- The Tesla Plaid has a screamin' 0 to 60 time
of 1.99 seconds.
The thing is,
electric conversions have been beating that time
for over a decade.
So today we're gonna figure out how you could possibly
take an internal combustion engine car
and convert it into an EV to beat a Plaid.
Let's go!
(upbeat music)
- Big thanks to off the record for sponsoring today's video.
Happy Thanksgiving.
While you and the family are watching the big game,
the police are out there serving hot and fresh tickets
like it's grandma's stuffing,
but unlike grandma's stuffing,
you don't have to eat the cost of a ticket
just to be polite.
Down, down, down, download the off the record app,
and they'll connect you with a local trustworthy attorney
to fight the ticket on your behalf.
Off the record of successfully contested
over 70,000 tickets.
So their money back guarantee makes sense.
Unlike the raisins in grandma's stuffing.
Who puts the raisins in there?
Register now and use code DONUT
to save 10% off your first ticket
at OFFTHERECORD.com/DONUT.
(chiming music)
- If he didn't know,
electric powered cars aren't new to going fast.
With their instant torque,
electric motors are great for acceleration
and homemade EV conversions have been running Plaid times
for almost a decade.
That's 10 years.
So why isn't every enthusiast converting their mom's minivan
into electric drag monster?
Well, just like the Plaids amazing acceleration figures,
there are one or two asterisks attached to the built,
not bought plan.
To understand why let's start with a closer look
at the technology that produces the Plaids
of ludicrous acceleration.
♪ Got my twin Glock, 40's. ♪
When we made our original episode about the Plaid,
we discovered something surprising
about the figures Tesla is claiming.
They're all true.
If you want to nerd out about the Plaid a bit more,
click here,
but the foundation for all that speed boils down
to two parts.
You've got the motors driving the wheels,
and the batteries powering the motors.
Now the Plaid has three electric motors,
each capable of producing 340 horsepower
at 350 pound feet of torque.
Specifically, these are three phase induction motors,
and each has two main parts.
You got a stator that remains stationary,
and you got a rotor that rotates.
See that.
Whoever invented that was a wise cookie.
He wasn't trying to convince you
where it's like the opposite of stuff.
You want to be here, wanna think on your feet.
What's something that means the opposite of something?
The stator is a bunch of copper wire
coiled along three separate paths.
An alternating electrical current
is passed through each end of those three paths,
but out of phase with each other.
That's why it's called three phase.
Alternating current changes magnitude
and direction periodically
so it can be represented by a waveform.
The period is the wave length.
The height on the Y axis is the magnitude,
and the direction also known as the polarity
is shown by whether the wave is above or below the X axis.
If you add two more electrical currents
that reach their peak magnitude at different times,
those currents are out of phase with the first.
That means in a three-phase stator,
the electrons are passing along the wires
at slightly different times.
And the combined effect of that
is a rotating magnetic field.
Inside the stator is the rotor.
Now this has a central output shaft,
which is surrounded by metal bars.
Rotors like this are sometimes called a squirrel cage,
because a long time ago,
that was another term for what we call a hamster wheel,
or what we call in the south,
frickin' squirrel cage.
Guys, leave a comment down below,
thanking me for getting out of Florida.
But a rotor would make a pretty crappy hamster wheel
because each of the bars is slightly twisted.
So they're not parallel to the output shaft.
Positioning the bars that way means
that the rotating magnetic field produced by the stator
induces a flow of electrical current in the bars,
causing the whole structure to rotate.
If you ever get confused,
just try to think about this.
You have electrical current,
that's put through a wire,
that's creating a magnetic field.
When you phase that current,
you get a rotating magnetic field.
When you have a rotating magnetic field,
that's the same as taking a magnet
and moving it over a wire.
So that induces current.
Those two magnetic fields interact with each other,
producing a force that causes the rotor to spin.
One of the benefits of using an induction motor
is that the stator and rotor don't need to be
in physical contact for the flow of electricity
to produce rotation.
