Roadster 3.0

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/roadster-30

by cpwright • 12 years ago

169 83 12 years ago

beltex• 12 years ago

"Should mention that a battery pack upgrade is not coming soon for the Model S, but it obviously will happen long-term."

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/548269323681529856

cloudwalking• 12 years ago

Most likely the Model S already has many of the battery advancements that are now coming to the Roadster.

bjeanes• 12 years ago

Hrm... he deleted that tweet :/

sz4kerto2• 12 years ago

"The original Roadster had a drag coefficient (Cd) of 0.36. Using modern computational methods we expect to make a 15% improvement, dropping the total Cd down to 0.31 with a retrofit aero kit."

I wonder how's this going to affect the generated downforce (=> and, as a consequence, the aerodynamic grip). Cd for a F1 car is around 1.

tacos4• 12 years ago

My Audi A6 has a Cd of 0.26. Comparing it to F1 makes no sense. They're open wheel.

sz4kerto2• 12 years ago

It absolutely does make sense. F1 cars have high Cd because they need lots of downforce. An A6 does not need as high Cd as a sports car. So if a roadster's Cd goes down then the question arises: will it affect it's aerodynamic grip or not?

clamprecht• 12 years ago

Not only are they open wheel, but they have intentional downforce that exceeds the weight of the entire car.

mrfusion2• 12 years ago

Computional methods have improved that much in ten years?? Why aren't all cars doin this?

tacos4• 12 years ago

They do: even pedestrian looking Audis and Mazdas from a few years ago beat this retrofit by quite some margin. And the Tesla Model S is 0.24.

brudgers• 12 years ago

'Cd is a coefficient. It reflects the aerodynamic efficiency of the car relative to an equivalent frontal area oriented vertically [i.e. a brick]. An F1 car achieves efficiency by having a small frontal area and effectively directing drag forces. 0,5 square meters with a 'Cd of 1.0 creates less force than 2.0 square meters with a 'Cd of 0.3.

jigg4joe• 12 years ago

Is aerodynamic grip really relevant for a road car? Is anyone really turning at a speed fast enough for it to matter? If you want to improve grip for your road car, you tune the suspension and buy some nice tires.

Lowering the Cd will definitely improve your milage, however.

spodek• 12 years ago

Someone somewhere is reacting with "We must further prevent them from selling in our state!"

Actually, probably fifty people like that. Or rather organizations.

And they'll work as hard as they can to keep this from consumers.

acangiano• 12 years ago

Don't you love the "free market until it actually creates competition for us" model?

ams61106• 12 years ago

Don't you love government regulation of the market until it affects something I want to buy?

kenrikm4• 12 years ago

If Tesla continues to follow this route it will have lasting implications for the automotive industry. Instead of replacing" your car every 5-10 years you can "Upgrade" keeping existing chassis but replacing enough to make it "Like New" (Refurb vs Replace) Automakers sell a completely new car just to make a few thousand dollars every 5-10 years and that's only if the customer stays loyal (Also why some car companies have loyalty incentives) in this case Tesla can still make that income and the customer is locked in as a bonus this will help to keep resale values high since there will be less cars on the market because owners upgrade instead of selling.

Now more then ever I wish I bought Tesla stock before it went through the roof.

chatmasta• 12 years ago

Automakers lock consumers into rebill programs via debt, i.e. a car loan. Tesla locks consumers into rebill via equity, i.e. a nice car, conveniently iteratively upgradeable. Thus Tesla gains capital advantage because it has no liability after disposing of a car asset, while automakers generate debt liability. For every car manufactured, automakers create a liability for themselves, while Tesla creates an automated income stream. Consequently cash flows better in Tesla than in its competitors. Relative to that of automakers, Tesla cash flow increases exponentially. Tesla is competing on a different level. The automakers will be lucky to earn a spot on Tesla's platform. At the very least, Tesla has a first-mover advantage in a surprisingly new market.

ams61106• 12 years ago

You're saying people don't debt-finance Teslas?

gaadd33• 12 years ago

Do the automakers still finance car loans directly? I know GMAC turned into Ally and is no longer owned by GM. I'm not so familiar with the other automaker's financial arms.

threeseed6• 12 years ago

Is there any evidence what so ever that the financing arm of automakers is causing a systemic problem in their business ? Because I haven't seen it. And if it was a problem they would simply spin off a company like BMW does (BMW Financial Services).

