Elon wanted Model S to have best in class handling. That's marketing, not just personal desire. If it was just personal then his car would be a one-off.
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New Roadster Goodies for 2014
- Thread starter hjr
- Start date
My hope is the thanks is an at cost upgrade for parts and labor. Not factoring in the development costs for such a small project as that would drive up price even more. They'd lose money overall but hopefully a small amount and something they can write off as advertising and goodwill.
I agree (although I disagree that the P85 does not enjoy a great profit margin for Tesla).
Think about the marketing benefits of a reasonably priced upgrade to the Roadster - it tells all your current and future owners to not worry about buying a Tesla because Tesla is going to stick with you and keep on improving the vehicle - even after the vehicle is no longer manufactured.
A great example of doing something "cool" even though it doesn't make financial sense:
Cross-country SuperCharger route. From a marketing perspective? Makes great sense. From a pure benefit to owner per $ spent? Does not make sense at all. If you were aiming to serve your customers most efficiently, you'd build out your SuperCharger network around where most of your owners live and want to drive and where you expect most of your near-to-medium future owners to live and want to drive.
Sooner or later, every roadster owner will have to replace his battery pack. Using the cells of Model s is not as difficult and does not needs a lot of construction work and software developement.
85kWh/7104*6831 gives around 82kWh or alt least 600-700km of range. charging only is needed through the night. and thats really very cool.
best
Eberhard
85kWh/7104*6831 gives around 82kWh or alt least 600-700km of range. charging only is needed through the night. and thats really very cool.
best
Eberhard
Cottonwood
Roadster#433, Model S#S37
Very cool, and not much engineering needed. What is the weight per cell of the current MS battery vs the Roadster battery. If it's close and a suspension change is not needed, then your suggestion is almost a no-brainer. It will still be a lot of money for a new pack...
Model S cells are custom configuration I believe, can't just be dropped in. They may have to resort to a more standard cell design, as that is what the Roadster was designed for, or they may have to completely redesign the internals of the pack to be more like Model S. Then there is the (re)certification for shipping.
dhrivnak
Active Member
I also maintain that for Tesla to sell large numbers of Model S cars they need to show support of older models. If they punt on a new battery pack for the Roadsters they are effectively saying we can't/won't support 5 year old platform. It may be fine to buy a new PC every 5 years but I do not think most people will support having to buy a new car every 5 years because the old one is no longer supported.
djp
Model 3 Performance
Time to revive WHAT IS THE BIG 2014 SURPRISE FOR THE ROADSTER????
I expect we'll see a new Roadster battery pack after Gigafactory is up and running. In the meantime the limited cells are much more valuable in selling another Model S than refurbishing a Roadster.
Plus the Roadster packs are holding up pretty well, it'll probably be another five years before anyone needs a replacement.
I expect we'll see a new Roadster battery pack after Gigafactory is up and running. In the meantime the limited cells are much more valuable in selling another Model S than refurbishing a Roadster.
Plus the Roadster packs are holding up pretty well, it'll probably be another five years before anyone needs a replacement.
smorgasbord
Active Member
I have an email from Joost shortly before he left Tesla. It's quite the tease:
Brakes: Floating discs with copper sacrificial nodes, 6 pot front and 4 pot rear with new ABS software, colored housings. Promising zero fade, but will squeak/groan at low speed stops.
Limited Slip Differential: Dual mode (works both in acceleration as well as deceleration), significant cornering improvement and better power distribution. Enables driving with TC turned off.
Firmware: To reduce the tip in/tip out behavior of the car, yielding a 10% better torque curve.
Steering: Speed sensitive vectoring power steering.
