How would you respond if an 80 kwh Roadster pack were available in 2014?

No interest, but purely because I can drive twice around my country on a single range mode charge. For where I live, enough is enough,

That much range in a Roadster would be awesome!

I’m certainly interested in upgrading various aspects of the car in the near future should Tesla make them available, but just what Elon meant by ‘something special for roaster owners’ remains subject to much speculation on this forum !!

There are many potential options for Roadster upgrades. One variation might be to use forthcoming 4ah cells, but fit less of them to get a 200-250 kg weight saving whilst retaining the existing range. This weight saving would, loosely speaking, automatically result in an acceleration upgrade.

Looking at it another way, if 4ah cells were used in place of the existing 2.1ah cells, then that could almost double the existing range to around 350-400miles or more, whilst possibly allowing a bit more current for slightly better acceleration.

It would be very interesting to know if the motor can sustain 10/20% more torque for better occasional acceleration, or somehow have more torque in the 70-100mph area just by delivering more amps (but not for continuous hard use, say, on a track). However, this does raise questions over liquid cooling for the PEM and motor etc, and I doubt Tesla are going to try adding liquid cooling to the PEM or motor. So it seems to me the most likely upgrade route will be something to do with the ESS and associated firmware.

I wonder if a Model S motor could be made to fit in a Roadster … ?!?


One other nice upgrade would be for Tesla to add HPC’s at all supercharger locations (therefore avoiding the need to modify the PEM or inlet port for some sort of supercharger upgrade which I doubt would be “easy”).

Coming up with any retrofit mods for Roadsters will also be great PR as it will show they intend to provide all Tesla owners with the potential for future upgrades, albeit at a price.

A Ranger told me a while back that the "footprint" of the motor in the Model S was smaller than that of the Roadster...an interesting concept, but the PEM and motor cooling issue would still be in play...

The actual availability of an upgraded battery pack would probably be more valuable to me than my actual ownership of that upgrade. In the short term I have a Model X to pay for which is more important to me (all electric garage). But I'd be thinking about it in the back of my mind, and working angles to make the pack upgrade happen. Especially if it improved the performance characteristics of the car at the same time (even less time of my life spent between 0 and 40! Yes, that is meant to be silly).

Jaff said:

A Ranger told me a while back that the "footprint" of the motor in the Model S was smaller than that of the Roadster...an interesting concept, but the PEM and motor cooling issue would still be in play...

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Hmmm... It certainly doesn't look that way just by eyeballing them. But I think you could make it fit. You would also have to fit the Model S gearbox in there. Otherwise you'd still be limited to the same torque as the existing motor. Unless you wanted to over-stress the Roadster gearbox. And you'd still have the cooling issue.

I didn't actually see the two motors side by side Henry, I just recalled what my Roadster Ranger told me...:smile:

pharma5 said:

There's been a lot of interest in the idea of a Roadster pack upgrade. This question gauges the nature of interest using a hypothetical 80 kwh pack (e.g., same design, new cells, 276 miles std / 350 range mode).

Please choose the best response for your situation from the options above, and thanks to all who participate!

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Depending on Price, I might pay for a straight upgrade right away. I would think about paying 20K to get that kind of range increase, but it wouldn't be worth 30K to me. I would think that our batteries would be worth a fair amount on an exchange?

Extra range is not really an issue for me. Using new cells to give the same range but with less weight (so better acceleration / handling) would be better - after all its a sports car. If you want more range & are not bothered about it being a sports car then trade in the roadster for a Model S.

Less weight!

Alan said:

Extra range is not really an issue for me. Using new cells to give the same range but with less weight (so better acceleration / handling) would be better - after all its a sports car. If you want more range & are not bothered about it being a sports car then trade in the roadster for a Model S.

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Less weight = faster acceleration. A little better range would be nice - so as the pack ages I'm still OK. As for trading in or selling for a MS - NEVER!

Some of you guys would seriously consider putting in a significant chunk of dough for more range on a Roadster?

First, its not a touring car. The small trunk doesn't allow you to travel 'comfortably'. No SuperCharger access doesn't allow you to travel "comfortably". So if you weren't touring around states before, you probably still won't with any battery upgrade.

