He's not getting any more modest, Elon Musk, the head of Tesla, although two global companies like Toyota and Mercedes have pulled out on him. On the contrary, last week he once again, promised a small revolution. After all, he can do things like this and distribute them as software, without the owners of the cars even noticing it, namely as a software update from the data-cloud. Updates like this are also possible for other vehicles, only not as easily done. In addition, the expression 'cloud' makes pretty cool advertising.

Whatever the case may be, Musk promises to end all the fears about his electric cars getting stuck on the road. What is meant of course, is a better linking of the navigation system with the energy planning. This software-update however, should also make possible the semi-automatic parking of the car. After leaving the parking lot, one has to manually take over the steering again. We will see …



The new all-wheel drive promises more excitement, at least for the HP- and E junkies. Unfortunately at almost € 25.000 (USA 22.176 Dollars), the additional electric front-wheel drive is not cheap. After all, as far the batteries are concerned and thus the range, not much has changed. On the contrary, compared with the larger S-model it has even been reduced. However, this reduction of just under 5%, shows that these electric cars don't take the all-wheel drive and the motor-doubling amiss, as long as one doesn't use it.

By the way, the above video shows, that the smaller motor, together with it's converter, is built up completely differently to the motor in the rear. Accordingly, the description Dual Drive is correct, indeed, it doesn't say enough about the, compared with a combustion engine, latent acceleration potential of the new one. I.e., the 930 Nm don't completely indicate the ability of this car. Since it doesn't matter how strong a vehicle with a combustion engine is, it follows a curve, e.g. when starting off, and loses a little when changing gears, regardless of how fast the gear changing is.

If then the grip can be thus controlled, like with an electric motor, if one doesn't have to differentiate between fast and slow torque changes, then with the same amount of Newton meters, the electric car is still faster. What the batteries and above all, their rest-capacity, has to say about that, is a different story all together. The development target of the electric all-wheel drive, was actually the traction on snow. However, just how well even the normal Model S behaves can be seen in the video below. 03/15