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Tesla Roadster Update Extends Range
mrflash818 sends word that Tesla Motors has announced an upgrade for their Roadster vehicles that boosts the range from about 240 miles to almost 400. In addition to the battery improvements made since the Roadster launched in 2008, Tesla has a kit to retrofit the body to reduce its drag coefficient from 0.36 to 0.31. They also have new tires, which improve the rolling resistance coefficient by about 20%. They say, "Combining all of these improvements we can achieve a predicted 40-50% improvement on range between the original Roadster and Roadster 3.0. There is a set of speeds and driving conditions where we can confidently drive the Roadster 3.0 over 400 miles. We will be demonstrating this in the real world during a non-stop drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles in the early weeks of 2015." Tesla stopped producing the Roadster in 2012.
The one update they really should do along with the battery upgrade is add Supercharger support.
But if we conserve energy, the environmentralists win!
Summary: Lots of improvements in a number of areas can make a big, big difference.
Since ~2008 I know they've increased the energy density of their 18650 cells by 20-30%, which would correspond to a 20-30% increase in range no matter what. After that it starts adding up quick.
I wonder if they might end up restarting roadster production. For a small car manufacturer that could even be fairly logical - produce as many as you can for a relatively short period of time(few years), then shut down production for a few years to let the demand recover and grow.
Perhaps more importantly, increasing the range of a car from 250 miles to ~400 also means that you could put a smaller battery pack in that costs nearly half as much, making it more affordable.
It also helps show the longevity of Battery Electronic Vehicles. Though it's only been two years since they stopped producing it, they're still producing not just maintenance parts, but serious upgrades.
I don't read AC A human right
I'm pleased to see them backporting new tech to the older vehicles, and by doing this they also get replacement batteries into vehicles sold as much as 6 years ago (first introduced in 2008), though presumably they've had replacement battery packs available all along.
I'm sure they're also going to be making at least some profit on these upgrade kits, and by not abandoning the older vehicles they probably do a lot to cement loyalty from those same customers who were willing & able to drop more than $100k when they first came out.
fencepost
just a little off
"There is a set of speeds and driving conditions where we can confidently drive the Roadster 3.0 over 400 miles"
42 mph , downhill with a tail wind...
Feels like getting upgrades in a RPG. Pretty awesome.
It's also nice to see actual real world battery density improvements, rather than just hear about it. Of course 31% over 7 years is a lot less than the 7%/year improvement people like to say lithium ion experiences.
While it is obvious that the new batteries will nearly double the range (li batteries double about every 7-8 years), what about the super charger? No doubt the roadster owner should pay for it (which would also include the electricity), but these the guys that helped make Tesla. Without them, tesla NEVER would have gotten off the ground.
Come on, elon. You can do the super charger.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I confess, I was not impressed with the practicality of the all-electric concept, and felt it would always be pretty much a rich person's toy. Common in Hollywood and maybe the Silicon Valley and around Wall Street, and maybe Redmond, for bragging rights, but you'd never see one in Omaha.
The two issues as I saw it were range and charge time. (Cost is also a factor, but cost usually goes down over time.) It looks like Tesla is making a good faith effort to tackle the range issue, and there is some effort being made to reduce the charge time. Good for them.
It also occurs to me that for self-sufficiency, all-electric vehicles may be an advantage, as electricity could be easier to make and store than methane, for instance.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
4 years after you bought it, it was up to 500 mile range and getting 50 mpg.
The range increases must partially also translate to the "refill cost" so it's gotten less expensive to drive over time.
Impressed-- range of electric cars was the main challenge factor (until the recent gasoline price drop).
Electric at 12c/kwh runs about 1/4 the cost of gasoline at $3.50 ($3.50/100 miles vs $14/100 miles). My electricity runs 10.3/kwh and houston gasoline is down to $1.99 here (Waxahachi has $1.91 gasoline as of 12/21).
So about $3/100 miles electric and $8/100 miles gasoline right now.
Apparently you do NOT want electric cars in Hawaii (something like 27c/wkh).
It doesn't take many electric cars to kill 1% of oil demand and cut $40 to $50 per barrel off the top price for a barrel of oil.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
They also have new tires, which improve the rolling resistance coefficient by about 20%.
Do they mention that the minimum stopping distance has now increased by 20%?
#DeleteChrome
There is a set of speeds and driving conditions where we can confidently drive the Roadster 3.0 over 400 miles.
On a dry oval course at 20 MPH.
[ One caveat to the new improvements, once the car goes above 50 MPH, if it drops below that Speed, it explodes. ]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
is Depends a sponsor?
What about a motorcycle's range? Are these vehicles not ready for prime time?
Currently Tesla charges at over 250 amps with their superchargers and I charge mine at home at 80 amps. As you say, though, the biggest limitations will be cooling and just getting that much current into the car. I think it's amazing that Tesla is able to handle 120KW through their current connector (and I hear they're experimenting with 150KW). None of the other charging connectors come close to this. They might also need to increase their active cooling of the batteries.
