New Roadster Goodies for 2014

[WarpedOne]

Elon Musk 'dragged' himself to reconfirm something great for roadster this year.
At first he was a bit reluctant will it be this year or next but then he got himself togheter and clearly stated again: it will be this year.

But what is it going to be?
My bet is on a battery pack using cells from Model S in same 'old' configuration 11S9S69P i.e.6831 of them.
They are of same size so no pyhisical redesign of the pack is needed.

I'm not sure about weight i.e. are current cells heavier than 2400mAh cells in roadsters.
If they are much heavier they might need to reduce the parallel count reducing the weight to the original level.

6831 cells mean 81kWh pack. If weight stays similar, range ups to 350 miles.
Great indeed!

 

[techmaven]

But what is it going to be?

I think more realistically and more affordable, it is slow Supercharging... ie. something like 50 or 70 kW charging of the existing pack and retrofitting the charge port with a Model S charge port of the local country.

 

[WarpedOne]

Charge port plus HighVoltageAndCurrent switch plus dedicated lines from charging port to battery skipping onboard charger plus a different battery that can safely absorb even 50 kW. Plus a field test to confirm their solution does work and does not destroy those 2400 mAh cells over time.

Supercharger Access just won't happen, it demands too many systems to be redesigned and tested only to be fitted to some of already sold cars. Elon even said that out loud.

Why battery?
Because some customers already payed for a replacement pack "that would be better". That was a 'promise' repeated many times some years back.

Main limiters are cost and weight - how big a pack can they assemble for the money they took from customers 4 years ago? Weight must be similar or maybe a bit lower then original pack's.
Preferably using the cells that are lying around service centers underperforming and as such unsuitable to build refurbished Model S packs.

That summed together means the new pack most likely won't be 81 kWh but still bigger than original.

 

[bashmore]

"A fairly exciting upgrade to the Roadster this year." - Elon Musk

Does anyone know what Elon is referring to when he says there will be a "fairly exciting upgrade to the Roadster...before the end of this year" ???
A shareholder asked him about Roadster at the meeting today.

 

[Tesla 940]

No I don't know - BUT - my idea of "fairly exciting..." is probably significantly different that Elon's. I'm not holding my breath - Elon is a good example of over-promise and under-deliver!

 

[bart513]

Hmmm. Fairly exciting could mean anything. It could mean "fairly expensive" but hopefully not

 

[driver_EV]

Fairly exciting for me would be some level of improved charging support for distance driving.
Lack of Supercharger support seems to be the main drawback for Roadster.
Getting 0-60 at 3sec or so would also be pretty cool.

 

[ecarfan]

Does anyone know what Elon is referring to when he says there will be a "fairly exciting upgrade to the Roadster...before the end of this year" ???
A shareholder asked him about Roadster at the meeting today.

Elon offered no specifics.

A wild guess: how about one Roadster compatible charging source at every Supercharger station, and of course at no charge for the juice?

 

[rolosrevenge]

I still hope they offer an upgraded 60kWh supercharger enabled pack. That would be so exciting.

 

[smorgasbord]

The quote via Seeking Alpha is:

So, yes we are planning on I think a fairly exciting upgrade to the Roadster. I'm hoping we can get it done later this year. I did say it would be this year and I'm I trying it to sort of -- I mean yes, we will get it done this year. There will be cool thing, but and sort of back. But we said we'd do it, we're going to do it. So, we're going to do something cool with Roadster before the end of this year.

 

[Mark77a]

AutoGuide is getting some inch columns on this Topic: my "Tesla Roadster" search just Lit up on twitter:

Next Tesla Roadster Won AutoGuide.com News
&
Tesla Roadster to be Upgraded this Year AutoGuide.com News

 

[Curt]

Elon offered no specifics.

A wild guess: how about one Roadster compatible charging source at every Supercharger station, and of course at no charge for the juice?

I would love that.

However, since Elon positioned it as an "upgrade to the Roadster", I have my doubts.

