Smart Air Suspension - Website error

this is also my impressions - I belive it is a typo

I thought with the air suspension spring rate, and height were adjustable, but not dampening. Although I honestly haven't seen any of that discussed anywhere.

Tesla could have very easily updated the new air suspension system. Mercedes air suspension stiffens up in the sportier modes. As we have seen from the recent updates, Tesla has updated in the Model S various parts they buy from Mercedes such as the steering wheel stalks. Does Tesla buy their air suspension from Mercedes or do they roll their own solution? A silent update may have occurred here. I very much doubt that it's a typo.

When did this new text actually change? It is the same on the Norwegian design studio and with a very good translation(not always the case).

To put it mildly I would be very interested to know if they have changed the air-suspension to actually be adaptive. Current text is at least reading as what other brands sell as adaptive suspension.

It is changed in Dutch too, to my recollection it didn't mention stiffness before...

Is it only the description that has changed or has the price also changed?

stiffness

"Smart Air Suspension Automatically adjusts stiffness for optimum performance and ride regardless of road surface or cargo. " is a little misleading, IMO. Many local roads near us are in terrible condition giving ride harshness over small bumps at 30mph the wife does not like (esp. if she is feeling ill).

- - - Updated - - -

Should have added: service people confirmed to us (weeks ago) that ride stiffness was not adjustable. Nor shocks.

dandelot said:

Should have added: service people confirmed to us (weeks ago) that ride stiffness was not adjustable. Nor shocks.

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Have said service people confirmed this with an actual 85D or P85D they've driven, or is it pure speculation at this point since they haven't hit the roads yet?

In my experience typos/minor errors like this are commonplace. The tech package descriptions says (and always has said AFAIK) that it has "memory seats". That's clearly not true - there is no passenger seat memory (which I find really quite annoying, and was quite annoyed about on delivery). The main specs page for the car quotes a storage volume for the frunk that I assume is now wrong for everything except the S60.

Ultimately I'd rather they were focussing on the car than worrying about minor things like this on the website.

mgboyes said:

Ultimately I'd rather they were focussing on the car than worrying about minor things like this on the website.

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I strongly disagree on this. Having correct information in online sales material is vital for a company that only sells their products via the internet. Especially for the US-version of the site(I can understand minor translation issues in other languages).

Correcting, if it is indeed incorrect today, the text for air suspension would have taken a matter of minutes and would be done by personnel that would never be involved in car-development anyway.

How many times have they updated the website and design studio in the last few weeks? fixing obvious errors in text would have been at the most a 5minute task. I assume support-staff, DSes etc are wasting much more time answering questions related to misleading information as a result of this. So most likely will not fixing these texts consume more man-hours in Telsa than not fixing them.

darthy001 said:

I strongly disagree on this. Having correct information in online sales material is vital for a company that only sells their products via the internet. Especially for the US-version of the site(I can understand minor translation issues in other languages).

Correcting, if it is indeed incorrect today, the text for air suspension would have taken a matter of minutes and would be done by personnel that would never be involved in car-development anyway.

How many times have they updated the website and design studio in the last few weeks? fixing obvious errors in text would have been at the most a 5minute task. I assume support-staff, DSes etc are wasting much more time answering questions related to misleading information as a result of this. So most likely will not fixing these texts consume more man-hours in Telsa than not fixing them.

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Fair point.

I've had a question into Tesla regarding damping for the coil/air PD options. I'll add this question as well.

I've had the suspension apart and can confirm that the dampers (to date) have been fixed valving items with ZERO adjustability. Adding air to air springs does not appreciably change the spring rate; it just allows you to control the static height point.

lolachampcar said:

I've had a question into Tesla regarding damping for the coil/air PD options. I'll add this question as well.

I've had the suspension apart and can confirm that the dampers (to date) have been fixed valving items with ZERO adjustability. Adding air to air springs does not appreciably change the spring rate; it just allows you to control the static height point.

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The reply here will be very interesting so please keep us updated. I have always had the same understanding here, but got very curious when the text in the design studio changed. As mentioned previously in this thread the current text describes what Audi/VW(and maybe others) refer to as "adaptive suspension" which is a very different story from what has been standard on the Model S up until now. Adaptive suspension is very sexy when done right.

Thankfully I have no problem living with the "old" solution if that turns out to be the case, but I would jump with joy if they have upgraded the suspension for the P85D:smile:

I sent an email to Tesla last week about this and heard nothing! (48hrs service pledge?? )

Anyway I really hope the D would get a REAL set of Adaptive Air Suspension!


Quote from MotorTrend Test:

"Replacing the now-discontinued P85+ as the apex Model S, the P85 Dual Motor gains 197 pounds, tipping the car's weight distribution from 47/53 (f/r) to 51/49. Anti-roll bars and shock valving are suitably thicker and firmer...." :tongue:

Read more: 2015 Tesla Model S P85D First Test - Motor Trend

mgboyes said:

Ultimately I'd rather they were focussing on the car than worrying about minor things like this on the website.

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I'm pretty confident that Tesla can do more than one thing at a time. And listing the incorrect specifications on the web site is a MAJOR thing. It's called false representation and false advertising upon which people are basing their purchase decisions. Not minor at all.

Well, as usual, we are a little right and a little wrong.

First, a huge shout out to Tesla Engineering. I simply can not fathom any other car company on the planet caring enough to actually provide these types of answers. Thank you Tesla!
Here is the response I got back from Tesla Engineering-

"Bill,


Thanks for bringing this up but this statement is actually correct. Air springs by
their nature automatically adjust stiffness in response to load. This means that the
ride frequency remains constant even with large loading changes. This is why you now
often see air springs on the back axles of heavy trucks. The reason for this is that
in order to maintain ride height, the spring must adjust the air pressure inside the
spring. This change in pressure also gives a change in spring rate. Since the ride
frequency is governed by:


2*pi()*sqrt(K/M)


Where K = spring rate and M = sprung mass,


If you change K and M in equal measure, the frequency stays the same. This is one of
the cool things about air springs.


The spring will also change stiffness slightly with ride height since the spring is
now riding on a different portion of the piston which will almost certainly
correspond to a different stiffness since it is almost impossible to make an air
spring truly linear.


Please feel free to pass this along to the other forum participants."

I read this as air springs do change their characteristics as a function of travel and air volume. Tesla actively changes air volume and ride height (travel) thus Tesla's suspension "actively changes". I also read the absence of any mention of dampers as confirmation that damper valving is fixed as it always has been.

What I can not figure out for the life of me is, if air springs are so good, why does my dinosaur butt hate them soooo much?

lolachampcar said:

What I can not figure out for the life of me is, if air springs are so good, why does my dinosaur butt hate them soooo much?

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Sounds like you should see a "PP" (Palentologist Proctologist) about that. I have heard it's a very specialized field

Shumdit said:

Sounds like you should see a "PP" (Palentologist Proctologist) about that. I have heard it's a very specialized field

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Hilarious.