Tesla Unveils New Model S, Its Quickest Production Car (bloomberg.com)

Electric car maker Tesla said Tuesday that it is launching a 100-kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery for its Model S and Model X cars. A report on Bloomberg says: Tesla is adding versions of its Model S sedan and Model X sport utility vehicle with a more powerful battery pack that the company said makes the Model S the world's quickest production car and gives it range of 315 miles on a single charge. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk is trying to appeal to sports car enthusiasts with the new Model S P100D with a 100 kilowatt-hour battery, which with Ludicrous mode can go from a standstill to 60 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds, compared with 2.8 seconds for the P90D Ludicrous version. The P100D Ludicrous upgrade costs $10,000 for customers who have ordered a P90D Ludicrous but haven't taken delivery, or $20,000 for owners who already have that vehicle type.

Comments

*The* Quickest, Not *Its* Quickest

[Ziktar]

While true that the P100D will be Tesla's quickest production car, the news is that it is *the* quickest production car that is currently made and available to purchase new. That one little word makes a difference.

Re:*The* Quickest, Not *Its* Quickest

[tholme]

...Tesla should definitely offer some super-secure teen-driver proofing so your kid with the freshly minted driver's license doesn't squish himself on a joy-ride whilst you and the missus are reconnecting on holiday.

They do. It's called valet mode: An in-depth look at ‘Valet Mode’ for the Tesla Model S

Re:*The* Quickest, Not *Its* Quickest

[Cederic]

Hmm, one of them may be a 2015 car, depends how you count. But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... is a good start point, learn to use Google or DuckDuckGo if you'd like other references.

Re:*The* Quickest, Not *Its* Quickest

[NatasRevol]

Do you mean Chrysler?

Re:*The* Quickest, Not *Its* Quickest

[LynnwoodRooster]

To 60, it's quick. In the 1/4 mile? The Nissan GT-R is quicker, and lower cost. If I want to get to 60 in a hurry, heck a GSXR-R1000 will do it faster, and cost about 1/10th the price as well.

Re: *The* Quickest, Not *Its* Quickest

[WindBourne]

Lol. We charge our Tesla via a simple 120v, 20 a plug. Works fine. And when Xcel stops screwing us over in Colorado, I will move 240v and charge at nighttime.

Re: *The* Quickest, Not *Its* Quickest

[LynnwoodRooster]

Production car means a car in production or PREVIOUSLY in production. That is what a production car is. A car that was mass-produced by a manufacturer for general sale to the public (meaning it meets all rules and regulations of the highway). Just because you cannot buy a Ford Ranger anymore doesn't mean they are not production vehicles. Likewise a Tesla Roadster, which is also no longer produced. It was a production vehicle.

Re:*The* Quickest, Not *Its* Quickest

[michelcolman]

The only thing the tesla is fastest at is bursting into flames.

The two production cars faster than the P100D are:

- Ferrari Laferrari, of which 499 have been made. A quick Google search reveals at least two have caught fire, and a recall was issued by Ferrarri because of the fire risk.
- Porsche 918 Spyder, of which 918 have been made. A quick Google search reveals at least one burned down at a gas station in Canada.

Compare that to the almost 150,000 Teslas on the road today (100 times as many). Looks like "fastest car to catch fire" is no contest here.

How fast is the 0 to 88 MPH speed?

[Joe_Dragon]

How fast is the 0 to 88 MPH speed?

Re:How fast is the 0 to 88 MPH speed?

[idontgno]

One more bump in battery power and it won't need a Mr. Fusion or a lightning strike.

Re:Nah

[HornWumpus]

Same as the Atom 500. And they will both do it more than once per day.

Re:Ludicrous version?

[Carnivore]

No, the Maximum Plaid mode is being planned for the future roadster model.

Alarming Battery Costs

[Luthair]

Oddly enough I was messaging a friend about the high cost of the battery upgrade for the old roadster model earlier today. Personally the extreme cost of the batteries (much higher than say a replacement engine) leaves me with big questions about how viable electric cars will be from a maintenance perspective.

