Tesla Used A Third of All Electric-Car Batteries Last Year

cartechboy writes "We've heard about Tesla building this new gigafactory to produce battery packs for its electric cars. Heck, the company's current bottleneck is its ability to get battery packs for its electric cars. In fact, last year Tesla used a bit more than one-third of the auto industry's electric-car batteries, and that was with only selling 22,477 cars last year. Tesla is expanding its model lineup as quickly as possible with the introduction of the Model X crossover next year and a compact sports sedan in 2017. With the rapid expansion of its vehicle line, Tesla is going to need a crazy amount of battery packs, and quickly. Thus, the Silicon Valley upstart is building the gigafactory to engineer and produce battery packs in much larger quantities. If Tesla can remove the battery production bottle neck it's currently facing, the only question left will be market acceptance of a mainstream electric car."

Comments

Consumer acceptance?

[BoRegardless]

Let's see about the benefits.

No cooling water
No oil
No flammable liquid fuel
No brake fluid
No grease
No "fan" belts
No noise of consequence
No engine and drive train with 2000 parts
No internal combustion engine repairs/adjustments
Very low brake pad usage (unless you are 18 years old)

Re:Consumer acceptance?

[bgarcia]

No cooling water
No brake fluid

Don't go crazy. There is still brake fluid in an electric car. And they still have radiators of various types for cooling purposes.

YGTBFKM

[Overzeetop]

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

"Right now, the ONLY thing that is preventing me from getting a Tesla is that I have to travel longer than 500 miles a few times a year, and renting a car for a week, three times a year is too expensive an option."

Renting a car for $500/pop three times a year is "too expensive" for a guy who has no problem dropping $90,000 on a car? I could see that the inconvenience might be a reason, but cost? We rented a mini-van a couple times a year for our family vacations because the sedan wasn't big enough. NBD.