Why Tesla Really Needs a Gigafactory

Hodejo1 (1252120) writes "Tesla has already put over 25,000 cars on the road with more to come and, presumably, most will still be running well past the 8-year battery warranty. What would happen if it is time to replace the battery pack on an old Model S or X and the cost is $25K? Simple, it would destroy the resale value of said cars, which would negatively affect the lease value of new Tesla automobiles. That's a big part of the real reason why Tesla is building its own battery factory. They not only need to ensure enough supply for new cars, but they have to dramatically bring down the price of the replacement batteries low enough so owners of otherwise perfectly running old Teslas don't just junk them. The Tesla Roadster was not a mass produced vehicle, so the cost of replacing its battery is $40K. The economies of scale of a gigafactory alone will drop battery costs dramatically. Heavy research could drop it further over the next decade or so."

Comments

Does the math work out?

[cripkd]

I mean if Tesla (and I'm a fan) needs to built its own ecosystem from scratch inside which their cars make sense economically for their customers, doesn't that mean that they need to put in more money than they make>
Is this viable? Something sounds like the old fable of pulling yourself up by your own hair.

Re:Does the math work out?

[Travis Mansbridge]

Expanding to related industries to lower internal costs is known as vertical integration and has been making industrialists rich for over a century.

Re:Does the math work out?

[ganjadude]

I would take a guess that they will make deals with other companies to sell batteries, hell tesla could in theory sell the car side of things to someone and simply focus on the batteries. I dont see them giving up on the cars, but a shif tin focus on batteries might be best for the industry on a whole

Re:Does the math work out?

[Cassini2]

GM and the other car makers do not make money on cars. These stats predate the collapse, but GM wasn't make any money manufacturing cars. GM was making money on financing. As such, GM didn't go broke until the banking crisis hit. Similarly, the auto dealers don't make money selling cars. They make money in add-ons and services (including repairs.) For instance, many dealers charge $200 dollars to transfer your ownership, over and above the charges at the DMV. These extra charges add up. I'm pretty sure the repair parts operation at a modern OEM makes far more than the original cars.

Re:Does the math work out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Similarly, the auto dealers don't make money selling cars.

Doesn't something like a Honda Civic cost a dealer 13-14k factory and the sell around 19k retail? Of course the factory charges a bit more but then give part of the money back once the dealership meets sales quotas and the like. I just find it a bit hard to believe dealerships don't make bank on cars. Many people but at the lowest priced dealer and don't come back to be upsold on other stuff.

Re:Does the math work out?

[Hognoxious]

Your savings will amount to the supplier's profit margin; effectively you're cutting out the middle-man by becoming the middle-man.

On the other hand, you could lose an amount approximately equal to the value of actually knowing what you're doing.

There's a reason most bakers don't grow their own wheat and mill their own flour.

Re:Does the math work out?

[St.Creed]

For a standard car maker, the dealers would have a wholesale price. This would mean about a 10-20% margin on the car at retail if the car had to be sold at low price in order to compete, or more if the care made a lof of money already. However, at best that just imburses the dealer for the time spent in the showroom, employees, marketing etc. - the bread, in other words. They really need the after sales for the butter.

Re:Does the math work out?

[ShanghaiBill]

Your savings will amount to the supplier's profit margin

You also avoid transaction costs, and guarantee availability.

There's a reason most bakers don't grow their own wheat and mill their own flour.

Wheat and flour and widely available commodities. Car batteries are not (yet) commodities, and are often sole sourced. If all the wheat in the world was grown by a single giant ag-corp, then it might make sense for a baker to grown his own.

Re:Does the math work out?

[ShanghaiBill]

Doesn't something like a Honda Civic cost a dealer 13-14k factory and the sell around 19k retail?

Only a dufus pays the sticker price. You can find dozens of crowd sourced websites that will tell you exactly what the "real" price is.

Many people but at the lowest priced dealer and don't come back to be upsold on other stuff.

They don't have to make money on every customer. They just have to make money on average. I bought a new mini-van last summer. I negotiated hard and got them to accept a low ball offer. Then my wife started adding on custom floor mats, a sun roof, in-dash GPS, backup camera, etc. The salesperson's smile just got wider and wider.

