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P85D vs 730HP Ferrari F12

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That Ferrari reeled it in, ran it down, and walked it like it was sitting still. Takes a lot of power to do that. Still bogged off the line like a 12 second Supra though.

The Tesla needs a secret weapon. Some sort of "nitrous/boost" like button that dumps full and direct power to the motors.

The Tesla did jump off the line nicely though.

Now if the Tesla weighed half as much? How much does the battery weigh? Not all that much. Start from there and build a car on that. Doesn't and shouldn't weigh as much as it does. It's built out of aluminum! Reminds me of the fiberglass Vette that only up until recently weighed far, far too much. If you strip the fiberglass off a Corvette; there is an aluminum Corvette underneath it!

corvette_c6_z06_rolling_chassis_with_body_frame.jpg


How much does a non fiberglass Corvette weigh? I bet if it was skinned in aluminum it would weigh less than the fiberglass model.

It will be nice when Tesla decides to build a new Roadster. Hopefully they will take it to the limit; or at least offer up 2 or 3 versions of it. The base, the middle power, and the extreme. And it better be the fastest car in the world. They can get some timing lights installed on their test track and make it so.

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The Tesla needs a secret weapon. Some sort of "nitrous/boost" like button that dumps full and direct power to the motors.

What I don't think many people realize is that AC induction motors start to induce "back EMF" as RPM's rose, and thus lose efficiency. It's not that Telsa is artificially limiting power at the top end, it's that there are challenges as the motor reaches those speeds...
 
How about a transmission of some sort to keep it out of the back EMF?

Yes. As I always like to say when I see these videos: "That Ferrari is lucky the Tesla doesn't have a second gear."

Now, if only someone could make a transmission that doesn't disintegrate under instantaneous peak torque. Tesla tried on the Roadster with several companies, Borg Warner included, but no one could pull it off. Materials science isn't quite there yet.

Likewise, if Tesla wanted to (and wasn't production constrained and actually could), they could make a 2 door, 2 seat version on the Model S platform. With the weight savings they could probably shave off a half second in the quarter mile and improve handling in the corners as well.

Thing is, they don't need to build that car as they sell every Model S, and soon Model X, they can make. A few years down the road maybe.
 
I don't think back-EMF is the limiting factor with the P85D. I think it's the power output of the battery. The 85kWh pack can put out some serious power, but not for more than a few seconds. At that point it has to back off to protect the battery.

I don't have any technical info to back that up, but that's my hunch.
 
And the Tesla has no wheel spin off the line. To think that a 4 door sedan jumps a Ferrari till about half way down the track up to legal highway speeds makes the ICE racers a little sick to their stomach...

As an electric motor speed increases, the back-emf voltage (which is of opposite polarity) approaches the battery pack voltage level and opposes the current flow since there is less potential difference to force the current. Torque can be thought as proportional to current, so as the current gets reduced, so does the torque, which is the force that produces acceleration. 0-60, stoplight to stoplight, the electric motor wins on the street.
 
I don't think back-EMF is the limiting factor with the P85D. I think it's the power output of the battery. The 85kWh pack can put out some serious power, but not for more than a few seconds. At that point it has to back off to protect the battery.

I don't have any technical info to back that up, but that's my hunch.

Yet, you can be cruising at 70 for 30 minutes only pulling ~20KW, so the battery will be relatively cool having been averaging only 1/4C... and if you floor it at those speeds you don't get nearly the torque you get at low RPM despite the battery being in a state where it can deliver max power for several seconds.

The motor simply can't develop the same torque it can at elevated speeds as it can at 0 RPM. This is illustrated by the power curves published for AC induction motors...