Since they aren't touching,
they aren't creating friction,
and that means an induction motor can spin very quickly.
The previous model S motors were capable of 18,000 RPM,
but because Teslas don't have a transmission,
the motors have to spend fast
to create the wheel speed necessary
for record breaking acceleration.
18,000 wasn't good enough for the plaid.
Oh no.
So to get its motors up to 20,000 RPM,
Tesla had to get fancy.
- And talking about some of the sort of details behind it.
It's something we're really proud of
is the new carbon-sleeved rotors for the motor.
So this is the first time that, to the best of our knowledge
has been a production electric motor
that has a carbon over wrap rotor.
Carbon and copper have at very different
rates of thermal expansion.
So in order to do a carbon over wrap rotor,
you've got to wind it at extremely high tension.
It's a very hard thing to do.
We actually had to design the machine
that makes the rotor.
And it's single speed from zero to 200 miles an hour.
So it's just like the carbon over wrap
actually holds the rotor,
basically holds the rotor together.
It's like madness.
- That's because there's centrifugal force at 20,000 RPM
is trying to expand the squirrel cage,
and the carbon fiber sleeve prevents it
from punching through the stator.
That adds cost, of course,
but it's hard to argue with the results.
It combined power output of 760 kilowatts, 1020 horsepower,
and 1050 pound feet of torque.
Of course, to actually get those motors spinning fast
and making power,
a lot of electrical current needs to be sent
through the stator.
To accomplish that, the Plaid's battery includes 7,920
individual cells,
which store a 100 kilowatt hours of juice,
but having a big battery that can hold a lot of charge,
doesn't guarantee speed.
Obviously the size of your fuel tank,
doesn't determine your zero to 60.
Unless you have a really big and heavy fuel tank.
It's like lot of fuel and it's like really big and heavy.
Like something we're probably very familiar with,
us and me, and you,
and people who are familiar with the show.
You know, like just something that's like,
what is something that's like super, super
like big?
Your mom.
The Plaid's battery also needs to be able to send
a lot of electrical energy to the motors all at once.
That's down to the batteries amperage.
The amperage of an electrical device,
like a charger or battery
describes how much current it can flow at a time.
The flow of electricity is a bit like water.
So consider a garden hose and a fire hose.
The pressure of the water coming out would be like voltage.
The amount of water is the amperage.
That's why you'll hear people say,
it's not the volts that kill you, it's the amps.
But that's not really true,
'cause you have to have both of them.
They're mutually exclusive.
In fact, a current as low as 50 milliamps
can stop your heart,
but only if the source has enough voltage
to overcome the resistance of your body,
or about 17 volts.
A home charging station for an EV
like Tesla's wall charger
has an output of 48 amps at 240 volts.
So you should definitely not take one apart
and start licking stuff.
The Plaid's battery has an output of 2300 amps at 462 volts.
That's how it can keep those three motors spinning
up to 20,000 RPM.
But to do that,
the Plaid still needs two more things.
A sexy driver and a sexy passenger.
The battery and all the conduits
that send electricity to the motors have to be cold
to provide maximum current.
Temperature determines how well
a material conducts electricity.
So the Plaid doesn't use
a glycol and water field cooling system with a radiator
like in an ordinary car.
Instead it uses a refrigerant based system
and heat exchangers that work more like air conditioning.
Tesla's cooling system is estimated
to provide six to seven tons of cooling.
In case you're wondering what a ton of cooling is.
That's the amount produced by one ton of ice.
Also all that juice in the battery,
well that's stored as direct current,
and that means the Plain needs not one,
but two types of electrical converters.
One AC to DC converter
to get electricity from the charger to the battery,
and a DC to AC inverter
for each motor to convert the power from the battery.
Not only does that have to create the three phases
of alternating current,
that the inducts your motor needs,
they also need to control the flow of that current
based on a requested vehicle speed,
and they need a high enough power capacity
to provide all the electricity
those motors need to reach 20,000 RPM.
