Model 3 Highland Performance/Plaid Speculation [Car announced 04.23.2024]

[GregD60]

How do you know how much a Taycan Turbo S costs?

It's what Porsche lists on the Porsche USA website.

Porsche Taycan Turbo S

A vast range of emotions. The all-electric Taycan Turbo S with Performance Battery Plus, high driving dynamics and a flat flyline. Pure Porsche E-Performance.

www.porsche.com

 

[Lets go Plaid]

Porsche clearly didn't like getting kicked in the nuts by Elon with the Plaid. So they've strapped on the plastics and said Let's Party!!

 

[Lets go Plaid]

New Tesla Model 3 Performance Enters Production, Featuring Sporty Interior and Enhanced Power

2024 Tesla Model 3 Performance enters production with sporty upgrades, enhanced power, and unique interior; global launch expected mid-year

www.carsauce.com

 

[GregD60]

Porsche clearly didn't like getting kicked in the nuts by Elon with the Plaid. So they've strapped on the plastics and said Let's Party!!

Time for the Tesla Plaid Absurd! Replace the frunk with a cooling system that can really keep the batteries and motors at their optimal temperatures under race conditions, suck in the air from the bottom and exhaust out the top, install some seriously large wings front and rear, modify the underbody for improved downforce, and beef up the suspension and tires to handle the additional load. Or maybe just go the route of the Chapparal 2J or the Brabham BT46B. After all, Gordon Murray is using a variant of fan assisted downforce in his T.50.

The Rise And Fall Of The Fan Car

The advent of aerodynamic wings in motorsport was one of the most dramatic changes in the mid-20th century. Suddenly, it was possible to generate more grip at speed outside of altering suspension s…

hackaday.com

 

[Gauss Guzzler]

It's what Porsche lists on the Porsche USA website.

Is there a correlation between the numbers shown on the website and the actual price of the car?

 

[GregD60]

Is there a correlation between the numbers shown on the website and the actual price of the car?

When it comes to cars in demand from manufacturers with a dealer based distribution network, there is often a substantial discrepency between list prices and what a person can actually buy a car for. That said, it looks like there are plenty of Taycan Turbo S's available for list price; looking at the quantity, my guess is that it's likely that discounts can be had.

Porsche Taycan: New and used cars for sale | Porsche Finder US

Characteristic driving pleasure without emissions: the Porsche Taycan represents the modern way of driving and futuristic design. Find yours here!

finder.porsche.com

 

[Gauss Guzzler]

When I click that link it simply says that the price shown is -- and I quote -- "meaningless bullshit".

 

[gearchruncher]

I love that when the Plaid beats the Taycan by 7 seconds, it "obliterates" the Taycan. Yet when the Taycan beats the Plaid, it's irrelevant because it's too expensive.

The only reason we're here remember is because of this quote:

He called the m3p better than an M3 when it came out, and his response to the Taycan turbo S was the Plaid…which is faster in a straight line…but that’s about it.

That led to this whole argument that the Plaid is better because it has a faster ring time.

Remember, if we're gonna say the Porsche is irrelevant because of price, we've said a $120K BMW M3 CSL is highly relevant to the $50K Model 3P as a competitor and it's required for it to beat it to be relevant.

 

[Lets go Plaid]

Matt Watson from Carwow is currently the US. Wouldn’t surprise me if he pops up in the new M3P shortly.

 

[Tursey]

Is this a Model 3 plaid/ludicrous thread, or just a Porsche Taycan Vs. Model S one? I don't get the point about discussing it in this thread...

 

[SigNC]

When the "model 2" comes out we will know if tesla was serious about 400v being just as good or if they were mostly just talking around the fact they have all the sunk cost in the 400v production lines. 800v isn't some silver bullet for all that ails you but just like going from 12v to 48v it does seem like it logically makes sense to reducing wiring and losses if you were starting clean sheet. Now, if they decide to reuse some of the existing tech in "model 2" then the small gains may quickly be outpaced by less development costs.

 

[oreobbq]

Nice. Are these unique to the 3?

 

[momo3605]

Is this a Model 3 plaid/ludicrous thread, or just a Porsche Taycan Vs. Model S one? I don't get the point about discussing it in this thread...

Taycan vs Model S is a relevant discussion because to me I believe it shows the intent of the two companies. Porsche spends a lot of money to produce proper balanced sports cars and the Taycan is about as close to a sport sedan as you can get. They handle ridiculously well,and more than a 5200lbs car has any right too. And they also cost a ton.

