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Tesla Unveils Dual Motor and Performance Specs For Model 3
Rei writes: Yesterday evening, Elon Musk announced the pricing and specs for two of the Model 3's most in-demand options -- dual motor and performance versions. The base dual motor configuration adds an AC induction front motor to the current partial-PM reluctance rear motor for $5,000; in addition to AWD and allowing the car to drive with either motor out, this cuts the 0 to 60 mph acceleration time from 5.1 seconds to 4.5 seconds. The performance package is available as a bundle, including the long-range pack, premium interior, 20" wheels, carbon fiber spoiler, and a new black-and-white interior. The vehicle will cost $78,000; 0 to 60 mph times are further cut to 3.5 seconds and the top speed increases from 140 mph to 155 mph.
While these options have consistently polled as the most in-demand options not yet available, several still remain and are variously due late this year/early next year: cream interior, non-PUP, tow hitch, SR battery, and air suspension. EU-spec and China-spec are also due early next year. Production is currently over 3,500 per week, rumored to be 4,300 per week, and will be undergoing a shutdown from May 26-31 to raise production to the Q2 target of 5000-6000.
While these options have consistently polled as the most in-demand options not yet available, several still remain and are variously due late this year/early next year: cream interior, non-PUP, tow hitch, SR battery, and air suspension. EU-spec and China-spec are also due early next year. Production is currently over 3,500 per week, rumored to be 4,300 per week, and will be undergoing a shutdown from May 26-31 to raise production to the Q2 target of 5000-6000.
Having recently taken delivery of a Model 3, had I known that the dual-motor/AWD version would be available for $5k more while still getting the full federal tax rebate, I would have taken that option.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Tesla seems to take all the fun out of performance. It used to be able oil and gas and the small of exhaust coming out of two dual 2.5" exhaust pipes with a sound that made an indication of how fast it was. Now it's just a really quick golf cart.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
It's not just the Germans who do that. Go configure a Ford F-150 and see how much the price spikes when you check all the option boxes.
The one thing that really sets Tesla apart is their heavy use of bundling. When you break down the performance vehicle cost - subtracting the cost of the known options, and making reasonable guesses for the new ones - it only works out to roughly a ~$15k premium. But of course they bundle it together with everything but the kitchen sink (more accurately, everything but autopilot). Kind of annoying, but of course it's a big encouragement for people to spend more on options. Which of course they'll justify to themselves later ;)
I don't think $5k for the dual motor is expensive at all, given that in addition to giving you all wheel drive and a spare motor it drops the 0-60 by 0,6 seconds. You know how much you usually have to pay in an ICE vehicle to drop its 0-60 by 0,6 seconds? Doesn't come cheap. We had a poll on the Model 3 forum recently, and the average expectation was that this option would come in at around $4,5k. So pretty much spot on.
The real question is why the performance version and the basic dual motor version are coming in at the same range. Performance will be heavier, and more importantly, is swapping out the aero wheels with efficient tires for 20" sports wheels with sports tires. Should be a significant range hit by comparison. But of course since Tesla deliberately sandbagged the EPA range numbers from 318 to 310mi, they have some room to play around with the figures. E.g. maybe performance goes down to an EPA 310 while the basic dual goes up to ~330 or so, and they just call them both 310. I guess we'll know for sure once deliveries happen and people start doing tests.
Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
All of Tesla's models are currently backordered, so any drop on S75D wouldn't be that meaningful. And S model production is interchangeable; their real limit is that the number of cells that Panasonic can provide is only enough for about 100k S+X vehicles per year, and they adjust their pricing and introduce new options on these vehicle lines at rate to maintain this (they could expand 18650 production, but neither Tesla nor Panasonic have interest in this, since they see the 2170s as the future). I do think you're right that demand for S75D will drop, and I can envision Tesla discontinuing it while sweetening up the 100s. Of course, that will only decrease the number of S+X vehicles that they can make per year, since more cells are needed for the 100 packs.
I feel pretty confident that they're eventually going to refresh S and X atop the Model Y platform. Since Y's platform is basically a stretched, upgraded 3, and a stretched pack means not only more capacity, but more power.
Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
It looks like Tesla is going to hit the US limit - deliberately - right at the start of Q3. This means that the full $7500 credit for buyers in Q3 and Q4; a half credit in Q1 and Q2; a quarter credit in Q3 and Q4; and then gone in 2020.
Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
"They chose to change how it was being used; turns out, they should have just adapted the existing production lines"
The Model has a lot of aluminum which required a lot of new equipment.
When Ford converted its two main plants that make the F-150 to aluminum, they did a complete teardown & re-fit of both sites.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The one thing that really sets Tesla apart is their heavy use of bundling.
The one thing that sets Tesla apart is that there is no $35K Model 3. It's complete vaporware and can not be bought. People were suckered into giving Tesla an interest free $1,000 loan thinking they'd get a $35K Model 3 with the $7.5K tax credit, all to get as high of a reservation count for Musk to crow about and push the stock price ever higher.
A reservation count that when probed a bit and asked by an analyst about the actual conversion rate when a holder is asked to configure, Musk prefixed his response with a full 15 seconds of silence before saying the question was, "too dry" and decided to spend the next 20 minutes allowing a dozen questions by a YouTube fan boy with a whole 51 shares to his name. It doesn't take Freud to know that the truth was something not supportive of the narrative Musk is trying to push.
I recommend people listen to the archived 1Q18 conference call, including the two previous. If you're not an investor they are very amusing. If you are then they scream run for the exits. It's fun to go back and read Musk's comments about, "productizing the factory", listen to him rant about "stepped exponential production" curves and "air friction" being a potential limiter, and then read his short tweet admitting that he has no idea what he's doing and wasted billions of investor dollars trying to over automate final assembly. It's too bad we're not going to have too many more calls to laugh at.
What makes the cow-fart argument stupid is that all the carbon that comes out of cows recently (during the lifetime of this animal. and mostly in the last year) came out of the air, through feed, to go into the cows. None of it comes from the fossil sources that are adding new carbon to the environment. Therefore if all the cows vanished today, the amount of GHG in the atmosphere would not change.
Tesla's initial use of 18650 cells had nothing to do with any inherent advantages or disadvantages of that size; it was about the fact that the size was in high volume production because of its use in laptop computer batteries. If you slice open the removable battery from an older laptop you will probably find 18650 cells inside.
But the laptop computer business has changed. Thin and light designs now dominate the business; those have non-removable flat batteries inside, much like overgrown versions of the ones now found inside cell phones. Meanwhile, Tesla is shifting its car batteries to a larger size of cell to reduce manufacturing costs: fewer cells means fewer interconnects, less complexity in charge balancing hardware and software, and so forth. And now Tesla is a large enough buyer to get Panasonic to make a new size of cell to meet its needs, something that wasn't true back in the company's early days.
With both of these factors in play, the market for 18650 cells is declining. It would make sense for Panasonic to allow Tesla to shift some of its previously contracted orders to the new size, leaving Panasonic's existing capacity available to fill orders for the remaining legacy markets for 18650. If there is a need for such a renegotiation it would make sense for both companies, so Tesla should have no difficulty working out a new deal.
And BTW your claim about "every teardown" is wrong. You mean "Every teardown by one Randy Munrone". Ingineerix, Jack Rickard, and Evannex disagree.,
You mean Sandy Munro? You know those guys have chops, right? They're not amateurs. Also, I don't know if you took the time to actually watch the entire interview, but he gave Tesla credit for numerous things that he thought they did extremely well — better, in fact, than literally anyone else. The electronics leap immediately to mind.
Besides that though, there are plenty of other media references as well, not to mention the owners complaining all over the official forums. Please don't pretend like Tesla isn't having quality control problems. They absolutely are, and there's no credibly denying it. When you get in to this kind of money, it's not cute to have problems like that. It's not an especially huge amount of money to spend for a product that does what it does, but it is enough money where it's disappointing for it to have that kind of flaw. If we didn't care about style, we'd all drive identical-looking vehicles which were based on the intersection of crash safety and aerodynamics.
It would be less embarrassing if this were Tesla's first car, but it isn't...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"