Re:Does the math work out?

[FatdogHaiku]

Something sounds like the old fable of pulling yourself up by your own hair.

That actually works but it has to be the hair located between the scrotum and the anus... half the population just doesn't have the balls for it and most of the rest just can't get a grip on the idea...

Seriously, states are giving huge tax breaks to attract business right now. In this economic climate it might even be possible to open a battery factory, although it would be cheaper in other countries. If you control production then the profit that would have gone to a manufacturer as well as a distributor is saved. Then you might save on shipping costs, if you chose to be responsible for that also. I would say build a factory near the Mexico border in AZ, NM, or TX and then put the battery factory a block away in Mexico. I skipped CA as they have made it very costly for anyone to work with things like battery components and metals.

Re:Does the math work out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lesson for you - don't take the wife to the dealership when buying a new car.

Re:Does the math work out?

[cahuenga]

There's a reason most bakers don't grow their own wheat and mill their own flour.

The new mythology: Unicorns, griffins and vertical integration

Re:Does the math work out?

[pauljlucas]

[M]any dealers charge $200 dollars to transfer your ownership....

What? But the dealer has no legal role in car ownership after the car is initially purchased. What happens if the new (or old) owner doesn't pay? (I've sold two previous cars and never paid the dealership anything.)

Re:Does the math work out?

[Anonymous Coward]

They do make money on cars, they make a lot more money of financing. Many people buy cars through their own banks or even in cash. Car companies don't benefit from that other than selling the car.

Re:Does the math work out?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the majority of bakers don't, the best high-end bakers do a first selection while the wheat is still growing to then choose the best dry grains from those select parcel. They usually work with craft mills to. The reason is that they know exactly the kind of flour they need for their specific needs.

Re:Does the math work out?

[Aighearach]

Many high end restaurants do in fact grow part of their own produce, especially if they have important ingredients that are of variable quality in the local market. Often they lease the field and the farmer, and give up the cost savings up front, in order to ensure quality and be "in charge" of that quality if a decision needs to be made.

Even with savings aside, this could really benefit Tesla because the battery market is driven by other industries with different needs.

Re:Does the math work out?

[Aighearach]

They are most likely adding additional capabilities, and not "shifting" any "focus" at all, in any way.

The real question here is what their attitude towards their EV competitors will be, and if they'll try to retain proprietary batteries, or push towards standards. If they want to stay proprietary, then they'll look to build traditional batteries with their excess capacity; if they want standards, they might just revolutionize the aftermarket and do-it-yourself at the same time.

Re:Does the math work out?

[Aighearach]

He better bring her with him to remember the GPS and backup camera, especially if she's not going to let him install it himself. And you really don't want to see what a do-it-yourself sunroof on a new car looks like. If you've done enough fiberglass to do the work, you've breathed too many fiberglass fumes to do the planning...

Re:Does the math work out?

[Aighearach]

[M]any dealers charge $200 dollars to transfer your ownership....

What? But the dealer has no legal role in car ownership after the car is initially purchased. What happens if the new (or old) owner doesn't pay? (I've sold two previous cars and never paid the dealership anything.)

You lose the warranty, or service agreement. Generally there are a whole bunch of "free" routine maintenance services that are already pre-paid as part of a service agreement, so that is what you're paying to transfer. Also there might be different prices for service for "members" or however they phrase it.

Re:Does the math work out?

[Aighearach]

sounds like the old fable of pulling yourself up by your own hair.

If your hair is long enough and you have pulleys in the right places, there is no problem at all with pulling yourself up by your hair.

Don't be scared off by the wrong problem, or let people confuse you with hair when you need a pulley. Even worse would be confusing vertical integration with hair, without consideration of pulleys or efficiency.

Re:Does the math work out?

[Anonymous Coward]

> If all the wheat in the world was grown by a single giant ag-corp, then it might make sense for a baker to grown his own.

We're.... not all that far away from this as near as I can tell.

Re:Does the math work out?