Re:Alarming Battery Costs

[AmiMoJo]

The battery is good for 900,000 miles to 80% capacity remaining. Accelerated testing confirms it, as do drivers with 300k miles or more on their cars. It's basically 2x a typical petrol engine, similar to a diesel.

When it's end of life you can sell it for recycling into other applications like home UPS/solar storage.

Re:Alarming Battery Costs

[Thelasko]

Personally the extreme cost of the batteries (much higher than say a replacement engine) leaves me with big questions about how viable electric cars will be from a maintenance perspective.

They said the same thing about Prius batteries 15 years ago. Battery prices came down, and the batteries are very reliable. I still see some first generation Prii running around.

Re:Alarming Battery Costs

[Twinbee]

Here you go: http://cleantechnica.com/files/2015/05/image14-e1431849359184.jpg

Re:Alarming Battery Costs

[WCLPeter]

While on the surface that sounds like a lot of money, its important to remember that current model Teslas are premium products and are priced accordingly. More modest EVs, with their smaller packs, will be much more economical.

For example Chevy has said they've gotten the pack price for their upcoming Chevy Bolt down to around $145/kWh, since they're planning on a 60kWh pack that works out to about $8,700 for the pack - after "profits" they'll probably sell replacements for 10k. That sounds like quite a bit, but when you consider that the pack should provide a usable lifetime range between 6-8 years its not that bad.

* At 6 years that's about $1,666 annually, or $32/week.
* At 8 years that's about $1,250 annually, or $24/week.

Granted your experience will differ, for me its about $1 daily to fill up my 2015 Nissan Leaf since I don't drain the battery to empty. I'd expect a similar experience even if the pack size were larger than the current 24kWh pack I have. I've owned the Leaf two years now and I've spent perhaps, at most, $600 to fuel my car - or about $300 annually or $5.75 weekly. So using the examples above that takes the "fuel" costs up to:

* 6 years = $1,666 + $300 = $1,966 or $37.80/week
* 8 years = $1,250 + $300 = $1,550 or $29.80/week

When I drove gas I spent upward of $40/week, about $2,080 annually, in fuel. When I consider the maintenance I'm no longer doing - oil changes, spark plugs, various belts, transmission, etc... - along with the cheaper insurance, my rates actually went down and I'm now paying about $75 monthly on a brand new car!, it works out to be cheaper overall. All in, without digging out my old receipts and doing the math, I was easily at least $50-$60 weekly ($15k-$25k total over 6/8 years) keeping my gas car running.

However unlike a gas car which has these charges spread over the 6 to 8 years, making it easy to not notice them, when the time comes to replace the pack in an EV you pay it all out at once and this makes it looks like an expensive vehicle to maintain. Granted it is a lot of money to spend at one time on a car, but Total Cost of Ownership between EVs and Gas over time have no contest - EVs are far cheaper over the long term to maintain and run than a gas car. The biggest expense on EVs are tires, brakes, suspension, air conditioning, and the battery pack. Brakes seldom need to be replaced due to regenerative braking, tires are tires - everyone replaces those, and suspension and AC are just parts of the standard vehicle maintenance. But all the rest that comes with owning an ICE engine you just don't have that and you couldn't pay me to go back, I've got better things to spend my money on.

And this, of course, assumes that you're going to replace the pack after 6-8 years. If the degraded pack still meets your needs, you can continue to drive on it until it doesn't. Additionally the battery tech is getting better all the time, so as the technology improves replacements will get cheaper and existing packs in newer vehicles will maintain their usable life for longer periods - the TCO will just get lower.

If a snail were driving it fast.

[InterGuru]

Observers would say "Look at that S car go!'

Re:If a snail were driving it fast.

[Whibla]

Very few people know, but some years back I actually used to be a professional snail racer. I was very successful too, as my primary racing snail, Guinness, was so fast, by snail standards anyway, that for years he was unbeatable.

Unfortunately, like for all of us, age started catching up with him and he started slowing down. Not much at first, but, race after race, it became more and more noticeable. I must admit watching him get slower and slower was a thoroughly depressing experience and I tried everything to get him back on form: the finest fresh pea plants to munch on, fetching female snails waiting for him on the finish line, longer rest periods between races - but nothing seemed to work.

