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Should I Buy the Tesla Model S P85 or Standard 85kWh?
It is, perhaps, the biggest question many prospective hand-wringing owners of the Model S wrestle with – should I get the Tesla Model S P85 or stick to the Standard version?
After all, once you’ve talked yourself up the first $10k from a 60kwh to an 85kwh battery, what’s another $12K or so for the Performance version?
And if you don’t pay for the upgrade to the more powerful drivetrain, WILL YOU REGRET IT LATER?! Want to know the bottom line? My journey to owning the Model S led me to ask the following questions: Will you regularly drive over 180 miles/day? Will you use the Tesla for a road trip car? If the answer to both those questions is “No”, get the 60 kWh. Period. Done.
The 60 has comparable real world performance to the 85 and reportedly feels even more spirited because of less battery weight (though ballasted to match an 85, the ballast is apparently located differently somehow, according to reports from people who have driven both). The 60 is a superb in-town commuter car or medium distance tourer (with destination charging). If either those questions are answered with a “Yes”, get the 85kWh. By the time you pay the extra $2k to enable the Supercharging option on a 60 you’ve already started toward an 85 anyway. Like the evil dojo master in Karate Kid said, “Finish him!” Get an 85. Now don’t go crazy right to the P85+, let’s look at the upper extreme first.
The P85+ is apparently designed solely for the purpose of destroying tires – rear tires – every 5,000 miles or less. Unless you’re coming from a high performance car or plan to enjoy track days, fuggeddaboutit. It’s basically an even more expensive version of the P85 with staggered tires and other suspension tricks. Real world, this is overkill and more about badge ego than useful value (for the vast majority of non-professional racing drivers).
Speaking of real world, the performance difference for the P85 and the S85 exists primarily in one place: 0-30mph. That’s it. From 30mph and up they are virtually identical and both will silently roar around slower traffic with equal capability. Originally the Tesla Model S P85 upgrade only came with some other standard features that are a mixed bag (to me). Thankfully Tesla has decided to allow buyers the option of upgrading only the drivetrain. Still, that presents some problems. A P85 with the 19″ wheels just overwhelms them. Remember the only performance advantage it has is 0-30mph and that requires grip to actually enjoy it. For a variety of reasons (but chief among them rolling resistance and wind resistance) Tesla’s tires are taller rather than wider to increase their contact patch. A traditional sports sedan would get wider tires to increase grip but the Model S gets taller tires… ergo, a P85 on 19s just bounces off the traction control constantly. In a sunny climate that might not happen as often but here in pothole country you’ll get clunks and shudders from way back there at the wheels all the time as the traction control tries to reign in your lunacy. My friend Jake and I had several days with a silver loaner (read more about it here) and it was fun but also frustrating.
Unfortunately, if you’re living anywhere with four seasons you are NOT going to want to alleviate the traction problem by getting 21″ wheels. We have potholes. LOTS of them. BIG ones. And bridges with expansion joints that will turn those wheels into ovals. You know how when you go to the grocery store you always get a cart with that annoying wobbly wheel? Would you like to buy one for $90-100K? I didn’t think so. Speaking of expenses, many P85 owners report higher than average tire wear (regardless of wheel size).
I don’t know of a true head-to-head drag race video of all THREE versions of the Model S (60/85/P85)– amazed no one has done it yet– but the video above is very recent and posts a time faster than the Tesla website does. You can read more opinions on that video HERE.
Another recent video does offer a head-to-head of a standard Tesla Model S P85 vs S85 and you can see that after the first 30 feet or so, the S85 and the P85 match stride-for-stride. In fact, at the end of the 1/4 the trap speed on the standard 85 is actually higher. Skip ahead 26 seconds to catch the Tesla family feud.
One long-time P85 owner asserts the difference in launch speed really only exists at higher states of charge. As a result, maintaining that performance edge over the S85 requires more frequent and fuller charges of the main pack, potentially increasing long-term degradation. Ironically, the only times you really should charge the pack up to higher levels (for distance), you wouldn’t want to enjoy the harder launches because it would adversely affect your range.