And it's a bit early to be taking about how fantastic Tesla's cash flow situation is when they have been losing so much money in recent years. And they have so much cash locked up in a Supercharger network that has a questionable future (proprietary standard, embrace/extend model, no interest from other automakers).

ams61106• 12 years ago

Not disagreeing (edit: well maybe I am, a bit) but with a Tesla the "upgrade" is pretty much mandatory as the battery packs have a limited life. So even if you don't need to upgrade to get the extended range, you still need to replace the battery pack every so often. Also other components on the car will wear: brakes, suspension, interior. A lot of people trade/replace cars even if the car is still running and reliable, just because they are tired of them, the interior is worn or falling part, the seat springs are flat, etc. Or they just want something different, bigger, or with different utility.

You could take most cars of the last couple of decades, and a complete interior update, engine/transmission replacement, and suspension rebuild would still be cheaper than a new car. But few people do that.

kenrikm4• 12 years ago

Keep in mind dealers are not the ones who offer the Update/Upgrade you are dependent on aftermarket services which tend to be more expensive (It's easily more expensive to restore a "normal" car then buy a new one) However in Tesla's case they can roll the restore into a easy to perform upgrade because of their limited number of models and prior engineering of things like battery swaps to be quick/easy. While it might take a hundred hours to do a restore of a normal car Tesla can swap a pack, some body panels, electronics and interior in a days labor.

threeseed6• 12 years ago

If Tesla continues to follow this route it will have lasting implications for the automotive industry.

No it won't.

This upgrade concept has been tried in many consumer products over the years and it hasn't caused any ripples let alone waves. The fact is that people like buying new products. It's an opportunity for them to re-evalute their product choice. They like the experience of having something different. Many reasons that aren't simply financial/practical.

And it especially doesn't work with cars. The interior of a car wears over time in a way that is impossible to make new unless you replace it. And many of the newer technologies e.g. autonomous require massive changes to the internal system. Add it all up and it becomes very cost prohibitive to upgrade rather than simply replace.

pedalpete2• 12 years ago

Can you give an example of where the upgrade concept has been tried before?

I can see it having difficulty operating on small or even medium sized purchases, but a car is a very different thing. Why make a large purchase when you don't have to. People already know new cars loose so much value the second they are driven off the lot, why would you subject yourself to that if you can upgrade your existing car.

From an environmental standpoint, isn't upgrading an existing car much more friendly to the environment that digging up new metals.

As far as things like the interior wear, why not be able to upgrade a new interior. Why trash an entire car just because part of the interior is worn. So you need a new headliner, get just that. You don't need to throw away the whole car.

I'd agree that large scale changes like completely autonomous control may be difficult to retrofit, but probably not impossible as many cars are being built with park assist which means autonomous control could be mostly a software change rather than hardware. At the same time, how often do we see massive technology changes like that in the automotive space. More airbags could be tacked on to older cars, brakes upgraded to ABS could have happened. Basically, anything that has happened in the automobile in the last 50 years could probably have been a minor hardware upgrade. Even carburator to fuel injection could be an upgrade.

I also think we're experiencing a cultural shift in why and how people buy. I think the idea of just buying something new, is becoming an outdated. I know I don't want to buy just to buy, I don't go "shopping", but I definitely did in my younger days.

Lastly, can you please not state as fact what is clearly your opinion. To say "No it won't" is a very abrupt and I'd say rude response and seems to attempt to shut down discussion rather than saying "I don't believe it will have implications because..."

deepGem2• 12 years ago

Strongly disagree.

Every part of the car interior can be replaced if it is designed from the ground up with that purpose of retrofitting. For instance you look at a dress shoe and think that the shoe has to be thrown once it is worn out, but Allen Edmonds shoes can be re-crafted once they are worn. They look as good as new. If something as tightly coupled as a shoe can be re-crafted, the interior of a car surely can be.

Also - with an electric motor most of the complexity is in the software - which can be easily upgraded. Autonomous driving - needs massive changes to the internal system ? Like what ? From what I can see - the physical changes needed are in the steering department - that's about it. Rest is all software.