At the Model S Beta event (October 2011), Tesla was asked about getting a Model S connector retrofitted to our Roadsters. You can see the response here in this video:
[video=vimeo;36221090]https://vimeo.com/36221090[/video]
Now, once they have a Model S port, then they have to do something so the car doesn't blow up when plugged into a supercharger. It would be great, obviously, if they enabled even "slow" supercharging. A 50kW limit - or whatever the Roadster batteries can safely take - would still be a big improvement over the 70 amp L2 charging we get today. It obviously means rewiring the car to bypass the chargers, plus adding whatever logic feedback is necessary from the car. Seems like a big deal.
I'd actually prefer the Limited Slip Differential gearbox. Will probably require a core swap. New firmware seems easy comparatively. The power steering requires additional crash testing, so that's probably not on the table, and the brakes are too radical for widespread adoption.
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Elon gave a pep talk to the UK staff at the UK Model S launch yesterday. They were pretty tight lipped about it but suggested that its something that will be "offered / sold" rather than say a free software upgrade.
When I quizzed Elon about it he said it would improve several aspects of the Roadster. By that I would guess performance / range / charging. I wonder if the existing PEM / Motor could support a new battery pack (higher capacity cells) with slightly higher pack voltage so provide a bit more power as well as longer range.
When I quizzed Elon about it he said it would improve several aspects of the Roadster. By that I would guess performance / range / charging. I wonder if the existing PEM / Motor could support a new battery pack (higher capacity cells) with slightly higher pack voltage so provide a bit more power as well as longer range.
Bardlebee
Member
That would be a very cool upgrade all by itself. As you point out new batteries will be needed anyway, and the engineering work would be minimal.
If the Roadster needs some of the laptop cell features not in the Model S cells (two protective "fuses" per cell), then why not use Panasonic's 3300 mAh laptop version of the (about) 3100 mAh cells used in the Model S? Less engineering work and even more range! 85kWh*(6831/7104)*(3300/3100)= 87 kWh or about 635 km (394 mi) EPA range. A 400-mile car would be great marketing for EVs in general. Not that Tesla needs it, but it could fuel more demand for the S and X.
The only drawback would be the same 500 cycle life as the original Roadster packs, not 1000 or more as for the Model S cells. A good tradeoff, I think. After 500 cycles there will be something even better to buy. :biggrin:
GSP
I like the idea of upgrading to Model S cells, but I don't know how much sense it makes to give the Roadster twice the range and keep its current weight. It is not exactly a touring car, being kind of noisy, the seats are not adjustable, and there is not much trunk space for luggage. How many roadster owners would take it on long trips is you doubled the range? Maybe a lighter pack with a small increase in range which would improve handling and acceleration performance makes sense. I view it as a serious sports car.
If they change the weight do they have to do anything with the suspension or crash testing? It definitely isn't the most comfortable road trip car but has a practical 180 mile-ish range at highway speeds so something more on the order of 250-300 miles would be welcome.
Marius
Member
In Europe normal highway speed is 130 km per hour. With this pace your range is reduced to practical 200 km, so we definitely need more capacity pack.
Furthermore I do not expect much change in the weight of a new pack as this will have impact on the whole telemetrie of the car and as Elon told a few weeks ago that in 2007 it was the biggest problem to alter the chassis of the Lotus to make a good driveable roadster with a big weight on batteries inside. He will not start again to develop the chassis with a 200 kg lighter battery pack.
Another interesting thing good be that if we get a 85kWh pack, maybe it is also possible to put in the 416 hp engine of the model S? That really would be the ultimate upgrade. However I expect this not to be possible due to the different cooling system in the model S.
Furthermore I do not expect much change in the weight of a new pack as this will have impact on the whole telemetrie of the car and as Elon told a few weeks ago that in 2007 it was the biggest problem to alter the chassis of the Lotus to make a good driveable roadster with a big weight on batteries inside. He will not start again to develop the chassis with a 200 kg lighter battery pack.
Another interesting thing good be that if we get a 85kWh pack, maybe it is also possible to put in the 416 hp engine of the model S? That really would be the ultimate upgrade. However I expect this not to be possible due to the different cooling system in the model S.
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