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Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

tesla.com

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Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#341

Post by laurencerowe »

globular-toast wrote: post #245
laurencerowe wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure whether you mean older teslas or older cars generally here. Small cars in the 70s and 80s weighed just over half as much as they do now. The Golf Mk 1 was 795kg while a Mk 8 is 1255kg. Much of that increase in weight is safety equipment and they are much safer for it.

Some of the increase is safety equipment. Some is just the fact they they are bigger in just about every way. The Golf Mk1 wasn't even a particular small or lightweight car. The Mini was about 600kg, for example.

Individual models do have a tendency to grow in size over time so perhaps the current Polo is a better comparison to the Mk1 Golf and even that weighs in at 1164kg.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#342

Post by laurencerowe »

sgc wrote: post #174
laurencerowe wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure whether you mean older teslas or older cars generally here. Small cars in the 70s and 80s weighed just over half as much as they do now. The Golf Mk 1 was 795kg while a Mk 8 is 1255kg. Much of that increase in weight is safety equipment and they are much safer for it.

I was thinking older than that, of the 50s and 60s, and early 70s. But regardless of the exact timeline, it's pretty well known than engineering trumps raw weight, even if quantity is a quality all it's own, as they say. Thus comparing apples to apples (names don't matter, size and weight and features do), the same weight car today is far safer than it was in the decades you referenced, and the average weight across…

I suspect growing up in Europe this difference is more pronounced since smaller cars were always more popular and they are the ones where structural reinforcement for crash safety has made them so much heavier.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#343

Post by Hypx »

kanox wrote: post #224
new_realist wrote: post #9

The Hyundai Nexo EV is already at 380 miles, and it’s a real SUV, not a flat-as-a-pancake Model S. It refuels in five minutes, to boot, but is only practical in California. If they increased tank volume by 5% it’d be at 400 miles EPA.

As far as I know hydrogen is currently mostly derived from fossil fuels. Electrolysis would be possible but it's expensive and still less energy efficient than a pure battery-electric vehicle. People are willing to pay a premium for electric cars because they're greener. This DOES NOT APPLY to hydrogen fuel cell cars.

Electrolysis is much cheaper than in the past. Nearly all serious hydrogen related proposals involves electrolysis.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#344

Post by Hypx »

xeromal wrote: post #124
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you don't have a home...if you live in any dense area in an apartment, forget about it.

I actually live in a condo complex with 300 units and I get by. I just charge at the local library for free like once a week or at work.

It's unfortunate people don't realize this doesn't scale. If everyone at your 300 unit condo had a BEV, this doesn't work.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#345

Post by sgc »

laurencerowe wrote: post #342
sgc wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking older than that, of the 50s and 60s, and early 70s. But regardless of the exact timeline, it's pretty well known than engineering trumps raw weight, even if quantity is a quality all it's own, as they say. Thus comparing apples to apples (names don't matter, size and weight and features do), the same weight car today is far safer than it was in the decades you referenced, and the average weight across…

I suspect growing up in Europe this difference is more pronounced since smaller cars were always more popular and they are the ones where structural reinforcement for crash safety has made them so much heavier.

Perfectly reasonable hypothesis.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#346

Post by jacobush »

driverdan wrote: post #299
jacobush wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it has always been at a range of 1000 kilometers. (600 miles.)

Most ICE vehicles do not have a 1000 km range.

A gas car can be topped up in 2 minutes, just about everywhere - which is not true of an electric. With a 1000 km range, I can go almost everywhere I want, then back, without charging, and recharge at home, if need be.

If my gas guzzler filled through a straw and took an hour to fill, I'd want 1000 km range on the gas car too.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#347

Post by walrus01 »

Hypx wrote: post #344
xeromal wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually live in a condo complex with 300 units and I get by. I just charge at the local library for free like once a week or at work.

It's unfortunate people don't realize this doesn't scale. If everyone at your 300 unit condo had a BEV, this doesn't work.

If everyone at a 300 unit condo had a BEV, the cost of bringing in new high-voltage AC service to a dedicated 480V transformer and set of chargers could be divided 300 ways and shared by the condo association/strata plan, making it affordable for all. Economies of scale.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#348

Post by aetherspawn »

hinkley wrote: post #322
aetherspawn wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The batteries have such large capacities that the C-rates are tiny. Tesla are well beyond the point where inefficiencies in battery contribute to as little as 1% of the total range. Source: design engineer at EV company.

Even during acceleration?

The kind of acceleration that would cause it to be non-trivial is not the acceleration that you would use in normal driving unless you were very reckless.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#349

Post by elihu »

allendoerfer wrote: post #238
elihu wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think cars of all eras have had a mix of heavy and light designs. With modern materials, it's possible to make safer, lighter cars but modern cars are also required to have more safety features. A Model S is about 4500 to 5000 pounds. I used to drive around in a 1981 Mazda GLC, which is about 1800 pounds. The White Zombie, a famous electric conversion with a 0-60 time of about 1.8 seconds is based on a 70's Datsun…

Next to roads are often things like bridge pillars and those things are also very heavy and not very soft.

That is true, but designing a car to be survivable on impact with a strong, immovable object is a different kind of problem than designing it to be survivable in a collision with a moving 3,000 pound vehicle. In the former case, you just have to have enough crush zone to spread out the impact and the weight of your own vehicle doesn't matter much as long as there's cushioning and appropriate safety features (seatbelts and airbags).

In the latter case, if you're a lot lighter than the other car you get knocked around, and if you get squeezed between a heavy car and an immovable object, you get crushed.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#350

Post by [deleted] »

anonymousiam wrote: post #323
toomuchtodo wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the range of the vehicles on the /trips page, the Long Range plus version (~400 miles) has not been included. Even though it doesn’t matter now for your personal needs, it’s likely the newest Model S Long Range Plus could meet your 295 mile “one way without a charge” commute requirement, with a comfortable margin for unexpected or excess consumption.

That's the same sort of language I kept getting from Tesla when I wanted to know for certain that the car would satisfy my needs. I was not going to drop $100k on their car unless they could say what you said with a little more certainty.

[deleted]
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