So the S85 is a tad slower off the line. No one but a P85 owner is ever going to know that. And, frankly, the power delivery at launch is a lot smoother. The P85 is pretty brutal. Oh, it’s damn impressive– but it’s also jarring. I like the slightly tapered building on of WHOOSH that I get from the S85. I think it keeps my wife from realizing how often I’m toying with the other cars around us. James Bond, after all, wears a suit… not a karategi. <— brought that back to Karate Kid nicely, didn’t I? I have no idea why either.
Clearly I could go on and on about my configuration thought processes– and how they’ve evolved since taking delivery– but that’s a topic for another time. If you haven’t already read about my “Journey to Tesla” then check it out for some insights into how I got this car in my driveway and how you can too. It starts by clicking RIGHT HERE.
Read more at www.TeslaPittsburgh.com and check out the videos on our YouTube channel at www.YouTube.com/NZCUTR.
Tesla has spent years trying to engineer its way out of the automotive paint shop, one of the most expensive, space-consuming, and environmentally costly steps in vehicle manufacturing. With the Cybercab, Tesla confirmed on X this week that a new reaction injection molding process will embed color directly into the panel itself during production.
“Our new reaction injection molding (RIM) process shrinks Cybercab paint cycles from hours to minutes. This cuts those parts’ manufacturing and supply chain emissions by 35% and eliminating 100% of paint volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted in traditional paint methods.” noted Tesla.
While the RIM process isn’t necessarily new and has existed since the 1960s, what makes Tesla’s application notable is how it is being used specifically for exterior body panels that traditionally required a separate paint process after forming.
Tesla’s RIM approach integrates the color directly into the panel material during the molding process itself. The pigment is part of the polymer mix injected into the mold, meaning the panel comes out of the mold already colored, with no separate paint application required. The clear coat or protective layer can be applied at the mold stage or through a much faster post-process than traditional multi-stage painting. Tesla claims this compresses what was a multi-hour paint cycle into minutes per panel.
Tesla’s obsession with killing the paint shop is one of the most consistent threads running through the company’s manufacturing philosophy going back years. As far back as 2018, Musk was trimming paint color options to simplify production, tweeting at the time: “Moving 2 of 7 Tesla colors off menu on Wednesday to simplify manufacturing.” Two years later, in a 2020 Automotive News interview, Musk laid out his broader vision, saying he believed Tesla factories could one day be 1,000 times more efficient than conventional plants, and pointing to the paint shop as one of the biggest sources of waste, cost, and complexity. The Cybertruck was the most extreme expression of that thinking. Tesla chose an unpainted stainless steel exterior partly because it would eliminate the need for a $200 million paint facility at Gigafactory Texas. The stainless approach proved harder and more expensive than anticipated, but the underlying ambition never changed. The Cybercab is what happens when that same ambition meets a manufacturing process that delivers on it.
Lifestyle
Tesla app update makes Robotaxi ownership make a lot more sense
Tesla’s app now shows a live indicator when your car is actively driving itself.
A recent Tesla app update, released last week (4.58.5), gives visibility on whether a vehicle is navigating in its semi-autonomous mode or being drive by a human driver. The updated app now displays a live “Self-Driving” indicator in bright blue text directly beneath the vehicle’s speed readout whenever Full Self-Driving is actively engaged, along with the signature glowing blue navigation path that FSD users see on the main touchscreen. It is a small visual update with meaningful implications for how Tesla owners monitor their vehicles remotely.
The feature was first spotted in the wild by X user Jordan Camina, who shared video of a Hardware 3 Model S displaying the new animation through the app while driving. That detail is significant because it confirms the update is not limited to newer HW4 vehicles. It works across hardware generations, and Tesla confirmed it will eventually support all vehicles regardless of chip platform once both the app and vehicle software are updated. The vehicle side requires software version 2026.20.6.1, which has reached nearly 40% of the fleet so far, as monitored by NotaTeslaApp.
