[Update: It happened] Track Mode not happening for P3d-

[mswlogo]

Track mode would have been fun to play with, but nothing more than that. Most P3D- will ever see the track. Those buyers were more practical thinkers.

I still think I got bargain with the credit. They will probably hold there value more than other trims.

I’m surprised how many were purchased. I suspect a lot were sold in the snow belt that thought a lot about snow tires, but still wanted the most performance they could get. And you got the range of the AWD to boot. Win, win, win.

If track mode comes, great. If not, no biggy.

 

[CameronB]

That's a horrible argument to make since Musk regularly touts that Teslas keep their value the longest.

2019 Best Resale Value Awards | Category Winner | Kelley Blue Book

Funny you should ask.

Tesla Model 3 tops resale value ranking, report says

KBB has estimated that the Model 3 will retain 69.3% of its value after 36 months. As far as I can see, that is neck-and-neck with the best KBB estimates for any vehicle - electric or otherwise. Top spot would be Toyota Tacoma at 69.4% value retention after 36 months. Although trucks dominate the Top 10 overall because the 5-year drop is less than with cars, Tesla's included (the popular trucks are in the mid to high 50s after 60 months, versus a lower, but still very respectable 48.7% estimate for Model 3).

It should be obvious to people by now that Tesla does things (everything) iteratively. People complain that they are not selling a $35K vehicle that was promised (fair enough). Tesla talks about making the most affordable car they can make at the moment while still needing to maintain a good profit margin to maintain viability. Tesla was never going to just produce top-spec $70K Model 3s and then one day magically start selling a $35K model. They started higher and are continuing to drive the price down. Introduced the mid-range model at $44K. Then dropped it a bit further to $42.9K. It's possible that mid-range model might get down to $40K before a standard interior, standard-range $35K base model becomes available. Maybe not, but it's certainly possible.

When you buy any vehicle - whether a Tesla or a GMC pickup...as long as you get what you were promised when you bought it...then it seems to be it was a square deal.

I bought a Model S (high spec'd 75D) in mid 2017 when glass roof, PUP, premium audio and other features were all options. And expensive ones at that. Now those are all standard equipment and today's Model S (or even the ones for sale a month after I took delivery) is a much better value. I could have got (essentially) the software limited 100D they are selling right now and got a bigger battery and all the other equipment (that is now standard) for almost the same price as I paid for my 75D twenty months ago.

Was I "happy" that Tesla made $5000 or so of options standard equipment on cars made a few weeks after I took delivery? No! But I got what I ordered and what I paid for. The fact that they made the car essentially $5K cheaper / better value was something that they did to make it even more compelling to new buyers. Shouldn't have been surprising that they would continue to drive prices down and value up on Model 3 variations. They will continue to do sell the cheapest car where they can still make ~20% profit on.

 

[Perry]

Let's band together as we did for the 5k refund and see if we can get Tesla to follow thru. I don't remember who spear headed the last push, but could we get another letter written and sent off to Tesla higher ups? I am sure they will follow thru if they see enough people wanting it. It's not like Elon didn't say it would happen. Let's do this.

I was just about to suggest the same thing. Elon probably forgot about it as he is so busy with so many things. Lets do what we did with the 5k refund since that worked almost immediately and brought it to Elon's ear. Otherwise I fear it will be forgotten. Who was it that spearheaded the last group letter?

 

[Perry]

well, no....when the variant was announced, Track Mode was not. NO P3D (+ OR -) buyers knew they were getting Track Mode until sometime in August.

Its not productive to argue with each other about what was announced when. Lets get together and push for enforcement of Elon's promise (which is indisputable) to bring TM to all P cars.

 

[whatthe2]

I was just about to suggest the same thing. Elon probably forgot about it as he is so busy with so many things. Lets do what we did with the 5k refund since that worked almost immediately and brought it to Elon's ear. Otherwise I fear it will be forgotten. Who was it that spearheaded the last group letter?

@juanmedina

 

[Msjulie]

FWIW I sent a note via the Tesla page asking what's going on with Track mode for stealth performance Model 3 - neither increased battery cooling nor turning off/down the nannies requires different brakes/tires .. and some of us who want track mode probably already have / will be doing their own upgrades..

 

[happyzod]

I was just about to suggest the same thing. Elon probably forgot about it as he is so busy with so many things. Lets do what we did with the 5k refund since that worked almost immediately and brought it to Elon's ear. Otherwise I fear it will be forgotten. Who was it that spearheaded the last group letter?

He didn't forget about it. He initially stated it would be available January of this year when the P3D- refunds were announced. He removed that tweet shortly after. I believe this isn't simply a switch to enable or disable track mode. It would require serious development effort to have a "baby" track mode specifically for the P3D- considering the weaker brakes.

Perhaps a business case could be made where AWD could be sold this baby track mode as an optional $1000 upgrade which would provide the justification for Tesla to work on a P3D- track mode. Any arguement to convince him would have to follow this track. How would they recoup the costs of spending a few million to develop track mode for P3D- users.

 

[Perry]

FWIW I sent a note via the Tesla page asking what's going on with Track mode for stealth performance Model 3 - neither increased battery cooling nor turning off/down the nannies requires different brakes/tires .. and some of us who want track mode probably already have / will be doing their own upgrades..

I sent an email to Tesla customer support too an this. I advise everyone to do this so they hear this from as many owners as possible. If they hear it from enough people they might actually inquire internally about status.

 

[caskater47]

He didn't forget about it. He initially stated it would be available January of this year when the P3D- refunds were announced. He removed that tweet shortly after. I believe this isn't simply a switch to enable or disable track mode. It would require serious development effort to have a "baby" track mode specifically for the P3D- considering the weaker brakes.

Perhaps a business case could be made where AWD could be sold this baby track mode as an optional $1000 upgrade which would provide the justification for Tesla to work on a P3D- track mode. Any arguement to convince him would have to follow this track. How would they recoup the costs of spending a few million to develop track mode for P3D- users.

I think you grossly over estimate the cost involved to develop the software needed. They already have version 1.0 for PUP models. Based on when they announced they were toying with it until they released lets assume that was their entire dev cycle, about 5 months. We can also assume that no more than 2-3 engineers worked on the feature as it shouldn't reasonably take more than that. Even at the highest Silicon Valley salaries you're talking about $200-300k in investment assuming they had to develop it from scratch, which they don't.

 

[CrazyCoconut]

We can also assume that no more than 2-3 engineers worked on the feature as it shouldn't reasonably take more than that.

On what basis do you make that assumption? Do you have some insider info on Tesla's R&D?

Let's think about this in practical terms: P3- was offered for 2 months. Out of all of the P3 purchases during that time period, how many were P3-? Out of the P3- owners, how many wants to take it to the track? Out of the P3- owners who do want to track their cars, how many feels not having TM is a big enough problem to voice their concerns to Tesla? I'd argue Tesla does not have the financial incentive to develop a fork of TM for such a small group of owners. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the the chances certainly don't look good.

 

[Perry]

I believe this isn't simply a switch to enable or disable track mode.

I think it is exactly that simple.

It would require serious development effort to have a "baby" track mode specifically for the P3D- considering the weaker brakes.

This is bull crap. We've had many arguments in this forum about this. The different road conditions will have a greater effect on Track Mode's behavior than the difference in brakes so the programming can't be that rigid. It is a closed loop system that adapts. The stopping power of both brakes are the identical with only difference being one gets brake fade later. Since brake fade can be affected by environmental differences such as exterior temperature, pads compound and condition, glazing for the rotors, etc., there is no doubt the system is designed to adapt.

But even if Tesla was dumb enough (which I don't believe) to make the system so rigid, that changing anything brake related would instantly brake Track Mode, they could still release parts of it with very little to no code changes. For example the cooling overclock. That's already done and does not require heavy 20" wheels or red calipers. Adding the ability to turning off stability control is as simple as flipping a bit. People have done it by disconnecting the wheel sensors but we lose ABS. They can do it officially without loosing ABS. This is not rocket science. If they wanted to do it, they could do it in one afternoon.

I still think the more likely reason is that Elon forgot about it and is on the back burner with other priorities higher in the todo list. And if we don't remind him or raise its priority, they will never take that needed afternoon to slap it together.

 

[Perry]

On what basis do you make that assumption? Do you have some insider info on Tesla's R&D?

Let's think about this in practical terms: P3- was offered for 2 months. Out of all of the P3 purchases during that time period, how many were P3-? Out of the P3- owners, how many wants to take it to the track? Out of the P3- owners who do want to track their cars, how many feels not having TM is a big enough problem to voice their concerns to Tesla? I'd argue Tesla does not have the financial incentive to develop a fork of TM for such a small group of owners. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the the chances certainly don't look good.

I totally agree they don't have the insentive. What I don't agree is that this is a lot of work to do. In my opinion, as a 35 year senior software engineer, this would take one developer no more than a few hours to do. The UI will actually take the majority of that time since the back end implementation is trivial. Split up the parts that don't depend on specific hardware like the cooling overclock. Takes no time to add that a la carte, although I still argue that the whole Track Mode would work just fine as is on the P3D- if it was built correctly and I have confidence that it was.

The only thing stopping this from being released tomorrow is shear will. It isn't there because not enough of us are complaining about its absence and Elon's broken promises.

 

[happyzod]

I think it is exactly that simple.

This is bull crap. We've had many arguments in this forum about this. The different road conditions will have a greater effect on Track Mode's behavior than the difference in brakes so the programming can't be that rigid. It is a closed loop system that adapts. The stopping power of both brakes are the identical with only difference being one gets brake fade later. Since brake fade can be affected by environmental differences such as exterior temperature, pads compound and condition, glazing for the rotors, etc., there is no doubt the system is designed to adapt.

But even if Tesla was dumb enough (which I don't believe) to make the system so rigid that changing anything brake related would instantly brake Track Mode. They could still release parts of it with very little to no code changes. For example the cooling overclock. That's already done and does not require heavy 20" wheels or red calipers. Adding the ability to turning off stability control is as simple as flipping a bit. People have done it by disconnecting the wheel sensors but we lose ABS. They can do it officially without loosing ABS. This is not rocket science. If they wanted to do it, they could do it in one afternoon.

I still think the more likely reason is that Elon forgot about it and is on the back burner with other priorities higher in the todo list. And if we don't remind him or raise its priority, they will never take that needed afternoon to slap it together.

Again he did not forget about it. He tweeted that track mode would be out in January. This was in the same batch of tweets as the P3D- refund tweets. Then a few hours later deleted the tweet, probably after someone told him of the additional development effort required. Why you keep ignoring this, I don't know.

 

[happyzod]

I totally agree they don't have the intensive. What I don't agree is that this is a lot of work to do. In my opinion, as a 35 year senior software engineer, this would take one developer no more than a few hours to do. The UI will actually take the majority of that time since the back end implementation is trivial. Split up the parts that don't depend on specific hardware like the cooling overclock. Takes no time to add that a la carte, although I still argue that the whole Track Mode would work just fine as is on the P3D- if it was built correctly and I have confidence that it was.

The only thing stopping this from being released tomorrow is shear will. It isn't there because not enough of us are complaining about its absence and Elon's broken promises.

Sorry but that's the wrong type of engineering expertise needed for this work.

 

[MoreAgain]

The same holds true for the RWD in my opinion. There is no reason they couldn't tweak the software to at least give us a Sport mode, if not a full Track mode.

Luckily for us Mountain Pass Performance is on the case and is developing the RWD Party Box with 5 different levels of VSC programming and the ability to turn it all off for a full-on drift fest! Where there is demand, the market will find a way.

 

[CrazyCoconut]

In my opinion, as a 35 year senior software engineer, this would take one developer no more than a few hours to do.

Then I'm sure you can appreciate the fact that just because something looks intuitively easy does not mean the actual implementation details are not difficult.

 

[Perry]

Again he did not forget about it. He tweeted that track mode would be out in January. This was in the same batch of tweets as the P3D- refund tweets. Then a few hours later deleted the tweet, probably after someone told him of the additional development effort required. Why you keep ignoring this, I don't know.

Because my experience as a software engineer tells me otherwise. I can not fathom any scenario where this would require a ton of more development. What's more likely is that the developers showed him the TODO list and there are 200 things on it, all with higher priority (e.g. charge cords getting stuck in charge ports, sentry mode, European issues, etc.).

This happens all the time in my line of work especially when we are understaffed or over worked (Tesla anyone!?). Things gather up on my development TODO list. I might have this really simple thing that would take me 15 minutes requested by some user and I put it low on the priority because other pressing requests are being pushed by the CFO or CEO. So i do those which actually take longer, then I forget about those smaller ones and sometimes never get to them unless the user comes to me again and tells me how important that one feature is to them. If I am too busy I might not even take action on second contact but if he comes to me several times, I start feeling bad and relent and sneak that feature in between the other more important ones. Had I not had that user assert himself, that feature would have fallen by the waste side as so many things on my TODO list do. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and we don't squeak enough. Instead we come up with excuses about how much more work is required to do this when there is no logical evidence of that.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

Then I'm sure you can appreciate the fact that just because something looks intuitively easy does not mean the actual implementation details are not difficult.

If they were developing a version of it for the PUP cars with slider settings in it, then they already know the effects of tweaking different parameters. It kinda is that simple.

Also, pretty sure everyone with Track Mode is sending data back to the mothership, so they'll know the effects on the drivetrain.

 

[Lucky13]

I was just about to suggest the same thing. Elon probably forgot about it as he is so busy with so many things. Lets do what we did with the 5k refund since that worked almost immediately and brought it to Elon's ear. Otherwise I fear it will be forgotten. Who was it that spearheaded the last group letter?

@juanmedina

I pm'd the group regarding this. Lets see what develops.. fingers crossed

 

[Lucky13]

I might be wrong but didn't Elon say two different times that p3d- would get track mode? Did he delete both comments?