voip-ninja
Give me some sugar baby
Gee guess it’s good you just happen to be lucky and have an AWD car with good enough motors for Performance switch.
Or... they all are.
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I ordered a Performance 3. The car at delivery was an AWD.
- Thread starter yul sam
- Start date
Gee guess it’s good you just happen to be lucky and have an AWD car with good enough motors for Performance switch.
Or... they all are.
They updated my configuration options tonight , and the red line appeared in the app and the car. Wow, the acceleration difference is amazing!
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
You can get that for about 10k by ordering the car that way in the first place.
It's not currently offered as a post-delivery option, but the fact we've had what like half a dozen reports of it being flashed during delivery now, tells us it's an option they likely COULD offer in the future.
Though I'd expect it to cost more than 10k, Tesla tends to charge more for things post-delivery compared to pre-delivery.
It's not currently offered as a post-delivery option, but the fact we've had what like half a dozen reports of it being flashed during delivery now, tells us it's an option they likely COULD offer in the future.
Though I'd expect it to cost more than 10k, Tesla tends to charge more for things post-delivery compared to pre-delivery.
It is also possible that there is currently zero hardware difference between the AWD and the PAWD. At this stage of production hell they could have simply specified the same motors in both cars (maybe why AWD is $6k now using a Performance quality part). But, in the future, especially when the shorter range version comes out with an AWD option they might source a different front motor, that truly is different than the performance option.
Perhaps they intend the price of AWD to really be a $4k option in the long run, but just have not gotten around to getting a lower power motor tested and qualified yet. In a few months perhaps they will test and qualify a lower performance front motor (I do not see them really being able to do a different rear motor economically given the volume of the rear motor) and lower the price back down.
If they did this then they could have the interesting option of announcing that due to production hell all the current AWDs are able to be unlocked for a mere $$, but future built cars would not be able to be upgraded because of the new part.
Perhaps they intend the price of AWD to really be a $4k option in the long run, but just have not gotten around to getting a lower power motor tested and qualified yet. In a few months perhaps they will test and qualify a lower performance front motor (I do not see them really being able to do a different rear motor economically given the volume of the rear motor) and lower the price back down.
If they did this then they could have the interesting option of announcing that due to production hell all the current AWDs are able to be unlocked for a mere $$, but future built cars would not be able to be upgraded because of the new part.
Perry
Active Member
I doubt that's the case.
Elon stated that they do bin sorting on the motors for performance. The way binning works is the same as with CPU chips on computers. Intel for example creates a whole bunch of their top of the line chips. Then they are tested for defects. The ones with defects that are non-critical are binned as slower chips by disabling the defective parts and are sold as cheaper less capable CPUs.
If things are as you say and all Tesla motors perform well enough for the performance version, it means that their yield is basically error free or within the tolerances of performance. But if their manufacturing is at such a high level now then it makes no sense that later they would degrade their manufacturing line by artificially introducing defects just so they can sell cheaper motors. That would cost more than leaving the line as is.
The whole point of binning is that with the SAME manufacturing process, you get different grades of the product based on manufacturing variability. Once your variability is close to perfect there is no going back instead you should aim for something even higher that requires even more manufacturing precision.
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
I think he's saying that later they'll lower the cost of AWD by using smaller motors, inverters, axles, thinner wires, etc.
Right now all that stuff is way overbuilt on the AWD. Tesla could also improve the efficiency of the AWD by sizing all that stuff more appropriately for the power/torque level. On the Model S the non performance models are a little more efficient because they have smaller motors.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
No, he said they bin sort drive units
Which is the fully assembled motor plus inverter plus other parts.
(which is why the claims there's "special" inverters or "special" chips in those inverters would directly contradict what Elon said)
That's ONE of the ways they do it with CPUs. They've also simply used programming to "lock" more capable chips to slower speeds when yields were high but demand for cheaper chips was high too.
Hell there's been times Intel intentionally grounded a wire or physically drilled a hole in a perfectly working part of a chip to cripple it and sell it as a cheaper part because they didn't have enough demand to sell it as a fully working one at the higher price.
