and the P85D's 0-60 falls from 4.3 seconds to 3.5 (3.2 with 1 second of rollout as on a drag strip)

So it's not as if Tesla invented the practice regardless of how shady some might consider it to be.

 

[sorka]

ALL models but the P85D meet or exceed 0-60 times WITHOUT a roll out.

If I can't compare products from a manufacturer because each one is tested with different standards, then specs are useless.

Yea, this is true so far in my experience as well yet the 0-60 performance issue wasn't an issue for me. The S85 loaner I had for a week easily hit 0-60 on my vbox with the 1 ft rollout in 5 seconds vs Tesla's claim of 5.4. My P85D hits 0-60 in 3.1 seconds with the 1 ft rollout which matches Teslas's claims. From my perspective, I've come to expect 0-60 times being published with the 1ft rollout. So the the fact that the S85 does it faster than speced just means to me that they under promised which is never a bad thing. Compound that with the fact that the P85D is the first car I've ever owned where *I* can hit the 0-60 times claimed.

This is the reason why I have a dual personality about the whole performance debate. My issue is strictly with high speed passing because the P85D doesn't produce the claimed horsepower. 0-60 is equally tied to how wide a power band is, not just peak power, while high speed passing is pretty much dependent on peak power alone as long as your drive can stay near peak power while passing. For EVs, they're power band is flat so they can get away without gearing for a very wide RPM range. For ICEs, they need multi gear transmissions to keep the engine's peak power as close to the middle as possible.

That said, if someone in a far away land is using a non P85D (because they can't test drive a P85D) model S to confirm performance numbers and they expect all variants of that model to be rated consistently and more importantly if the standard in that far away land is not to use the 1ft rollout, then I fully understand and agree with that beef even though it doesn't effect me personally because from where I am the performance claim was met.

Just throwing that out there because I think many might think I have dual personality on this issue when in fact I see it as two different issues. If that 12.1 second 1/4 occurred on a 90%+ charge, then I further have to wonder if the cars over on that part of the planet have different software. Heck, maybe there's even a bug with regards to units where unit conversion didn't just happen for display but is somehow being used to determine how much power to let out. Would really like to see some REST logs for these 0-60 and 1/4 mile times.

 

[omarsultan]

It doesn't matter how they test it. If Consumer Reports says X and Tesla says Y people are going to believe Consumer Reports regardless of rollout/no rollout/unicorns/etc. They've been established and well trusted for something like what, 80 years?

I look at Consumer Reports for reliability ratings, whether it is for cars or refrigerators...I have been long-time subscriber and I think they regularly go off the reservation into areas that make no sense ("Which spaghetti sauce tastes best"). If I want to understand the performance characteristics of a car, I am going to turn to folks that to that for a living that like Road & Track, Car & Driver, MotorTrend, et al. BTW, looking at the actual CR page for the P85D, they have not published anything official yet.

 

[stopcrazypp]

It doesn't matter how they test it. If Consumer Reports says X and Tesla says Y people are going to believe Consumer Reports regardless of rollout/no rollout/unicorns/etc. They've been established and well trusted for something like what, 80 years?

I'll be very curious to see how Tesla reacts to this, if at all.

From comments I have read about it in enthusiast blogs, no one is surprised Consumer reports gets a higher number as they seem to consistently do so for any car they test.

Here's some numbers from their mustang test: 0-60 4.9 for GT.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/...g-dodge-challenger-chevrolet-camaro/index.htm

Motor Trend got 4.4.
http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/coupes/1409_2015_ford_mustang_gt_first_test/viewall.html
Car and Driver got 4.5.
http://www.caranddriver.com/compari...ng-performance-data-and-complete-specs-page-5

No one in the US enthusiast crowd blinks an eye about that, so I doubt they will do so for Tesla either.

 

[Torben_E]

Yea, this is true so far in my experience as well yet the 0-60 performance issue wasn't an issue for me. The S85 loaner I had for a week easily hit 0-60 on my vbox with the 1 ft rollout in 5 seconds vs Tesla's claim of 5.4. My P85D hits 0-60 in 3.1 seconds with the 1 ft rollout which matches Teslas's claims. From my perspective, I've come to expect 0-60 times being published with the 1ft rollout. So the the fact that the S85 does it faster than speced just means to me that they under promised which is never a bad thing. Compound that with the fact that the P85D is the first car I've ever owned where *I* can hit the 0-60 times claimed.

This is the reason why I have a dual personality about the whole performance debate. My issue is strictly with high speed passing because the P85D doesn't produce the claimed horsepower. 0-60 is equally tied to how wide a power band is, not just peak power, while high speed passing is pretty much dependent on peak power alone as long as your drive can stay near peak power while passing. For EVs, they're power band is flat so they can get away without gearing for a very wide RPM range. For ICEs, they need multi gear transmissions to keep the engine's peak power as close to the middle as possible.

