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Partly thanks to Tesla's open technology architecture where it doesn't hold patents, and partly due to jealously, we are now seeing many other car makers building electric super cars. These include Rimac from Croatia, Nio from China, Faraday, and Lucid from the US with credible threats from Audi and BMW in the near future. At a casual reading, it seems to me that with current battery technology, there seems to be an international and universal convergence upon 120 to 130 kW as the optimum balance between performance and weight, regardless of price or number of motors.

Some time ago, Tesla said that it would hold steady at 100 kW batteries for the time being. It is certainly hard to argue against that stopping point as the P100D is the fastest 0-60 production car ever made. But I feel that they may have stopped a feet before the finish line of optimal performance allowed by current physics, and other car makers may over take Tesla soon. If it ever becomes reality the Faraday has a 130kW battery, proving that it can fit into a conventional car and not be too heavy. The bare bones, unfinished Faraday did 0-60 in 2.4 seconds. Surely Tesla can do it too.

I understand that Tesla uses performance prowess mostly for advertising, and the model S was never intended to be race car. But I think that its time we see them cross the last few steps to the finish line with a P120D or a P130D that has both a range near 400 miles and a 0-60 around the 2.1 second range, with torque around 1000 ft-lbs (the P100D has 920 already).

I suspect that to achieve that, the motors and wiring may have to be strengthened some, and perhaps Tesla may need to introduce an optional "SS" super S package in the configurator that has a few aerodynamic bits and lighter weight bits, but that sort of optional customization is exactly what Tesla enthusiasts are dying for as they take their cars to the track or just simply want to stand out at the supercharger.

Lets not stand back and let the Dodge SRT Demon take the Tesla crown!!
 
Full carbon fiber body perhaps. But then, the additional weight of the battery would outdo any other weight reduction. I don't see any range expansion happening beyond 100Kwh until 2170 comes in. Musk's 3 priorities: 100KHw battery, Model 3 and AutoPilot. These 3 will keep them quite busy well into 2018.
 
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I think it is more about battery chemistry and battery pack architecture. At least that is where the capacity advances have been in the last several years. The other aspect is product positioning and pricing. i.e. popular opinion is that the discontinued the MS 60, since the M3 could offer the same capacity and range. So lot's of variables that go beyond available technology.

When the market is ready (read ready to pay $) Tesla will bring out the battery packs with more range & power. That will kick any ICE ass.
 
Some time ago, Tesla said that it would hold steady at 100 kW batteries for the time being

This was a tweet from Elon, saying in effect that he does not perceive at present much purpose in going beyond 100 kWh. But if the technology allowed smaller, lighter and/or cheaper batteries, that could change the calculus. Competition could change the calculus as well. But I hardly took his tweet as being chipped in stone or not subject to being revisited.
 
Partly thanks to Tesla's open technology architecture where it doesn't hold patents, and partly due to jealously, we are now seeing many other car makers building electric super cars. These include Rimac from Croatia, Nio from China, Faraday, and Lucid from the US with credible threats from Audi and BMW in the near future. At a casual reading, it seems to me that with current battery technology, there seems to be an international and universal convergence upon 120 to 130 kW as the optimum balance between performance and weight, regardless of price or number of motors.

Some time ago, Tesla said that it would hold steady at 100 kW batteries for the time being. It is certainly hard to argue against that stopping point as the P100D is the fastest 0-60 production car ever made. But I feel that they may have stopped a feet before the finish line of optimal performance allowed by current physics, and other car makers may over take Tesla soon. If it ever becomes reality the Faraday has a 130kW battery, proving that it can fit into a conventional car and not be too heavy. The bare bones, unfinished Faraday did 0-60 in 2.4 seconds. Surely Tesla can do it too.

I understand that Tesla uses performance prowess mostly for advertising, and the model S was never intended to be race car. But I think that its time we see them cross the last few steps to the finish line with a P120D or a P130D that has both a range near 400 miles and a 0-60 around the 2.1 second range, with torque around 1000 ft-lbs (the P100D has 920 already).

I suspect that to achieve that, the motors and wiring may have to be strengthened some, and perhaps Tesla may need to introduce an optional "SS" super S package in the configurator that has a few aerodynamic bits and lighter weight bits, but that sort of optional customization is exactly what Tesla enthusiasts are dying for as they take their cars to the track or just simply want to stand out at the supercharger.

Lets not stand back and let the Dodge SRT Demon take the Tesla crown!!
I don't think you understand some basics. First, there are no credible threats against Tesla currently. The vehicles from Audi and BMW you cite are at least 2-3 years away. Faraday will never come to market and you can safely throw their name in the history bin. Lucid is still nothing more than a concept for a company that has not even broken ground on a factory. Even Lucid is at least 2 years away and will end up costing tens of thousands of dollars more than anticipated. Rimac is nothing more than a proof of concept, it is not a production car and likely never will be.

So who, exactly, is "converging" upon a 120-130 kWh battery? That would be nobody. None of the companies you cite actually produce any such vehicles. Where is the competition? The only real competitor is the Chevy Bolt, and if recent articles are to be believed about dealers discounting the car by up to $5,000 due to poor sales, it's already a flop. The Bolt has a 60 kWh battery.

The second big flaw in your logic presumes that Tesla actually made some kind of commitment to you and the world that it will "hold steady" at 100 kWh. Nothing could be further from the truth. I understand that you are quoting something Elon said a couple of months ago, but Elon flat out lied. He lies all the time, as does every CEO on earth, when it comes to questions about future products. You do not speak to future products whenever possible when such future products may cause current sales to stall. Elon said what he needed to say in order to maintain sales. That's his job.

Tesla raises capacity when it needs to pull a demand lever, not just to raise capacity for its own sake. Tesla has no real incentive to raise capacity right now when demand is steady. Tesla has no incentive to raise capacity when there is not a single competitor on the market that can match Tesla's current, or even 3 year-old, battery capacity.

Why do you think there is a new iPhone every year? It's not because Apple is "nice" and wants to give you the benefit of the latest technology. If there was no competition and Apple could not meet demand, it would not spend its financial resources updating a product that has no reason to be updated. Same goes for Tesla.
 
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Another argument from a different angle:

Increasing battery capacity any further without improving supercharging speeds is not useful. The most realistic use case for such a large battery is a long distance roadtrip. (Conceivably, one could have a really long daily commute and would need a really big battery for day-to-day driving. But I would expect this situation to be really rare.) However, as fast as supercharging is, at current speeds, fully charging a super large battery would probably take two hours, which is not a realistic amount of time for someone on a road trip.

I suppose there is really fast supercharging on the drawing board, but there hasn't been an official announcement, much less any such superchargers built. Also, increasing the number of supercharger locations would also reduce the need for a car that can survive longer between charges.

So although we might eventually see a 130kwh battery, I'm guessing it will be a while. All of the other pieces need to fall in place first (faster supercharging, better battery chemistry, etc.). The diminishing returns for consumers for ever larger batteries would limit their usefulness.
 
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Increasing battery capacity any further without improving supercharging speeds is not useful.
I wholeheartedly disagree. More range means you can spend less time hanging around superchargers and more time charging at home. More range also means when you go on a trip you can stay somewhere without destination charging (which at least around here is basically nonexistent.) If I had to choose between a bigger battery and faster supercharging, I'd go with the bigger battery every time.

The P100DX X has barely 200 miles of real range, that's nowhere near enough. I'd want 350 miles of real range ideally.
 
I think we, as a society, get way too fixated on bigger = better. We get fixated on numbers, and again, bigger number = better...
As you increase the battery capacity by strictly introducing more cells, you are increasing the weight and increasing the time to charge.
As some have already said, a better solution, is to improve the cell chemistry. The current 90kWh battery weighs over 1300lbs. Imagine if we didn't increase capacity at all, but instead were somehow able to drop the weight in half by re-engineering the cell chemistry. Now you have a 90kWh battery, and dropped the weight you're pulling around by over 650lbs. Let's also say that, with this new cell chemistry, we're able to further reduce the voltage drop that occurs as the battery decreases current charge. Both of these advancements would further increase range and performance. Just a thought...
 
One thing to keep in mind is that as energy density increases the weight for the same capacity battery pack will decrease.

A future S100D with the same capacity battery pack might, if the weight differential is significant enough, improve on range and other performance metrics.

A similar argument may hold true for any solar/energy products that are in development.

In any case, while a higher capacity battery pack may be appealing it's probably not high on the list of priorities Tesla has in store for both battery innovation and product potential. The only place I would see a higher capacity pack to be appealing is in the rumored pickup variant and even then it might better benefit from a higher energy density/smaller form factor over higher capacity.
 
We purchased an S 100D because our S P85's range wasn't quite enough to make long road trips without having to charge above 80% or slow down between superchargers. The S 100D should handle the long road trips. But we only make those trips once or twice a year - and for the rest of the time, we don't need any where near the range of the 100 battery pack for daily driving.

Musk may be right - with the supercharger and destination charger network - and with most Tesla customer charging at home overnight, the 100 battery packs may provide enough range.

And even if they could build a larger battery pack, it's not clear that market would be large enough to just the extra cost of developing, manufacturing and supporting another battery pack size.

Instead, it might be better for Tesla to focus on cost reductions of the 100 battery pack, through a combination of using the 2170 batteries and efficiencies from the Gigafactories.
 
Partly thanks to Tesla's open technology architecture where it doesn't hold patents, and partly due to jealously, we are now seeing many other car makers building electric super cars. These include Rimac from Croatia, Nio from China, Faraday, and Lucid from the US
Rimac and Nio are building a tiny number of cars (I'm not certain that Nio has actually sold any). Faraday and Lucid have built one or two prototypes and have nothing for sale.

So to say those companies are "building" cars seems a bit of a stretch.
 
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