Tesla Announced Roadster 3.0 Upgrade: 70 kWh Battery

[fromport]

"Tesla Motors announced that current Roadster owners (~2,500 of them) could now swap out their old batteries (53 kWh) for new ones with improved technology providing 70 kWh of power."

"The original Roadster battery was the very first lithium ion battery put into production in any vehicle. It was state of the art in 2008, but cell technology has improved substantially since then. We have identified a new cell that has 31% more energy than the original Roadster cell. Using this new cell we have created a battery pack that delivers roughly 70kWh in the same package as the original battery."
http://insideevs.com/tesla-announced-roadster-3-0-upgrade/


Would be nice if we could _officially_ upgrade our batteries to a bigger pack.
Although the increase wouldn't be as big since our pack already uses bigger 16550's right ?

 

[evdrive]

I as well ponder if or when Tesla will offer an upgraded pack for the Rav4 and if Toyota would allow for that.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I as well ponder if or when Tesla will offer an upgraded pack for the Rav4 and if Toyota would allow for that.

This is NOT an upgrade over our RAV4 pack... it's the same cells.

The Roadster used 2200ma cells, and every car after it used bigger cells:

2200ma - Tesla Roadster
2600ma - Daimler Smart EV
2900ma - Daimler Mercedes B-Class ED
2900ma - Toyota RAV4 EV
3100-3400ma - Tesla Model S

It entirely probably that the new Model X and the replacement battery cells for the Roadster will be 4000ma or greater.

That's how a 200-ish mile Roadster becomes a 400 mile one.

In addition, I fully expect that for a few more dollars, the Roadster will be converted to a Model S inlet, but NO SUPERCHARGER !!!

Well, I just learned that the new capacity is 70kWh. That's a bit disappointing since that means 2900ms cells.

70 / 54 = 130%

2900 / 2200 = 130%

 

[james]

So I wonder if there is a possible upgrade someday for our Rav4s. It's great that Tesla is offering upgrades for their older cars. I'm sure Toyota feels the same way. ; - )

I wonder how much the roadster upgrade costs?

 

[4EVEREV]

So I wonder if there is a possible upgrade someday for our Rav4s. It's great that Tesla is offering upgrades for their older cars. I'm sure Toyota feels the same way. ; - )

I wonder how much the roadster upgrade costs?

My guess is Tesla wants to wash their hands of the RAV as soon as they can along with Toyota. There is no good reason for them to make a pack upgrade for such a limited production car. They are in business to make money and any replacement pack for limited numbers would be extremely expensive.

 

[fusiondynamics]

So I wonder if there is a possible upgrade someday for our Rav4s. It's great that Tesla is offering upgrades for their older cars. I'm sure Toyota feels the same way. ; - )

I wonder how much the roadster upgrade costs?

My guess is Tesla wants to wash their hands of the RAV as soon as they can along with Toyota. There is no good reason for them to make a pack upgrade for such a limited production car. They are in business to make money and any replacement pack for limited numbers would be extremely expensive.

Isn't the number of Rav4's made roughly the same as Tesla Roadsters?

 

[tailgate1234]

So I wonder if there is a possible upgrade someday for our Rav4s. It's great that Tesla is offering upgrades for their older cars. I'm sure Toyota feels the same way. ; - )

I wonder how much the roadster upgrade costs?

My guess is Tesla wants to wash their hands of the RAV as soon as they can along with Toyota. There is no good reason for them to make a pack upgrade for such a limited production car. They are in business to make money and any replacement pack for limited numbers would be extremely expensive.

Isn't the number of Rav4's made roughly the same as Tesla Roadsters?

The Roadster was Tesla's first product, a flagship high end product used to build Tesla's brand image in advance of the higher volume Model S. The battery swap helps build their brand image even further, whereas the RAV4 does nothing for them. So I see no circumstance where Tesla does anything for RAV4 owners except maybe offer a generous trade in allowance in the purchase of a Tesla model whatever.

 

[4EVEREV]

Tesla could care less about RAV owners a this point. It's a Toyota product not a Tesla product or even a co-branded product.

 

[jimbo69ny]

The Roadster was Tesla's first product, a flagship high end product used to build Tesla's brand image in advance of the higher volume Model S. The battery swap helps build their brand image even further, whereas the RAV4 does nothing for them. So I see no circumstance where Tesla does anything for RAV4 owners except maybe offer a generous trade in allowance in the purchase of a Tesla model whatever.

Tailgate read my mind. Thats exactly what I was going to say.

The Roadster upgrade shows everyone that Tesla is committed to THEIR product and it shows future buyers of TESLA that Tesla cares. They dont care about the Rav because its not theirs. They also are not an aftermarket parts manufacturer so I dont see any reason they would offer anything for the Rav. Add to that the bad blood between Tesla and Toyota and we wont be seeing anything. Unless Tony or someone like him makes it for us.

 

[Larry_in_Seattle]

If they offered an "upgrade" or very generous trade-in for a Mirai, would anyone take them up on it? I personally would NOT.

 

[jimbo69ny]

If they offered an "upgrade" or very generous trade-in for a Mirai, would anyone take them up on it? I personally would NOT.

LMAO, hell no! I wouldnt consider it for a second.

 

[jscgvnc]

If they offered an "upgrade" or very generous trade-in for a Mirai, would anyone take them up on it? I personally would NOT.

At this point, I would not either, but no one can predict the future.

I personally think that it shouldn't have much future. Strapping two 10,000psi bottles of hydrogen in your car seems like a terrible idea to me(10000psi of anything seems very dangerous). Also, right now there is exactly one hydrogen station in NorCal.

However, technology rarely gets adopted for rational reasons. If Toyota really put their weight into it, and I mean really put their money where their mouth is, it could change the equation. My back of the envelope calculation says that hydrogen stations are about $1M each(I might be totally off on that). If Toyota really wanted to, they could spend whatever it takes to put hydrogen stations everywhere.

I don't think they will do that, but they certainly have the resources to do it. This is only to say that if you speak of the devil, he may appear

My own feeling is that electric battery makes the most sense, because you already have the losses from converting kinetic or nuclear or combustion energy to electricity and don't need more losses from converting electricity into hydrogen; and the infrastructure for it(electricity) is almost everywhere. The world, however, seems indifferent to my opinion.

 

[StanfordEV]

My impression is that neither Tesla nor Toyota are interested in the RAV4 EV any longer. At all. They will meet their contractual obligations through the warranties of the vehicle, but I'd be surprised if we get even a single firmware update from here on out (not that the firmware needs upgrading, but they could optimize the algorithms based on the data that they ought to be collecting about the cars.)

Michael

 

[n3ckf]

Nope, no upgrade to hydrogen for me.

I believe it would make more sense to drive a natural gas powered vehicle than a hydrogen one. At least until we get unlimited solar power to make hydrogen or something like that. (or maybe unlimited nuclear power to make hydrogen).

A hydrogen car is basically an electric car with hydrogen instead of a battery. Except that they make the hydrogen, from natural gas first.

Plus i saw the Mirai at CES. Its a swoopy (somewhat) sedan car. Tesla does swoopy sedan car better than Toyota does, why wouldn't I just buy a Tesla instead if i really cared about range between charges. Especially since i already have a 40amp charger in my garage...

the Rav4 is an SUV type car (its not 4wheel drive, which is the one feature i definately miss). I can *put stuff in it*. Its exactly the electric car i was looking for (and had decided no one made, until i just happened to see a Gen 1 Rav4EV on the street and decided to go to the toyota web site one day.

When someone else brings out an SUV-type electric car with 150+ mile rang, i'll replace my Rav4EV and not a minute before.