That can only explain the performance or the ludicrous mode, if really.
I thought Tesla was always marketing that their selling point is cheaper batteries, which cant be a USP, as Panasonic can always manufacture the same for GM/Ford etc.
I thought Tesla was always marketing that their selling point is cheaper batteries, which cant be a USP, as Panasonic can always manufacture the same for GM/Ford etc.
Ludicrous mode being a software update could easily be that you already have the performance innately but they cap your output at 85%. Same as any game where you have to pay to get the extra features/items (DLC) but every other player in the game already has the item when you're around them. All the players get it, it's just a flip of a bit to enable the item for you. Just costs $10k in this case...
Initially when I heard that, I thought Tesla was bluffing. But the Ludicrous mode with P100D performance, and the fact that no other electric car maker is able to match that, leads me to believe that they are not bluffing.
The 100,000 dollar plus luxury electric saloon market isn't exactly overflowing with competition yet, so I'm not sure this really proves anything. Given time and a stronger focus on electric models, I have few doubts the usual German contenders will build electric cars every bit as quick.
The "legacy" car manufacturers have been slow to wake to Tesla's successes in some regards, but that looks set to change rapidly over the next decade.
Of course, today all Tesla P100D get built with that fuse already in place - so it's "just a software upgrade" today.
There's quite a bit of electrical magic going on for a fuse to be able to handle insane current bursts while retaining a good response time in case of a catastrophic fault.
What's going on is that the current drawn while flooring a ludicrous vehicle is a largish fraction of the current that should cause an instantaneous fuse blow. A fuse that melts at a given temperature and heats up as I^2 R wasn't going to cut it. In the electrical distribution industry, you'd get a fancy circuit breaker with an electrical trip device and call it a day. This has two issues for Tesla. First, your average electrical trip device uses a current transformer, and those don't work for DC. Second, DC current is considerably harder to interrupt than AC, and the current the fuse needs to carry is in the kA range (I have no idea what the short circuit current is), so a circuit breaker would be rather large. Hence a fuse, with a little explosive inside, with an active circuit, presumably using a Hall effect sensor, the voltage drop across the fuse, or maybe just a reed switch.
(Hmm. It's nice when fuses and such don't need external power. I wonder if there's sufficient voltage drop across the fuse during a fault to power the circuit that blows the fuse? I bet there is. It could even be a very simple circuit like a Zener diode in series with a resistive heater that sets off the explosive.)