The motors, the battery, the cooling,
and the sophisticated power inverters
make the Tesla Plaid sound like a miracle
of cutting edge EV technology,
which it is.
So do you need cutting edge EV technology
to beat it in a drag race?
No, no you don't.
If we did,
we wouldn't be making a video
for all the poor enthusiasts out there.
We're here for you guys.
That's what we're here for.
You see a huge reason why the Plaid needs all that tech
and over a thousand horsepower to accelerate
at its record pace
is because it's huge.
4,766 pounds.
You think I'm gonna do two fat mom jokes in one episode,
no way buster.
Love fat mamas,
but Tesla needs to listen up.
Not everyone needs four doors,
a comfortable and luxurious interior
with lots of sound deadening,
or the latest self-driving technology.
If you've got grit from a SIF suspension and big sticky
tires,
a flat torque curve that you get with an electric motor,
and no gear ratios to worry about,
acceleration boils down to power and weight.
The Plaid has a power to weight ratio
of one horsepower for every 4.7 pounds.
That means if you want to make your own EV to beat it
in a drag race,
that's the number you got to shoot for.
And it's already been done.
Many, many times.
Turns out there's an entire international community
of enthusiasts who've been building fast EV's for decades.
Just like their dyno burning cousins,
EV drag racers have their own competition events
in a sanctioning body called
National Electric Drag Racing Association or NEDRA.
They were so close to just being nerda,
and that would been (beep) sick.
It turns out that in 2013
an electric Mazda Miata called assault and battery
ran the quarter mile faster than the Plaid
at just 9.12 seconds.
A year later,
that same car was a first Ev conversion
to break the nine second barrier
completing a run just 8.9 seconds
with a zero to 60 of 1.5 seconds.
Assault and battery used batteries and controllers
capable of delivering 2000 amps to its electric motors.
And those motors made a combined 1,335 pound feet of torque
at the wheels.
Prices on EV equipment have been steadily dropping,
but even back in 2014,
the total cost to build assault and battery
was just 30 grand.
So there you have it.
The way to beat a Plaid at the drag stuff
really is built, not bought.
And at less than quarter of the price too.
For the first time in B2B history,
something turned out a lot cheaper than we expected.
Pretty good, pretty frickin' good.
Unfortunately, they're just like one or two
like little details that make winning
with a car like assault and battery
feel a bit like cheating.
First is record breaking times were on drag slicks,
not street tires.
Speaking of street,
it also wasn't street legal.
It's not really something that could be driven
to and from the track like a Plaid,
or like something from the pro street conversion class,
where the cars do need to have current registration,
license plates, and insurance.
So does built, not bought lose the battle?
Frickin' heck no man.
We're not letting Elon win this one.
If you want to be the first person to build an EV
that beats the Plat fair and square,
all you need to do is fight fire with fire.
Here's what you do.
You go get yourself a Tesla model S motor
capable of 400 kilowatts for just 12 grand.
Each one of those weighs 275 pounds.
It makes combined 1070 horsepower.
You put that into the internal combustion chassis
of your choice,
and then you should get a good ol' power to weight ratio
that you can step on the Plaid with.
Of course,
you'll still need a battery to make all that work.
So maybe the big brain move,
which is just wait and buy a reg Plaid,
put that drive line in an all wheel drive Pontiac 6000,
and you should have no trouble beating the Plaid
at the strip,
and riding home in style.
We did it guys.
We figured it out.
That's what this is gonna be in a few years.
Come back at 20 years,
and you're going to be like yo,
they're doing sick swaps like this.
Jerry Barry was the first one to say it.
I wasn't the first,
but you know.
Thank you guys so much for watching this episode of B2B.
If you like the stuff we do,
please subscribe and like.
That really helps us out.
It's a freeway to let us know that we're doing good.
So we appreciate it.
We love you guys so much.
We thank you for watching.
Follow us on Instagram @donutmedia,
follow me @JeremiahBurton,
and until next week.
Bye for now.