No more an amalgamation of numbers and letters.
American EV carmaker Tesla have revised the 2019 lineup for its Model S saloon and Model X SUV, removing the number/letter nomenclature and instead going for an infinitely more confusing setup that employs names. For this year, the Model S range will consist of the standard (no suffix), the Extended Range, and the Performance.
The Extended Range and Performance models both use the 100kWh battery capacity that used to be denoted by the 100D & P100D variants respectively, while the standard car… doesn’t appear to have a battery at all, if you were to follow what Tesla says. With no mention of capacity, we can only guess that the 499km quoted-range on the standard Model S must mean that the standard cars get the same battery pack, that have been electronically limited to a 90kWh capacity.
The quoted range for the standard Model S represents a small (very small) improvement in range over the outgoing S 90D, which is always nice.
The Ludicrous Upgrade has now been removed from the Model S & X Performance models as standard, with face-tearing acceleration now a cost-option. Ticking the box will drop the 0-100km/h from 3.0-seconds (already pretty impressive) to 2.4-seconds. We told you it’d tear your face off.
You don’t have to pick the extended range or the Ludicrous upgrade from the get-go, though. As both are software changes, you can actually option those things on at a later time, with a quick update able to unlock both the added range & performance without much fuss.
Tesla confirmed that the updated Model S & X lineup will be on Australian shores in the future, but let up little else in terms of timeline or pricing. Be sure to stay tuned to CarShowroom as we bring you more updates as they come.
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