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University of Michigan recruiting talk info-dump

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jtibble

Tesla Evangelist
Aug 25, 2006
38
0
Redmond, WA
Hey All,

I'm a student at the University of Michigan. We just had a trio of Tesla employees give a talk to students right before our career fair. They had a lot of information, and I asked a few pointed questions at the end, so here's a rough summary of what was discussed:

TIME - NOTE

11:55 - Advanced Engineering group works out of LA
12:00 - Model X SUV concept showing will be unveiled end-of-the-year at the Strasburg Auto Show, production likely in 2014 or 2015
13:24 - 200% more luggage space on Model S than any other car in their segment
13:28 - 5000RPM on Model S motor is about 75mph
14:45 - The castings on the corners of the Model S frame allow them to make the vehicle using the frame shorter, wider, longer, or skinnier with a very minimal effort from a machining/retooling perspective
15:26 - The first natural frequency in torsion of the chassis is over 60hz (10hz better than anyone in the world)
16:10 - They aim for a 1/10th milimeter clearances in manufacturing, and they will probably get there without problems.
20:10 - Targeting a 5-star crash rating from every possible impact. Tests indicate this will be the case. It will be the first car ever to achieve this.
22:50 - The entire brake system for Model S was built in 3 months. The speaker personally built the brake systems for the Alpha prototype himself. Now there's two months of design validation and then they will release to manufacturing.
23:50 - The car will use category A regenerative braking (on accelerator pedal) to improve range 7-9% compared to category B (regen on brake pedal).
27:00 - The brakes won't activate until the car is decelerating at about 0.12 to 0.14G
28:00 - By using a category A regen system, you can save 10-15 feet when braking hard on an icy surface, compared to a category B system (Prius, Volt, etc)

Interesting Questions from Audience:
29:25 - Two models on the Model S platform at the moment (Model S, Model X). After that, a new platform will be created to create the low-cost, higher-volume car.
30:20 - Proving Grounds are actually just open roads, an airport nearby for high-speed tests
31:10 - Hope to have their own proving grounds at some point
34:20 - 70 people in vehicle engineering, 20 of which are working on another car at the moment (model X). There are double that (~150 people) just working on batteries. It's that high of a priority.
35:40 - THE GRILL (my question). That was a prototype-only grill. The production one looks totally different and much closer to the concept. They built that car in a week. The video was done at 11:15 on Christmas Eve. There will be a show-alpha car coming out in a couple of weeks that will have a lot more sexiness.
40:30 - There are cars in Minnesota right now driving in snow, ice, making sure stability and regen work.
43:00 - The most advanced rotors will be two-piece aluminum and cast iron composite rotor.

If you want to download my recording, do that here: [download removed per request]
 
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5000RPM on Model S motor is about 75mph

! ?

At some point in the past they said that redline RPM for their motor technology could go upwards of 20K.
Lets say for instance though that they kept a Roadster like 13500 RPM redline.
If 75MPH=5000 RPM, then 13500 RPM = 202 MPH (!?).

So... 5000 RPM seems really low for 75MPH. I am having trouble reconciling that.
Is the new motor such a torque monster that they can gear it like that and set the redline much lower?
Would they do that for noise reduction?
It will be interesting to see if this 5K RPM for 75MPH is true, and if so, why...



Original specs suggested top speed of Model S would be Roadster like (~125MPH) which would only be ~8300RPM@~125MPH if it really is 75MPH@5000RPM.

(I think Roadster motor at 75MPH is doing around 8K RPM.)
 
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15:26 - The first natural frequency in torsion of the chassis is over 60hz (10hz better than anyone in the world)

Pardon my ignorance, I couldn't find anything in a quick Google search but can someone explain what that is/means?

Hopefully they get the clearances right nearly from the get-go. IIRC, some of the first Roadsters had horrible manufacturing clearances, some were bad enough you could almost stick an entire hand in the gap.

I know they've said almost from the beginning of Model S that they want a all-around five-star safety rating. I think if they can get that while maintaining the 160-mile range on the base pack it will help show how great EVs can really be.

It's nice to know that they're keeping the grill closer to the prototype, although the new look is kind of growing on me. :tongue:

If you want to download my recording, do that here: http://jtibble.dyndns.org/public/TeslaTalk.torrent

Thanks for the torrent! I'll be sure to give it a listen. :biggrin:

Is that a point of pride?

Or dedication? :wink:
 
Great stuff! A few wows in there.

First car to ever hit 5 star safety all around will put Volvo in it's place (Who knew?)
Glad they are sticking to Roadster regen.
The SUV model x is a ground up car not a current Toyota model conversion.
150 people on the batteries. That is stunning.
 
Its a bigger motor than the roadster. Bigger motors don't usually rev as high, and the torque curve falls off faster.
! ?

At some point in the past they said that redline RPM for their motor technology could go upwards of 20K.
Lets say for instance though that they kept a Roadster like 13500 RPM redline.
If 75MPH=5000 RPM, then 13500 RPM = 202 MPH (!?).

So... 5000 RPM seems really low for 75MPH. I am having trouble reconciling that.
Is the new motor such a torque monster that they can gear it like that and set the redline much lower?
Would they do that for noise reduction?
It will be interesting to see if this 5K RPM for 75MPH is true, and if so, why...



Original specs suggested top speed of Model S would be Roadster like (~125MPH) which would only be ~8300RPM@~125MPH if it really is 75MPH@5000RPM.

(I think Roadster motor at 75MPH is doing around 8K RPM.)
 
I'll direct your attention to my post in the News & Events forum. I posted the audio and notes so you can listen to it for yourself.

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/5040-University-of-Michigan-recruiting-talk-info-dump

The download is in torrent format. My understanding of the torrent format is additional software must be downloaded to even access the download file. Any way to post the file in wav or mp3 format. Also, I thought when downloading a torrent, you are expected to host other computers (good manners). Excuse my misunderstanding if this is not the case, just seems a wav or mp3 format does not create any downloading issues. I appreciate you making this audio file available to the forum members.
 
It's a pretty large file and unlikely to be uploadable here. It is an mp3 file (64 Mb) - the .torrent just tells the software where to get the actual file from.

It's pretty easy to use torrents - just install one of the better apps like the incredibly efficient µTorrent, then click on the link and you are away.

I need to do some maintenance on my NAS, but I'll put it on there so it is available 24/7 when done.
 
If you want to download my recording, do that here: http://jtibble.dyndns.org/public/TeslaTalk.torrent

Edit: Ignore this, it started downloading

Getting "invalid url" for the trackers that are included in that torrent. Changed them to http from udp and one of them started working, but there doesn't seem to be anybody seeding the torrent. I would love to listen to this so if there is another way you could get it available to download would be greatly appreciated.

-Shark2k
 
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I'm downloading and seeding right now. There are 4 peers on.

Hmm...I'm still getting invalid url. I'm using uTorrent 1.6.1, but I haven't had problems with other torrents. I might have to wait until you put it up on your NAS. Thanks for letting me know it is working though David.

Edit: Nevermind. Just checked and it started downloading even with the invalid url. Guess it was just taking a bit to connect to people.

-Shark2k
 
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