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lightweight wheels model 3 performance 0-60 testing

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To be clear, I'm offended that you're stating that lighter wheels are more noticeable at lower SoC's, which disobeys physics. I was suggesting that maybe a reason you held this belief so strongly was tied to the price of the wheels, but you can spend whatever you want on wheels.
It might disobey physics that the magnitude of acceleration difference should be smaller, but human perception is complicated so its entirely possible this could be the case. Of course more generally the impact of lighter wheels on acceleration in a model 3 is so small nobody is *actually* noticing anything ever, so kind of ridiculous to harp on this technicality either way.
 
but human perception is complicated so its entirely possible this could be the case.
Human perception is complicated in the way that placebos actually work, which is all this is.
One person claiming that lighter wheels make a BIG DIFFERENCE at 55% SoC and 100% throttle, but not at 100% SoC and 70% throttle, nor at speeds above 50 MPH where power has dropped off does not make it true.

The only reason I care is I don't want people going out putting the lightest wheels on the car they can find expecting to find a big difference.
 
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Those wheels also had dramatically different diameters. He also uses slip start. Too many different factors for a controlled test.

The actual controlled test is like someone said. Put 400lbs of your favorite people in the car, do a 0-60, then kick 'em out. Did the acceleration change?

No way lightweight wheels are worth as much as 400lbs in the car. We're obeying physics here, right?
I have done this exact test with a 2022 Model 3 Performance in a controlled environment. It was at the track and my first two runs were with a 90 lb passenger and the 3rd was just me. Nothing else was changed between the runs.

Both runs with the passenger were an absolutely identical 11.65. One was at 115.53 mph the other was at 115.12 mph. The run with just me was 11.56 @ 116.07 mph.

In addition I captured the 0-60 mph times for each run. With passenger it was 3.42 and 3.43. With just me it dropped all the way down to 3.31.

The car is extremely consistent. When I see a .1 second difference it almost always indicates something has changed with the car. In this case the only thing that changed was adding the passenger.

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So in another thread I ended up re-running some numbers, and remembered how earlier in this conversation we were discussing if the car was limited by software or just physics. The physics camp said things like:

When we went from 28.5 lbs OEM stock wheels to 23-pound Wheels with no change in tires we consistently saw on draggy ~ almost a tenth of a second reduction from 3.30 on averaged to 3.22. This is not software this is Newtonian mechanics.

But when I ran the numbers, I can see that this level of improvement in fact is not Newtonian mechanics:

A M3P with a driver weighs about 4,450 lbs. To get this to 60 MPH requires at least 725,000J of energy for the mass of the car, plus another 4,000J for the rotating wheel/tires per corner. Let's say 750,000J to get to 60 MPH (including some loss to air drag)

750,000J over 3.3 seconds is 225,000 J/s (aka 225kW/300HP). A pretty reasonable average for what a M3P can put out between 0-60 MPH, where it is power limited at low speeds to not kill the tires.

So let's take 225kW and ask if you apply it for 3.22s, how many J you get. It's 723,000. 18K less.

But wait. The whole rotational inertia of a 50lb wheel/tire is only 4kJ, or 16kJ for all 4. You literally can't drop 0.08 sec off the car even if the wheels weigh nothing.

Now the above does make some assumptions about the mass moment of intertia of tire/wheel combos, but none of that is going to make 5lbs per corner equal 18kJ. As an FYI, my mass moment of inertia assumption is 50 lbs in a hoop, 20" in diameter (35 lb*ft^2)

Someone check my numbers...
 
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In addition I captured the 0-60 mph times for each run. With passenger it was 3.42 and 3.43. With just me it dropped all the way down to 3.31.
This is very useful information. It does follow physics somewhat- 4,450 @ 60 MPH is 742kJ, 4,650 @ 60 MPH is 774kJ. That's 32kJ different, which at 225,000J per second should take 0.14 seconds more to do. Maybe your passenger weighed closer to 140 lbs? Or maybe the reality is in-between that the car does compensate as much as it can, but eventually doesn't have the overhead once the car is heavy enough.
 
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How was it determined that there is some target acceleration rate? What data was used to confirm that?
This whole thread is discussing that. Nothing has been "confirmed," and there are inconsistent data points on both sides. The primary driver of the target rate theory is the observation that the car doesn't appear to get faster when lightened, or doesn't change as much as the math would say, as well as the fact that Tesla clearly puts artificial performance limits in software in many vehicles.
 
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Hairpin windings. Already shipping on cars out of Shanghai. Unclear if it's just a minor efficiency improvement or if there's any power output benefit at this time.

There's also a 780 motor now, though IIRC it has only shown up on non-P cars so far, nobody seems to know what it is that I've seen- if it's just a yet-again-cheaper and less capable one (like the 990) or something else.
This Dragy result appears to show that the “L” motors out of China pull harder up top than the “C” motor in my 2022 Model 3 Performance.

My car could not match these times without some sort of modification.

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I guess Tesla does not uncork the M3 batteries except for a price. Interestingly, they did this for free to the MS 100D pre-raven models. When mine was uncorked it went from 4.2 seconds zero to 60 to around 3.7. A noticeable improvement in off the mark performance.
 
This is very useful information. It does follow physics somewhat- 4,450 @ 60 MPH is 742kJ, 4,650 @ 60 MPH is 774kJ. That's 32kJ different, which at 225,000J per second should take 0.14 seconds more to do. Maybe your passenger weighed closer to 140 lbs? Or maybe the reality is in-between that the car does compensate as much as it can, but eventually doesn't have the overhead once the car is heavy enough.
My car weighs 4315 lbs with me(192 lbs) in it. I am certain of the weight of the passenger. 4410 at most with both of us in it.