I can bet any money that one day Musk will upgrade a Model S into a driverless car. Perhaps in the next 5 years.

kin• 12 years ago

I completely agree with you. My car looks like it's going to last a little over 10 years and then eventually it won't be worth fixing.

I wonder what the cost of this Tesla upgrade is going to be though.

finid3• 12 years ago

... 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.

That has been the range where I'll even begin to consider a car of that sort. I'm seriously rooting for Tesla.

mcot2• 12 years ago

Range is less important to me than ease and availability of recharging or refueling.

finid3• 12 years ago

Not if recharging takes hours.

If you combine a decent range (400+ miles) with a fast recharge time, say, an hour or less, then you've got a real winner.

greglindahl2• 12 years ago

People who actually own Teslas are, on the whole, less fanatic than you are about range. If you can charge in your home garage, then you start every morning with a full battery. How many days do you drive more than 265 miles? And for long trips, there's the supercharger network, and the first battery swap station is in beta along the SF/LA route.

revelation• 12 years ago

Because you drive 400 miles daily?

It seems you are stuck in a go till empty mentality. You don't drive an electric car until the battery is empty and then recharge. You plug it in at home and wake up to the battery charged to the same level every day. You'll actually save time not spent at a gas station in everyday use.

baddox• 12 years ago

It doesn't matter all that much what your average daily drive is, if you have several road trips a year where an EV's range is prohibitive. That is, of course, until the EV saves you enough money over a full-time gas car that you can afford to buy or rent a spare gas car for your road trips. Or until charger or battery hot swap stations are everywhere.

finid3• 12 years ago

I don't drive 400 miles daily, but at the same time, I don't want to have one car for short distance commutes and another one for long distance travels.

threeseed6• 12 years ago

Shame you were downvoted when everyone that replied to you is pretty clueless about how most of the world lives.

Most people don't have powered garages. And most of the world doesn't have power points on street parking or in apartment/work parking lots. So this "I will just refuel every day" concept really falls apart if you're trying to scale out your product.

Tesla desperately needs to get from this early adopter phase into targeting the mass market. And that means catering for people such as yourself that expect a range comparable to their previous car.

Htsthbjig• 12 years ago

"Most people don't have powered garages. And most of the world doesn't have power points on street parking or in apartment/work parking lots."

Most of the people have an electric network already installed on their house. If you have already a garage, putting a 5 meters cable is not such a big problem.

You will need a new installation anyway, because you will need more power.

Most of the world ALREADY HAVE power points on apartment-parking lots. It is called Street lighting, not used during daylight, and designed for when LED lighting did not exist. You can replace 1000+ Watts old bulbs with a 100W LED one easily today.

I have an electric car that I use a lot. Most of the fear I had when I bought it was non sense.

xasos• 12 years ago

Roadster upgrade will enable non-stop travel from LA to SF -- almost 400 mile range. Details tmrw. Merry Christmas! (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/548269323681529856)

I think this is super awesome. The fact that range is up from 265 miles to 400 is a great accomplishment. I look forward to seeing what the Tesla team will be doing in the upcoming years.

Timmmmmm• 12 years ago

That's actually pretty significant. I doubt anyone would want to drive more than 400 miles in a day. You can almost get between any two points in England with that range.

waterlesscloud2• 12 years ago

400 miles wouldn't even get me to my brother's place in the next state over.

More than 400 miles in a day is common in US roadtripping. On the other hand, breaking up those long driving days with a reasonable recharging period would be more than OK.

tcskeptic• 12 years ago

Every summer I drive my family home 928 miles in a single day from our vacation house in Florida.

NDizzle• 12 years ago

I wouldn't think that a roadster is the correct vehicle for LRR tires. I had them on my 1st gen Insight and they are terrible, terrible things from a performance point of view.

maxerickson2• 12 years ago

It could be a thing where they choose a tire that maintains sufficient performance at a lower rolling resistance.

ams61106• 12 years ago

A Tesla (especially a Roadster) is a performance car though. Extreme LRR tires are not what most buyers are going to want.

vkat• 12 years ago

Agree. We have them on our 2012 Camry hybrid and they are terrible. Tread is almost gone at 24000 miles and road grip is the worst. The tires squeal while reversing because of the turn radius. Maybe there is a better tire brand but I will be opting out of LRR when we have to replace the tires.

ktzar• 12 years ago

It'd be awesome to get the old batteries adapted to be used in off-grid homes, where they could be of great use.

greglindahl2• 12 years ago

Here's an example of SolarCity/Tesla using new batteries like that: https://gigaom.com/2012/04/17/tesla-solarcity-quietly-sellin...

alexggordon• 12 years ago

Kudos to joesfresco for originating this idea[0], but after observing Tesla for the last couple of months, they're really developing car hardware, as though it was software, and it's continually winning me over as a better automobile "development" cycle.

