Tesla CEO Elon Musk kept journalists waiting for three hours today before revealing his company’s newest product, which he teased in an earlier tweet.
As many expected, the electric automaker will now offer P100D versions of its Model S and Model X vehicles, with the sedan version becoming the third-fastest accelerating production car in history, and the quickest currently on the market.
The 100 kWh battery pack is only available in top-end models equipped with Ludicrous Mode. They can be ordered right now, with deliveries beginning next month.
Bought new, the battery upgrade adds $9,500 to the cost of a Model S P90D, raising the price to $134,500. An exclusively priced vehicle, but one capable of accelerating from zero to 60 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds. That’s three-tenths of a second faster than the previous fastest Model S. The Model X P100D retails for $135,500, will accelerate to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds, according to estimates.
Tesla claims that customers waiting for deliveries of a previously ordered P90D can upgrade to a P100D for an extra $10,000. Existing P90D owners can shell out $20,000 for a battery swap. Musk claims the extra cost of the new model and upgrades will help finance Model 3 production.
The battery pack is an entirely new unit, Tesla claims, rather than an existing battery pack where extra capacity can be “unlocked” for a fee.
Besides the added power off the line, both P100D models will go further on a charge. The Model S variant will break the 300-mile mark with an EPA-estimated range of 315 miles, up from 294 miles in the P90D. The Model X sees its maximum range boosted from 250 to 289 miles.
Tesla already added (or reintroduced) 60 kWh base models to the Model S and X lineups earlier this year, broadening the models’ appeal while lowering the entry price. A Model S 60D is now half the cost of a P100D.
[Image: Tesla Motors]
Over 300 mile range? Now you have my interest.
I’m 39 years old so I imagine that I’ll see a battery powered midsize car with a 300 plus mile range for $30,000 in today’s money. Then the dedicated electric car will be more than a rich man’s toy.
But, but… EVs will never be practical until they can go 500 miles and recharge in 5 minutes.
0-60 in 2.5 seconds is over 1 G of acceleration. Personally, I’d exchange acceleration for range, but you don’t really gain much when trying to do so. A Leaf is only about 15% more efficient.
When it can go zero to fully charged in about the time it takes me to fill up my car with gas, then I will consider it.
Winning a stoplight race and then looking for a charger seems like a pretty lame night out.
It’s the best selling luxury car in Europe, and they’ve been selling 50,000 – 60,000 a year for some time now – seems some find it practical.
Agreed SCE – I’d take range over acceleration as long as 0 – 60 is already less than 7 seconds. What’s even better is sliding door like a minivan :-)
“EVs will never be practical until they can go 500 miles and recharge in 5 minutes.”
If they can’t be charged in five minutes, then 500 miles of range would be about right. That’s about one day’s driving distance; a long recharge time is less important if there is a charger available for several hours at the end of the journey.
Recharge time would matter to most of the market. The diehards may not care, but they are a tiny percentage of the population.
Want.
Cannot afford.
Want.
*WARNING* *WARNING* *WARNING*
HAZARDOUS TO ASPIES WHO’VE NEVER HEARD “NO”!
So, really, at what point does acceleration become to quick to be enjoyable?
I like to feel my acceleration. I like to savour the building forces. 2.5 seconds surely isn’t even long enough to be an experience.
Once you get used to sub-3 second 0-60s, everything slower feels broken.
Keep your sensual acceleration. I’ll dream of owning a car that can hang with my bike.
@rust
Just use the accelerator pedal to modulate the experience. You don’t have to put the pedal to the floor.
“So, really, at what point does acceleration become to quick to be enjoyable?”
when it makes you pass out.
This will put your granny through the front wall of the hair salon even faster than before!
Elon Musk has accomplished the unthinkable, he created a new auto brand, he made it cool, and he applied this to further electric cars. Consider Saturn, consider the awful pink Chevy commercials where they hide the badge from the focus group, consider the EV1 (and the Spark EV, the Malibu Eco, the GMT800 hybrids).
If was the CEO of one of these auto companies I’d be fighting hard to acquire Tesla. Profits come later.
“Profits come later.”
Ima ax fo’ blueberry pie when I in the sky!
If you told GM’s shareholders that profits came later, you’d get tarred and feathered.
Elon has yet to make his products continually worse for a steady 55-60 years straight, so he’s got that going for him I guess.
