Chill vs Sport in a 3P+

[Sellout]

I feel like I can’t be alone in this:

Anyone else wish that you could get full power when flooring it but with a little lazier acceleration curve at low pedal pressure? The throttle on many (all?) ICE cars these days looks a bit like a hockey stick if you graph it out with actual throttle angle on the vertical axis and actual pedal depression on the horizontal axis. That annoyed me with a Corvette or an E92 M3 (previous cars) because I very much prefer a fully linear throttle with a gas engine.

In the model 3 I feel like Sport mode is too hard to drive comfortably and Chill mode is too damn slow. Anyone else? I don’t do Twitter so I can’t tweet @Elon about it and hope for it to change some day…

 

[jjrandorin]

In the model 3 I feel like Sport mode is too hard to drive comfortably and Chill mode is too damn slow. Anyone else?

Not me, but you get used to the throttle response of what you have. What happened with me is, I basically drive all other cars other than my model 3 P really slow, because my brain is mapped to the throttle response of my own car.

The last thing I would want, however, is the car to accelerate slowly, then "jump" forward, as it does with cars with turbochargers (like all the BMWs I had previously).

 

[Sellout]

Not me, but you get used to the throttle response of what you have. What happened with me is, I basically drive all other cars other than my model 3 P really slow, because my brain is mapped to the throttle response of my own car.

The last thing I would want, however, is the car to accelerate slowly, then "jump" forward, as it does with cars with turbochargers (like all the BMWs I had previously).

Oh yeah I've definitely gotten used to it over the year that I've been driving it, but I do still wish it felt more linear. When I drive my girlfriend's Chevy Cruze I have a hard time adjusting to the throttle pedal. Chevy uses the most aggressive hockey-stick programming on their throttle bodies and it's a pretty crappy experience for anyone like me who enjoys a more linear pedal feel.

To me, Sport mode feels like the inverse of the hockey stick throttle that exists in modern ICE cars. It feels like the first inch of pedal travel is noticeably sharper than the rest of the pedal movement. When trying to get to the Grand Prix of Long Beach yesterday, my brother commented on how uncomfortable the sensations are for a passenger. I don't notice it as much anymore but I would like to be able to keep my passengers comfortable without giving up the possibility of having full acceleration available in a panic moment when I might need it.

I agree with you about wanting the accelerator to act and feel linear, I just don't think it's linear in sport mode. Chill mode does feel like it COULD be linear (not enough experience to say for sure) but the end of that linear pedal travel might be something like 35-45% of what's available in sport mode.

It wouldn't surprise me if the pedal needed to be programmed in a hockey stick fashion in order for it to feel similar to a linear pedal in an ICE car due to the way electric motors deliver torque. That's what I'd be ok with. I just want the "throttle" to feel like it would if it was 100% linear in an ICE car rather than too touchy at very low pedal travel and less so at deeper pedal positions.

 

[ay221]

chill 0-60 in 6.7 seconds or so. Maybe a normal mode would be helpful. On my Cayman GTS, I have normal , sport and sport plus. I normally drive in normal and it's plenty fast enough for me. If I took it to a track I would use sport plus of course.

 

[Sellout]

chill 0-60 in 6.7 seconds or so. Maybe a normal mode would be helpful. On my Cayman GTS, I have normal , sport and sport plus. I normally drive in normal and it's plenty fast enough for me. If I took it to a track I would use sport plus of course.

The difference between this car and the Cayman GTS is that you get all 340 hp from the engine no matter which mode the car is in, provided you’ve got your foot to the floor. The ramp rates might be different in each mode, but you have all the power available when you floor it.

That’s what I want from the Tesla.

 

[Sukhshanti]

You probably just have a heavy foot, EVs require more precision on the go pedal than ICE cars as their is no buildup before accelerating, once you get used to the instant throttle response though, it will suck to go back to ICE, my wife's C300 feels antiquated after driving my 3P. All noise and no go.

 

[BlueCarNut]

What happened with me is, I basically drive all other cars other than my model 3 P really slow, because my brain is mapped to the throttle response of my own car.

This! My wife is often like, I don't understand why you drive my car so slowly!

 

[BigNick]

Like the old P85D after Chill mode was introduced in late 2017(?), the M3P should have Chill, Sport, and Insane.

