News: electric auto manufacturer Tesla says its Roadster 3. upgrade will incorporate a new battery that can boost the range of its sports vehicle to more than 400 miles on a single charge.
The Roadster, originally launched in 2008, will now be capable of driving constantly on a full charge “from San Francisco to Los Angeles” – a challenge Tesla will put to the test in the early weeks of 2015.
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Tesla applied efficiencies it learned during the improvement of the company’s recent Model S for the upgrade.
“The original Roadster battery was the very first lithium ion battery put into production in any vehicle,” said a Tesla spokesperson. “It was state of the art in 2008, but cell technologies has enhanced substantially since then”.
“We have identified a new cell that has 31 per cent far more energy than the original Roadster cell.”
By escalating the Roadster’s range to more than 400 miles, Tesla believes it has partly resolved a crucial issue for electric autos – also handful of charge points on long distance routes.
“We can accomplish a predicted 40-50 per cent improvement on variety in between the original Roadster and Roadster three.,” explained the spokesperson. “We have long been excited to apply our studying back to our very first car, and are thrilled to do just that with the prototype Roadster 3. package.”
Other improvements consist of a kit for reducing wind resistance and newly developed tires and wheel bearings, which each have been refined to cut the quantity of power that’s lost when the vehicle’s tires are rolling.
Tesla stated the new battery pack would be offered to the public after it finishes security validation in spring 2015.