I weighed my car with me in it the last time at the track. It is hard to read but it says 4315.
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This whole thread is discussing that. Nothing has been "confirmed," and there are inconsistent data points on both sides. The primary driver of the target rate theory is the observation that the car doesn't appear to get faster when lightened, or doesn't change as much as the math would say, as well as the fact that Tesla clearly puts artificial performance limits in software in many vehicles.
Thanks for the clarification.

It would be interesting to see voltage and current data during the runs before and after lightening the vehicle. If motor input power drops with weight, it would be fairly convincing...
 
So I just finished reading this entire thread and what I didn’t find is any cold hard data that says smaller diameter AND lighter weight wheels reduce acceleration time.

I am going to change that. I have 18” T Sportline wheels coming on Friday. I am buying these wheels mostly because potholes are so bad on my commute that I just don’t want to bend one of the UberExpensive wheels.

I am going with 235/45/18 Michelin PS4S tires instead of the stock Pirelli 235/35/20 PZ4 Tesla tires.

I have taken my 2022 Model 3 Performance to the track 4 times already and I have 3 tracks around me. I have time slips and dragy results for every run I did with the car in the stock configuration.

Luckily each track has a supercharger within 11 miles of it. I typically can get to the track with 97%+ charge.

I have the scan my Tesla app but it is the Apple version so it doesn’t appear to be configurable like the Android version. Maybe someone can give me tips on how to customize that version?

My plan is to put the 18” wheels on the car and take it to the track several times over the next few weeks. I will also plan to lug the stock 20” PZ4 wheels and tires with me to do back to back testing on the exact same surface at the track.

That probably isn’t necessary because I already have so much data for the stock wheels and tires but I know some people will say the test isn’t valid unless it is a true back to back.

I may remove seats but I will do it for both wheel tests if I do.

My expectations are that I could see up to a .1 second gain 0-60 mph and in the 1/4 mile. I want to prove what happens either way.

If I achieve a .1 second faster time in the 1/4 mile I would be the fastest model 3 Performance on Dragy so I understand this expectation may be unrealistic.

If there is no improvement at all then I want to demonstrate that once and for all.

Would this test settle the argument? Is there anything specific you want to see in the test that I have not mentioned?

I also plan on doing efficiency testing. I have a ton of data collected for the stock configuration already. I have been as low as 163 Wh/mi for a sustained ~60 mph average with the 20” UberHeavy wheels. It will be tough to improve on that.

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I have the ability to do a rolling dyno as well. I can capture all of the KW and Torque figures throughout the entire 1/4 mile run and through braking.
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My car weighs 4315 lbs with me(192 lbs) in it. I am certain of the weight of the passenger. 4410 at most with both of us in it.
Sorry, first hit on Google said 4,250lbs, but I see it's closer to 4,100 now.
A 95lb passenger makes more sense, but it also doesn't prove that making the car lighter than stock will make it faster, but it does tell you that 5lbs a corner on wheels won't save you 0.1s either as that doesn't have the energy impact 95 lbs in the car does.
 
Sorry, first hit on Google said 4,250lbs, but I see it's closer to 4,100 now.
A 95lb passenger makes more sense, but it also doesn't prove that making the car lighter than stock will make it faster, but it does tell you that 5lbs a corner on wheels won't save you 0.1s either as that doesn't have the energy impact 95 lbs in the car does.
My wheels and tires are supposed to save me 11 lbs per corner I believe. Maybe less but that is what the calculations say. I could see 44 lbs of rotational weight equaling 90 lbs of static weight.

Definitely I don’t have any data for reducing weight yet. However, that is exactly what I am going to attempt to get.
 
My car was delivered on Monday (6/6/2022) I didn't have a 60' selection but it shows up on the run somehow. But here are my times. 2022 Model 3 Performance.
Your 1/8 and 1/4 mile times look normal. However, your 0-60 mph splits are very interesting. You started incredibly slowly with a 0.62 0-10 mph. That should be 0.39 to .50 at most. However, your 30-40 mph was an extremely low 0.39 seconds. Maybe the satellites lost signal there or something? Your 60 foot time was high for those 1/8 and 1/4 mile times as well. If you drop that 60' time to a more normal 1.80 and keep the same top end acceleration you would have an extremely fast time.
 
Your 1/8 and 1/4 mile times look normal. However, your 0-60 mph splits are very interesting. You started incredibly slowly with a 0.62 0-10 mph. That should be 0.39 to .50 at most. However, your 30-40 mph was an extremely low 0.39 seconds. Maybe the satellites lost signal there or something? Your 60 foot time was high for those 1/8 and 1/4 mile times as well. If you drop that 60' time to a more normal 1.80 and keep the same top end acceleration you would have an extremely fast time.
Great info! Thank you! I went WOT too slow is why the slow 0-10 mph. I think I would get a little better et by stabling it instantly. Not sure why the 30-40 was slow. I'll have to do more testing. I do have a set of Tsprotline 18" wheels with Continental tires ready to go. Need better Dragy times before I change wheels for comparison.
 
My wheels and tires are supposed to save me 11 lbs per corner I believe. Maybe less but that is what the calculations say. I could see 44 lbs of rotational weight equaling 90 lbs of static weight.

Definitely I don’t have any data for reducing weight yet. However, that is exactly what I am going to attempt to get.
44lbs of rotational weight is not equal to 90lbs of static weight, its about equivalent to ~51lbs, depending on various variables.
You can play with the math on the 2nd tab on this spreadsheet: