Will there be a P115D or P130D?

[wdolson]

Pretty much - with the added benefit of being able to torque vector for better steering/handling and stability control.

Not a large difference, no, but with the P100DL already putting state of the art road tires on the friction limit all the way to 60, little gains are all that's possible until better tires come along, unless you put on semi-slicks...

There is a YouTube from a few months ago where someone proved that what the P100DL can do now is pretty close to the limits of Physics with a street legal car. I can't find the video right now. I think his theoretical best was around 2.5s or something like that.

Of course there will be larger batteries. Otherwise, what will entice a current Tesla owner to trade for a newer model? I have a S85D. Moving to the S100D isn't a large enough range increase to justify the cost of the trade. With Lucent supposedly coming out with a 130KW battery option, Tesla will not be left behind. By 2020 Porsche, Audi, BMW, Toyota, Dyson, Mercedes, etc., will have caught up to Tesla, where they are today. In order for Tesla to maintain their lead, they will have to have a 130 KW battery or larger.

Tesla has been preying on their existing customers up to this point in part because they are in a very limited market. But there is no need to do that going forward.

Tesla could easily cede the high end of the market and achieve their goals. Just because they have been dominant in the high end sedan and drag racing markets doesn't mean they plan to continue dominating those markets. Ultimately the high end is a small market with limited sales. Selling a mainstream car that appeals to middle class buyers and is also affordable is where the real victory lies.

Before the mid-19 teens, cars were a luxury item for the wealthy. They were mostly hand built and were luxury goods. Henry Ford's Model T wasn't all that revolutionary as a car. The revolutionary thing was it was mass produced and the price came down to something average people could afford. The cars weren't as fancy as what went before, but Ford made a heck of a lot more money selling millions of Model Ts than Rolls Royce did selling hundreds.

Tesla appears to be dedicated to continuing the Model S and X lines, and Elon has said they will get the new tech first. This is similar to the way other car makers work. They tend to roll out new tech on their high end cars, then mainstream it when the bugs are completely worked out.

Oldsmobile had air bags back in the 80s, they became common to all cars in the 90s. Back up cameras were a premium feature on only the most expensive cars, then became a premium feature on the highest trim models of cheaper cars, and finally all new cars have the tech.

I expect going forward the Model S/X will be the technology demonstrator cars and will be nicer trim than the mass produced cars, but they will no longer be the top performing sports car. As a sedan or CUV that's also fun to drive, they will remain the gold standard, but the sports car makers can have the glory of the super sports cars. Tesla got there first, but they don't need to remain first.

The same type of logic you're using to dismiss the four motor can be used to support a three motor, though.

As of this week, the P100DL is the only car still using the old larger rear motor.

How much does it cost Tesla to hold the production line open for this part solely for the performance model? (and spares for replacement when they can't rebuild, though I think those are very rare.)

If they can use two of the existing small motors and reduction boxes with minimal new parts it might be cheaper overall to do that, while at the same time giving higher performance and letting Tesla explore the brave new world of torque vectoring...

Within the realm of possibility, but I'm not sure they will do it. There is the point about having to keep the production lines open for the larger motor which they wouldn't need to do if all cars used the same motor.

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Minor point, but just to be clear, unlimited supercharging is continuing past the end of the month. The $1000 credit is going away, but unlimited supercharging is continuing. End date is really unknown. All we know from the wording is that the referral order has to be placed by the end of Jan 2018.

Referral Program

It wasn't completely clear from the e-mail I got from them. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Saghost]

There is a YouTube from a few months ago where someone proved that what the P100DL can do now is pretty close to the limits of Physics with a street legal car. I can't find the video right now. I think his theoretical best was around 2.5s or something like that.

No such thing. There's nothing in the laws that would prevent funny car sorts of times from being possible in a street car - with the right tires on the right surface.

The P100D is pressing up against the limits of the tires it has on typical tarmac, however - as demonstrated by having almost the same distance 0-60 and 60-0. (state of the art summer tires)

The physical limit here is the coefficient of friction between the tires and the pavement - subject to change with sticker tires (which of course trade off other characteristics like life or wet performance.)

But that's actually my point - a three motor car should be fractionally faster, all things being equal, because it can deliver the full torque that each rear wheel can handle rather than going into traction control when the first one hits the limit (though if the imbalance gets severe, it can become unintended torque vectoring...)

I don't expect it to be a big difference, but there isn't much room left to improve, either - and it seems to offer other useful benefits. A four motor car could be faster yet, but the added benefit is much smaller - the same difference in friction becomes a smaller difference in acceleration up front because of weight transfer, and you pay with a bunch more weight and don't gain any new offsetting benefits (since you already had the all small motor car and some degree of torque vectoring, though it does become more flexible/capable.)

 

[wdolson]

I found it, it was on Road and Track's website. The theoretical limit on street tires is 2.05s according to his calculations.

Determining the Quickest 0-60 Time Theoretically Possible on Street Tires
http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/videos/a30529/quickest-0-60-time-possible/

 

[VegasBlue]

I don't think that it is any coincidence that Farraday and Lucid R&D independently decided on a 130 KW battery.
I think that 130 KW is the intersection between power and weight, found by both of these companies.
Each company has produced impressive prototypes that have achieved Tesla beating all out speed and acceleration.
Yes, neither of these companies are likely to produce these cars, but that doesn't mean that the R&D is incorrect.
Tesla needs to look at these cars and realize that the R&D has been done for them...twice over.

With current battery technology, Tesla should be working hard to make a P130DL that will appease those who want long range approaching 400 miles, and those who want to hit 0-60 in 2.1 seconds. These significant improvements don't require much change to the existing car, which has been ignored for the better part of a year now.

I think that the 130 KW is probably the physical limit without a drastic change in either battery technology or the car itself.

 

[buttershrimp]

Ask and you shall receive.... MacGuyver-Frankenstein Edition Tesla P113.5D