That said, if someone in a far away land is using a non P85D (because they can't test drive a P85D) model S to confirm performance numbers and they expect all variants of that model to be rated consistently and more importantly if the standard in that far away land is not to use the 1ft rollout, then I fully understand and agree with that beef even though it doesn't effect me personally because from where I am the performance claim was met.

Just throwing that out there because I think many might think I have dual personality on this issue when in fact I see it as two different issues. If that 12.1 second 1/4 occurred on a 90%+ charge, then I further have to wonder if the cars over on that part of the planet have different software. Heck, maybe there's even a bug with regards to units where unit conversion didn't just happen for display but is somehow being used to determine how much power to let out. Would really like to see some REST logs for these 0-60 and 1/4 mile times.

Sorka... you have won many follower on TMC including me. And that started even before the 15 Vikings in a country far far away brought up the issue with 1-foot rollout. Maybe we should just had stuck to our Viking ships and kept cruising to and from England. I remember back in those day we use 5-foot rollout to get the ships from the shore and into the water... but most people has forgotten about it.

Keep on the good work

Torben_E

 

[stopcrazypp]

Tesla would *never* want to use ECE R85 because if they did, they'd have to start with the maximum power the P85D can make now, 557hp (minus some percentage for conversion losses before hitting the motor shaft) and then lose a ton more power.

You're either really bad at interpreting the test criteria or you've intentionally misconstrued this document:

"The electric drive train shall be equipped as specified in Annex 6 to thisRegulation. The electric drive train shall be supplied from a DC voltagesource with a maximum voltage drop of 5 per cent depending on time andcurrent (periods of less than 10 seconds excluded). "

I asked an EE upstairs what this meant just to confirm my own interpretation. What this means is that the DC power source may NOT drop in voltage more than 5% during the test. It means you can only draw as much current from the drivetrain battery as to not cause a voltage drop of more than 5%. The 10 second exclusion is there to keep the entire test from being thrown out if the voltage drops by say 5.1% for a few seconds.

I don't see how necessarily that is inconsistent with my interpretation. The document doesn't specify using standard equipment or a battery for the test (it says "Standard-production equipment" for every line except for DC voltage source). Correct me if I'm wrong about this. So they throw out results from sag of 5% or more, but then they don't say what power supply to use. The other point is they don't limit what test voltage the manufacturer uses (for example minimum, nominal, or peak voltage of battery pack).
http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/main/wp29/wp29regs/2013/R085r1e.pdf

I think the difference is I'm working from Tesla's data to try to find out what standard they may have used to come up with "motor power" numbers. You are more concerned about what they should have used or what would fit common sense for a consumer's assumptions for the phrase "motor power".

One thing I noticed and still remains consistent is the "motor power" are the same for cars with the same motor/inverter combinations, regardless of battery capability. S60/S70 same as S85, S60D/S70D same as S85D. This can't simply be a typo because it has remained true for every revision of the motor power numbers (it's still true today if you look at Tesla's site right now).

Your interpretation that "motor power" = power output at motor shaft considering the whole system, does not match with that. If that was what "motor power" is, S60/S70 should be proportionately lower than S85, and S60D/S70D should be proportionately lower than S85D, given the lower battery voltage (which is reflected in lower advertised system power).

If there was a standard that involves a power supply rather than a battery (as ECE R85 appears to be to me, although maybe I'm wrong about this), that would be a possible cause.

The other guess was what I suggested before, Tesla simply is advertising the maximum that they determined to be possible out of the motor/inverter in preparation of future upgrades to battery (and talk about move from 691hp to 762hp for P85D does not negate this, since Tesla can find out later they have underrated their equipment). This was also what David Noland said it was on the same day the "motor power" numbers came out, and this was not even in context of P85D, just the "motor power" numbers in general. The example he gave was he upgraded his 60kWh battery to 85kWh and all he had to do to get the same power at the motors as a S85 was a firmware update after that.
http://www.greencarreports.com/news...ower-numbers-for-tesla-model-s-whats-the-deal

 

[rns-e]

That 12.1 second 1/4 mile is far slower than we see here in the US typically which is 11.7 and sometimes even 11.6. We've seen over a dozen of these runs with time slips on youtube and the P85D is very consistent in the 11.7 second range. Do you have any REST logs yet for any of these 0-60 or 1/4 mile times or VBO files from Racelogic performance meters?