The feature makes the most practical sense when viewed through the lens of Tesla’s expanding robotaxi operation. In a robotaxi context, the owner of a vehicle generating ride revenue has a direct financial and safety interest in knowing whether their car is operating under autonomous control at any given moment. The app’s new FSD indicator gives fleet owners exactly that visibility, the same way a logistics company monitors whether a delivery driver is following the planned route. It also carries implications for Tesla’s insurance model. Tesla’s own insurance product prices premiums in part based on FSD engagement rates, and real-time visibility into when FSD is active creates a feedback loop that could eventually tie directly into policy pricing. For individual owners who have opted their personal vehicles into the robotaxi network, the update effectively turns the Tesla app into a fleet management dashboard, one that tells you whether your car is earning money, whether it is driving itself to do it, and whether everything is operating the way it should from wherever you happen to be.
Tesla expands Robotaxi to Florida, marking its third state for autonomy
As Teslarati has reported, Tesla launched unsupervised robotaxi rides in Miami this summer, a milestone that makes a remote FSD status indicator significantly more practical than a cosmetic feature. When a vehicle is operating as a robotaxi without a driver present, the owner or fleet operator needs a reliable way to confirm autonomy is engaged. The app now provides exactly that.
As noted by NotATeslaApp, The update also arrived alongside a hint buried in the same app version that Tesla plans to use the cabin camera to verify driver identity before FSD can be activated. Pairing identity verification with a live autonomy status indicator points toward the infrastructure Tesla is building for a fleet of driverless vehicles that owners can monitor the way you would track a package delivery.
Elon Musk
California snubs Tesla in its newly passed EV incentive that favors Rivian and Lucid
California passed a $135 million EV incentive that rewards Rivian and Lucid while sidelining Tesla
California just drew a line in the EV incentive sand to put Tesla on the wrong side of it. The state recently passed a $135 million program offering first-time electric vehicle buyers a direct incentive with no application required, but the rules were written in a way that leaves Tesla at a structural disadvantage compared to Rivian and Lucid.
The program caps eligible vehicles at $50,000 for new EVs and $25,000 for used ones. That pricing threshold rules out a significant portion of Tesla’s lineup, though some lower-priced Model 3 and Model Y configurations would still qualify. California-based automakers are exempt from the price cap entirely, regardless of what their vehicles cost. Rivian, headquartered in Irvine, and Lucid, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, both benefit from that exemption. Rivian’s R2 starts at roughly $45,000 but has versions above the cap. Lucid’s Air and Gravity start at $70,990 and $79,990 respectively, well above any threshold a non-California company would face.
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
Tesla built its reputation and a significant portion of its early market share in California, where EV adoption has consistently led the nation. The company operates its original factory in Fremont, California, and the state was home to Tesla’s headquarters for most of its existence. That changed in 2021 when Tesla moved its corporate headquarters to Austin, Texas. Since then, the relationship between the company and California Governor Gavin Newsom has been openly adversarial, with Musk and Newsom trading public criticism on multiple occasions.
California’s EV incentive landscape has shifted repeatedly in recent years, and Tesla has previously lost eligibility for state-level programs as its vehicles exceeded income-adjusted price thresholds. The federal $7,500 EV tax credit, which Tesla models have qualified for and lost depending on policy cycles, is no longer available after it expired without renewal, making state-level programs more meaningful to buyers than they have been in years.
The practical impact for buyers is more nuanced than the headline suggests. California residents purchasing a Tesla under $50,000 for the first time can still access the incentive. But the exemption written for California-based manufacturers is a structural advantage that rewards where a company plants its headquarters flag rather than where it builds its products, and Tesla moved that flag to Texas.
The secret behind Tesla’s Cybercab Gold goes well beyond just the color
Tesla app update makes Robotaxi ownership make a lot more sense
