Dyno Test Shows Tesla Model 3 Standard Range+ Is Faster Than Model 3 Long Range Above 65 mph!

August 22nd, 2019 by Kyle Field

Jesse over at Mountain Pass Performance picked up a Tesla Model 3 Standard Range+ to fiddle with, and a few dyno tests confirmed that the lighter weight of the SR+ does indeed result in a faster car than the Model 3 Long Range at speeds over 65 miles per hour.

At higher speeds, the lighter weight of the SR+, estimated to be around 300 pounds lighter than the Model 3 LR, and its comparable power make for an impressive car for daily driving or track use. “Since the SR+ is around 10% lighter, the SR+ ends up actually being the faster car above 65mph! In the graph below you can see exactly what we are talking about,” Sasha said.

After running a number of tests on the Model 3 SR+, Sasha speculated that the flat power output from the SR+ over a broader range of speeds was due to some additional tweaks made by Tesla. Those changes give the car a much flatter power curve up front, resulting in a steady power output at lower speeds that then drops off in parallel to the normal power curves of the LR cars. Sasha speculated that, “while the Long Range car has a bunch more power at low speed (up to 60mph), once the Long Range runs out of battery voltage and falls into field weakening, both the LR and the SR+ have very similar power levels when comparing at the same SOC.”

The other option is that the power curves of the SR+ show the car hitting two different limiting factors, one after the other. The first, that results in the flatter power curve, could be a limitation on the power side, where the car simply can’t pull as much power as the Model 3 LR from its smaller battery pack. Farther along, the inverter becomes the limitation, resulting in the curve dropping off to follow the normal power curve drops we have seen in the Model 3 LR.

The dyno results above show the power (PWR) and torque (TQ) results on the SR+ at different states of charge. The flat power bands at lower RPMs/speeds are very clear to see here, with a shift to a different curve at 7,000 to 9,000, depending on the state of charge.

The results were documented in a full blog post that has all the juicy details (for all you dyno nuts out there). They also put together a video of some of the dyno runs and results, if that’s more your speed. Either way, these results should get Model 3 Standard Range+ owners excited about the performance of their rides.











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