Tesla's M3P and MSP are both just base cars with more power, slightly bigger brakes, and stickier tires. This works for them, they are a huge growth company and that's what investors care about. Putting custom made high performance batteries, motors, suspension tuning, etc... is a lot of work to appeal to a minority of people that care about high performance sport sedans. Power is easy to sell, handling is more subjective and stiffer more hardcore cars don't appeal to everywhere. The fact that so many people here think the Model S Plaid handles better than the Taycan is proof of this to me.

Whatever the M3P ends up being will follow the same formula, minimal engineering effort, just enough to be able for it to justify it's price premium over an LR. That doesn't mean it won't be better than the old one, it very well might be, given that Tesla has very powerful motors in the S that maybe they could easily repurpose, but it's not going to be some wide fender flared, double wishbone suspension, magride equipped, red stitched interior M3 CS beating track beast (though i wish it were and would pay $70k+ for ).

 

[gearchruncher]

The fact that so many people here think the Model S Plaid handles better than the Taycan is proof of this to me.

Whatever the M3P ends up being will follow the same formula, minimal engineering effort, just enough to be able for it to justify it's price premium over an LR.

It's not exactly the minimum engineering effort. However, it will be engineering effort in the area that Tesla has proven they can use to sell cars. Which is acceleration, particularly 0-60. And maybe something a bit flashy like bigger brakes that take no engineering just asking a supplier (see M3P brakes).

The fact that people then say that a Model S Plaid handles better than a Taycan because it has a faster 'ring time then tells you that this method of just focusing on acceleration works, and is a very, very efficent way for engineering effort to turn into sales and brand perception, as acceleration is the easiest thing to add to an EV.

The fact that the Taycan and Plaid have such similar 'Ring times with such dissimilar acceleration and mass tells you just how much better the Taycan handles. The Turbo S is 6.0 seconds 0-100MPH and the Plaid is 4.2 seconds, and 150 MPH is 14.2 vs 9.6 seconds. Yet over 7 minutes of driving, the Plaid is only 7 seconds faster. That's only a couple 100-150 MPH sprints difference yet the 'Ring is full tens of those.

How does this all apply to the M3P highland? Yeah, not very likely that it's going to try and benchmark the BMW M3 CSL in everything. If it hits it at 0-60 and maybe 0-100, Tesla will probably consider themselves done. The interior and chassis is not their goal, because consumers have told them they don't care.

 

[MagnusMako]

The Highland M3P is supposedly going to be a more 'special car' from Tesla inside information I read somewhere. I'm guessing a 20-30% boost in power, with much better sustained power past 60 mph. Better tires and brakes would be obvious improvements but I wouldn't doubt that the suspension has been significantly improved over the old one. If they're using 4680 cells - we'll see the benefits in handling as well. The refreshed car is probably the one exception to Tesla making improvements while keeping the cost the same as I expect there to be a 10-20k+ increase over the current one. If I were a betting man, I'd say starting price of 69k and perhaps performance options like they originally did with PuP on the OG 3P, I could see it could bumping into the 80-90k range.

 

[Nabush]

I can't wait for Porsche to go to 4,200V architecture in the next car. Everything will only weigh 100lbs for the whole drivetrain, and it will be 102% efficent!


This andrew?:




Where does he quote that it's unquestionably more efficent and has lower thermal loss? He seems like an actual smart engineer that acknowledges tradeoffs instead of saying that higher voltage is always a win.

800V just makes sense for PERFORMANCE cars. For less expensive mainstream cars, the advantage is not necessarly worth the investment and redesign.
If 400V was so good, why are the cybertruck and semi using 800V ? Because it's BETTER FOR HIGH LOADS period.

 

[Nabush]

It's not exactly the minimum engineering effort. However, it will be engineering effort in the area that Tesla has proven they can use to sell cars. Which is acceleration, particularly 0-60. And maybe something a bit flashy like bigger brakes that take no engineering just asking a supplier (see M3P brakes).

The fact that people then say that a Model S Plaid handles better than a Taycan because it has a faster 'ring time then tells you that this method of just focusing on acceleration works, and is a very, very efficent way for engineering effort to turn into sales and brand perception, as acceleration is the easiest thing to add to an EV.

