Tesla Model 3s

The Californian carmaker recently updated its configurator for the Model 3 and alongside listing an arrival time for the base model in early 2018. It also says the dual motor variant will land in Spring 鈥?8. In preparation for the arrival of the all-wheel drive Model 3s, Tesla has registered the VINs for at least 19 units with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Like the dual motor Tesla Model S and Model X, it is quite possible that the dual motor Model 3 will become the most popular variant. 5,000 to the price of the entry-level electric sedan. In October, a video emerged reportedly showing the Model 3 dual motor undergoing performance testing at the company鈥檚 track in Fremont, California. It鈥檚 not yet known how quick the variant will be but the rear-wheel drive model reaches 96 km/h in roughly 5.1 seconds. The dual motor model should, therefore, accelerate to the same mark in under 4.5 seconds.

The Tesla coil's primary and secondary coils are both inductors in electrical terms. When the current flowing through an inductor changes, it will create an opposing or reverse voltage. A sparking plug in a car is a basic spark gap, its break-down voltage dependant on the electrode gap size. Once it conducts, hot ionized air in the gap gives it the ability to carry on, so long as a current is flowing. A good analogy for a capacitor is to think of it as a sponge, placed on spilt water and left to slowly soak it up. If left for a minute and then given a quick, hard squeeze, one minute's worth of soaking-up is instantly released in a fraction of a second. In a Tesla coil circuit this so called 'soaking-up' stage lasts only a few milliseconds, while the 'squeezing-out' can be a thousand times quicker in a few micro (millionths) of a second. The property of resonance is fundamental to the operation of Tesla coils.

A good analogy is a garden swing. If left to swing on its own it will do so at its resonant frequency, only slowing down due to friction and gravity. If you stand behind the swing and push it just as it swings away from you each time, it will get higher with each subsequent push. This is because you are adding power at, and only at, the correct time-point in the swing's cycle. You are therefore adding momentum at the same time interval as the swing's resonant frequency, this means the push you gave is in resonance with the swing. Resonance does not magically increase the amount of energy, it only facilitates its transfer. So if you're looking for tesla related, so-called 'free energy, or 'zero point' energy information, which some people seem to associate with tesla coils, this is not the site for you! If a capacitor is placed across an inductor and voltage applied, you will have a resonant circuit. As the capacitor discharges, it sends current into the inductor that stores this as energy in its magnetic field. But as the capacitor discharges, the current into the inductor also diminishes.

This causes its magnetic field to collapse and generate an opposing voltage back into the capacitor, allowing the cycle to start all over again. The number of times that this 'back and forwards' cycle happens per second, is the circuit's resonant frequency, expressed in Hertz (Hz). Using different capacitance and inductance gives different frequencies. Note: Because of resistive losses the current reduces every cycle down to zero. There is NO such thing as free energy! In the circuit of Fig 1 above, the capacitor ('C') is charged up by a high voltage source, like my example of the sponge soaking up water. Once the capacitor attains a high enough voltage the spark gap fires and conducts (Fig 2 below). The spark gap is now a short-circuit that completes the resonant circuit (shown in red) of the primary inductor and capacitor. The spark gap firing is virtually an instantaneous discharge of the capacitor energy into the inductor and is like my earlier example of the sponge being instantaneously squeezed out.