Model S to the Nürburgring Next Week!

[bmah]

Moderator note: Merged multiple threads about Tesla running a Model S at Nürburgring "next week" (September 2019).

Bruce.

 

[Todd Burch]

gonna have to disagree here. The weight of the MS is a huge disadvantage compared to M3. Lowering weight improves basically every positive aspect of traceability. Braking, acceleration, cornering. Improving power just improves acceleration.

Less weight is better, no doubt. Now quantify that improvement against the other things I mentioned. Show your calculations. You can't, can you? That's my point.

I've never driven a Raven so I can't really comment on how much better the suspension is on that car. However, I can tell you that the pre Raven MS performance doesn't handle particularly well. The steering is loose, there's body roll, and the car in general just feels heavy.

Sure, typically the S hasn't been built as a track car. But that's irrelevant. This will be a different car. Do you think the upcoming Roadster 2 will also have an inferior time because of the older Model S?

 

[ucmndd]

Do people really not pay attention to anything? That last Model S that I have seen times for on the ring comes in at 8:50, but that was an old Model S. Lots of changes have happened since then:

Car 0-60 Ring Time
Model 3P 3.2 9:00
Model S P85D 3.1 8:50
Model S P90DL 2.8
Model S P100DL 2.4?
Model S Raven P100DL 2.4 (But people report 2.2)
Taycan 2.6 7:42 Pre-production

With the new Raven version of the Model S they shouldn't hit the throttling anywhere near as quick and it shouldn't be as dramatic.

If they put the ABS/stability control from the Model 3 into it and just haven't released track mode yet, there is probably a lot more capability in there.

That 9 minute P3 time was an amateur driver with passengers. Not exactly representative.

I’m saying even if they’ve completely sorted the cooling and throttling, I’d still fully expect the P3 is capable of a faster lap time than any currently available configuration of the S.

 

[MountainPass]

Just my opinion - The Ring is Porsche's home track. They hold the record for the fastest lap in both a race car (919 Hybrid) and a production car (GT2 RS MR). The Model S does compare favourably on all those street spec comparisons like 0-60, top speed, price and range, but it seems very unlikely it will beat the Taycan around the Ring. I have to hope that Elon has already had the Model S set a faster time before he wrote that tweet since the whole world is now watching.

 

[DavidPetr.]

Imagine they do the run without a driver . It shouldn't be that hard for Tesla to do it with no other cars/obstacles to worry about it.

 

[dethman]

i own a porsche and and S/X. very interested in the results, though to be honest i would love to see tesla go down in flames. maybe figuratively, maybe literally.

 

[seattlite2004]

Just my opinion - The Ring is Porsche's home track. They hold the record for the fastest lap in both a race car (919 Hybrid) and a production car (GT2 RS MR). The Model S does compare favourably on all those street spec comparisons like 0-60, top speed, price and range, but it seems very unlikely it will beat the Taycan around the Ring. I have to hope that Elon has already had the Model S set a faster time before he wrote that tweet since the whole world is now watching.

Lots of amateur vids showing the Taycan doing a bunch of laps in the Ring prior to its "for score" lap....I'm thinking that lots of tuning was involved on these test laps. Guess that Ring tuning thing doesn't really apply to T-Cars?

 

[sandpiper]

Elon announced that the S will be going to the Nürburgring next week:

Elon Musk on Twitter

So would he have done this without already knowing the S would beat Porsche’s time? Or do you think he’s taking a chance?

I wonder if Tesla has been holding off on releasing some improvements - software/hardware or both - until Porsche released these results? They certainly knew that it was coming and that Porsche wouldn't be able to resist hammering Tesla a bit. Maybe we'll see an announcement about a S/X track mode? Or maybe some further upgrades to the drive train?

Tesla would certainly not be bringing the S there if they didn't have a ton of confidence that they could beat Porsche on their own turf. The question is... by how much? I'm sure Tesla has a driver that knows the track well, and that also spent a lot of time learning to drive the S the best that it can be driven.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall at Porsche HQ right now.

 

[Speedr117]

YouTube promo of the Taycan's lap:

Looks like it wasn't quite as stock as a lot of Tweets seem to imply.

Yeah, it's heavily modified. I'm breathing easier now. It has a roll cage, custom seat (probably no back seat), no idea what tires, and most importantly, aero improvements. Look at the side of the car below the door. You'll see an extension of the floor from underneath the car, so significantly improving the aerodynamics of the car, like a race car. This means its heavily modified, so in this context, I'm sure Tesla can produce a Model S that beats the time. What will Porsche's response be? They modified it more than we did?

 

[sandpiper]

i own a porsche and and S/X. very interested in the results, though to be honest i would love to see tesla go down in flames. maybe figuratively, maybe literally.

I really really doubt it. "Don't fight the battle that you can't win.". Elon & team aren't that stupid.

 

[Todd Burch]

I believe we all need to be acutely aware that with EVs more than any other vehicles before of the opportunity for gaming the test. And I mean this for both Porsche and Tesla alike. Inevitably this will result of partisan cries of foul play.

True. Although having an explicit "Track Mode" setting (where increased wear, etc. is mentioned in the warnings) legitimizes that. I mean, there's already "Launch Control" which many manufacturers implement and have warnings about reduced life and increased wear in the manuals.

 

[Todd Burch]

For those that missed it. Tesla's clearly been testing on the Ring already:

Misha on Instagram: “Trust @elonrmuskk , he is an engineer. #diy #tesla #nurburgring #nordschleife #beatthetaycan?”