I was quoting CR and comparing to our 0-60 times, since we must assume they use 1 foot rollout as everybody else in the US. I have no numbers for 1/4 mile - so for the misunderstanding

rns-e--You know I'm on your side in this. But of course Consumer Reports said they were skeptical of the 2.8 Ludicrous number, based on coming up "short" by .4 second on the 3.1 pre-Ludicrous number. They understand, though they aren't saying it, that both the 3.1 and the 2.8 numbers are based on 1-foot roll out. Again--I'm not making a judgement on whether or not Tesla should be doing this or on whether or not it is misleading. But there is nothing surprising about CR saying they are skeptical of the 2.8 number, when they know full well it includes 1-foot roll out, just as the 3.1 number did.

Agree - can't see anywhere that CR is not using 1 foot rollout, have asked them, but no answer, but why would they not use the US standard of 1 foot rollout?

ALL models but the P85D meet or exceed 0-60 times WITHOUT a roll out.

If I can't compare products from a manufacturer because each one is tested with different standards, then specs are useless.

Exactly!

 

[dsm363]

I was quoting CR and comparing to our 0-60 times, since we must assume they use 1 foot rollout as everybody else in the US. I have no numbers for 1/4 mile - so for the misunderstanding



Agree - can't see anywhere that CR is not using 1 foot rollout, have asked them, but no answer, but why would they not use the US standard of 1 foot rollout?



Exactly!

There is no 'standard' for a one foot rollout. It is common among some auto magazines and auto manufacturers though so many people here who follow performance cars know about it. I didn't until the last few years but just reinforces the importance of asking about these sorts of issues when they are that important to you.

 

[rns-e]

There is no 'standard' for a one foot rollout. It is common among some auto magazines and auto manufacturers though so many people here who follow performance cars know about it. I didn't until the last few years but just reinforces the importance of asking about these sorts of issues when they are that important to you.

So now it is not a defacto standard? You seam to change your mind about this to whatever fits the numbers No reason to discus this, we just have to ask CR if they do use it or not. Makes no sense starting to defend Teslas claims with the reverse argument when the numbers support what we are saying.

I agree, it would be wise to ask about things like this, but as you may have read in many of the posts that you have replied to, no one uses 1 foot roll out in Europe, so no one would know to ask about it, and no one would have reason to expect it to be different from any other Tesla that meets its 0-100 km/h times without roll out. But I think this has been stated before.

 

[Andyw2100]

There is no 'standard' for a one foot rollout. It is common among some auto magazines and auto manufacturers though so many people here who follow performance cars know about it. I didn't until the last few years but just reinforces the importance of asking about these sorts of issues when they are that important to you.

The problem, though, is that if you're not familiar with the fact that there is such a thing as 1-foot roll out, you wouldn't know to ask.

Tesla knows that a fair portion of its target market are people like me, who are attracted by the tech, and may not have ever purchased (or shopped for) a performance car in the past. So when I hear, or more importantly read "0-60 in 3.2 seconds," as I did, I don't know enough to know that I need to ask "is that with or without 1-foot roll out?" In my case. I'm willing to understand that it is a standard way of presenting the number in the US, and write off the misunderstanding to my own lack of knowledge. Others may not be that understanding. In any case, I think Tesla really should have been able to anticipate shoppers with my lack of knowledge of performance car measurement standards, and should have included an asterisk, mentioning the 1-foot roll out. It would have been the right thing to do.

 

[dsm363]

Agree. Tesla should add an * if they want to keep advertising that number.

 

[dsm363]

So now it is not a defacto standard? You seam to change your mind about this to whatever fits the numbers No reason to discus this, we just have to ask CR if they do use it or not. Makes no sense starting to defend Teslas claims with the reverse argument when the numbers support what we are saying.

I agree, it would be wise to ask about things like this, but as you may have read in many of the posts that you have replied to, no one uses 1 foot roll out in Europe, so no one would know to ask about it, and no one would have reason to expect it to be different from any other Tesla that meets its 0-100 km/h times without roll out. But I think this has been stated before.

I haven't changed my mind. Is there a law in the U.S. I don't know about mandating one foot rollout? I said it is common in the U.S. to do this. Not that it was mandated or that everyone does it. If you didn't know to ask for it then you learned something I guess. When you make assumptions sometimes you are wrong.

Yes, this has been rehashed countless times at this point.

 

[stopcrazypp]

So now it is not a defacto standard? You seam to change your mind about this to whatever fits the numbers

The definition of "defacto standard" simply means it is the dominant standard, but does not mean every single publication follows it. Like dsm363 says, there is no law requiring people to use 1-foot rollout in their 0-60 number, and no law that disallows it either. Edmunds notably says they don't follow it. It would be no surprise if CR doesn't choose to follow it.

However, the fact remains, the major US car magazines (Car and Driver, Motor Trend, Road and Track) uses it and the major US automakers (Chrysler, Ford, GM) use it freely in their numbers without supplying any asterisks to denote its use.