First, a brief editorial.
<RANT>
1/8 mile dragstrips are a joke and have no place in American drag racing. 1/4 mile or nothing!
</RANT>
Now, the TL;DR version -- The 5% increase is BS, it's only in your head if you think the car is faster.
Now the regular length version.
I finally made it to the dragstrip today. It was a nice day with a mild crosswind on the flags, so no real wind effect on times and speeds.
I had 4 runs, with the 2019.8.5 software version. My SOC was 90% before the first run and 86% after the 4th run. The first 2 runs were a bit off with 13.60 / 13.61 @ 101.something speeds, but after the second run, the car woke up and started running right, I finished the day with a 13.53 @ 103.53 and a 13.56 @ 102.06 . After the second run I made sure I was doing my best to push the electric pedal through the floor. I did each launch from the brake / vehicle (HOLD) with slip start turned off.
Last May, with about 1000 miles on my 3, with whatever software version was common on May 25th, the car ran 13.56, .58, and .60 times with 103 mph speeds. The most notable change was that last year it ran consistent 2.25 60 foots, whereas today I got 2.23, 2.21, 2.17, and 2.19 60 foot times.
Last year, I would notice how the car would take off, then after it hit 20 mph or so, it would seem to start pulling harder. This year, that step in the power level was not noticeable, it'd just go.
Aside from the 60 foots being a little better, across all the time markers at 60 feet, 330 feet, 1/8 mile time and speed, 1000 feet time and speed, and 1/4 mile time and speed, there were few instances where the time would vary by more than a tenth, or the speed by more than 1 mph compared to last years' runs.
So to summarize, the power delivery curve seems to be smoothed out a bit, which accounts for the 0-60 feeling better, but there is definitely no overall increase in mid range to top end power. The speeds at the 1/8, 1000 feet, and 1/4 mile confirm that.
I've seem several videos online of people with their phone drag racing apps, trying to show an increase. The first problem is they are only showing 0-60 times, which is the low end to mid range of the motors' power curve, and second of all, they WANT to see an improvement, so they talk the whole video about what they think and what it feels like. I'm sure psychologists have a name for this, the power of suggestion or something. They heard there was an increase, they want to believe it, and they are trying to rationalize it any way they can, but here are the numbers, and they are the facts. There's no big 5% increase.
I was in the left lane for runs 1,2, and 4, and in the right lane for run 3.
<RANT>
1/8 mile dragstrips are a joke and have no place in American drag racing. 1/4 mile or nothing!
</RANT>
Now, the TL;DR version -- The 5% increase is BS, it's only in your head if you think the car is faster.
Now the regular length version.
I finally made it to the dragstrip today. It was a nice day with a mild crosswind on the flags, so no real wind effect on times and speeds.
I had 4 runs, with the 2019.8.5 software version. My SOC was 90% before the first run and 86% after the 4th run. The first 2 runs were a bit off with 13.60 / 13.61 @ 101.something speeds, but after the second run, the car woke up and started running right, I finished the day with a 13.53 @ 103.53 and a 13.56 @ 102.06 . After the second run I made sure I was doing my best to push the electric pedal through the floor. I did each launch from the brake / vehicle (HOLD) with slip start turned off.
Last May, with about 1000 miles on my 3, with whatever software version was common on May 25th, the car ran 13.56, .58, and .60 times with 103 mph speeds. The most notable change was that last year it ran consistent 2.25 60 foots, whereas today I got 2.23, 2.21, 2.17, and 2.19 60 foot times.
Last year, I would notice how the car would take off, then after it hit 20 mph or so, it would seem to start pulling harder. This year, that step in the power level was not noticeable, it'd just go.
Aside from the 60 foots being a little better, across all the time markers at 60 feet, 330 feet, 1/8 mile time and speed, 1000 feet time and speed, and 1/4 mile time and speed, there were few instances where the time would vary by more than a tenth, or the speed by more than 1 mph compared to last years' runs.
So to summarize, the power delivery curve seems to be smoothed out a bit, which accounts for the 0-60 feeling better, but there is definitely no overall increase in mid range to top end power. The speeds at the 1/8, 1000 feet, and 1/4 mile confirm that.
I've seem several videos online of people with their phone drag racing apps, trying to show an increase. The first problem is they are only showing 0-60 times, which is the low end to mid range of the motors' power curve, and second of all, they WANT to see an improvement, so they talk the whole video about what they think and what it feels like. I'm sure psychologists have a name for this, the power of suggestion or something. They heard there was an increase, they want to believe it, and they are trying to rationalize it any way they can, but here are the numbers, and they are the facts. There's no big 5% increase.
I was in the left lane for runs 1,2, and 4, and in the right lane for run 3.
