Elon "About to end range anxiety"

[JBrown4390]

I wish that they would focus on more autopilot features. None of us here have range anxiety we all understand and and have accepted the requirements of owning and driving our cars. As stated previously this is all hype and not intended for us as owners at all.

Still will be anxious to hear what happens Thursday.

 

[TSLAROX]

My guess: Destination charging. Much, much more of it.

 

[mrElbe]

The software will be upgraded to eliminate any range prediction or charge left at destination. Voila! no more range anxiety.

 

[Mike Liberty]

Better inverter algorithm by using pulsing and micro sleep the motor for steady cruising, and better navigation software.

 

[Chris TX]

Not sure if this has already been speculated about in the previous 18 pages of this thread, but I always wanted to be able to have cruise control based on Wh/mile vs MPH. That would limit the amount of power going to the motor, regardless of terrain. If you're going up a hill and slow down, you can always push the pedal a little bit, too. I've imagined a button near the directions panel that would say "Limit kW/mi to xxx? Yes/No"

I know a constant kW/mi is the best way to maximize your battery level. Having the cruise control boost the motor when you're going up a hill really doesn't help, and doing regen instead of coasting on the way down isn't as efficient, either.

 

[Mattias]

Of course ending range anxiety isn't really possible since it´s a very relative term.

But let´s say they have come up with something to improve the range of the car.

It´s a know fact the all electric motors operate more efficiently under heavy loads. Now I´m not an expert at the engine Tesla uses but speaking from what I know, at cruise you are using about 30 hp, thats around 22.4 kW.

Now pay attention, this does not directly reflect the efficiency for the Tesla motor. Just to clear that up.

Looking at couple of graphs for VFD induction motors, shows that when cruising at around 60-65 mpH the efficiency isn't really all that good. Now the problem is basically that the engine load is simply too low. A gearbox via OTA is impossible to do within current laws of physics.

They may have figured out a way to run the engine at full power for extremely short time intervals. In my mind, this would make for an extremely unpleasant and "jerky" power delivery, but like I said, i'm not an expert at these things.

Or it could be something boring like a new navigator thingy.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

Better inverter algorithm by using pulsing and micro sleep the motor for steady cruising, and better navigation software.

Agree. I think that at high speed the wheels can be decoupled from the motors and the micro sleep technique could be used to improve the range. The big inertia of the Model S would help a lot in this case.

 

[point1]

I wish that they would focus on more autopilot features. None of us here have range anxiety we all understand and and have accepted the requirements of owning and driving our cars. As stated previously this is all hype and not intended for us as owners at all.

Still will be anxious to hear what happens Thursday.

Well as with all large engineering projects you can't just allocate any engineer to just focus on a different area, they have engineers specialized in various fields and you can't just focus all engineering resources on different parts of projects as you wish. Or well you can but then you'd have hundreds of engineers needing to learn what they should do.

 

[Beckler]

I believe the primary focus will be better navigation to include all needed charging stops. One other possibility would be a partnership with a major player who has thousands of locations and has agreed to install chargers in all of them. If there was a network of HPWCs or something similar that was absolutely everywhere, that would "end range anxiety" as well. The ideal partner would probably someone like an international restaurant chain or hotel chain.

I'm actually surprised this hasn't been done yet on a larger scale. Like say a department store chain or shopping malls. It seems like malls are ideal because the 'stay time' should be much longer than say at McGarbage. So it not only brings traffic your way but people are forced to stay and buy low-quality junk at your walmart as they wait to get charged up. Also I thought of this long before Tesla but a massive mall parking lot is perfect to cover entirely with a solar canopy. Everybody wins: more business, people's cars stay cool, free power.

 

[bp1000]

I assume if you run the motor at high load pulsing several hundred times a second you maintain your 22kW needed for cruise, the driver doesn't notice at such high frequency but it improves efficiency. I assume only active at steady throttle inputs like torque sleep.

I assume it also disengaged at the millisecond interval when you need power.

All pretty optimistic stuff.

A nav update with some new routing software and icons would be a big let down.

3rd party apps aren't news right, other charge points will come soon anyway.

 

[anticitizen13.7]

Well as with all large engineering projects you can't just allocate any engineer to just focus on a different area, they have engineers specialized in various fields and you can't just focus all engineering resources on different parts of projects as you wish. Or well you can but then you'd have hundreds of engineers needing to learn what they should do.

Yes. Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks's_law, which is not so much a law but a general principle: "adding people to a late, large project makes it later", because it takes time to bring new workers up to speed on the project, and because adding more people increases the number of communication channels that exist and must be managed.

- - - Updated - - -

Better inverter algorithm by using pulsing and micro sleep the motor for steady cruising, and better navigation software.

This is my final guess as well. Can't wait until Thursday!

 

[Beckler]

A nav update with some new routing software and icons would be a big let down.

