ipse dixit

From Teslarati:

Read the full article here.

manitou202

It seems Tesla's range advantage comes from the efficiency of their powertrain not battery tech. The improved battery technology could impact cost, weight, packaging size, battery life, and charging speed. In the case of the Audi Etron and the Taycan, cost, weight, and size aren't the issue. We don't know about battery life and obviously won't for many years until a large number of vehicles have high mileage. Charging speed is similar.

But look at how far the vehicle can travel based on a given battery capacity. The Model X 70D has a range of 220 miles when fully charged using a battery capacity of 70kwh. An Audi Etron has a range of 204 miles with a usable battery capacity of 83kwh. They both have similar size, weight. The Model X does has a better coefficient of drag (0.24 versus 0.28), but I doubt this accounts for the difference.

Efficiency
Audi Etron 407 watt-hr / mile
Model X 318 watt-hr / mile

Needsdecaf

Tesla thinks differently. Case in point, their patent application for an electromagnetic wiper: https://jalopnik.com/telsas-electrom...-pr-1838023948

Not only does this design cover more windshield area, but it uses less power:

Tesla feels such a setup would prove more energy-efficient as well:
That's the kind of thinking that you need to make a ground-up EV efficient. I think Porsche has an excellent start with the Taycan. As discussed in other threads, I think that there are some parts of the design that lag Tesla, but it's very clear that they did not just slap some motors and batteries into a modified Panamera chassis and call it a day. No, they did a good job ground up and, as Germans are wont to be, went a bit conservative on the specs.

I would think as they gain real world experience, their next EV only vehicle will be even better. After all, every Tesla reports a crap-ton of data back to the mothership for analysis, so it's no wonder the Model 3 has excellent range. Once the Porsche engineers, who have world-class capabilities, start to shift their focus, I think they will catch up with Tesla.

evanevery

It IS curious that they seemingly get so much more range out of a similarly sized battery pack. I wonder if anyone has pulled a battery and tested its actual capacity. Maybe Tesla is under rating their batteries?

Not that it REALLY matters... What REALLY matters is the actual range of the vehicle (not the claimed battery capacity).

Curious none-the-less!

whiz944

I just completed a 4500+ mile road trip with my Model 3 LR. Part of the trip was in a group that included a Model S 70D and Model X 75D. (Among other vehicles, there was also a couple driving a '87 944S!) My Model 3 has the Long Range pack which is also about 75 kWh. I can tell you first hand that the battery pack tech in the Model 3 charges WAY faster than the similar sized packs in the older Model S and X. I was often seeing power levels at 140+ kW (610-620 mph), whereas the other guys were quite a bit less than that. Some Model 3 owners that have tried the V3 Superchargers have seen peaks of 250 kW - over 1000 mph.

On my road trip, my longest one-day solo drive was from my home near the San Jose California area to Salt Lake City. Not quite 800 miles. Made it to Truckee on a single charge, with about 30 miles left on the Guess-O-Meter. Probably could have made it the rest of the way downhill to Reno if I had driven a bit more carefully. Honestly, I don't think I'd have done much better with a ICE car.

HenryPcar

The extended mileage of a Tesla is the sum of all aspects of the car to get the total mileage. No one component could do it regardless of the advancement of the battery. First of all you notice that even the top end Tesla model lack the non-essential luxuries. All the features are integrated into the big-screen and the dash has very minimal buttons and switches. Even their seats, while functional and adjustable, but none of that luxury laden 10-way adjustability. It tried to integrate as much of the functions as possible by dedicating multi-tasking on the available features. Heck even their steering wheel lack any switches and controls. The price to pay is sometimes the multi-level menu that is hidden until you get to it. is not as easy and intuitive to use, but it sure eliminated a lot of switches and extra components, wirings and complexity. Its like comparing Iphone with the dead paperweight, button galore blackberry phones.

flexor76

This happens when the ceo lets the marketing department “run” the show! “When Taycan comes out, nobody will be talking about Tesla”....paraphrasing! Remember that jewel!

Adk46

While there were problems with fit and finish of the Model 3 early on, no one who looked at its innards came away with anything less than awe. The inverters, the motors, the combined cooling/HVAC loop with the "super bottle" - all remarkable feats of engineering. The batteries are just a bunch of shiny cylinders, but apparently they've got the magic, too.

On the other hand, the Frankfurt auto show proved that there will be serious competition from serious players, sooner or later. Sooner, really, as people discover how much range they really need.

earl pottinger

In Europe the range is already there, in North America we still need the long range. I just did a trip to Bay of Fundy, I was surprised to find there are a charger already waiting in the parking lot I stopped in for the day. I thought we needed to go to the hotel to see one, instead there was one in a normal for pay parking lot.

