I haven't been around much lately but I figure car nerds will enjoy this discovery.
So since the Model S has been out there's been people trying to determine what the differences between the various models are. Originally the car came in 4 different formats:
40kwh
60kwh
85kwh
85kwh Performance
The 40kwh car wasn't selling and so Tesla never made it. For the customers that ordered one they gave them a 60kwh car and software limited it to 40kwh.
Beyond that it was understood that all of the cars had the same motor but that the 60kwh cars weren't as fast as the 85kwh cars because the battery voltage was lower and that the 85kwh cars weren't as fast as the 85kwh Performance cars because the Performance cars used a larger inverter.
Well there's this one guy on the Tesla forums that've been actively restoring salvage cars and in the process of doing so he's taken out the touchscreen and computer and reverse engineered a lot of what Tesla has done with the car.
Supercharging
The first thing he discovered is somewhat of a game changer for salvage cars. If you have a salvage car Tesla disables it from supercharging. Nobody really knew how that was accomplished though. Well he determined that the electronic handshake between the car and the supercharger was all done on the side of the car. So the supercharger would charge anything and it was up to the car to say "yes, I have this option" or "no I don't". By disabling supercharging Tesla was simply accessing the car over the air and turning the supercharging off. He successfully turned it back on.
40kwh - 60kwh
Remember those 40kwh cars that were actually software limited 60kwh cars? He can remove the limitation, effectively giving those owners the power and range of the 60kwh cars.
Performance Upgrades
A few days ago he shared with the forum that he had recently helped restore a salvage 60kwh car. The only battery they could find was an 85kwh battery which they installed. He said that though the car protested, it worked just fine. He uploaded 85kwh firmware to the car and boom: it was an 85kwh car.
But then he decided to see what would happen if he uploaded the firmware from a P85: the performance version of the 85kwh car. Keep in mind that officially the P85 has a different inverter on the motor and a different part number in Tesla's system. So he uploaded the firmware and surprisingly the car took it. More surprisingly, he suddenly had the performance of a P85.
He then measured temperature differences in the inverters and is pretty confident that the inverters are indeed the same, just that Tesla is trying to put up some smoke and mirrors so that people don't think they paid another 10k for what is essentially flipping a switch in software.
He also said the car has been running as a P85 for 2 months with no issues.
I'm loving my 85kwh car but it's pretty cool to think that in the very near future I could potentially shave a second off my 0-60 and 8/10ths off of my quarter mile with nothing more than changing a single setting in the firmware.
So since the Model S has been out there's been people trying to determine what the differences between the various models are. Originally the car came in 4 different formats:
40kwh
60kwh
85kwh
85kwh Performance
The 40kwh car wasn't selling and so Tesla never made it. For the customers that ordered one they gave them a 60kwh car and software limited it to 40kwh.
Beyond that it was understood that all of the cars had the same motor but that the 60kwh cars weren't as fast as the 85kwh cars because the battery voltage was lower and that the 85kwh cars weren't as fast as the 85kwh Performance cars because the Performance cars used a larger inverter.
Well there's this one guy on the Tesla forums that've been actively restoring salvage cars and in the process of doing so he's taken out the touchscreen and computer and reverse engineered a lot of what Tesla has done with the car.
Supercharging
The first thing he discovered is somewhat of a game changer for salvage cars. If you have a salvage car Tesla disables it from supercharging. Nobody really knew how that was accomplished though. Well he determined that the electronic handshake between the car and the supercharger was all done on the side of the car. So the supercharger would charge anything and it was up to the car to say "yes, I have this option" or "no I don't". By disabling supercharging Tesla was simply accessing the car over the air and turning the supercharging off. He successfully turned it back on.
40kwh - 60kwh
Remember those 40kwh cars that were actually software limited 60kwh cars? He can remove the limitation, effectively giving those owners the power and range of the 60kwh cars.
Performance Upgrades
A few days ago he shared with the forum that he had recently helped restore a salvage 60kwh car. The only battery they could find was an 85kwh battery which they installed. He said that though the car protested, it worked just fine. He uploaded 85kwh firmware to the car and boom: it was an 85kwh car.
But then he decided to see what would happen if he uploaded the firmware from a P85: the performance version of the 85kwh car. Keep in mind that officially the P85 has a different inverter on the motor and a different part number in Tesla's system. So he uploaded the firmware and surprisingly the car took it. More surprisingly, he suddenly had the performance of a P85.
He then measured temperature differences in the inverters and is pretty confident that the inverters are indeed the same, just that Tesla is trying to put up some smoke and mirrors so that people don't think they paid another 10k for what is essentially flipping a switch in software.
He also said the car has been running as a P85 for 2 months with no issues.
I'm loving my 85kwh car but it's pretty cool to think that in the very near future I could potentially shave a second off my 0-60 and 8/10ths off of my quarter mile with nothing more than changing a single setting in the firmware.