But CPUs are a lot more complex than electric motors. Built on a much much smaller scale. With vastly different tolerances. So the parallels aren't perfect there.
Again this is something Intel literally did many times- and still does in software instead of hardware now.
But unlike Intel back in the day, Tesla doesn't need to "degrade" anything. They can just use software to make the AWD non-P car perform at a lesser rate than the P one with the exact same parts in it.
and induction motors aren't nearly as complex or as tiny/variable as CPUs.
I keep seeing folks mention the proof that there are hardware differences between AWD and P3D- is because Elon tweeted it. Elon has occasionally tweeted erroneous info info in the past, and I can't reasonably expect the CEO to know every engineering detail. Hypothetically, they could have originally planned to do binning but later learned based on actual yields that most of the drive units met the minimum specs for performance models. From what I've seen with cars being switched from AWD to P3D- with a mere sw config change, I'm not convinced. Not saying that there couldn't be hw differences, rather I've just not seen conclusive evidence yet.
I agree with this. My sticker is Long range AWD but have P.
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I am a P3D+ owner and would love to have the confidence that I paid for binned sorted parts designed for the performance version. However more and more there is evidence that it might just be a software (firmware) update. I know Elon has tweeted that it was binned. However, he has a history of creating reality distortions like Steve Jobs. What I don't understand is why don't Tesla as a company make an official announcement about the actual hardware differences and all the involved specs like any other major established ICE companies. How can they be allowed to function in such a loose manner? I really hope all the success to Tesla and they have a great product to back it up without creating all this confusion. Just be honest and list the specs and let us decide. Again I love the product but I don't understand why there is so much fuss in getting the proper documentation ( ie, Window Stickers, Vehicle description in the Tesla page post-purchase, correct MVPA, Supercharge for life for the original owner, etc) and proper vehicle configuration on delivery. Is this too much to ask when purchasing a vehicle for $80K+.
PessimiStick
Member
It does what it says it will do. How that's accomplished under the hood is barely relevant. It doesn't matter if drive units are binned, or different, or identical, or anything else. It's advertised as doing 0-60 in 3.5 seconds, and it does. Who honestly cares if it's just a simple software switch?
Most people on this thread by the looks of things.
Perry
Active Member
It matters for those people that bought a P, got an AWD instead and later got upgraded to P through software. Why does it matter? Because although their car after the software update to P does indeed now perform like a P. If the motors where not tested and rated for P current flow because they where not bin sorted then it could bite them later as their motor is more likely to fail. And as luck would have it, they will fail the day after the drive train warranty expires.
So had Tesla confirmed that indeed all motors are capable of P and only software limits them to AWD then we can be assured that a software upgrade from AWD to P would be safe. Right now it is not safe to assume this which causes uncertainty, and a sense that you might not have gotten what you paid for. This is not a good feeling to have about a product that cost 75K.
Tesla could clear all this up and let us feel good about our purchase. As it is now we can't.
So you want Tesla to say that Tesla employees actually verified that the drive units were P qualified before converting cars from AWD to P?
Generally: to reiterate, when I said hardware difference between AWD and P drive units, I meant distinct part to part variation, not an intentional difference in PCB part populations or mechanical design.
Performance wise: To validate the difference I think we would need to get a true AWD only car and a P then run them both at the same speed for long enough to measure if the motor self heating is higher or not. Either direct temp data logging or (less definitive) does AWD thermal limit first.
To justified the price difference between the AWD and Performance Model even Elon Musk cares since he has publicly eluded that some parts may be binned or spent extra time in the burn process to make them more appropriate for the higher requirement needed for the performance version. It's just that Tesla has not made this clear if this is indeed true. I personally care because I think it shifts the value proposition toward AWD more if it is just the software. If it is the software only enhancement, AWD will definitely be the more reliable vehicle since it can also take the stress of being a performance model as well. And as a performance model the motors may have higher failure rate after the warranty period is over versus the AWD. This possibility matters to me even if this does not matter to you. But, despite all that, currently, I am immensely enjoying my P3D+ more each day for what it is!
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