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Letter To Elon Musk Regarding P85D Horsepower – Discussion Thread

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I'm a bit conflicted about this letter. I like the general tone and I'm completely comfortable with the 691HP discussion which I think is the clearest and cleanest claim and where I most believe Tesla has mismanaged their message. I'm less comfortable with the 0-60 discussion because as a performance car enthusiast I know all about the 1 second rollout and I've seen many cars where owners never ever manage to hit the advertised 0-60 times even with rollout. In my mind including this in the letter weakens it because this issue is much more easily explained by Tesla.

The part of the letter angling for free ludicrous upgrades and explaining to Tesla why it would be a PR benefit to them really trouble me. It supports some of the nasty comments upthread and is the only part of the letter that makes me uncomfortable signing it. The explanation of why it would be good PR is particularly condescending and troubling, IMO.

I also 100% agree with neroden that the change in policy related to Ranger service is a worse change and I'm always surprised it gets so much less attention here, but I guess there is no point cluttering up this thread with another distraction.
 
Well Tesla has never displayed such a disclaimer. But

Perfect, then we know under which conditions to be able to do it



MPG, as far from the real world as it may be, is a very clear and defined standard testing, so not comparable. In Europe they will be changing the standards soon to be more in line with real world use.

Motortrend, 1 foot rollout and one of the first cars with less restrictions. The ludicrous upgrade is a product of a need Tesla identified when the P85D got out to customers. As you may have read about there has been some early cases with stranded P85Ds. Incoming data from user owned P85Ds showed that the battery guarantee would be a costly thing if they did not turn the performance down. This is just my speculation.

No, not trying to get the Ludicrous for free as I and several others filled our first complaint with Tesla back in mid April, that they have come up with one possible fix (Ludicrous) is good. At this point ... you get my drift

Tesla doesn't need to display the disclaimer, it's a given in the auto industry that your performance will vary. I'm hoping Tesla comes back to you with the methodology as to how they arrived to the 3.2->3.1 or whatever it was. Never saw the Motortrend way of testing-- can you link please? I'm curious to see. I thought the early cases of stranded cars was due to the next gen motor in front...?
 
Ok, as you all (P85D owners) know, I am NOT a P85D owner, But.... But I have been here with you all since the beginning.

Thus, I do have the latent knowledge of the issue and a unique perspective of an interested fan and car guy.

So, way back in last October-ish time frame when all were jumping onto the P85D bandwagon with orders... I stood aside.

I was able to road test one of the first P85D's that reached the New York area.

Ok, so as I understand it, you are asking for an upgrade to the Ludicrous Mode which hopefully will increase performance and HP.
However, as a prospective P90D buyer, there is NO current road test data out on that car with Ludicrous mode.

SO... are you all asking for a Ludicrous upgrade without the actual knowledge of what it's performance characteristics are?

If so, how would that differ from ordering the P85D without having test driven one?

Be cautious of what you ask for....

Personally, I think what may be helpful is a multi-speed gearbox. I think this has been opined earlier but no one has really advanced that concept.

As an aside, the quarter mile performace figures on the Design Studio and the individual HP motor rates on the P85D have been removed as of this AM.

ARTinCT
 
Having not read more than the letter, maybe I echo someone else if I observe that "70-90" performance is only indirectly implied by "691HP". Most cars have gears. There are shows called "Top Gear". Most hypercars are in 2nd through their 60mph acceleration tests. They pull hard, from 70-90, only because another gear puts them back to the beginning of their torque/hp curves. Tesla has just one. In so far as they never represented the car to have 2, 4 or 6 gears, I don't know where this aspect of the letter has any merit. It just muddies the rest.
 
That's all been done over and over and beaten to death.

If you mean add all of that to the letter, then I might agree with you except it would make the letter very very long. I think this is just the first step and more detailed letters can follow if needed.

