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Tesla Announces Dual Motors, 'Autopilot' For the Model S

SchrodingerZ writes: Nine days after Elon Musk hinted about a new project, Tesla Motors has unveiled the P85D Sedan. This is Tesla's latest car design, capable of feats not yet seen in electric vehicles. The four door luxury car is able to go from zero to 60 miles per hour in a mere 3.2 seconds, an acceleration similar to the McLaren F1 super car. While the exterior remains the same build as the standard Model S, the interior will have a second motor in the front of the car to complement the rear motor. The D models will also have a slightly greater range of 275 miles on a single charge, 10 miles more than the 85 and P85 cars. Safety features have also been enhanced, adding "adaptive cruise control and the ability to read speed limit signs, stop itself if a crash is imminent, stay in its lane, and even park itself in a street spot or in your garage." Musk explains at the inaugural event, "this car is nuts. It's like taking off from a carrier deck. It's just bananas." The "D" version is available for the 60kWh, 80kWh, and P85 cars, and are expected to start shipping in December of this year.

7 of 283 comments (clear)

  1. Read speed limit signs by rossdee · · Score: 5, Funny

    It wasn't my fault officer, the car say the highway sign and thought that I-95 meant 95mph

  2. Performance by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is how electric will win. Performance.
    When I was in High-school I raced RC cars for fun, and I remembered by gear head friends giving me crap about working on "Toy cars" until I challenged one of them to a drag race, against his real, full sized muscle car, and won hands down. The torque from an electric motor is just monstrous. So much so, that I suspect if they continue to build electric sports cars, the gforce alone will become a safety issue. My drag car would pull 100amps off the starting line and could melt battery cables, and the thing only weighed 2lbs. It'd be doing the scale equivalent of over 1000mph when I got to the end of the track. Yes, yes, I know at full scale wind resistance is different and such, but still. I had a hunk of carbon fiber doing 100mph in a few feet for Christs sake.

    The sorts of people that hate electric because it's a "hippie thing" will embrace it because the fact of the matter is that, in the end, it just performs better. Can't have hippies beating your Cudda with a Prius.

    Random video I found on youtube as a demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
     

  3. Re:Awesome by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is easy to make cool expensive stuff. Now when they get one down to say 50k loaded we can talk. Or to steal an old idea from Jack Tramiel. We need electric cars for the masses not the classes.

    It's a supercar. It does have the unique position among the supercars that there are very few people arguing that McLaren needs to make a F1 for the masses

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  4. 73% tax return by hooiberg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And because it is an electric car, we get 73% of the purchase price back here (Netherlands), because of tax related stuff. So this car effectively costs a quarter of the listed price. Not bad.

  5. Re:Awesome by SunTzuWarmaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't understand why people want to buy things they can't afford.

    I don't think that you understand: the car goes really fast and looks really cool , and I want one.

    Note that this is different than:

    I don't understand why people do buy things they can't afford.

  6. Re:Come on, Elon, quit fooling around. by randallman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How do you think the model 3 development is funded? This IS the business model. Make expensive cars to raise money for the development of (lower margin) affordable cars. Also, this doesn't inhibit the model 3's development. It's not like they have to do one thing at a time.

  7. Re:Prices by timeOday · · Score: 5, Informative
    The answer is yes:

    Tesla's electric Model S has proven a very technically advanced car, except in regards to driver assistance systems. All that changes now, as Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk announced at an event in Los Angeles that every car manufactured over the last two weeks comes with new sensor hardware to enable what he calls Autopilot capabilities.

    The event on Thursday night also included an announcement about the D option, an all-wheel-drive Model S with motors at the front and rear wheels.

    The Autopilot hardware includes forward-looking radar and camera, combined with all-around long-range ultrasonic sensors. A software update being sent out to cars as an over-the-air update will enable driver assistance features such as adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist and automated parking.