[Hognoxious]

As soon as I posted I figured somebody would bring that up. I'm sure there are photographers out there that apply home-made collodion to glass plates themselves and people who raise their own sheep to make jerseys from.

Relevance to the discussion, and to anyone other than hipsters? Zero.

Re:Does the math work out?

[DaTrueDave]

That's such a scary thought, but probably not far from being reality.

Re:Does the math work out?

[Hognoxious]

Many high end restaurants do in fact grow part of their own produce

By "many" you mean "about three", and they're all within 200 yards of Google HQ, where you find the kind of people who'd spend thirty bucks on an ethically sourced sustainable cress sandwich.

Even with savings aside, this could really benefit Tesla because the battery market is driven by other industries with different needs.

I'm not going to say that an electron is an electron, and there are probably trade-offs to be made in designing for, say, peak power versus overall efficiency. But there are plenty of battery powered vehicles out there already, and I remain to be convinced that the Tesla needs something that isn't already there.

From Steve Jobs' will:

... and to Elon Musk I leave my reality distortion field ...

Re:Does the math work out?

[DarwinSurvivor]

There's a reason most bakers don't grow their own wheat and mill their own flour.

Bakers, as in a single person, no. But when a company like General Mills makes food, they generally do mill their own flour. Its just more cost effective that way.

Re:Does the math work out?

[AaronW]

Often they make very little on the cars. Most of the money is on service and financing. Sometimes they lose money on the cars they sell. http://www.thisamericanlife.or... gives good insight as to what actually goes on with car dealerships and why they're the dirtbags they are.

Re:Does the math work out?

[thegarbz]

I'm pretty sure the repair parts operation at a modern OEM makes far more than the original cars.

Anecdote time. Note that this example uses a GM car but is representative of stories I've heard from other manufacturers. My father has a 2002 Holden Astra Convertible. About 4 years ago the hydraulic hoses that control the roof ruptured spraying oil everywhere. The car was taken to the Holden dealer who suggested we replace all 4 hoses. Cost of the OEM parts is $500 per rubber hose. Yes that's right, rubber hoses holding hydraulic fluid. Additionally it would be another $1000 for installation for a total cost of $3000 to replace 4 hoses. After a bit of searching he found a local hydraulic shop that manufactures and installs metal replacement hoses and will even fit it in the car for you. $300 for all 4 hoses installed.

A year later the latch that hooks into the roof (another plastic part) broke meaning the roof would close but never actually latch shut. Holden wanted $900 for the replacement part and again close to $1000 for installation. Another quick search turned up an engineering firm across the country which manufactured the same part out of steel, 2 for $200, and a local garage installed it for another $200.

Yes it's just an anecdote but due to two minor failures GM would have essentially charged 50% of the second hand value of the entire car to replace a handful of crap quality plastic parts.

Re:Does the math work out?

[swb]

After a bit of searching ...
Another quick search
How many hours, exactly, did he spend researching both issues? How much extra driving, phone calls, research, etc? How much auto repair know-how does he already have?

It's not like running around for two weeks looking for third party parts and installers is 'free'. A very large part of the price of the dealer is the fact that, yes, they do have access to everything for your specific car and the knowhow to diagnose and fix it the first time and in a timely fashion.

You're paying more for that convenience and so are most people. Cars are a huge headache and not having a working car is a worse headache, so people are willing to spend money to reduce the headache.

Re:Does the math work out?

[ShanghaiBill]

That's such a scary thought, but probably not far from being reality.

Get a grip. Wheat is grown commercially in more than 80 countries, by nearly 100 million farmers. That is about as far from being a monopoly as is possible.

Re:Does the math work out?

[thegarbz]

I mean what I say.

It was less than an hour on the computer. When you produce a car with cheap plastic parts which crap out on their owners there's going to be complaints. In both cases online forum posts found via Google had the answer. He doesn't know anything about car repair, only that a rubber hose sprayed oil everywhere and that a plastic part which two metal latches hook into had a massive crack through it.

I understand your point, but to the savy internet user a 2x markup on costs would have been beyond the breakeven point, but we're talking significantly more than that.

