I may have missed this in 30 pages of this thread, but exactly who/why did this front end/nose cone redesign rumor start?
As far as I can tell, one owner, xrayvsn posted about his DS saying a facelift might come in April 2016
here. AmpedRealtor also posted in the 2nd post on this thread that s/he heard the same thing - but not sure if from the same source.
Is this whole thread based on the speculations of one DS?
I've been one who has been skeptical of any extensive redesign before the Model 3 is in production. I'm an R&D engineer and I'm aware just how much work goes into even minor changes. It wouldn't be all that much work to take parts off the Model X that can fit directly into the Model S without extensive redesign and fit them in, but anything requiring any changes to bodywork requires a lot of changes beyond just the individual part. The front end of the Model X and S are structurally different. The nose of the Model X is taller than the S and a bit of a different shape. Because of that, you can't just take the bumper and nose piece from the X and pop it onto the Model S. It would have to be completely redesigned to fit the S and areas on the S that are multiple parts now would have to be redesigned to be one part.
You would be starting with something that already works on a similar car, so you aren't starting from scratch, but all new molds would have to be made for the new plastic part, it would have to be road tested to ensure it doesn't have any hidden design flaws, and the new part would have to be integrated into the existing production process. It can all by done, but it's not trivial and it's all hands on deck to get the Model X into production and get the design of the Model 3 finished right now.
The 12V battery is behind the nosecone on the S. I don't know where it is in the X. From the layout of the Model X frunk, it looks obvious to me they reorganized a lot of the equipment ahead of the firewall in the X to make a more useful frunk area. The 12V battery may have been relocated and the access panel for it might be through the floor of the frunk. If that's the case, the S nosecone could be replaced with something that merges with the bumper with no consequence. However, the 12V battery still needs access on the S. If the plan is to relocate it somewhere else, that will involve even more redesign and more testing than just a simple trim piece redesign. Anytime you start moving around parts needed for operation of the vehicle, you need to reanalyze safety issues and make sure the moved part isn't going to cause problems in it's new spot.
The Model S is going to be on the back burner except for two areas: items that can be taken directly from the Model X and integrated with little effort and bug fixes. That's the only effort they are going to be putting into the S until the two above things are done.
By March the Model X production problems should be sorted out and the prototype for the Model 3 should be done. The Model 3 will continue to have a lot of work after March, but they might be able to free up a small engineering team to look at a minor Model S facelift after March. If they do, don't expect anything to be ready for production until late 2016.
As for the LED headlights seen on a test mule at the factory SC a few months ago. Those may or may not be entering production. It's not unusual for development teams to test out technologies and discard them. They may have been evaluating an LED headlight option that may or may not have made the cut and it may not have been a test for anything near production. It may have been a test done by the Model 3 team for something that will be deployed with the Model 3 and there is no intention of putting these on the S and X anytime soon.
Engineering anything for production is a very labor and time intensive thing. Hammering out a prototype in the lab is one thing, but getting that prototype to production can take longer than it took to make the prototype. That's why many concept cars never make it to production. The design guys make a one off prototype that wows people at car shows, but when management looks at the cost/benefit of converting the concept into a production car, it often isn't worth it.
.
