What makes Tesla different from any other car makers out there?

Let’s run back down the timeline to 1996 when the first mass production electric car was made by General Motors called the EV1. Just over a 1000 units were produced but this saga ended in a controversy. Abundance of fossil fuel and ample research and development in IC (internal combustion engines) overpowered the idea of investing in electric cars at that time. The technology to produce EV deviated too much from the mainstream research then.  Furthermore, the battery, electric motors were not successful enough to act as a viable alternative  to conventionally gas powered cars. 

Now let’s come back to 2008 when Tesla released  its first car,  the famous Tesla roadster. Although it wasn’t as successful as anticipated, it proved to be a decisive and critical  first step for Tesla in its journey towards being the world’s most advanced, valuable, and successful EV manufacturers of all time. Failures of  Roadster provided valuable lessons, allowing Tesla to come up with improved and more efficient designs in the future.  Aforementioned combined with the competent leadership of Tesla CEO Elon Musk paved the company’s path to success. 

One of the biggest challenges was battery technology. Earlier in the day, electric motors were unsuitable for faster speed and larger mileage. Thus, Tesla had  to come up with an advanced battery that could provide both range and performance. 

Electric motors are known to have a linear torque graph across all the rpms unlike IC engines that have a peak torque at a specific rpm. Basically, the moment you floor the throttle you’ll be hugged by the seats and it just gets faster and faster. (Trust me, this feels amazing!) Now, since we have a fewer number of non-stationary parts compared to gasoline cars, Tesla vehicles have more than abundant space both in trunk and frunk (front trunk). One of the very important factors that affects the performance and handling of a car is the positioning of centre of mass. The battery pack, a structural part of the car packed into the floor of the vehicle, opening the doors for lower center of gravity. The performance has been so mind boggling that it could take on the fastest car in production on the planet – Bugatti Chiron (with W16 quad turbo setup). Now we have the battery performance, vehicle performance and practical enough to store your luggage. Not to forget to mention the design is one of the lowest drag coefficient cars ever made with highest safety ratings. When you’re going that fast you need to cut through air like a knife to move efficiently without any losses and maximum safety. So the recipe for perfect EV is ready. What next? We need a network of gas stations to charge your electric car wherever you go. Tesla simultaneously focused on creating  a network of supercharger stations across the world. You never have to worry about your vehicle being dead with more than 30,000 superchargers across the world. Doing something so extensive in a limited span of time is something only Tesla was capable of. This organization is bringing the change in vehicular industry and challenging automotive giants like VW, Toyota, GM and Ford. 

Today the whole automotive industry is shifting towards electric vehicles. It practically becomes easier for the late joiners because all the first challenges and difficulties were faced by Tesla and resolved. Each company innovates on some tweaks but relies on the same fundamental infrastructure of battery packs in the floor and direct motors drive. Tesla vehicles represent less of cars and more of gadget on wheels. 

Let’s talk about technology. Autonomous driving or what we call FSD (Full Self Driving) capabilities. Apart from performance, range and storage. Tesla is focused on autonomous driving using a very sophisticated network of ‘eyes’ (Radar, Lidar, camera and GPS) across the vehicle to know in real time where it is driven. Coupled with AI (Artificial intelligence) to further process what it sees and drive it for you. Just like a human driver that becomes better at driving over time, Telsa learns from surroundings for improved FSD everytime you take it out on the road. Such powerful hardware equipped with ground breaking software is what makes Tesla, T E S L A today. The name is a benchmark in EV and engraved forever in the history of Automobiles.

What is Active Aerodynamics?

 

We all have heard about the term Aerodynamics so far, if not I have an article shared previously click here to get some basic idea about it. Coming back to today’s topic “Active Aerodynamics”.  The term active itself coins the meaning that includes something which is active, something that moves or changes, which makes changes in Aerodynamics.

The technology is not new, but recently introduced in Automotive world. We have all been in an airplane at least once and preferred to sit on a window seat to gaze at the world from a height. But at that point if you notice the flaps on the airplane wings are constantly in motion, making symmetric movement to change the direction, altitude or speed of that aircraft. The concept behind this is to constantly change the lift, drag and force by moving the mechanical or physical components as per requirement.

 

Well this was the utilization of Active Aerodynamics in an airplane, question arises why do we use them in cars? They don’t fly. The answer lies in the limitation of power generated and weight of a hyper car. We have made as big engines as we could using all available technology to churn out the maximum power to weight ratio. We have used all the lightest material we could to reduce the weight of a hyper car. After reaching the limits of these factors, one thing that was still hinder the top speed achievement of a hyper car was air. How to cut the air in such a way that minimum drag is produced. Aerodynamics till date were designed only assuming the car achieving top speed in straight line. But practically that is not the case as we lap on race track, carving corners at high speed was the next big agenda. As we all know the car while turning faces different forces on different sides and also the wheel travels differs from outer wheel to inner wheel. This also means that the air in that region also reacts differently on each side of the car while negotiating a corner.

 

Hence a solution was pulled out by adding movable minimum parts in front spoiler (splitter) and rear spoiler (wing) computer operated at fraction of second programmed to move as per corner requirement to cut the air in such a way that it reduced drag in the most optimum way but also gives added benefits such as more stability, reduction in roll over, increased traction and as a result increased speed round the corner where the car feels more planted to the asphalt. Some deflect air to reduced drag, while others direct air to engine compartment for cooling, some focuses to throw air in intake, some of them focuses on cooling brakes and the possibilities are endless.

 

This how technology borrowed from aircraft helps us to increase the potential of already super-fast cars currently available on grid. Some of the largest automobile giants mentioned below have introduced these in their top notch supercars lineup.

• Lamborghini
• Ford
• Porsche
• Koenigsegg
• Zenvo
• Pagani
• Ferrari