donauker

I believe that it is incorrect that Tesla Motors is providing any motor for the Smart. At the beginning of the meeting when Elon announced the deal he very specifically stated that they were providing the battery and the charger. I believe the 1.2 cost saving changes were being referred to the battery pack itself.

TEG

If so, the PlanetTesla report isn't helping:
Tesla Town Hall meeting with owners - News - PlanetTesla
(That was supposedly a direct quote from the meeting)

doug

Tesla holds customer town hall to explain price increases - AutoblogGreen





Any word on when and where the audio will be available?

donauker

From my recording

Tdave

OK, here's a direct transcribed quote from my audio recording about powertrain 2.0. What I get from this is that these version numbers only pertain to the Roadster. And the Model S and Daimler work are different development paths and so don't fit into the 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 Roadster version timeline. You decide...

Elon Musk said:

donauker

I think this is where some of the confusion came from. The reference to the next generation features of the Daimler pack in the middle of the Roadster and Model S drivetrain version discussion.

Kevin Harney

I remember hearing that in one of the town hall meetings as well. So you might want to check those transcripts too.

Here I am referring to the fact the EM would personally back the deposits.

Joseph

Thanks for the transcript.

Clearly, Elon doesn't even know what to call all the different powertrains; no wonder we were all confused.

"...volumetric density of the pack is 40% better....The motor and power electronics will be liquid cooled vs air cooled, which gives a higher continuous power rating."

Sounds like an awesome track version of the Roadster. One of its few flaws will be remedied.

__________________
"Success is 99% failure" - Soichiro Honda

bobw

Wasn't that guarantee some time before Elon plowed so much more of his own money into the company? Could it be that in an effort to avoid closing the company and paying off the depositors he put that cash into the company?

Wasn't it also before certain other expenses cropped up?

I'm not defending Elon Musk. He seems difficult to work with. In particular, it seems difficult to tell him "no". However, everyone who didn't tell him "no" on his upgrades shares responsibility for the cost overruns.

He does seem to put his money where his mouth is.

TEG

Actually that transcript did clear some things up.

The main source of confusion is that there are two different development paths both being called "2.0". That web site saying that the "Roadster Sport" and "Model S" will have the same drivetrain probably jumped to the wrong conclusion because they heard that the Roadster Sport will have a "2.0" drivetrain, and also heard that model S will have a "2.0" drivetrain, but it is two different "2.0s".

Now I am going to pick apart another confusing statement:
When he says "higher continuous power rating" I do NOT take that to mean that the SMARTe motor will make more power than the Roadster powertrain, what I read into it now is that the "true 2.0" (liquid cooled eMotor) technology from the Model S program will make it into the SMARTe drivetrain program, and the (almost certainly smaller) SMARTe motor won't suffer from the same level of top speed fallback seen on the air cooled Roadster. In other words, the "true 2.0" water cooled motors will be able to substain closer to the peak rated power outputs for longer periods of time... But that is relative to that particular motor, not to the entire line of future Tesla motors. (Hopefully you are following me so far). In other words we know the current Roadster can't hold its' top speed for long periods of time. It may automatically back off from ~125MPH down to ~105MPH because the eMotor can start to overheat. For Tesla SMARTe it may have some lower limit (say 90MPH as a guesstimate, but it will be able to maintain that top speed and not have to fallback much if you try to hold top speed). For this reason the upcoming "Roadster Sport" is still not fully optimized as an autobahn or track car. It may still have to cut back on substained top speed. They are going to try to rectify that situation in Model S and SMARTe by switching to "true 2.0" water cooled eMotor.

Now back to 2009 Roadsters. Personally I am going to avoid calling any 2009s as "2.0 drivetrain". There will be efficiency/performance improvements in the "Sport" model, and perhaps some cost reduction technology in the base models, but it is still likely just minor/incremental compared to the "true 2.0" tech coming later in Model S and SMARTe.

Futher confusing things are plans to eventually put the "true 2.0" technology in some future version of the Roadster (say in 2-3 years), and make it a better autobahn/track car, but that is too far off to think about too much now.

For now I think we should probably just call the 2009s "1.5+" and sort out exactly what "+" means later.