 

[tm1v2]

I feel like I can’t be alone in this:

Anyone else wish that you could get full power when flooring it but with a little lazier acceleration curve at low pedal pressure? The throttle on many (all?) ICE cars these days looks a bit like a hockey stick if you graph it out with actual throttle angle on the vertical axis and actual pedal depression on the horizontal axis. That annoyed me with a Corvette or an E92 M3 (previous cars) because I very much prefer a fully linear throttle with a gas engine.

In the model 3 I feel like Sport mode is too hard to drive comfortably and Chill mode is too damn slow. Anyone else? I don’t do Twitter so I can’t tweet @Elon about it and hope for it to change some day…

@Sellout You're not alone, I completely agree. Giving big power from small accelerator depression is a too-common gimmick to make a car feel quicker than it actually is. M3P of all cars has no use for this gimmick, but Tesla did it anyways. It is annoying.

I do get used to it, and the accelerator is sensitive enough that it's still very possible to modulate precisely, but I don't like having to carefully use a small fraction of pedal travel for all normal driving. It also throws me off briefly when I switch back to the M3P after driving our S P85 for a while.

On my last two ICE cars the accelerator maps (RPM + pedal position -> torque demand) were super easy to reprogram using ECU tuning software. So I ran very linear maps and they worked great for all situations, from daily driving to blizzards to track days. No need for "Chill" or "Sport" maps when one linear map feels good for everything! I haven't come across any way to reprogram a Tesla's accelerator map though. How cool would it be if Tesla took advantage of the nice touchscreen to make custom accelerator maps a builtin feature of the car?

I will note that the accelerator feels much better in Track Mode 100% regen (stronger than normal regen), when more of the pedal travel gets used for regen. Subjectively it feels more linear even in the acceleration portion, but I'm not sure if that's actually true or if it just feels that way because the acceleration portion is shifted further into the pedal travel.

 

[tm1v2]

You probably just have a heavy foot, EVs require more precision on the go pedal than ICE cars as their is no buildup before accelerating, once you get used to the instant throttle response though, it will suck to go back to ICE, my wife's C300 feels antiquated after driving my 3P. All noise and no go.

@Sukhshanti It's not EV vs ICE. Many ICE cars have similar gimmicky accelerator maps. And not all EVs do. My S P85 is also a quick responsive EV but its accelerator mapping is better. Still not ideal to me but better than the M3P's.

 

[gearchruncher]

bit like a hockey stick if you graph it out with actual throttle angle on the vertical axis and actual pedal depression on the horizontal axis.

FYI, throttle plate angle is not linear to airflow or torque, so you can't just graph this and say if an engine will be linear or not. You want linear pedal to torque request, not throttle angle.

And even then, you'd find driving around at 18 MPH pretty annoying in a 500 HP car if torque was linear along the throttle pedal travel.

 

[DayTrippin]

I have the M3 w/boost. I find the throttle in sport mode pretty good. I can creep along at about .5 mph and smoothly dial in more power. The response is quicker than the Y under similar circumstances.

I wouldn't mind 3 modes + something like a snow mode. My S has 3 and each one is distinct enough from the other. Even in Insane mode though I can easily move the car about an inch to get it closer to the front wall in the garage. Couldn't do that with my high HP Ice cars with an auto tranny and with a manual would take a lot of clutch slip to get it just right.

 

[Sellout]

FYI, throttle plate angle is not linear to airflow or torque, so you can't just graph this and say if an engine will be linear or not. You want linear pedal to torque request, not throttle angle.

And even then, you'd find driving around at 18 MPH pretty annoying in a 500 HP car if torque was linear along the throttle pedal travel.

Thanks I guess? I understand all that, and it doesn’t change the programming of throttle pedals in modern cars. They’re literally programmed to be lazy in the first portion of throttle pedal movement because that’s how you can make it easy to get decent gas mileage and reduce emissions a bit.

In the case of Corvettes, you get both a hockey stick throttle pedal map AND a throttle body that has the inlet and outlet offset such that the blade has to move something like 30 degrees before it starts to open up. The end result is a pretty fast sports car in which you have to keep your foot pretty deep into the pedal to maintain 70mph. Not unlike the 3P in chill mode, except that you can still get to 100% throttle in that car. It’s pretty bad from a throttle response perspective, I think they should have done one or the other, but not both.. and what do you know, if you look at the pictures of the new 670hp C8Z engine, it has two of these exact same throttle bodies on it. Shame..

