The Tesla M3P will starting winning and more people with do actual performance driving with them, IMO.

A M3P finish 2nd in a 64 car autocross shoot out with $10,000 on the line. Beating evo's vette's M3's etc.
https://lateral-g.net/umi-performanc...ut-10000-race/

 

Just to be clear on that, it wasnt raw time based. It was running your dial-in like bracket racing. And dial-in was based on your runs over the previous days.

 

certainly, and driver always matters. But my point is, the Tesla Model 3 can compete. (Top 10 in raw time) Perhaps the photos below give a more "fair view" rather than just saying 2nd out of 64.

 

https://carbuzz.com/news/iconic-mcla...CKLdam_YC_m60Q

 

It might be possible to go bigger than 275 but thats the reasonable max. Similar to ct9as actually.

Bigger problem is wheel choices. My 275 width bfg R1 on 18x9.5+34 CE28 fit, but couldn't clear the M3P big calipers.




Some high clearance 18 inch wheels fit or many 19 inch. But mainly 20 inch wheels are the safest. Bolt pattern is 5x114.3 but the studs are m14, which I guess is not a bad idea for a heavy car like this. I ended up getting volk g16 20 inch wheels and drilled out the bolt holes for m14 studs.



Is 4100 lbs really considered that heavy anymore? Camaro zl1, Shelby gt350, c63, etc are not far off that mark!

 

Thanks @deeman101 . Your photos aren't working for me, but I get the idea.

Depends on the usage. 4100lbs is decently light for an electric car, but it's heavy relative to the tire size.

ZL1 comes with 285/305 tires stock. GT350 is 295/305. Even the more luxury focused C63 is 255/285.

The Model 3 P comes with 235/275 tires stock. Not a huge difference from the above vehicles, but it's still less total tire width than I have on my 3200lb Evo.

 

Reading up on Model 3 trackday experiences: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/thre...%80%A6.135578/

Maybe overheating the tires with long track sessions isn't a concern if you can only do a few hotlaps at a time anyway. Could be a lot of fun for autocross, though.

 

At some point you gotta expect they will install some pretty nice charging infrastructure at the tracks.

 

I'll have to try and fix my image hosting issues. But basically 275 width easily fits on the front. Back can already fit wider. If you start rolling fenders I'm sure you can go bigger. On the in-board side there's some interference from suspension components but just like our rear trailing arms I'm sure there are solutions in the work. Wasn't that long ago that fitting 285 width under a stock body ct9a was considered extreme. Mechanical traction is really a strong point of the model 3 though already for a given tire compound/size.

I don't think track mode was available when that post was made. It's true that without track mode the awd model 3s will overheat in 10 laps. That's why MPP started with the rwd version which doesn't have that issue. But with track mode it engages a way more aggressive thermal management system and I don't really think people have overheating problems since then. Fastest Laguna seca time now is 1:37.5. https://insideevs.com/news/358211/te...ecord-dispute/

Battery drain is definitely an issue. Depending on the track size you can maybe get half a day in (~50 miles) I think. Which is not all that different from my Evo, but I can't carry Jerry cans of electricity. There are some tracks now with on site level 2 chargers but not many.

​​​On the plus side....you won't get kicked off the track for excessive noise!

 

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with a bit of this.

I've had a lot of interest since the last post, and have a buddy at Tesla. I had one car overnight. So far, here's what I've driven-
Model S P100D a year ago- Hopelessly too heavy, really fast, but laughably out of my price range
Model 3 RWD standard range plus- Value leader, but not enough range, and meh
Model 3 Long Range Stealth- Getting there
Model 3 Performance- Best

I told my Tesla buddy that if he throws me a RE lead I close on, I'll trade my car and buy the Performance. He's working on it, lol

Over the past couple weeks, I've had lots of hours with Model 3s. Certainly not ownership, but enough to get a great feel of these cars.

Here's some random notes on the 3 Performance and Stealth (with the Performance acceleration):
-The perception of speed and acceleration with these cars is greater than what is actually occurring.
-They are whisper quiet, and wonderful around town with that wicked low end acceleration. You'll be the king of the stoplights for sure.
-Most all of the acceleration worth getting excited over is from 0-50mph. Beyond that, its no faster than an internal combustion engine car that has comparable trap speeds.
-I found battery consumption and range anxiety a little annoying. I think this would be alleviated in a week tops with owning one, because you can plug up at night and never worry about it, at least in town.
-The supercharger near my house is always crowded. There was usually one bay open, or none, with people waiting to charge. Again, this would not be an issue if I charged at home. My assumption is that it's nearly inaccessible during holidays.
-The weight is hidden well due to most of it being so low in the car. I like this. It doesn't feel like a 4000 lb car until you really hustle it in higher speed corners. The car would be so much faster with more tire. 235w rubber is hitting their lower battery consumption targets, but the Performance deserves 265w rubber. The range hit would be worth it, and you could swap to the narrow wheels and tires when taking road trips.

I'm going against the youtube brigade and going to say acceleration degradation in repeated pulls without a little cool down time is real in the Model 3 without track mode engaged. Both these cars exhibit it, and it's clear as can be. In a drag strip scenario, you will never see it, because you have to drive around and stage again, allowing enough cooling to get the power back. In real world driving, you need a battery over 50% to get the best out of it.