Most of these kinds of problems are not the type that make your car undrivable, just expensive to have working properly. If a cheap plastic part with ludicrous markups wreaked the engine you would likely hear about recalls and lawsuits rather than simple anecdotes, and when it is an engine problem there are many workshops who are far better than the original manufacturers you can take it to.

My car is due for a timing belt shortly. The Toyota workshop is walking distance from my house and I'm not even considering taking it there.

Re:Does the math work out?

[drinkypoo]

Holy shitballs, batman. Even on an Audi A8 the transmission lines are only four hundred bucks. They only list one part so apparently that's both of them and you buy them together.

On the other hand, the Chevy dealer wouldn't sell me door handles, they wanted to sell me door handle mechanisms. 2000 Astro, a thousand bucks in door handles. I got the handles on eBay for ten to twenty bucks a piece depending on placement. So I guess Chevy really is worse than Audi

Re:Does the math work out?

[orasio]

I live in Uruguay.
We export lots of soy and wheat.
In the most productive lands, Cargill sells seeds, finances, rents machinery, and buys the result. Of course, farmers are independent, but Cargil controls the price, and what they grow. From the outside, it's as if they _are_ the producer.
Something very similar happens in parts of Argentina.

Monsanto has a large presence here, also.

It's not a long shot to think that they might end up managing all our crops, if they tried really hard.

Re:Does the math work out?

[operagost]

These stats predate the collapse

Yes. These stats are useless. GM spun off the financing. They are profitable now, although like many manufacturers they probably aren't making money on every model line currently-- usually the ones that have been updated within the last model year or two.

Re:Does the math work out?

[thegarbz]

For critical parts I find the price gap to be a bit lower. I've never spent that kind of mark-up for OEM parts on anything actually essential to the operation of the vehicle. Its the extras that are incredible.

Had a Mitsubishi Magna where the rear overhead tail-light fell off it's mounting. It was glued to the rear window. They wanted $600 for it inc installation. It's an LED strip inside a plastic case glued to a piece of glass.

Re:Does the math work out?

[Aighearach]

I'm not within 200 miles of Google, and we've got more than 3 in my mid-sized city. I'm guessing you wouldn't know that even if you lived here.

Luckily nobody is asking you if you are convinced. You can understand the reasons for doing what they did, or not. It makes no difference, because they won't ask you. Understanding is optional.

resell value already bad

[Anonymous Coward]

even before the end of the battery life the battery would give diminished returns and it would hurt the resell value more then non electric cars.

I would never buy a used electric car for that reason.(until battery tech really improves)

I think that the battery life and resell value is one of the major hurdles for the full electric car. An electric car is pretty much a write off the moment you drive one off the lot.

Re:resell value already bad

[TrekkieGod]

An electric car is pretty much a write off the moment you drive one off the lot.

I suggest you try searching for used Model S prices, before just offering your reasoned-out guess as fact. Year-old vehicles are going for incredibly close to retail. So much so that it doesn't make sense to sell back to Tesla at their Best Resale Value Guarantee, which assures that the depreciation is going to be less than equivalent BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Lexus or Jaguar vehicles.

Re:resell value already bad

[Anonymous Coward]

that resell guarantee is only if you use their financing option to actually buy the car.

which is not that smart buying a car on credit is the most wasteful thing you can pretty much do. Cars unlike for example real estate will go down in price guaranteed

Re:resell value already bad

[Anonymous Coward]

So all of us regular folks should A: save up until we can afford to purchase the vehicle outright, or B: forego purchasing a vehicle we cannot afford (cheapest cars now in the $17K range) to purchase outright and walk or ride a bike or use PT; or c: lease.

?

Re:resell value already bad

[Anonymous Coward]

or maybe not buy a tesla car and just buy a normal used car.

Tesla's are luxury items right now they are the Ferrari of the electric cars and not everybody can drive a Ferrari even tough we probably all want one.

i would love to see the electric car become the common car and the gas powered cars become the luxury item but we are not there yet.

until that happens i would suggest that you would look away from Tesla and if you want a electric powered vehicle then look at the other options even tough they are less attractive then a Tesla.

