rrattie said:
When I saw that the first thing I thought of was "If you put one of those in the B would we see a jump in range?"
Yes it will. However, replacing the current drive unit will require some custom work, and the burden of buying a Model 3 motor assembly.
Probably not a financially sound move for the anticipated 12 - 15% gain in range.
Thinking out loud, wouldn't upgrading the high voltage battery pack be a better move?
Mercedes-Benz B-Class ED has a 36 kWh pack, but only 28kWh are available (thus only 80% capacity is available, to increase the battery life expectancy)
So in round numbers the B250e battery pack is half the size of Tesla's smallest Model S battery. Can the B250e accommodate a bigger pack? Or, bigger cells?
Tesla Battery background:
Tesla has been using 18650 cells manufactured by Panasonic in Asia in the Models S and X cars since 2013. These are small battery cells, slightly larger than the standard AA cells. The Tesla cylindrical cells are 18 mm in diameter and 65 mm tall.
Model S battery packs contains 7,104 18650 cells in 16 444 cell modules capable of storing up to 85 kWh of energy. In 2015 Panasonic altered the anode design, increasing cell capacity by about 6%, enabling the battery packs to store up to 90 kWh of energy. More recently, Tesla engineers reconfigured the internals of the battery pack to hold 516 cells in each module for a total of 8,256 cells capable of storing a little more than 100 kWh of energy.
Tesla has built a large battery factory in Sparks, NV near Reno called Gigafactory 1 that is now producing a new cell design called the 2170 because it is 21 mm in diameter and 70 mm high used in the Model 3 sedan. The 2170 design is 46% larger in volume than the 18650 and 10-15 % more energy efficient than the 18650 cells, according to J. B. Straubel, CTO of Tesla.
Peter,