The fact that the Taycan and Plaid have such similar 'Ring times with such dissimilar acceleration and mass tells you just how much better the Taycan handles. The Turbo S is 6.0 seconds 0-100MPH and the Plaid is 4.2 seconds, and 150 MPH is 14.2 vs 9.6 seconds. Yet over 7 minutes of driving, the Plaid is only 7 seconds faster. That's only a couple 100-150 MPH sprints difference yet the 'Ring is full tens of those.

How does this all apply to the M3P highland? Yeah, not very likely that it's going to try and benchmark the BMW M3 CSL in everything. If it hits it at 0-60 and maybe 0-100, Tesla will probably consider themselves done. The interior and chassis is not their goal, because consumers have told them they don't care.

Because the Taycan in question is able to do 3 laps within a second of each other per the article, thus maintaining it's full power (on top of better handling and brakes), while the Plaid is only able to sustain max power for 3 min, then drops to 350KW max for the rest of the lap because of insufficient cooling and inadequate architecture for a performance car. In the case of the Plaid " record" the full lap is power management, which can clearly been seen, right from the start the driver leaves a lot of the table and coast to reduce load. Also the Taycan in question might be a tri motor setup with close to 1000HP.

Some of you Tesla fan boys need to open your eyes. Even a Tesla 3P with condemned frunk with additional radiators cannot run more than 10 min on a track, on standard cooling power is limited to a ridiculous 220KW to run more than 10 min.

The Kia EV6 GT than is a 800V car with more power can do 2 laps of the ring without loosing power and has a frunk. Ioniq 5N same. Taycan same. Common point ? 800V.

 

[Nabush]

The Highland M3P is supposedly going to be a more 'special car' from Tesla inside information I read somewhere. I'm guessing a 20-30% boost in power, with much better sustained power past 60 mph. Better tires and brakes would be obvious improvements but I wouldn't doubt that the suspension has been significantly improved over the old one. If they're using 4680 cells - we'll see the benefits in handling as well. The refreshed car is probably the one exception to Tesla making improvements while keeping the cost the same as I expect there to be a 10-20k+ increase over the current one. If I were a betting man, I'd say starting price of 69k and perhaps performance options like they originally did with PuP on the OG 3P, I could see it could bumping into the 80-90k range.

I seriously hope they will go away for the 4680 structural packs. This principle is a total disaster from a maintenance standpoint. Not sure if you looked at the video from Sandy Munro video, but structural battery pack = total vehicule loss is one cell of the battery gets bad. No way you can replace the battery.

This should be forbidden in the industry and against all good maintenance and environmental practices. This is really the throwable car market with this solution, and crazy that someone validated such a shitty design.

Also I doubt the 4680 are good batteries at this point. Tesla is not a battery manufacturer and does not the experience the other big ones have. The charging curve on the 4680 is bad, the first test of the cybertruck charging are bad, we don't have return of experience on how those cells will last over time...

At least it looks like the battery pack is removable of the cybertruck, somewhat...

As far as pricing, there is no way the 3P would go in the 80-90K range when you can have the Plaid for the same price

 

[gearchruncher]

Because it's BETTER FOR HIGH LOADS period.

"Better" does not mean less heat. Which is the thing you keep saying 800V does, and pointed me to a person at Tesla that supposedly says 800V is better, but all I can find is that it's tradeoffs.

Here's the problems with non-experts constantly talking about 800V, and using basic electronics to go "half the current, so less heat!"... That's only true if you keep the same size wires, and your motor doesn't have more inductance. But this is not what an engineer does in a production vehicle. They take advantage of the 800V and make the wires smaller.

And then you get the really silly ones that believe in an 800V architecture the current in a given battery cell is half. That's when you know they don't understand anything at all about how EV architectures or batteries work.

If you're going to keep acting like 800V is clearly always a thermal advantage when on a track, please point me to the efficency numbers of the drive unit for an 800V system at 100% rated power and a 400V 100% rated power. The only place heat comes from is this difference. Please link to actual data that shows a large enough gap in efficency that thermals are easy on 800V and impossible on 400V. I mean, we have ICE cars that are only 30% efficent and they don't overheat yet it seems like we're saying 98% is a disaster and 98.4% is great.

Or it could be that Tesla just doesn't do enough thermal managment at all, because all they care about is 1/4 mile or less, and going to 800V won't magically fix this philosophical difference.

 

[momo3605]

The Kia EV6 GT than is a 800V car with more power can do 2 laps of the ring without loosing power and has a frunk.

I don’t think the EV6 can run 2 laps without losing power. The ioniq5N supposedly has been specially designed to do 2 laps