Tesla may not need to have a tri-motor setup powering its upcoming Roadster electric sports car. The manufacturer’s electric propulsion technology has advanced since the model was announced and with its new motor with carbon-wrapped rotor is smaller than older units, yet it is capable of delivering superior RPMs and thus better performance too.

Electrek points to new tweets from Tesla CEO Elon Musk who recently gave more details on what exactly the advantages of this new powertrain tech are, and he even alluded to the possibility that even more performance is just over the horizon for the Roadster. He said

The Plaid carbon-wrapped motor is arguably the most advanced motor on Earth outside of maybe a lab somewhere. We have to keep some secrets! We have a few ideas for increasing torque & max rpm even further for new Roadster. Definitely fun & exciting engineering ahead!

This to us sounds like the new carbon-wrapped rotor tech has more to give and that for the Roadster it will offer even more performance than it does in today’s Plaid model. Musk also pointed out what exactly the upsides of this new tech are. He said that the

Main advantage of this is a much stronger EM field compared with a rotor that is held together by metal (usually high strength steel). Other advantage is that rotor can go to higher RPM, as carbon sleeve (mostly) stops copper rotor from expanding due to radial acceleration.

Fiber is wound over rotor at high tension load. Machine to do this was made by Tesla Automation.Carbon sleeve must put copper rotor in compression or it loosens at low temp due to differential thermal expansion. Preload is also helpful for maintaining precise gap to stator.

Tesla delayed the Roadster until sometime in 2022 (we don’t know exactly when). Engineering work on the model should be concluded this year, though, and the last time Musk mentioned this he seemed certain the company would have a drivable release candidate by the end of this summer. This was in late January of this year and since then no additional information on when the Roadster will be ready was provided.

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