Will range improve with time through software?

[Pherdnut]

I don't really have an idea of how long they've had to optimize their skateboard platform given how long Rivian was flying under the radar but it seems like Tesla has been getting improvements strictly from software tweaks every other year or so. Has anybody grilled an engineer at an event about this?

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[ajdelange]

With either an ICE vehicle or a BEV you can increase the range of the car by moving the E mark on the gas gauge. This is, of course, trivial to do in software.

With either an ICE vehicle or BEV you can increase the range by increasing the efficiency which is potentially doable in ICE by changing mixture, timing... which, in a modern ICE is done under software control. Similarly, there is potential efficiency gain in the dq algorithms in the motor control software. This is much harder to get than gain from moving E.

 

[CappyJax]

Yes, it is absolutely possible. Some of the energy used by the vehicle involves cooling the batteries, warming the batteries, running coolant, powering the steering, brakes, etc. Tweaks to these can increase range. Also, changes in how regenerative breaking is used could increase range as well. However, it won't a huge amount. A few percent is possible.

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