His post was long, but good so worth answer, especially after multiple requests. I just needed the time.
Here is my short answer:
When I went to the strip I consistently ran between 11.31 and 11.55. But my peak kW had even more variation and it didn't correlate well with the ET. I think it ranged from 454 to 435. Unfortunately I didn't save that info because I didn't really care about it. I knew it was just a peak one time number, I didn't know the resolution, and I couldn't easily plot and calculate the curve, or more importantly the area under the curve. And really I just didn't care. To me real life is what it says on the time slip -- not some number reading a single peak number from a single time slice on my iphone.
a one time peak kW number is not a great proxy for overall car acceleration performance. It's like assessing your round of golf by measuring your longest drive.
And anyway none of us can usually use that one moment kW peak because 99% of the time we are all driving around between 90% and 60% SOC with cool battery temps which itself decreases the peak kW substantially.
Here is my long answer:
Let's say GM decides to make a special, 700hp camaro. During development the engineers will have no trouble building a test mule that makes 700hp from the existing supercharged vehicle. The team will know from previous testing the static torque limit of the transmission, differential, drive and axle shafts, etc. They will also have some estimates of the durability of these components at different load levels. They will then perform extensive testing to understand if these parts need to be upgraded to withstand the new power levels. When they get a failure mode that is within the estimated warranty period, they will either improve the failed component, or decrease the load (reduce the power level, etc.) so that the failure rate is within the established (company policy) limit. For low volume, this often means accepting higher planned warranty repair cost...it is a balance of concerns and costs and each market segment requires a different balance.
and how many years have gone by when they did all this? Relying on how many years of building cars with transmissions and superchargers and clutches and differentials? Luckily Tesla doesn't wait they do it the SV way and just ship it out. We are the beneficiaries of that but also have to live with the downside. They didn't "perform extensive" testing enough on the perforated seats, or the sunroof, or the door handles, or some of the early drive units. But lucky for us, and their shareholders, they shipped it anyway, and 99% of it worked great, and remaining 1% they tweaked later. Welcome to the bleeding edge.
ALL these decisions happen BEFORE the vehicle is sold to the customer. If, after 6 months, GM finds out the new model destroys it's transmission in 5000 miles, they get to pay for warranty repair for a lot of Camaros. The cost of that type of mistake could easily wipe out 100% of the profit from such a project. That level of fail is very rare because the ramifications are so serious for the company.
THAT'S WHY THEY DO THE TESTING BEFORE THEY SELL THE VEHICLE.
transmission actually failing in 5000 miles =/ a few outlier use cases that lowered their drivetrain's projected MTBF in some still unknown way -- and they never actually failed -- they just triggered some prophylactic mitigation measures.
What they DON'T get to do, is ask everyone to bring their car back to the dealer so it can be detuned to only make 650hp in the interest of GM's warranty cost.
Does the car still meet advertised specs?
Who cares what it says on the dyno if it still meets advertised specs?
Here's what happened in Tesla's case (and maybe someone can help me with the numbers). Tesla developed a P90D vehicle that made X kW and achieved a 2.X sec 0-60 launch. One can only assume they tested and accepted the cost estimated for that level of power.
I would say that they made a car and advertised it with a certain 0-60 time. They never advertised the kW. The issue is: does the car meet that 0-60 time?
Next, . . .They announce the Ludicrous mode and start selling vehicles (and retrofits), Unfortunately, it seems the increased loads of the launch are creating more failures in the market than planned. (My suspicion is that the engineers involved had a pretty accurate idea of what would be failing and said as much.) So obviously, Tesla failed to properly test this product (the aptly named, ludicrous upgrade) and now wish they could change the product to save themselves some warranty cost and bad reputation that usually follows companies that release products that break.
I don't know that they had any actual failures. I think they just projected it and took measures to mitigate the projected failure rate for those use cases that would have accelerated wear. Sounds like perfectly good business sense so long as the car stays in spec and meets advertised claims. I don't see any basis for outrage. They didn't advertise a certain peak kW. That was not a spec.
And anyway none of us can usually use that peak kW because 99% of the time we are all driving around between 90% and 60% SOC with cool battery temps which itself decreases the peak kW more than the LM limit.
Their first idea, you will recall, was to simply reduce the power available to below what was initially claimed.
No they didn't do it for all cars -- it was only for a very few cars that had certain use extreme use cases -- launching with MBP every morning on the way to school. And there were only a small handful of those cases. Everyone else had no changes at all.
That was turning into a PR disaster, so soon Mr. Tweets indicated they had learned that lesson and would revert to the original power level. Let's pause for a minute and dwell on what happened there. In the face of bad press, Tesla changed course. Your assertion that this AG complaint or small claims case is a waste of time seems to ignore this clear evidence to the contrary.
The change only affected those who did things like launched with MBP every day.
In my view the orginal change was better -- the limit only applied to the few people who needed it based on their extreme driving habits. And if they wanted to remedy the limit it they could bear the cost of their extreme driving habits and get a new flux capacitor or whatever was at risk from their extreme driving habits -- or they could have a discussion with Tesla as to whether their driving habits were in the range of normal to be covered under warranty.
Unfortunately, when they finally did update the power to originally advertised levels, they added some other BS to make the power beyond access unless the customer jumps through hoops to engage a launch mode. A different means to their end, and possibly a legal defense. But in this court of public opinion, it will continue to irritate anyone who was ripped off by such bait and switch tactics.
You always had to jump through hoops to get the peak kW. Namely you had to charge to 100% SOC and engage MBP and let MBP warm up -- sometimes a long time.
Each of those is much more hassle than doing the LM two step shuffle.
The bottom line is that I see thousands of lines and hours of smart people's time wasted on crying and complaining about limiting a powertools peak readout number to launch mode.
But the fact is that if the car still meets specs there are no legal damages to be legally remedied, and since the LM limit is just one of a number of other limits anyway (SOC, MBP) it isn't likely to have any practical real world effect on anyone anyway.