Second, increased range will get you more fun at the track. Which is nice, I have to admit. However, the motor and PEM overheats so that takes the fun out of it to a significant degree.

Third, are you seriously maxing out your range on a consistent daily driver basis that a $20k/30k/40k upgrade is worth it? I'm not even sure I'd pay $10k. I don't drive 130 miles daily but that's just me. And if I did, I'd get a Model S, just so much more practical for that sort of thing.

Roadster owners typically don't need the range since its a 2-seater sports car. I said it before, its cost prohibitive to Tesla to invest in upgrading the pack for 2400 existing roadsters. And probably less than 10% will purchase the upgrade. I know they have to do something with the battery since the original cells are out of production, but just don't know what that is.

And quite frankly, if Elon announces, "Hey, $30,000 upgrade (1/2 or 1/3 of value of their car) for existing Roadster to get 60 more miles", I wouldn't classify it as "cool". More like, "DAMN....".

I would like a better 0-60 time more than anything. For me, I can't really feel one tenth difference but I can feel two. IIRC, 100 pounds is good for about one tenth. So for me to feel a difference it would have to be a 200 pound weight loss. Anything more than that would be great! Given the option of increased range, I would definitely benefit from that. There's a great driving road, (in the wee hours of the morning), in Orange county. It's a little too far for me to drive the whole thing and get back home without some extra juice. I either have to drive slow to get there, (lousy option:biggrin, and/or get a charge to get back home. The extra range would be great for that! I've taken some extra juice from Fashion Island at 3:00 AM which is not much fun. I haven't figured out how to sleep in the roadster.:biggrin:

Range is more important for me. I travel 140/150 miles twice a week and sometimes depending on the weather, speed and road conditions I cut it pretty tightly. I don't have time to recharge elsewhere either or I won't get to my office on time

Jackyche said:

Some of you guys would seriously consider putting in a significant chunk of dough for more range on a Roadster?

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It'd have to be a significant chunk of range for my significant chunk of dough.

Not having Supercharger access means we need more range, not less. While I don't need it on a daily basis, I do take 300 mile trips to Santa Barbara, and would like to be able to do that without stopping for 2 hours for charging. To me that means Tesla needs something like a 80kWh pack (which seems close to do-able with Model S technology given that Roadster already has space for 6381 cells and Model S's 85kWh pack has around 7000 cells.

Still, at this point I want Tesla to wait for the Model E battery technology. Let us get the rest of our life out of our Roadster packs and then have a real upgrade.

As for the limited production and any upgrades not being cost-effective, yup. But, making money on this directly isn't the reason Tesla should do it.

Chances are this upgrade (if battery related) would only work with 2.x vehicles. The 1.5 Roadster uses a significantly different battery and I do not think Tesla would spend the R&D twice to support an additional user base of 500 vehicles. This is probably the sad reality of the situation.

My pack is close to four years old and so far I've seen zero degradation, at this rate it should last longer than the life of the car. I'd be happy to skip the Model S cells and wait for the next generation before upgrading. My preference would be lower weight and lower centre of gravity to improve acceleration and handling. I have more than enough range for a sports car, as jackyche mentioned the Roadster isn't built for long road trips.

I probably (currently) put more daily miles on than most - about 110-120 per day. Hopefully that will change since we are looking to move, but probably not for another 5 months.

However, even with about 22k miles I still get 183 ideal miles on a standard charge (220v) so I agree that any necessary battery upgrade is probably a LONG way off for me.

Here in the frigid midwest (even at -15deg F) I still have enough range to get to the office and back with a standard charge. However there have been a couple instances when my wh/mi were significantly higher than I anticipated and/or we did something that pushed the limit. In those instances it would have been nice to have access to the superchargers somehow, or to at least have HPWCs at each location.

Additionally I know most of you are saying that you wouldn't roadtrip with the Roadster, but I would absolutely LOVE to be able to roadtrip with it. My wife and I did quite a few group roadtrips in our Miata, and never felt limited by its size. Would I spend a month on the road with it...probably not. But a 5-7 day jaunt would be a blast if you didn't have to worry about charging logistics!