Well, its been beaten to death here, but I'd expect there is very little awareness of this outside the hallowed halls of TMC. I agree the body of the letter should be succinct, but if it were me, I'd also provide an attachment with summary of the empirical data and/or a Dropbox link to detailed data. If the first letter is not credible and actionable, a second and third letter are going to be irrelevant. As its stands, its pretty much impossible for someone to respond to the 550hp number unless they understand how you got there, unless you believe that Elon & Co. already know its 550hp and are purposely lying.
 
Tesla doesn't need to display the disclaimer, it's a given in the auto industry that your performance will vary. I'm hoping Tesla comes back to you with the methodology as to how they arrived to the 3.2->3.1 or whatever it was. Never saw the Motortrend way of testing-- can you link please? I'm curious to see. I thought the early cases of stranded cars was due to the next gen motor in front...?

2015 Tesla Model S P85D First Test - Motor Trend

Quote:
'To 30 mph the P85D would be four feet ahead of the fastest-accelerating sedan we've tested, the Audi RS 7, a gap that holds to 60 when the Tesla punches the clock at 3.1 seconds, a tenth quicker than the Audi (as well as the McLaren F1's accepted time -- all of these after subtracting the customary 1-foot rollout). Both cars arrive at the quarter in 11.6 seconds, with the Audi starting to show its higher-speed chops. (The P85D tops out at 155, the RS 7, 174 mph.) Great for the Autobahn, irrelevant in America.'
 
2015 Tesla Model S P85D First Test - Motor Trend

Quote:
'To 30 mph the P85D would be four feet ahead of the fastest-accelerating sedan we've tested, the Audi RS 7, a gap that holds to 60 when the Tesla punches the clock at 3.1 seconds, a tenth quicker than the Audi (as well as the McLaren F1's accepted time -- all of these after subtracting the customary 1-foot rollout). Both cars arrive at the quarter in 11.6 seconds, with the Audi starting to show its higher-speed chops. (The P85D tops out at 155, the RS 7, 174 mph.) Great for the Autobahn, irrelevant in America.'

Well this seems to support Tesla's position.
 
I'll admit that this thread is making me have buyers remorse for getting that little P in front of the 8. Since the hp is the only difference - and apparently it's not as advertised - there's no way it's worth the premium.

I'll also admit I'm hesitant to sign for fear of retribution from Tesla. I love the car and the company, just think they're missing the mark on their customer service. I'm a customer service consultant and would love to chat with someone over there.
 
I'll admit that this thread is making me have buyers remorse for getting that little P in front of the 8. Since the hp is the only difference - and apparently it's not as advertised - there's no way it's worth the premium.

I'll also admit I'm hesitant to sign for fear of retribution from Tesla. I love the car and the company, just think they're missing the mark on their customer service. I'm a customer service consultant and would love to chat with someone over there.

If the P85D is quicker to 60 than the 85D there still is a difference. I wouldn't worry about retribution. If you want to sign the letter you should do it.
 
part of my problem with this letter is the following statement:

"The missing horsepower is quite noticeable at highway passing speeds. For example, from 70-90 mph, the P85D should perform like a car with a power to weight ratio of one HP for every seven pounds. Instead it performs like a car with one HP for every nine pounds."

AFAIK my understanding P85 vs P85D vs P85D w\ ludicrious would all perform basically exactly the same from 70-90mph. the only 'gain' is really on the up front 0-60 times and really anything after that is negligible at best if not exact the same. and for that matter, the acceleration post 60mph is really limited due to the nature of being an ev with a single gear box. we all know it can destroy pretty much any car ever made from 0-60 but we also all know that 60mph+ take and high end sports car labo, ferrari, mclaren, and even other high end cars with power vettes, mercedes, etc, and they will all destroy a P85D post 60mph. focusing here on 70-90mph acceleration is a lost cause. trying to say 'hey its listed as more HP so it should acceleration faster between 70-90mph' tells me you don't understand the vehicle and that your expectations are completely wrong. if I were a P85D owner, my expectations would be that I would see a gain from 0-60 times, but my acceleration post 60mph would be basically no different than the original P85. I would never ever describe this as 'missing horsepower', but a better description is more like 'user error' on one's own understanding and expectations of their own vehicle.
 
part of my problem with this letter is the following statement:



AFAIK my understanding P85 vs P85D vs P85D w\ ludicrious would all perform basically exactly the same from 70-90mph. the only 'gain' is really on the up front 0-60 times and really anything after that is negligible at best if not exact the same. and for that matter, the acceleration post 60mph is really limited due to the nature of being an ev with a single gear box. we all know it can destroy pretty much any car ever made from 0-60 but we also all know that 60mph+ take and high end sports car labo, ferrari, mclaren, and even other high end cars with power vettes, mercedes, etc, and they will all destroy a P85D post 60mph. focusing here on 70-90mph acceleration is a lost cause. trying to say 'hey its listed as more HP so it should acceleration faster between 70-90mph' tells me you don't understand the vehicle and that your expectations are completely wrong. if I were a P85D owner, my expectations would be that I would see a gain from 0-60 times, but my acceleration post 60mph would be basically no different than the original P85. I would never ever describe this as 'missing horsepower', but a better description is more like 'user error' on one's own understanding and expectations of their own vehicle.


155 miles per hour, some 20 percent faster than on a standard P85D. The gain in the 0-60mph time is from 30-60 mph
 
part of my problem with this letter is the following statement:



AFAIK my understanding P85 vs P85D vs P85D w\ ludicrious would all perform basically exactly the same from 70-90mph. the only 'gain' is really on the up front 0-60 times and really anything after that is negligible at best if not exact the same. and for that matter, the acceleration post 60mph is really limited due to the nature of being an ev with a single gear box. we all know it can destroy pretty much any car ever made from 0-60 but we also all know that 60mph+ take and high end sports car labo, ferrari, mclaren, and even other high end cars with power vettes, mercedes, etc, and they will all destroy a P85D post 60mph. focusing here on 70-90mph acceleration is a lost cause. trying to say 'hey its listed as more HP so it should acceleration faster between 70-90mph' tells me you don't understand the vehicle and that your expectations are completely wrong. if I were a P85D owner, my expectations would be that I would see a gain from 0-60 times, but my acceleration post 60mph would be basically no different than the original P85. I would never ever describe this as 'missing horsepower', but a better description is more like 'user error' on one's own understanding and expectations of their own vehicle.
Before ludicrous this would be true.. Post ludicrous this is not correct any more. The TM-blogpost specifically address extra improvments above 60mph in addition to the added 0-60 improvement. This goes hand in hand with the infamous OTA-update previously promised for the P85D... So yes Tesla told us they hadnt unleashed all of the high speed performance back in January. Provlem is that the OTA turned into a physical 5000usd upgrade instead...

edit: rns-e beat me to it:)
 
From what I remember from the announcement, Elon said that from 0-30, acceleration was traction (tire) constrained, but from 30-60, it became pack constrained because of the amount of current that could be pulled through the old fuse. The impact of the Ludicrous grade and its smart fuse was to allow the car to accelerate from 30-60 at the same rate it went from 0-30. I would tend to agree with @yobigd20 that performance characteristics above 60 are mostly determined by the single speed gear box--this is where we see other cars start to make up ground on the P85D as they are working their way through their gearbox.
 
From what I remember from the announcement, Elon said that from 0-30, acceleration was traction (tire) constrained, but from 30-60, it became pack constrained because of the amount of current that could be pulled through the old fuse. The impact of the Ludicrous grade and its smart fuse was to allow the car to accelerate from 30-60 at the same rate it went from 0-30. I would tend to agree with @yobigd20 that performance characteristics above 60 are mostly determined by the single speed gear box--this is where we see other cars start to make up ground on the P85D as they are working their way through their gearbox.
Well TM has promised a 20% improvment in 0-155mph with the L-upgrade... A quite substantial amount of that needs to be above 60 given their own statements that the 0.3s improvement is from 30-60 only. 20% of the P85D's 0-155 times is a whole lot more than 0.3seconds.....

edit: if Bjørns youtube-video is representative the 20% would equal a 7second reduction in 0-155mph times with the L-upgrade. That is more inline with what you would expect from such an increase in HP. And still with the same single speed gearbox.... Go figure:)