Right now my P85 will draw upwards of 310KW from the battery pack, but only for short bursts when accelerating hard.
Charging this fast might require something similar to their battery swapping, with a large connector built directly in to the battery along with support for the coolant loop where something comes up under the car to charge and actively cool the battery when handling so much current.
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The difference is that I can charge at home overnight to a full battery in my garage and I spend 5 seconds plugging in at night and 5 seconds unplugging in the morning. The beauty of it is that I don't need to go to a filling station except on long trips.
As more and more charging stations go in, most charging will happen at home and/or work where charging time doesn't matter.
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My 1992 Holden Commodore has a Cd of 0.31 so what's all this 0.36 stuff? Bob Pease would be turning in his grave.
Look, it is all well and good. But it is not a car that I could buy. Well, I could, but I don't want to spend that much on a car. Want a decent car for 40K. All these improvements, will it speed up the release of the alleged 40K model?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Why would we call you? We don't give a rat's tail about what you want.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I was surprised by the .36. When Lexus first came out c. 1990 they advertised the LS400 heavily as having a .28 and later models got down to .24. .36 is 50% worse than a 1990's sedan and surprising since range has always been an issue.
I guess it looks cool, though (hard to argue with the company's success).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Owners might want to take a close look at the NHTSA testing of the tires. Generally speaking, lower rolling resistance means less traction, which means less safe when cornering, maneuvering around an accident or animal ahead, or braking.
Without getting into heavy math, you need a LOT of water pumped up VERY high to get much electricity. Rarely does it work. The one case where it sometimes makes sense is certain existing hydroelectric plants where you already have all of the equipment in place. If the dam is very high (large head value) it can make sense.
To apply that to all of the energy needs for the US, you'd have to cover just over half the country in reservoirs to provide two days of energy storage. Since large storm systems cover a significant portion of the country with clouds, you need that two-day supply at minimum.
So pumped storage is one of many ways to get an extra 1%-2% out of the existing power plants, and thereby reduce fossil fuel usage by 1%. That doesn't seem like much, but there are ten different ways to provide 1%-2% of our energy, and in total that can reduce the usage of fossil fuels and nuclear by 10%-15%, which is significant.
What about a motorcycle's range? Are these vehicles not ready for prime time?
Of course not. Motorcycles only fit the needs of a minuscule segment of the population, they are not and never have been a "prime time" [equivalent] type of vehicle. They also get poor mileage (for their mass, especially, but many of them actually get poor mileage on the small car scale now, since small cars have come so far) and they have high pollution except in the few places where catalysts are mandatory. Even then, you can expect more pollution per gallon burned.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The traction control system should kick in when the tires _actually_ lose traction. If they programmed it for an estimate of the traction of new tires on dry, clean pavement they're doing it very, very wrong. A TCS is supposed to kick in when one tire hits a patch of ice, or there's sand on the road. It doesn't care what kind of tires there are - any tire is going to slip on ice.
Note also the engagement of traction control actually reduces the traction available to make a curve or other maneuver, by "wasting" some of the available traction to use in braking the wheel. The idea is to use traction more effectively to point the car in the direction of the steering wheel, but with a net loss of traction it does a worse job than a trained driver. Of course most drivers are untrained.
And even that tiny amount of time might go away if induction charging technology becomes viable for electric vehicles. No need to plug in, you just have to worry about being over the pad properly (an issue I think would be trivial to solve if induction does become viable.) Also gives local stores something they can install and promote.
That's an interesting insight about active cooling for quick charging. I myself support battery swapping but it seems it'll be slow to catch on although without it EVs will never match the "refueling" speed of ICE vehicles.
What sort of performance cars did you own prior to your Tesla and how does it compare? I imagine it's quickest off the line but what about highway passing & handling?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I can't compare to other performance cars since this is the first one I've owned. It does great on the highway and passing though I imagine some of the other performance cars do better. There is no lag which is nice so it is extremely responsive. Handling is quite good, not as good as the P85+ but it does quite well, especially given its weight. It's certainly fun to drive on those windy mountain roads, and the high torque does quite well on steep grades. It's also quite forgiving considering how much torque it has and the traction control works extremely well at holding the tires at the edge with just a little slip unlike other cars I have driven. I haven't driven the P85D yet and they stopped making the P85 (which is what I have).
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I was very surprised at the choice they made, to keep the single-motor S60 & S85 models.
Given that the forthcoming Model X is dual-motor only and the now sizable deployment of Superchargers, I can't help but think that canceling all the single-motor models, offering a discount on options or upgrades to anyone who'd already placed an order ( Call NOW! and get Supercharging at 1/2 price!!! ) or a cheerful refund would have led to an increase in orders and relatively few cancellations.
I doubt the few extra thousand would have made much difference to anyone waiting on a S85 and the range & performance boost across all models probably would have meant an increase in orders. And I can't think of any mass production car in any sane price range where you can lose an entire motor / engine / drive unit and keep on going.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body