No car company has ever existed quite like Tesla, and I think this is almost the automobile 'iPhone' in the making. They've done three incredibly important things in this press release, that has taken me a bit to fully appreciate.

First, they're the first car company that I know of that has offered serious vehicle improvements as a service, ever. Tesla is offering 40%-50% improvement on range. Imagine Ford coming out tomorrow and saying anyone can bring their cars in and we'll improve your MPG by 40%-50% for a few thousand. That's unreal.

Second, to do this, they HAD to have looked at the possibility of just releasing a new and improved Roadster, with no upgrade kit. However, they not only actively made the decision to not do that, but to offer it as an "update" simply because they saw it as a bigger benefit to their users. This is a move on par with Tesla shipping the new hardware with cars coming off the assembly line, and then activating that hardware once it was announced [1].

Third, by doing this, Tesla, is training it's customers to recognize that Tesla's are a long-term investment. It's literally a punch right in the face of modern car manufacturers, letting them know that a new car every year is not the way we do business. They're saying that this car is not a product of a year of development, but a product of years of innovation and development.

Suddenly, $70,000 for a car is a lot more justifiable if I know the manufacturer will be updating and improving my vehicle in 4 years still.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8556449 [1] http://www.teslamotors.com/en_EU/forum/forums/autopilot-info...

PinguTS2• 12 years ago

Nothing new. You can go the you Audi, BMW, Mercedes Dealer and "upgrade" your car with some features as long as no new hardware is required.

It is quite common for some time, that a number of features are just a bit flip in the settings if it is enabled in your car or not. That is the reason why there is a whole industry around, which do things like "chip tuning". They just reverse engineered those things.

May be you can't go to a dealer in the US. But that is related to a different market situation. I learned, in the US you buy that car that the dealer has in his show floor available. In Europe, especially in Germany I order my car to my like. I can also go to that dealer and "add" features afterwards.

throwawaymsft• 12 years ago

I think you missed the key point the parent was making: what other manufacturer offers to upgrade your car's hardware (without it being part of a safety recall!).

They'd rather you buy a new car with the better battery pack, vs. just upgrading that component.

PinguTS2• 12 years ago

Tesla is a very good example of making good PR without anything specific new. They say, that they offer a performance package for an old model. But what is the real truth behind?

1. Improved battery performance:

Everybody knows that batteries degrade over time. Batteries have to be replaced after some time. Batteries have a memory effect including Lithium Ion, even when the industry wants to tell a different story.

Tesla is still offering replacement batteries for the Roadster. Because, if they would not, they would have a marketing problem. Tesla now decided to source the new cells in those battery packs. Which is a normal business decision, because the original battery pack was engineered at 2005/2006. That is almost 10 years ago. As such it is a normal business decision to source the new cells instead of sourcing the old cells with lower demand (increased prices). Reminder: any carmaker supports their car models >10 years.

2. Improved tires:

Tires are improving year by year. The tires are not from Tesla. They are sourced from Godyear, Pirelli, Conti, or alike.

I have to replace my tires every 3 to 4 years as they are loosing their condition and are not fit for the roads anymore. Of course, I always choose the latest the version with the latest technology. That is a thing of ongoing business.

3. improved body (CW):

That is something you normally buy from some third party supplier, like AMG or Brabus for Mercedes, Alpine for BMW, … There is no such thing for Tesla, so Tesla made it himself.

Disclaimer: electrical engineer with contacts from within the different carmakers and other industrial markets.

zarkov99• 12 years ago

Well, the improved range is pretty new, regardless of how they got there. 400 miles is ground breaking for an electric car.

Roadster 3.0

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