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Word is that there will be a 3.3 second car soon!

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I think that's exactly the issue - Tesla makes money selling cars, not on service, so they would much rather have people buy a new car than tie up their going-through-growing-pains service department retrofitting features. If features can be retrofit at all, I think the price will be really high.
 
I think that's exactly the issue - Tesla makes money selling cars, not on service, so they would much rather have people buy a new car than tie up their going-through-growing-pains service department retrofitting features. If features can be retrofit at all, I think the price will be really high.
I think this is an interesting question.
Yes, I agree with the fundamental statement: AWD retrofit won't happen.
But the underlying idea of being able to make money of the existing customer base even before they are ready to buy a new car is an interesting one.
e.g., if you can sell upgraded batteries (or just 'refurbished' or 'new' batteries) into your existing customer base at a healthy margin (i.e., better than your margin on selling them a complete car), then that is a great way to improve your business.
Lots of us would consider buying a nice new bigger battery in three or four years, far fewer of us would be willing to buy a new car that soon (ok, some of you guys have way too much money, but the rest of us...)
 
Yeah, I do suspect Tesla's owners would respond well to cool new upgrades, and that would help show an advantage of EVs (and Tesla's model) over gas cars. I think it's likely Tesla will get in to the game of adding features to existing cars some day. I hope so! No way I'd sell my Roadster just to get a faster one if they have a new model. But an upgrade to my existing Roadster? I'd at least think about it...

I just don't think it makes sense for them yet. They have to get their service department to catch up with the number of cars on the road first (and of course the number is constantly growing, so this might take a while).
 
Battery pack upgrades I think would be technically easy for them to offer for the Model S so I'd see that as possible but not the AWD (financial and service as ChadS said, not technical). Wouldn't AWD require entire new drivetrain? Likely very expensive.
 
Some very high level source told me its highly improbable as the cost would be too high versus just trading your car.

I find that very unlikely. You'd need a spot for the second motor between the front wheels and connect the drive shafts to those wheels - basically the whole front is different.
That would be a massive change to the car. Battery swap? Sure. AWD? I don't think so.
 
I don't think there will be a Tesla car that does anything like 3.3 in the short term. They may have a stripped down testbed that can do that... that might illustrate what a new Roadster might be able to do. I would hope that it has 4 electric motors, like the Mercedes SLS. Only then would it have any chance of lasting on the track, as there would be 4 motors to share the heat load.

But to finish it off and make an actual car out of it would required major resources... and if they are really spending time putting together such a testbed... it's taking R&D time away from Model X and Gen3 efforts.

Elon has been remarkably open about what they're working on... and would probably have mentioned this car before now. He has said something about an update to the Roadster in the same discussion as the "truck" and other form factor vehicles... but it seems a long way off.
 
Well this shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone. It's just a matter of time. Considering that lithium ion density goes up at least 8% per year for the last 10 years, that just means that we'll keep seeing higher and higher battery pack sizes. more capacity = more power. more power + AWD = beyond insanity. Tesla would be insane *NOT* to do this.

Higher capacity in the cell does not mean more power. The higher capacity cells do not necessarily delivery higher currents. The reason why the higher-capacity battery (pack of cells) delivers more current (thus more power) is because of the greater number of cells. If each cell can delivery a certain amount of current, then the more you have in parallel, the more power you can output.
 
I don't think there will be a Tesla car that does anything like 3.3 in the short term. They may have a stripped down testbed that can do that... that might illustrate what a new Roadster might be able to do. I would hope that it has 4 electric motors, like the Mercedes SLS. Only then would it have any chance of lasting on the track, as there would be 4 motors to share the heat load.

But to finish it off and make an actual car out of it would required major resources... and if they are really spending time putting together such a testbed... it's taking R&D time away from Model X and Gen3 efforts.

Elon has been remarkably open about what they're working on... and would probably have mentioned this car before now. He has said something about an update to the Roadster in the same discussion as the "truck" and other form factor vehicles... but it seems a long way off.
I remember Elon hinting at an "affordable supercar" a few months back...