 

[Jaff]

I think it really depends on where you are located...we have huge distances to cover here in Canada, and, with what will be for the conceivable future, a low critical mass of EV's compared with the U. S. ...we need dual chargers to take advantage of our extensive high amperage Level II infrastructure...

Hmm. I advise folks to skip dual chargers all the time. I don't have them in my car. If I need faster charging I'll use a supercharger.

 

[gjunky]

I still hope they offer an upgraded 60kWh supercharger enabled pack. That would be so exciting.

I think this might sound like a good guess. It would give Roadsters a way to upgrade / replace their battery pack and at the same time allow supercharging. I wonder if there would be a performance bonus...

 

[ecarfan]

I don't see how a new Roadster battery pack at slightly higher capacity would mean that the Roadster would then be able to use the current Superchargers. Wouldn't it also be necessary to have additional hardware, external to the battery pack, in the Roadster to allow DC to DC charging, hardware the Roadster doesn't currently have?

I'm not a Roadster owner (yet) so quite possibly I don't fully understand Roadster charging but I thought it was AC to DC only.

 

[Cosmacelf]

It is AC to DC only right now, but why couldn't a hardware upgrade allow Supercharging?

 

[Doug_G]

Of course, but they'd have to add a bunch of hardware. Wouldn't be cheap, mainly because of the engineering effort required and the low number of cars it applies to. What percentage of cars will actually upgrade? If it costs $40k I can absolutely guarantee that most owners won't go for it, as awesome as it would be.

 

[WarpedOne]

People confuse what is technically possible and what they wish with what makes at least some economical sense.

 

[Cottonwood]

Of course, but they'd have to add a bunch of hardware. Wouldn't be cheap, mainly because of the engineering effort required and the low number of cars it applies to. What percentage of cars will actually upgrade? If it costs $40k I can absolutely guarantee that most owners won't go for it, as awesome as it would be.

The economics are just not there for Tesla to dedicate any significant resources to Roadster upgrades. There were approximately 2,450 Roadsters delivered, see Tesla Roadster - Wikipedia. As we know there has been some attrition to that number so the actual number of Roadsters on the road today is probably less than 2,400. The weekly production rate of Model S's in Fremont is currently about 600. That means that Tesla is now making more Model S's in a month than it made Roadsters in four years.

For Tesla to take resources away from correcting problems in and improving the current Model S, and getting the Model X ready for production would be very difficult to justify. My guess is that while there may be a lot of emotion and good will at Tesla to maintain support of the Roadster, any major upgrade or feature design (like Supercharger support) is very, very unlikely to happen.

 

[Six]

The economics are just not there for Tesla to dedicate any significant resources to Roadster upgrades. There were approximately 2,450 Roadsters delivered, see Tesla Roadster - Wikipedia. As we know there has been some attrition to that number so the actual number of Roadsters on the road today is probably less than 2,400. The weekly production rate of Model S's in Fremont is currently about 600. That means that Tesla is now making more Model S's in a month than it made Roadsters in four years.

For Tesla to take resources away from correcting problems in and improving the current Model S, and getting the Model X ready for production would be very difficult to justify. My guess is that while there may be a lot of emotion and good will at Tesla to maintain support of the Roadster, any major upgrade or feature design (like Supercharger support) is very, very unlikely to happen.

The logic of your argument is sound. However, it is not economics that dictate what is done at Tesla, it is what Elon decides. If he decides he wants to "thank" the Roadster owners for jump starting Tesla that is all that is needed. A couple of examples of Model S efforts that I think were driven by Elon and not market economics include:

- "plus" edition of P85 that was initially added to Elon's own Models S, and was done because HE wanted better handling
- Option for two child seats in the back of the Models S, because he wanted to be able to drive his whole family in his Model S

At Tesla if Elon wants something done it is done. So I think most of the options proposed in this thread are possible, but agree most are unlikely. But who knows what surprise he has in mind. I will say that changing the roadster charging plug to a Model S charging plug is not "exciting" to me, and I hope Elon would also not think that was exciting.