Re:resell value already bad

[Anonymous Coward]

The cheapest cars right now are in the $500 range.

Re:resell value already bad

[Anonymous Coward]

An electric car is pretty much a write off the moment you drive one off the lot.

I suggest you try searching for used Model S prices, before just offering your reasoned-out guess as fact. Year-old vehicles are going for incredibly close to retail. So much so that it doesn't make sense to sell back to Tesla at their Best Resale Value Guarantee, which assures that the depreciation is going to be less than equivalent BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Lexus or Jaguar vehicles.

And there is a very good reason for that: electric motors are FAR LESS susceptible to breaking, than a ICE+drivetrain.

Re:resell value already bad

[saleenS281]

It ALWAYS makes sense to take financing if the interest rate is lower than your return on investment putting the money elsewhere.

Re:resell value already bad

[BasilBrush]

even before the end of the battery life the battery would give diminished returns and it would hurt the resell value more then non electric cars.

ICE cars also give diminished returns over the years. Those MPG figures quoted for cars only apply to new cars. As engines, gearboxes and wheel bearings wear, so the efficiency falls, and you get less MPG.

If you keep the car long enough, you'll have to have the IC engine switched or reconditioned.

Of course with an EV, when the time does come to replace the batteries you'll probably get a new set that's even better than the original, with a greater range. Because the technology will have improved in the intervening years.

Re:resell value already bad

[tompaulco]

that resell guarantee is only if you use their financing option to actually buy the car.

which is not that smart buying a car on credit is the most wasteful thing you can pretty much do. Cars unlike for example real estate will go down in price guaranteed

That is not argument against buying on credit. That is an argument against buying at all. If you are going to insist on buying, with interest rates being what they are, and with inflation being what it is, it would be stupid to pay cash money in current dollars for it. Plus the lending party is taking all the risk. The risk of your future money being worth less, the risk that you won't even pay them back, etc. All they can do is seize the car, which is worth far less than the original purchase price. They will, however, sell it to their cousin at auction for the lowest price imaginable, and then you will owe the difference.

Re:resell value already bad

[tompaulco]

Very few people who make under 6 figures have any business buying a brand new car with the prices of new cars these days. The average price of a new car is at an all time high compared to average income. The AVERAGE new car price is now over $30,000, and the average wage is $42,000. Even worse, the mean wage is only $27k, so an average new car costs more than the typical person makes in a year.

Re:resell value already bad

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it doesn't always. You have no understanding of risk.

Re:resell value already bad

[saleenS281]

Says the guy whose advice is for everyone to buy cars in cash, posting as AC. It *ALWAYS* makes sense. RETURN ON INVESTMENT implicitly accounts for risk of the investment. Stick to reddit.

Re:resell value already bad

[fnj]

Er, "average" is "mean". They are synonyms. Perhaps you meant "median" for one of your two income figures?

Re:resell value already bad

[Anonymous Coward]

What is strange is that the middle range has held constant more than I would expect. It seems like the low end of vehicles have pushed towards the entry-level luxury, and people are in general buying themselves deeper into debt than they used to do.

In 1998 my Audi A4 cost about $28k. Today a similar trim-level Audi might cost about $40k, and it is larger, safer, and with better performance by most measures. In other words, my car purchasing inflation has been about 40-50% in aggregate in 15 years. In the same time period, other items have seen 100% inflation (rent, food, fuel) or worse (health insurance).

Re:resell value already bad

[timeOday]

You will almost never find a risk-free investment with a higher return than the interest rate on a loan. If you ignore the "risk-free" part, then you are equating a certain cost with an uncertain return, which is not correct. So the answer is not "always," but "it depends" on the usual factors - your time horizon, whether having more would help you as much as having less would hurt you, etc...

Re:resell value already bad

[saleenS281]

Really? The last car I purchased had an interest rate of 0%. It was pretty easy finding a risk free investment with a higher return. Unless of course you're factoring in "the entire collapse of the US financial sector" as a legitimate "risk". I can get a used car loan at any point in time for under 2% from my local credit union, and bonds return a higher yield that that around here all day long. So yes, ALWAYS.