I have not seen many chargers on my trip, but there are enough to make the trip. At the moment the big danger is there is someone ahead of you and the next charger is too far away. The solution is more chargers or more range.

Earl Colby Pottinger (Tesla, Taycan, Bollinger, Rivian and other BEVs fan)

evanevery

On my 3rd EV. Taycan will be the 4th. Never used a public charger. Never even seen one. I charge overnight at home like 70% of other EV users. 200-250 miles meets my daily needs (inc lots of extra for unscheduled errands etc). Couldn't care less about the public charging infrastructure. If I'm gonna take a long trip I'm taking a different vehicle (ICE). An EV is simply my daily driver.

Needsdecaf

In order for EV's to be more widely adopted, we need public charging. There are a lot of people in apartments and condos that can't do what you just said. And a lot of people with only one car at their disposal.

Dyefrog

Both Jack Rickard and Sandy Munro have done extensive tear downs. WARNING, Videos are not for the impatient.

evanevery

I understand, and agree that a public charging infrastructure will help make it possible for EV's to work for MORE people. However, I also don't think its as big of a deal that some think it is - or would like to make us believe it is. That's my point.

One report I found a while back said that over 70% of EV users charge at home. Its the convenience of charging at home which makes EV ownership really attractive to me. Plug it in when I get home and unplug it in the morning. Environmental benefits, for me, are a nice secondary...

There is no way I'm going to stop every 200 miles for 20-30 minutes to recharge my car on a long trip. I'm not going to do that unless other options go away. I enjoy BOTH types of vehicles (EV / ICE), for what their strengths are. I like driving my ICE vehicles too!

The REAL solution I think is what they did with some electric Taxis in Tokyo a few years back. They had interchangeable battery packs (snap-in, snap-out). When the charge got low, they would drive over an automated "grease-pit" in their service center, and a robot would take the used battery away and move it into a charging queue and then insert a full charged one. I'm pretty sure took even less time than a fill-up would. There are a lot more considerations and complications here (old batteries, bad batteries, etc) , but I'm curious if we will ever see something like that for commercially available EV's. Manufacturers would need to agree on a modular battery composition, size, and connection. All it would take is one or two major EV manufacturers to do this and everyone else would be at a disadvantage. (You could also plug in to charge.) We already have this in the common battery format found in RC Electric Vehicles.

Personally, I would like to see higher ranges (500 miles) and quicker battery charges/swaps (5 min) before I would consider swapping an EV for ICE on longer trips...

Outlaw

What doesn’t make sense to me on Taycan range is that it has a 2 speed transmission which halves ratio at top speed allowing much lower motor speed. How can Porsche still be light on range with this advantage?

daveo4porsche

because there isn’t that much spread on efficiency in an electric motor - we are talking about moving from like 86/87% efficient to 90% efficient based on dropping RPMs - simple put EV motors don’t have wide efficiency variation that ICE motors have - there isn’t that much to gain - the torque curve has a bit more to gain which is why i suspect porsche did it - better 50-100 mph behavior - formula-e has transmissions i believe - because they are chasing those single digit performance gains

changing rpms in an EV does not dramatically alter efficiency like it does in a ICE - it has some effect - but not what you are used to.

transmission was more about performance than range - extra weight/complexity probably made range worse - best case a wash in certain circumstances.

ICE motors have efficiency ranges from like 7-30% - if you are in an RPM range where it’s 10% efficiency you can double efficiency by dropping RPM’s and moving to the 20% efficiency range, or even triple it by moving to the top 30% - there is no doubling/tripling efficiency by shifting RPM’s in an EV motor - I found one table that showed 84% to 93% efficiency range for a static load EV motor…that’s a spread of 9% difference across the entire RPM range - with most values being close to 90% for MOST of the RPM range - it’s only at the extreme ends of the RPM range (near zero and near max) that you get the spread...

porsche is a performance brand - I can’t believe they did themselves any major favors with the transmission regarding range - I’m 100% positive they did work to minimize or mitigate the overhead of the transmission when cruising and even if there is only say a 9% spread it’s worth chasing when you need it - but I see the transmission as more trouble than it’s worth and as @Adk46 points out below there now may be a maintainence schedule which undermines ones of the main EV advantages…

EV’s can be made very simple mechanically - Porsche added complexity for some reason - most likely performance - because it wasn’t for complexity or cost reduction - range is a stretch (I can lose 9% efficiency given a stiff head wind or simply driving slightly faster).