@Comapaq: If was the CEO of one of these auto companies I’d be fighting hard to acquire Tesla. Profits come later.
Or what I’m doing – going after some of the labs developing battery technology. It’s like the California Gold Rush. The guys making and selling the shovels and picks made the most money. Batteries are needed in cell phones, laptops, robotics, etc. We’re almost becoming a lithium battery (or whatever follows it) driven society. The demand for better battery tech is coming from more areas than just the EV sector.
“Profits come later.”
Easy to do if you have a company that is favored by the government mafia. Pull that favored treatment away from Tesla and the company would not likely last long.
http://ericpetersautos.com/2016/08/23/bill-meyer-show-2/
oh, big wet fart noises. I don’t care what some guy I’ve never heard of with a blog (about libertarian politics) says about this. the loans and other aid Tesla’s made use of are available to any automaker.
Elio Motors cannot seem to get that government loan. Any thoughts on that?
they’re not building a car, they’re building a motorcycle.
Tu quoque is not an argument. It’s a whine.
Remove the outright subsidies and Musk’s parasitic business model, which is completely dependent on the whimsical carbon credit market, and Tesla ceases to exist.
It will, however, continue to be a shiny light to the easily impressed.
Those things are already going to be going away either to some extent (carbon credits) or entirely (tax credits) over the next couple of years so there’s no point for the nonstop whining. That money is there so new fields can have a chance at competing against entrenched players who are all multibillion dollar multinationals, and it’s worked quite well for the US since Tesla not only sells a lot of cars domestically but also exports many tens of thousands of cars a year. Incentives make sense in a lot of cases and this is one of them.
You must be one of these enlightened souls who thinks that paying farmers not to grow food, or to break windows to pay the glazier, are good ideas.
What you calling “a chance” is money that was forcibly extracted from the public and competitors and used to line the pockets of Musk his cronies. It’s an outright transfer of wealth that provides zero value. Those billions of dollars could have been used productively otherwise, not used to satisfy a political agenda.
Here a hint: if your product can’t exist without a generous subsidy, it isn’t worth selling.
@ Compaq Deskpro
You wrote: “If was the CEO of one of these auto companies I’d be fighting hard to acquire Tesla. Profits come later.”
Tesla’s market capitalization (total value of all its stock) is $33 billion. General Motors’ is $50 billion. The market already values Tesla at 2/3 the value of General Motors. Because the market likes Tesla and doesn’t like General Motors, it would be about as easy for Tesla to acquire General Motors as it would for GM to acquire Tesla.
By the way, the market cap of Fiat Chrysler Automotive is only $8.3 billion. If Tesla chose, it could fairly easily acquire FCA – even accomplish a hostile takeover if necessary.
I wouldn’t look to Tesla to acquire any auto maker though. Tesla has shown that they can develop manufacturing knowhow aout as fast as they could buy it. The baggage with combining with another car maker would, at the very least, cause management distraction that would slow Tesla’s momentum.
I wonder why those who bash Lincoln and sometimes Cadillac for their car’s non-names are so silent about Tesla’s naming scheme?
S
X
3
P85D
Why is one a number?
If S means Sedan for Tesla, why is MKS so confusing?
The word “Model” makes it a real name? Model X and MKX don’t seem all that different to me.
I suspect those who crow on about it really have a problem not with the model name, but with the automaker’s name (or, rather, the company that produces them). If its a Lincoln, its trash. Cadillac, same.
I think it really wouldn’t matter if they brought back Eldorado or SeVille as Lincoln has Continental, its the fact that it is what it is that’s the problem. Its okay for Tesla, Scion, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW and Lexus to have non-names for their cars because they aren’t associated with Ford or GM. It only becomes a big problem when one is biased against the car from the on-set based on where, and from whom, its from. Its just a way to justify the bias.
/rant
Because I don’t know how Lincoln’s names work. Though I feel as confused about the infiniti line-up.
In recent memory Lincoln has had:
The zephyr
The towncar
(coming soon) the continental
The MKS
The MKZ
The MKT
The MKC
The Navigator
and other things I don’t remember? What is the MKT? The Mk. Truck? The MKZ? Mk. Zephyer?
At least use more of the letters to tell me whether it’s an SUV or sedan.
