Tesla News: Continued Australian Expansion, Model S Smokes Dodge Hellcat

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Originally published on RenewEconomy.
By Sam Parkinson

Tesla is carrying on with its expansion into Australia with the opening of a centre kiosk in Melbourne’s Chadstone shopping centre. A service centre will also be up and running in the not too distant future in Richmond, conveniently positioned next to the Monash freeway.

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Tesla’s projected supercharger network for Australia. The dark area shows the range for 60kWh battery vehicles while the pale band shows the battery range for 85kWh vehicles. Claire Reilly/CNET

Tesla has already released its plan for a super-charging network on the east-coast of Australia which will begin rolling out this year, with all major cities on the east-coast to be connected by 2016.

Each station will be situated around 200km apart, allowing for those on the entry level model S with a 300km range to travel when fully charged.

Recently in Australia, orders for the next generation of Tesla, the CUV, are now open, with first deliveries expected in early 2016.

Meanwhile..check out this clip of a Model S demolishing a Dodge Challenger Hellcat.

Granted that the driver of the Dodge wasn’t the best, but would it really do much better even with a pro at the wheel?

And on the subject of performance, Tesla also announced a battery upgrade for the Roadster 3.0, its first vehicle.

The upgrade includes a new cell in the battery allowing for 31% more energy output than the original Roadster cell. New aerodynamics with a 15% improvement on the Cd (drag coefficient). A 20% improvement on the rolling resistance of the tyres is also part of the upgrade.

Heath Walker from Tesla notes: “Combining all of these improvements we can achieve a predicted 40-50% improvement on range between the original Roadster and Roadster 3.0. There is a set of speeds and driving conditions where we can confidently drive the Roadster 3.0 over 400 miles.”

Tesla will be demonstrating this in the real world during a non-stop drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Reprinted with permission.


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