Be prepared then to be let down majorly sir. I'm going to suggest people lose any hope of some sort of hardware change that will give so much more range it'll end anxiety. There's just no way it's going to happen Thursday so might as well forget about it. When you step back you see it's just too far fetched. Of course I'd be more than glad to be proved wrong!

 

[vvanders]

Of course ending range anxiety isn't really possible since it´s a very relative term.

But let´s say they have come up with something to improve the range of the car.

It´s a know fact the all electric motors operate more efficiently under heavy loads. Now I´m not an expert at the engine Tesla uses but speaking from what I know, at cruise you are using about 30 hp, thats around 22.4 kW.

<snip graphs>

Now pay attention, this does not directly reflect the efficiency for the Tesla motor. Just to clear that up.

Looking at couple of graphs for VFD induction motors, shows that when cruising at around 60-65 mpH the efficiency isn't really all that good. Now the problem is basically that the engine load is simply too low. A gearbox via OTA is impossible to do within current laws of physics.

They may have figured out a way to run the engine at full power for extremely short time intervals. In my mind, this would make for an extremely unpleasant and "jerky" power delivery, but like I said, i'm not an expert at these things.

Or it could be something boring like a new navigator thingy.

I'd be very surprised(but happy) if this was the case. I'm not an expert on VFD but do play around with some EE stuff and from what I can dig up with online there's a good chance they're already doing a PWM(full power at varying frequency) to generate the sin waves needed to drive the AC motor.

I guess we'll just have to wait till Thursday

 

[efusco]

The new trip feature in the energy app already goes a long way to mitigating my range anxiety. It seems most plausible to me that further improvements in this function are what we'll see, in conjunction with a partnership with Plugshare, to help identify charging locations on route.
As someone who lives in a state with zero superchargers, I don't see how improving supercharger performance will help with "anxiety". Anxiety is a state of mind, and the only way to address it is to provide more, higher-quality information.

This also seems most likely to me. In addition, I suspect that the addition of supercharger waypoints will be added for trip routing as well. As range anxiety from point A to the first supercharger is just one piece. If you want to drive from Nixa, MO to LA, you need to be sure that you can get from Supercharger #4 to Supercharger #5 as well.

 

[Zaxxon]

FWIW, I attended the dual-motor insanity event in Denver this morning. At the tech talk, the speaker let slip that Supercharger-integrated nav is coming real soon now. His example was someone in Denver entering SF as their destination, then being routed there through SCs, including estimated charge times at each stop.

So I'd think that's a large part of this announcement.

 

[AEdennis]

I can't believe that nobody has figured this out, when it is so obvious. Clearly the onboard Mr. Fusion reactor will be brought online. No more worries about running out of power. 

Perhaps Pollux in this thread already demonstrated the BETA of this:

...
2. I demonstrated an extra-cost Tesla Model S option -- an "engine". Turns out, many people are baffled by Model S' lack of an apparent engine and drivetrain. People find this optional engine makes much more sense.

View attachment 48147

...

10. I am astonished to report that my particular vehicle won the "Best in Show" award! I've never won anything before, not even "Most Improved". Since there were five other Model S' at the show, the winning criterion turned out to be... the engine!

View attachment 48155

Over & out,
Alan

 

[Electrifying]

a Tesla Mobile charging Truck that will meet you in one of your way points. Tesla will station hundreds of these bad boys each with a 1000 Kwh battery at its superchargers. You alert Tesla command center and will get instructions like meet your rescue truck in 25 minutes at this road side location. It's a like midair refueling of fighter jets. so COOL! But you need to pay for it though!

 

[andrewket]

What they really need to do is start pushing the updates on Thursday so they can pull an apple and amazon. "And it's available today".

 

[wk057]

I think he tweeted, then will go through this thread and pick a good idea, and announce that Thursday.

 

[xy46]

Of course ending range anxiety isn't really possible since it´s a very relative term.

But let´s say they have come up with something to improve the range of the car.

It´s a know fact the all electric motors operate more efficiently under heavy loads. Now I´m not an expert at the engine Tesla uses but speaking from what I know, at cruise you are using about 30 hp, thats around 22.4 kW.

Now pay attention, this does not directly reflect the efficiency for the Tesla motor. Just to clear that up.

Looking at couple of graphs for VFD induction motors, shows that when cruising at around 60-65 mpH the efficiency isn't really all that good. Now the problem is basically that the engine load is simply too low. A gearbox via OTA is impossible to do within current laws of physics.

They may have figured out a way to run the engine at full power for extremely short time intervals. In my mind, this would make for an extremely unpleasant and "jerky" power delivery, but like I said, i'm not an expert at these things.

Hoping for this! :smile:

Or it could be something boring like a new navigator thingy.

But expecting it will be more like this!:redface: