This might be covered elsewhere and if so Mods feel free to move. However, I display my car in lots of car shows and I'm always fielding lots of questions about how it works, where are the batteries, where's the motor, etc. So I thought I'd post a couple of pictures that I'm using in case others find them helpful. Feedback welcome.
Are you sure that what you've labelled "Battery Pack" really is the pack? It looks to me like the pack is sitting on a stand about 18" below the car and the guy's pointing at the floor of the cabin (his left hand is hovering in front of the right-rear corner of what I think is the pack).
Great post and great pics. I'm a car guy and would love something that goes through our car explaining what does what. There doesn't seem to be any one place for someone to get the overall picture of just how our car works. What is done conventionally and what is completely different. E.g. our brake system uses standard sealed compression system with brake fluid,calipers and pads. Because we have no engine to heat antifreeze our heating system is very different. I think it's more like a standard house resistive heater but I'm not sure. Instead of fuel lines, we have big #? copper cables delivering energy to the electric motor. We don't worry about fuel leaks just shorts! I'd love to see something explaining how the regenerative systems works. What is this extra caliper on the rear wheels and how does it work. Oh yea what the heck is this 12v battery doing and why is it needed. I know you can do a search for many things but the point is that is should be here. Not some place describing general ev design but how our car is designed. To do this right we'd need an outline with all of the general systems to research and describe.
Good catch on the battery pack. thanks. As far as the extra set of small brake calipers in the rear, those act as the emergency brake and are activated (clamp down) when you push the chrome button on the end of the gear shift lever. The 12 volt battery is used for lots of stuff like dash display functions.
Indeed there is. Actually, there's a fair amount of pics showing various aspects if the skateboard deck, including the pumps, steering, suspension, etc at the front end too. What we need is sort of an exploded parts view of the Model S, and then label everything. That would take some work. Hmmm.
Agreed, but I don't know of any that are "How the Model S works". As Greg says, it's going to be a fair amount of work to get one of these right.