Tesla has officially unveiled the Roadster 3.0 package, which is designed to take advantage of recent developments in the field of battery technology.
The 3.0 package consists of three main improvement areas:
1. Batteries
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. Tesla has 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 70 kWh in the same package as the original battery.
2. Aerodynamics
The original Roadster had a drag coefficient (Cd) of 0.36. Using modern computational methods Tesla expects to make a 15% improvement, dropping the total Cd down to 0.31 with a retrofit aero kit.
3. Rolling Resistance
The original Roadster tires have a rolling resistance coefficient (Crr) of 11.0 kg/ton. New tires that Tesla will use on the Roadster 3.0 have a Crr of roughly 8.9 kg/ton, about a 20% improvement. In addition, the company is also making improvements in the wheel bearings and residual brake drag that further reduce overall rolling resistance of the car.
Combining all of these improvements Tesla can achieve a predicted 40-50% improvement on range between the original Roadster and Roadster 3.0. The company says this will enable the car to travel more than 400 miles on a single charge and they will demonstrate this by driving the updated Roadster from San Francisco to Los Angeles in the early weeks of 2015.
Appointments for upgrading Roadsters will be taken this spring once the new battery pack finishes safety validation.