Lexus gets away with it because the names have been the same since the dawn of the models.
IS – Intry level sedan
ES – extra-money-camry sedan
GS – good sedan
LS – luxury-iest sedan
NX – new-mother Xover
RX – really-good-highlander Xover
GX – good Xover-lander
LX – the one the notorious B.I.G rapped about
!!!!
Actually.
Must wanted the model 3 to be the model E, but Ford owns that somehow.
They’d have had (along with the new model Y:
S
E
X
Y
.. get it? :)
“I wonder why those who bash Lincoln and sometimes Cadillac for their car’s non-names are so silent about Tesla’s naming scheme?”
The same reason they don’t bash BMW or Mercedes*. Tesla’s model branding is consistent with their image and doesn’t have any [heritage|baggage] to consider.
It’s quite another when the company that makes Continentals, Town Cars and Zephyrs starts cranking out MK-fill-in-the-blank reskins of existing Fords, or when the company that made Coupe De Villes or El Dorados does Fill-in-the-blank-X, Fill-in-the-blank-TS or Fill-in-the-blank-6.
Basically, Tesla is being Tesla, which is okay and comes across as authentic. Lincoln is trying to be a lame version of Mercedes, which looks, well, lame.
* although those two are getting somewhat goofy now, too: “X5 35d Xdrive”, for example.
Can we at least start using 0-80 instead of 0-60? Who lifts at 60 anywhere WOT is useful?
0-60 is also becoming a useless measurement because of diminishing returns and because of how trivial a task it is for modern automobiles. If we want to quantify performance of modern automobiles we should be using 0-100 MPH.
Gotta love a car site that works in a Spaceballs joke!
BIG FRIGGIN DEAL!!!!
Wake me up when this becomes affordable for anybody other than the Clintons!
Please….135 friggin thousand dollars and I am supposed to get thrills???
This is as exciting as news on any darn super sports car. Nice to talk about and see at shows, you you cannot have.
Just get the 3 out and tell us what it cost and how far it can go. Just tell us, show us, you can build a car for anybody other than the rich and famous.
Off the meds old boy?
$35000 base price (before subsidies)
215 mile base range
Demonstrated live on March 31, 2016.
Since when is a demonstration of a future car never produced or priced an example of what is real?
The actual introduction and selling of yet a MORE EXPENSIVE car is the real truth. Not showing plans for the future.
doesn’t exist yet.
“Just tell us, show us, you can build a car for anybody other than the rich and famous.”
So what if they can’t/won’t? Jeez…
Is this an example of Tesla’s odd marketing?
2.5 sec 0-62mph (wow factor but ultimately useless)
btw. 300 mile range now
Here is the truth.
Tesla will only be a significant car maker when they can produce, not display, a car that has 200 or more range and can be purchased for 25K and less.
Until that happens, it is simply nothing to me or the average buyer that actually drives the car business. I cannot see how this company can exist building cars most people cannot have. The business lan doesn’t make sense. There would never be enough money and profit in selling only small volumes of cars in every class they make.
And I understand many have dropped off cash for the new 3. That number is not real and even if close, they will still not support the company for long term.
You talk about Mazda having difficulty playing in a big mfr game, imagine Tesla long term.
Unless it can deliver on this kind of vehicle, it will always be a niche player and headline grabbing company. Nothing more than a story grabbing headline or bling for the better off.
Until they can deliver on such a car, forgettaboutit. I am totally unimpressed. Nothing to see here except taxpayer money being used in a science project that allows for a huckster to take our money and get rich.
They just released a still more expensive car than they already have and folks are amazed? Not less expensive…more
Really?
“I cannot see how this company can exist building cars most people cannot have. The business lan doesn’t make sense. There would never be enough money and profit in selling only small volumes of cars in every class they make.”
You mean, like Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini etc.? Last I checked, their volume is still somewhat more limited.
“They just released a more expensive car and people are amazed?” Yes. Because it’s the fastest new car you can buy, and the best electric vehicle in history. They combine the acceleration of a Bugatti with the benefits of a big BMW sedan and the tailpipe emissions of a Little Tykes Kozy Koupe, and you’re not impressed? What would impress you? Free trips to Mars? One weird trick that melts belly fat?
FWIW, they also released a LESS expensive car: a new base-trim Model S that costs literally half as much as the new fancy one.