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Gen III Announced for Sale as Early as 2015

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I like this part:
Von Holzhausen also admitted that the new model will boast more distinctive styling than the relatively conventional Model S. “We will become more experimental as we develop as a brand,” he said. “Our cars need to have some personality.”

Any guesses to what elements will be experimental?

Funky Doors
No Side Mirrors, cameras instead
Novel options like those submitted to the Opportunity Console thread
others...
 
Aero only amounts for about a half of all drag, tires produce the other half.

Some ideas:
- reduce the wheels downto about 205/55/16
- tires should be fully closed outside and also inside at the rear
- add active tirepressure control - faster you drive, higher the tirepressure
- loose the mirrors
- route the outlets of aircooling to the rear of the car to help fill the air-void behind the car
- add agressive adaptive cruse control that is capable of following very close to the car driving in front of you
- use composites everywhere
 
I like this part:
Von Holzhausen also admitted that the new model will boast more distinctive styling than the relatively conventional Model S. “We will become more experimental as we develop as a brand,” he said. “Our cars need to have some personality.”

Any guesses to what elements will be experimental?

Funky Doors
No Side Mirrors, cameras instead
Novel options like those submitted to the Opportunity Console thread
others...

How experimental? This makes me nervous. The Gen III/Bluestar is the Mass Market car. If you go too far from what people expect you can loose a portion of the market. You're already bucking the trend by making this car an EV and now you want to push the design envelope as well? Oh well. I'll trust Tesla to do what they have always done, which is make an amazing car. Good luck, Franz.
 
How experimental? This makes me nervous. The Gen III/Bluestar is the Mass Market car. If you go too far from what people expect you can loose a portion of the market. You're already bucking the trend by making this car an EV and now you want to push the design envelope as well?...

I guess you could look at "Falcon Doors" on Model X as a sign that they aren't going to stick with main-stream.
 
How experimental? This makes me nervous. The Gen III/Bluestar is the Mass Market car. If you go too far from what people expect you can loose a portion of the market. You're already bucking the trend by making this car an EV and now you want to push the design envelope as well? Oh well. I'll trust Tesla to do what they have always done, which is make an amazing car. Good luck, Franz.

Agreed. Don't go too crazy with the looks. I hope the advancements battery tech will help out quite a bit.
 
Aero only amounts for about a half of all drag, tires produce the other half.

Some ideas:
- reduce the wheels downto about 205/55/16
- tires should be fully closed outside and also inside at the rear
- add active tirepressure control - faster you drive, higher the tirepressure
- loose the mirrors
- route the outlets of aircooling to the rear of the car to help fill the air-void behind the car
- add agressive adaptive cruse control that is capable of following very close to the car driving in front of you
- use composites everywhere

Interesting ideas. A few comments:
- Smaller wheels are a given, I think. 16" standard with 18" performance (or maybe 17"/19").
- Maybe aero wheels can get most of the gain of enclosed wheels?
- Do any current cars have active tire pressure? Would it keep an air reserve somewhere or use a compressor?
- I guess losing the mirrors is a regulatory issue. They would have to convince the authorities that there is a reasonable backup should a camera fail.
- I wonder if there are any regulations about adaptive cruise control minimum distances. There was some discussion on here about possible problems with multiple ACC cars following one another.
- Are there composites that would be compatible with the lower cost/high safety goals of the Gen III?
 
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I definitely think he made the original Roadster look better but the Roadster wasn't he design. I do like the design language and accents he added to the Roadster for the 2.5.

Yup. Not a fan of the Roadster design overall, but 2.5 was a huge improvement. I'd like to see that grille on the S (with the badge on the hood). Hopefully, some language carries over to bluestar, or even better, Roadster 3.0
 
Aero only amounts for about a half of all drag, tires produce the other half.

Some ideas:
- reduce the wheels downto about 205/55/16
- tires should be fully closed outside and also inside at the rear
- add active tirepressure control - faster you drive, higher the tirepressure
- loose the mirrors
- route the outlets of aircooling to the rear of the car to help fill the air-void behind the car
- add agressive adaptive cruse control that is capable of following very close to the car driving in front of you
- use composites everywhere

Some good stuff here. But...

I hate enclosed wheels. I don't think I've seen one car that looks good with that format. I'd have to see what they came up with for it.

I think the active tire pressure monitoring and filling (and don't forget letting air out) would be something left for very high-end vehicles and not competitive in the 3-series market. I just think something like that could add significant cost which is counter-intuitive to one of the goals of this car which is to keep the price in check. But, if it could be done at a reasonable cost, that might be one of those game-changers which pushes the rest of the industry to keep up.

Composites. Typically expensive, so have to use them intelligently where they do the most good. Again, to ensure the cars price point stays where they want it.
 
- Maybe aero wheels can get most of the gain of enclosed wheels?
Aerowheels < enclosed wheels
Some wheelcaps are almost entirely closed yet they look OK, not stunning but OK. And dnn't forget about the inside-side of the wheels that are completely open and cause huge turbulences.

- Do any current cars have active tire pressure? Would it keep an air reserve somewhere or use a compressor?
It could be "powered" by brake-servo airpump. Aditional energy use would be minimal if done right - don't increase pressure right away but wait for average speed for the last 5 minutes to go above 30mph, or above 50 after 3 minutes.

- I guess losing the mirrors is a regulatory issue. They would have to convince the authorities that there is a reasonable backup should a camera fail.
Yes it is. Sooner or later this rule will have to go.
Create a superwide internal mirror with warped left and right cornes giving full back view, put mirrors on the inside of car doors to cover car-sides.

- I wonder if there are any regulations about adaptive cruise control minimum distances. There was some discussion on here about possible problems with multiple ACC cars following one another.
ACC is too new to be regulated. Hence it is very conservative with huge error margins.

- Are there composites that would be compatible with the lower cost/high safety goals of the Gen III?
Probably not yet.
 
Elon comments...........

On Tesla's planned $30,000 sedan



If we are successful enough to get to our third-generation vehicle, our $30,000 vehicle, then we'll be able to use the whole [Fremont] plant. It'd be three to four years [from now]. It would be quite similar to the Model S but scaled down. Probably about the size of a BMW 3-series or an Audi A4.

I'd like to try to think of some innovative things we can do on that third-generation vehicle, but the focus will be primarily on having a great car at $30,000, which will require a lot ingenuity. So, we'll be on third-generation powertrain technology, we'll scale up production by an order of magnitude, roughly, and then the car itself will probably be twenty to thirty percent lighter.



...
 
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