Tesla Roadster gets a range increase to a truly crazy 400 miles maximum

Tesla Motors has recently been focused on improvements to its flagship electric vehicle, the Model S, giving it a second motor and Knight Rider-like self-driving capabilities. But Tesla was only able to build the Model S in the first place because of the practical experience it gained from constructing and selling the sedan’s predecessor, the Tesla Roadster. The Lotus-derived Roadster has mostly left the spotlight after its limited production run ended in 2012, but Tesla will be giving a late Christmas present to Roadster owners: existing Roadsters will be upgraded with changes that will boost the car’s range by 40 to 50 percent, up to a maximum of 400 miles on a single charge.

The upgrades are described in a post on the Tesla Motors blog and are a combination of an upgraded 70kWh battery pack, a new aerodynamic kit to lower the Roadster’s drag coefficient from 0.36 to 0.31 (still far higher than the Model S’ streamlined 0.24), and new tires to lower the Roadster’s rolling resistance. When combined with a specific "set of speeds and driving conditions" that Tesla says it will demonstrate in early 2015, the Roadster should be able to travel considerably farther per charge than its younger Model S sibling.

After the announcement, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that a similar battery pack upgrade isn’t coming any time soon for the Model S, but that it "obviously will happen long-term." The tweet has since been deleted.

There’s no indication yet as to how much the upgrades will cost Roadster owners, who had already paid a minimum of $109,000 for the cars. Only about 2,600 Roadsters were manufactured between 2008 and 2012, so the charges won't have a big impact on the company's bottom line, either.

Tesla built the car around a modified Lotus Elise chassis, and the limiting factor in the car’s production was the number of vehicle chassis Tesla ordered from Lotus. The Roadster ended up sharing a small number of common parts with the Lotus Elise, but is otherwise a completely different automobile with only a superficial resemblance to the UK-built vehicle.

Comments

How To Hide Text In Microsoft Word 2007, Reveal It & Protect It

Sometimes what we hide is more important than what we reveal. Especially, documents with sensitive information, some things are supposed to be ‘for some eyes only’. Such scenarios are quite common, even for the more un-secretive among us. You want to show someone a letter composed in MS Word, but want to keep some of the content private; or it’s an official letter with some part of it having critical data. As important as these two are, the most common use could involve a normal printing job. Many a time we have to print different versions of a document, one copy for one set of eyes and others for other sets. Rather than creating multiple copies and therefore multiple printing jobs, what if we could just do it from the same document? That too, without the hassle of repeated cut and paste. We can, with a simple feature in MS Word – it’s just called Hidden and let me show you how to use it to hide text in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s a simple single click process. Open the docum...

Boom, the startup that wants to build supersonic planes, just signed a massive deal with Virgin

Have you heard about Boom? Boom is a relatively new startup that’s aiming to build something pretty crazy. They’re not building an app… or a social network… or even some new gadget for the Kickstarter crowd. Boom wants to build planes. Really, really, really fast planes. Specifically, they’re trying to design and build a supersonic passenger plane that goes 2.2x the speed of sound. If all goes to plan, they’ll be able to shuttle people from New York to London in 3.5 hours, and SF to Tokyo in 4.5. Sound crazy? I wouldn’t disagree. It’s worth noting that the company is in the very early days for something as intensive, massive, and hugely expensive as designing and producing a passenger aircraft. They’re still working on their first prototype, and hope to fly it by late next year. But it’s also worth noting that the team behind the plane has some serious talent in its blood: the company’s 11 employees have collectively contributed to over 30 aircrafts — having worked on thin...

Fun Tools to Translate Your Name into Japanese Calligraphy

Japanese calligraphy is an artistic writing style of the Japanese language. Its Chinese origins can be traced back to the twenty-eighth century BCE. Calligraphy found its way into Japanese culture in 600 CE and is known as the karayo tradition. For Westerners, calligraphy is forever fascinating. However, it takes years to learn how to properly draw the signs. Two basic principles must be known to understand Japanese writing: there are different writing styles and different alphabets. Kaisho for example, is a writing style most commonly used in print media. Tensho on the other hand is used in signatures. Other writing styles are Reisho, Gyosho and Sousho. The alphabets include Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Katakana is used for writing foreign words. It can also serve to highlight words, in analogy to capital letters as we know them from the Roman / Latin alphabet (Romaji in Japanese). Each Kanji character has a meaning of its own, while Hiragana or Katakana characters merely repres...

Kiran Upadhyay

Search This Blog