 

[PhantomX]

Do people really not pay attention to anything? That last Model S that I have seen times for on the ring comes in at 8:50, but that was an old Model S. Lots of changes have happened since then:

Car 0-60 Ring Time
Model 3P 3.2 9:00
Model S P85D 3.1 8:50
Model S P90DL 2.8
Model S P100DL 2.4?
Model S Raven P100DL 2.4 (But people report 2.2)
Taycan 2.6 7:42 Pre-production

With the new Raven version of the Model S they shouldn't hit the throttling anywhere near as quick and it shouldn't be as dramatic.

If they put the ABS/stability control from the Model 3 into it and just haven't released track mode yet, there is probably a lot more capability in there.

0-60 is meaningless for the Ring. Just about every car in the low 7 minute marks have slower 0-60, but there is no way a Model S can come close to touching them on the Ring.

 

[PhantomX]

This will likely be done with a Raven S that has *some* hardware changes from what they're currently selling. Might be a track package that they start selling immediately.

Upgraded brakes, track mode, upgraded wheels/tires, and software changes could be all that's needed.

I don't feel the need to speculate here any further, but this thread will be fun to revisit next week.

Elon used to own a McLaren F1, so he's not oblivious to this stuff. I seriously doubt he'd announce this without knowing how well the S will do.

I don't think that's enough changes for a track like the Ring. Here are a few more items that Model S likely need:

- More brake cooling. Besides the bigger brake for more braking power, those hot brake needs to cool down quickly
- Upgrade suspension geometry. It's not just about spring rate and damping, but the suspension geometry needs to help maintain optimal contact patch throughout its travel
- Upgraded steering rate: From what I remember driving the Model S loaners before (including a P100DL), the Model S steering rate is a bit slow. The car likely need a faster rate to help it through some of the complexes at the ring.

On top of that, the car needs to be tuned to increase traction out of corner. Model S (and any Telsa) are great off the line when going straight, but on a twisting track with bumps like the Ring, you'll need to be able to get the power down as fast as possible. It means powering off as the car is still unwinding from a turn. That's not a trivial job at all, as evident by many of the other companies struggling to get high performance cars into the 7:30 to 7:40 range on this track.

 

[willow_hiller]

Elon knows something we don't: Elon Musk on Twitter

 

[PhantomX]

Yeah, it's heavily modified. I'm breathing easier now. It has a roll cage, custom seat (probably no back seat), no idea what tires, and most importantly, aero improvements. Look at the side of the car below the door. You'll see an extension of the floor from underneath the car, so significantly improving the aerodynamics of the car, like a race car. This means its heavily modified, so in this context, I'm sure Tesla can produce a Model S that beats the time. What will Porsche's response be? They modified it more than we did?

Which floor extension are you referring to? Can you point to a specific time mark? The floor work looks like standard aero bits from most of the high performance Porsche.

I believe roll cage is required given the unforgiving nature of this track, especially after some unfortunate incidents at the Ring in the past.

Good point on tires and weight. Would be interesting to see if they are running tires that are available with the car and would be interesting to see how close the weight and CG are to the stock car.

 

[MXWing]

I'd love to be a fly on the wall at Porsche HQ right now.

There's footage smuggled out:

 

[SmartElectric]

I would note that Tesla have a deeper command of the low level components of the Model S over the past major revisions including Raven since the P85D shipped years ago.

Example : Tesla can disable regenerative braking and upgrade friction brakes to carbon and modulate similar to the off-accelerator pedal behavior today, but with far higher negative-G load to shift weight to track-specific front tires with adaptive suspension keeping the vertical wheel transitions damped appropriately to maximize contact patch and minimize hop.

This is just the kind of technical challenge that Musk enjoys, throwing engineering at a problem and setting a goal as "beat down to internal combustion", but in this case "beat down to new EV competition".

I do not underestimate Tesla, and having spent many happy hours reviewing documentary films, youtube and articles about the Green Hell, this challenge is fun to see and I am truly interested in the engineering details as much as the final results.

 

[sillydriver]

I wonder if Tesla has been holding off on releasing some improvements - software/hardware or both - until Porsche released these results? They certainly knew that it was coming and that Porsche wouldn't be able to resist hammering Tesla a bit. Maybe we'll see an announcement about a S/X track mode? Or maybe some further upgrades to the drive train?

I really hope your reasoning is correct. My concern is that the timing is tricky. Running the Ring next week means doing it by the 14th. With the expectation and build-up it would be hard not to release the results right away if they were good and resulted from upgrades to the car. But announcing significant upgrades to the MS two weeks before the end of the quarter would be disruptive to demand - Tesla's shipments are very back-end loaded in the quarter - unless all the cars delivered during the last couple weeks came with those upgrades. But making changes to production during the quarter-end rush is probably not a wise thing to do. Even if the announcement was of a high-priced performance version of the MS with tuned brakes, suspension, etc., it could still result in disruption of MS demand in the critical last couple weeks of the quarter. So I would be more inclined to think Tesla's Ring run would result in the announcement of changes to the MS if it was going to happen two or three weeks later.

 

[Realist]

The Taycan has done the lap on stock tires.

If Musk tries to cheat with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tires or other mods Porsche will come back and crush the Model S laptime.

The Taycan is in a different league to the Model S which is 7 years old now.