I can say for sure that I didn’t find driving my E92 M3 annoying at all with the throttles (ITBs) set in the linear mode. Without electric torque a linear throttle mode is nowhere near as much of a concern as it might be with electric motors. As I mentioned above, it might be that we need somewhat of a hockey stick programming for the accelerator pedal. What we DONT need (and I certainly don’t want) is to only be able to choose the gimmicky sports mode or the lazy pedal with no access to full torque.

 

[Johnny J]

Thanks I guess? I understand all that, and it doesn’t change the programming of throttle pedals in modern cars. They’re literally programmed to be lazy in the first portion of throttle pedal movement because that’s how you can make it easy to get decent gas mileage and reduce emissions a bit.

In the case of Corvettes, you get both a hockey stick throttle pedal map AND a throttle body that has the inlet and outlet offset such that the blade has to move something like 30 degrees before it starts to open up. The end result is a pretty fast sports car in which you have to keep your foot pretty deep into the pedal to maintain 70mph. Not unlike the 3P in chill mode, except that you can still get to 100% throttle in that car. It’s pretty bad from a throttle response perspective, I think they should have done one or the other, but not both.. and what do you know, if you look at the pictures of the new 670hp C8Z engine, it has two of these exact same throttle bodies on it. Shame..

I can say for sure that I didn’t find driving my E92 M3 annoying at all with the throttles (ITBs) set in the linear mode. Without electric torque a linear throttle mode is nowhere near as much of a concern as it might be with electric motors. As I mentioned above, it might be that we need somewhat of a hockey stick programming for the accelerator pedal. What we DONT need (and I certainly don’t want) is to only be able to choose the gimmicky sports mode or the lazy pedal with no access to full torque.

Sellout, you're exactly correct. Why not have the pedal "Tip-in" be adjustable on a scale from 1-10" via the interface screen. It's a completely electronic throttle system. Any multiplier or restrictor could be used and it would take nearly no effort from Tesla to implement. It's amazing how nearly all of the latest software updates do nothing to improve the driving experience. For some reason the development team spends 90% of their time working on where the apps icons are located.

 

[gearchruncher]

Any multiplier or restrictor could be used and it would take nearly no effort from Tesla to implement.

The idea that changing the throttle response curve on a safety critical system "takes no effort" is not true, and why would Tesla put all this energy in on a feature that maybe 1% of people care about on a few percent of cars they sell? Tesla doesn't even put a lower suspension on performance cars anymore, and they are selling every car they can make right now.

 

[Sellout]

The idea that changing the throttle response curve on a safety critical system "takes no effort" is not true, and why would Tesla put all this energy in on a feature that maybe 1% of people care about on a few percent of cars they sell? Tesla doesn't even put a lower suspension on performance cars anymore, and they are selling every car they can make right now.

They didn’t have to implement “Joe Mode” either, but they did.

 

[DayTrippin]

Maybe someone can adapt pedal commander to a Tesla. It has really transformed some vehicles I used it on. It gives you a tremendous amount of control of your throttle. Highly recommend getting one for your vehicle if they support it.

They don't currently make one for a Tesla. Don't know how hard it would be to integrate but maybe if enough people write, they might make one.

Pedal Commander | Throttle Response Controller

Pedal Commander is the worlds most advanced throttle control system. Enhance your driving, It allows your engine to respond faster so your car can accelerate faster! Satisfaction Guarantee. Two Year Limited Warranty. 2018 SEMA Award Winner. Plug N Play install

pedalcommander.com

 

[jackmott]

It seems obvious to enthusiasts to just add more customization options to throttle maps, but for a car maker that is more variables to worry about with safety, self driving, traction control, reliability and on and on. And the upside is essentially zero for the car maker, those of us who are very particular about throttle mapping are a tiny minority of owners. We are really really lucky we even got track mode.

 

[Sellout]

It seems obvious to enthusiasts to just add more customization options to throttle maps, but for a car maker that is more variables to worry about with safety, self driving, traction control, reliability and on and on. And the upside is essentially zero for the car maker, those of us who are very particular about throttle mapping are a tiny minority of owners. We are really really lucky we even got track mode.

That’s fair, but there are ZERO traction control concerns with making the throttle map more linear. If we’re asking them to go from a linear map to the Sport mode map that we already have, we might be worried about how the traction control system functions, but not in this case.

 

[Young Phenom]

That’s fair, but there are ZERO traction control concerns with making the throttle map more linear. If we’re asking them to go from a linear map to the Sport mode map that we already have, we might be worried about how the traction control system functions, but not in this case.

Precisely.

People are simply asking for a middle ground setting.