That moves me to the next topic, real world range. As a car guy, I like to boot my car and go fast- who doesn't? I beat on my daily driver pretty hard, and can get 275 miles out of the tank, even in those conditions. There is NO WAY you can get 300+ miles out of one of these dual motor Model 3's without relentless hypermiling, perfect weather, and staying off the interstate. To me, real world range was 200 miles, and that's with exercising major self control to not drive like a jackass. Acceleration also suffered noticably in all three Model 3s I had when the battery was below 50%, even when the electronics were not hot. So real world go fast range to me was about 100 miles. I can attain this in town, because I could charge it every night. But knowing that full performance is dependent on all of that is enough to push me away.

I have a friend with a Model 3 Performance, and it will run 11.60s at 113mph all day at the quarter mile including taking short breaks while lining up again. After spending all this time driving these, and hearing his assurance that his car will slaughter mine (it will easily, I'm FWD lol), I asked him if he wants to go for a little pull on the highway. He told me it's my funeral and would be fun. I have a tuned FK8 Civic Type R on 93. It has a basemap, intercooler, and exhaust with the stock cat. It would probably run a low 13 at around 111-112mph with me driving, I haven't run it on the strip because boring, wheel hop, and not a great drag racer. We lined up on the highway from 55mph. I was nervous because I had a shift in there. Starting from third, these cars couldn't be closer- nose to nose. I was pulling slightly, but he made all that up on my shift to fourth. And then, as we got into low triple digits, the Civic starts to pull away harder. I was surprised he didn't pull more initially, but expected the top end result. He was floored, lol.

All that to say, I think as a DD these are great. I think as a Performance car, they're not ready yet, and there's a lot of work on battery tech that needs to happen to get these cars lighter, and software to not allow as much performance loss. Is it a great car? Definitely. For what I do, is it worth another $20k and getting rid of my car? With 2020 battery tech, it isn't to me.

When you're approaching $60k like this, I started to think what would I really want in this price range for maximum handling and braking performance? And that's easy. A manual C7 Grand Sport, baby. You can find them with very little mileage in the $52-$55k range, since the C8 is around the corner. That's a ton of car for not too much green. But with two kids still in the house, a two seater is going to have wait a few more years.

 

you're technically correct, but where the car really shines is that the power is right there, always ready (at 50%+ charge anyway) whenever you need it. sure your CTR is a little quicker on the highway, but you need that downshift. if you're cruising along on the highway and see a small gap, you just dip the go pedal on the tesla and you're there. on the CTR you need a downshift, and while you're executing that downshift that gap disappears... sure if you're always driving at 100% primed to make a downshift you can make that work. But the benefit of the Tesla is that you don't need to be, you can be driving normally and relaxed and still make that gap when you spot it.

what I agree most with you on is that they make a great DD, not what I'd consider a sports car or a fun car. I mean sure its fun in its own way with its stealth silent torque. but its real strength is in being a DD. I mean it could be a drag racer, but I imagine that getting boring pretty quick as there's no challenge to it...

its definitely not there as a sports car, absolutely there as a DD, but there could be improvements as far as performance per battery state goes.

(just adding my 2 cents, not disagreeing or anything)

 

With the C8 arriving and supposedly prices would be around 60K, wouldnt that lower the prices of used C7’s even more ?

Why not convert your car to electric ? It would be lighter than a model 3 and you can make it either fwd, rwd or awd .

 

The model 3 can get into overheating if you don't use track mode and try to beat on it. But why wouldn't you just use track mode? The heatsoak is nonlinear so unless you proactively engage aggressive thermal management it will overheat on a normal cooling profile. The rwd does not have the same overheating issue, but unfortunately they discontinued the rwd long range version. That car weighed 3700 lbs and could be beat on all day. It made about 360 whp which doesn't sound like a lot but your have to look at area-under-curve. 360whp in a electric car is much more useable and you will go faster than an equivalent or even more powerful gas car.

The M3P is 4100 lbs but thats not totally abnormal in today's performance car market. There are few cars left that are below 3500 lbs. And a lot of the comparable performance cars are close to the 4000 lbs range. Just take a look at what the new GT500 weighs. Is anyone complaining? Its about comparable right now to a m440i which to this crowd is not a sports car I presume. The more interesting thing though is it has the base and platform to become a performance car like the M3/4. The chassis is STIFF and it has a well setup suspension system, just with soft springs and dampers. You can already get there with aftermarket companies. Tesla may eventually get into the performance segment too but it looks like they're going to start high end first with the model S plaid power.

The drop in power with battery state of charge is because the batter drops from 400V max to about 280V minimum. The max power is determined by the voltage since the amperage is limited more by the wiring circuitry. Thats part of the reason the Taycan is an 800V architecture. Even though the power drops off its still faster than most cars until you get really low on state of charge.



The reason why it feels so significant is because its the 40mph and below range that really drops off after charge drops below 60%. But you're still putting down 375whp at 40mph. Sure its not the 500whp it usually is. Performance EV driving will require some changes in expectations compared to gas cars. Or you could buy the Taycan if you want to manufacturer to mask the true potential of the car just so it feels "consistent".

 

Yes!! The single best OTA update since getting my car. Track mode v2 is releasing. Looks like it has way more customizability for torque bias and stability control and gives much more vehicle metrics information. Plus built-in track timer and track cam recorder. Take a look (he actually explains track mode v2 at 6:00 onwards):

 

^^Nice! He compared the model 3 feel close to a 918 Porsche. That’s quite impressive. Watching that clip makes me want to drive one in the track too lol.

Im curious if or how the power output changes with the different bias settings . For the sake of this conversation if for example at 50/50 r/f it makes 450 awhp will the total Hp output still be 450 if at 75/25 or just 100% rwd?

I wonder if Tesla will be monitoring secretly what setting people use as a “free” R&D for them on their next updates or future models ?