CT Plaid - Interior by Mercedes

[Tinker71]

Not sure I’m totally sold that you’d need 500 miles range for Plaid. The Model X is in the ballpark of the Cybertruck in terms of weight and gets Plaid acceleration with a 100 kWh battery.

If you are after acceleration, the 180-220 kWh pack in the long range model will likely slow it down on 0-60 times.

The Roadster is in a different ballpark. It gets 600 miles range and acceleration likely on a Model S sized or even smaller pack due to it’s lower size and weight.

Somewhere, there is a magic number where the amount of power the battery can deliver is just perfect for performance. I suspect the reason the Model S Plaid and LR don’t have 500 miles range is in part because increasing the range was negatively impacting performance.

All that energy needs to flow through each cell. (not necessarily in series). The cells have a maximum safe discharge rate. The more cells you have the more you can effectively flow. There is definitely a tipping point when the increased mass of the pack reduces any gains in maximum power output.

In the case of the Roadster it is a ~200kWhr* pack if I recall. The light car with that pack gets you 600 miles range. The CT Plaid will need the largest battery pack.

Also I understand the 4680 don't dissipate heat as well as the smaller cells so their discharge rates are less.

*edit - looked up the pack size.....I am actually surprised the range isn't more like 700 miles considering the LR S has about a 100Kwhr pack and gets 400 miles.

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[Ogre]

Tesla has done a good job on optimizing production by limiting options. I think there is a balance to be had and I think the megacasting will actually make options easier for the powertrain.

As far as the interior, I would think there would be at least 2 choices. Entry level with hard floor surfaces and a carpeted SUV like interior. Some CT3 owners might still prefer the former so it would not necessarily tied to a particular powertrain.

Tesla no hassle shopping is pretty easy though, click a box and the price and sometimes range or performance changes. Not that difficult.

I am not sure how I feel about turning on features with software for a premium. In the case of the rear seat warmer you paid for the heat cable installed (even if you didn't), it takes up a little mass, it might even wear the foam different. Why can't this be standard? It feels a little big 3 dirty.

Tesla ships all Model 3s with seat heaters active now, they added it with one of the price bumps.

Software unlocked hardware is definitely weird. It is less expensive to ship 10 cars with heaters and 2 with them disabled, then it does to ship 8 cars with it and 2 without. So the marginal cost of adding those extra heaters is zero. Might be 2 pounds of extra weight.

Why it’s not standard is kind of simple. Tesla needs to differentiate models so they can charge different amounts. Their cars have so many common features it’s pretty hard to do it.

It is weird. But we’ll see more of it down the road. Tesla loves to build lots of identical cars. I think the model of features which add hardware and software both are likely more common.

 

[Ogre]

All that energy needs to flow through each cell. (not necessarily in series). The cells have a maximum safe discharge rate. The more cells you have the more you can effectively flow. There is definitely a tipping point when the increased mass of the pack reduces any gains in maximum power output.

In the case of the Roadster it is a ~250kWhr pack if I recall. The light car with that pack gets you 600 miles range. The CT Plaid will need the largest battery pack.

Also I understand the 4680 don't dissipate heat as well as the smaller cells so their discharge rates are less.

I get what you are saying, I’m just not sure that they need to increase the pack to ~200kWh to get to Plaid speeds. If the Cybertruck is going to be Light Duty (which I think it will be), it is only a couple hundred pounds heavier than the Model X Plaid. I can’t see how they would need to about double the pack size to get the same sprint.

Roadster is 250kWh? … wow.

 

[Tinker71]

Tesla ships all Model 3s with seat heaters active now, they added it with one of the price bumps.

Software unlocked hardware is definitely weird. It is less expensive to ship 10 cars with heaters and 2 with them disabled, then it does to ship 8 cars with it and 2 without. So the marginal cost of adding those extra heaters is zero. Might be 2 pounds of extra weight.

Why it’s not standard is kind of simple. Tesla needs to differentiate models so they can charge different amounts. Their cars have so many common features it’s pretty hard to do it.

It is weird. But we’ll see more of it down the road. Tesla loves to build lots of identical cars. I think the model of features which add hardware and software both are likely more common.

I get the economics of it. I just don't like it.

Remember when they sold the 60kWhr S with the same battery as the 70kWhr S, but locked out. The batteries in the 60kWhr unit by default probably lasted longer as they never saw full cycling.

It will be interesting to see if the Quad motor and the Quad Plaid get the same motors with the power limited on the former.

I wonder what the price difference on the carbon wrap treatment per motor is after accounting for eliminating an entire motor line.

 

[Ogre]

I get the economics of it. I just don't like it.

Remember when they sold the 60kWhr S with the same battery as the 70kWhr S, but locked out. The batteries in the 60kWhr unit by default probably lasted longer as they never saw full cycling.

It will be interesting to see if the Quad motor and the Quad Plaid get the same motors with the power limited on the former.

I wonder what the price difference on the carbon wrap treatment per motor is after accounting for eliminating an entire motor line.

Tesla has plenty of different motors in their inventory to choose from. Maybe the Model Y LR motor? That seems like too much even.

You can bet whatever they put in the Cybertruck is shared with something else.

I’m not even convinced there will be a quad and a quad plaid as opposed to just one quad motor truck.

Seems a lot like: Here is our “Supertruck” and here is our “Superdupertruck”.

 

[Toonces]

Kind of the whole point of the forum. WAS wild ass speculation.

In your humble opinion…

 

[HaulingAss]

I get what you are saying, I’m just not sure that they need to increase the pack to ~200kWh to get to Plaid speeds. If the Cybertruck is going to be Light Duty (which I think it will be), it is only a couple hundred pounds heavier than the Model X Plaid. I can’t see how they would need to about double the pack size to get the same sprint.

Roadster is 250kWh? … wow.

Be aware that there is no hard line of how much power a given battery can produce - it's always limited by the manufacturer for longevity/warranty reasons. They need to model different usage scenarios and see where the sweet point is in terms of performance vs. battery degradation and that depends upon how customers use that power. So it's a balancing act and different car or truck models might have different assumptions about how people (in the collective) will drive that model.

 

[TAP1A]

if you guys have seen the new s and x refreshes they have a thin screen for the passenger side in front of them. im sure when the ct comes out is when theyll start using this. not as big as the taycan but would be cool if there were some features on it

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