[lastcyrol]

To expand on Kevin's post

The Tesla Model S/X 'small' front and 'small' rear drive units weigh ~90kg and produce ~220kW/~300HP peak.

That is the drive unit - it includes the reduction gearing, the diff and the inverter - 31Kg for the actual motor sounds about right looking at it

It doesn't sound right to me. But it is strange how the value 31 came up. If I were to make an estimation I would use good round numbers like 30 or 40.

Anyway. In that assembly, I would expect the controller to weight not more than 20 kg., and even that seems too much for me. The reduction gearbox in that case would have to weight the remaining 40 kg. (39 to keep up with the exact number for the motor) . But this seems way too much for just one stage transmission. A normal five-speed manual transmission (for FWD) would weight about the same, and that one would have five times more gears plus the reverse.

Has anyone ever disassembled a Tesla drive-train and measured the motor?

 

[lastcyrol]

I could argue about the need for massive transmission to handle high power. My understanding is, that mass is needed for handling high torque. With high rpm you kind of get the power for free. But I choose not to argue, because for whatever reason you could be perfectly right. I just wanted to share my doubts.

I couldn't watch the complete Model S teardown from the link, as I have no subscription, but I searched online and the closest I got was a statement from Musk, that the motor (no mentioning which one) alone was 70 lbs. This is where the number 31 seems to have come from. An other place was giving the number 350 lbs. for the "electric motor + inverter" and another 175 lbs. on the differential alone, that for Model S, but again not specifying which version.

The image of the inverter from the small drivetrain on the scale that you Duncan shared is something that no one could doubt, unless somebody is to notice that there is a writing on the scale that says "Max 5000g" on the left under the display, which reads 5979 g.

 

[lastcyrol]

You got me, I spent all day fabricating that image but missed the label on the scales... oh, its Kevin BTW

Kevin,
Please accept my sincere apology. I obviously was not paying attention to whom I was answering and who uploaded the pictures.

And i didn't mean to say the image was fabricated, but that the scale is overloaded, and probably the measured weight would be different on a scale that could carry, say 10 kg. But still, the image gives a good approximation on the inverter weight, so that one doesn't need to speculate about it.