I had practically resigned myself to his eventual defeat when the idea hit me. It was obvious really. Look at any snail, what's the first thing you see? A huge great big heavy shell. Surely removing that burden would enable him to go so much quicker, quicker even than before, when he was in his prime. What could possibly go wrong? So, with all the delicacy and precision I could manage I took a surgical scalpel and carefully removed his shell.

Alas, once I'd done that, if anything, he just looked more sluggish...

Re:Nah

[brec]

First para. of Tesla's blog entry of today with the announcement; emphasis added:

The Model S P100D with Ludicrous mode is the third fastest accelerating production car ever produced, with a 0-60 mph time of 2.5* seconds. However, both the LaFerrari and the Porsche 918 Spyder were limited run, million dollar vehicles and cannot be bought new. While those cars are small two seaters with very little luggage space, the pure electric, all-wheel drive Model S P100D has four doors, seats up to 5 adults plus 2 children and has exceptional cargo capacity.

Batteries are expensive

[DrYak]

It's not abnormal
The battery, not the motor, is the most expensive part in an electric car.

There are electric car makers who sell you only an empty car, and rent you the battery.
e.g.: Renault's Zoé
These cars are rather cheap.
(And in case of the Zoé, Renault have stated that:
- they DON'T do remote kills, even if they technically own the battery
- in fact they don't do any DRM on the battery
- you could in theory stop paying the battery, bring it back, and refit the car with something else (yup, they are open to the idea of 3rd party battery market that is eventually going to appear as e-cars get more popular) )
(Disclaimer: there are Zoé in pool of cars at the local car-sharing company that I often drive).

To over-simplify to the point of carricature :

In a gaz-powered car:
- The motor is a horribly complex high-precision mechanical piece with thousands of precise components, gearbox and transmission system, etc...
- The tank is basically a huge jerrycan, with a simple cap at one end to top up, and a glorified faucet at the other end to bring fuel into the car.
(Yup I'm over simplifying but you got the picture).

In an electical car:
- The motor is basically just a huge coil almost directly connected to the wheel (well, not quite. There's a fixed ratio gearbox), and that's about it. It just spins faster or slower depending on needs, no complex transmission in play.
- The energy storage is an awfully complex beast: complex (and explosive) chemistry in the battery that requires either custom parts or in Tesla's case a complex grid of thousands of simple common off-the-shelf 18650 elements, with a very complex battery manager to charge and top up the energy storage while keeping the longevity of the battery, and a high power circuit to convert the battery output into what high AC current is precisely needed at the time by the motor.

So yeah, take the energy storage out of the equation, and the rest of the electric car is cheap.

Or in a different perspective: adding 10% more energy to the storage is a complex task, that is going to cost a lot if you pay the battery upfront (like in Teslas)
It's not like extending the range 10% in a gaz powered car (where it's basically about increasing the the "glorified jerrycan" about ~10%)
It's more like extending the power or efficiency of a gaz powered car (where it would need an entirely new and better mottor, which is also going to cost a lot).

built the scale version

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, very true.

I just added a Ludicrous mode to my mobility scooter last weekend. Was even going to call it that, but label too long :(

24v scooter now runs off of 60v and uses the little wheelie bars on it extensively :))

Mine is more like 0-6 mph in .25 seconds. Really it is probably close to that and top end of 20 mph or so in 1 sec

The 'hold my beer and watch this' mode is next but i doubt the motor will survive 72v for long.

If the full size car is half as much fun..... ;)

Re:Nah

[catchblue22]

Here is a google search for "car fires". Thousands of pictures of gasoline cars on fire. Here is another search for "Lamborghini Fires". There are many. How many recent Tesla fires can you mention? I'll bet is is approximately two. And yet they are reported ad nauseum. And filthy trolls like you act as if they happen all the time. They don't.

Re:Yawn

[mspohr]

Go to sleep until next year when the Model 3 comes out.

Re:Yawn

[djinn6]

The Model 3 is still 2x the price of a new ICE car for getting from A to B, and 5x an old but usable car. If you're looking for affordable, you're in for a long wait.