Re:resell value already bad

[Hognoxious]

Er, "average" is "mean". They are synonyms.

No they aren't.

Firstly, average is a blanket term for measures of central tendency.

Secondly, you forgot to specify which kind of mean.

Re:resell value already bad

[AaronW]

I disagree with you. I ran the numbers. Financing a car is a great way to save money. For example, I got a loan for my Tesla Model S. With the money I did not spend up front I invested it. If I am able to beat the 1.99% interest rate I'm paying on the loan I'm ahead. It's not hard to do.

Re:resell value already bad

[AaronW]

With today's interest rates it is very easy to make very safe investments that earn higher than the interest rate on the loan. The problem is when people overextend themselves or make risky investments that they can't afford to lose.

In my case I paid 40% up front and got a 1.99% loan from my credit union. If my investment beats 1.99% I'm ahead. I took some of that money and bought a bunch of Tesla stock at $35. I am very far ahead now while still able to handle the case if my investments head south. Other investments were made in some very safe mutual funds, which also are doing far better than 1.99%. With a diversified portfolio where you hold on to the stocks long term you will typically be ahead. The loan also helps build up your credit score, though in my case it wasn't really necessary. It all depends on how smart you are with your money. Years ago when I bought my house I poured every penny I could into paying down the principal, especially when I was paying 7.125% interest. It made a HUGE difference, allowing me to pay off my house in under 15 years. At this point, even though I'm paid an engineer's salary in Silicon Valley I have no difficulty affording my Model S. All but one of my stocks have done very well, many well over 100% of what I paid for them. I buy long term and didn't even sell in the huge crash of 2008 and I'm still well ahead.

Re:resell value already bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you're such an expert perhaps you will favor us with an explanation of the practical differences between geometric mean and arithmetic mean?

Re:resell value already bad

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny you think you got 0%. A cash buyer would have paid less for the car, I guarantee it

Re:resell value already bad

[saleenS281]

It's funny you think I didn't look at what the incentive was to skip the 0% interest and take the cash. You can keep talking until you're blue in the face, unless you've got shitty credit or are absolutely retarded investing your money you'll never come out ahead paying cash for a car. Keep trying though AC, keep trying.

Re:resell value already bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless of course you're factoring in "the entire collapse of the US financial sector" as a legitimate "risk".

We came pretty damn close to exactly that in 2008, and none of the underlying causes have been fixed as far as I can tell.

So I'm curious why do you think that's unlikely?

WTF is a 'gigafactory'?

[Ormy]

Dear Tesla, Do we really need another unnecessary buzzword? Does 'gigafactory' mean 10^9 (or even 2^30) individual factories? Is that what you mean by economies of scale? If so then that's pretty cool and you can have your new word. Or do you just mean a really big factory? Because if so then making up a new word to make it sound cool is just lame, don't do it. That is all.

Re:WTF is a 'gigafactory'?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Now I know why you called your company 'Microsoft'." --Bill Gates' wife, on their honeymoon

Re:WTF is a 'gigafactory'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Gates likes Karaoke?

Re:WTF is a 'gigafactory'?

[callmetheraven]

It's 1.21 x10^9 factories.

Re:WTF is a 'gigafactory'?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Does 'gigafactory' mean 10^9 (or even 2^30) individual factories?

No, it simply means a giant factory. As opposed to your ordinary megafactory, which is just a large factory.

Re:WTF is a 'gigafactory'?

[iggymanz]

so why not a MONSTER (tera) factory, it wouldn't be quite that big? I guess Telsa's future Chinese competitor can grab that one

Re:WTF is a 'gigafactory'?

[Immerman]

Actually they started with a monster factory, but the production line kept generating eldritch horrors that devoured the employees, so they had to scale back their ambitions. Those OSHA folks can be *so* demanding.

Re:WTF is a 'gigafactory'?

[Livius]

640,000,000 factories should be enough for anyone.

Re:WTF is a 'gigafactory'?

[Anonymous Coward]

The plan is to produce enough Gigawatt-hours of cells & packs to supply ~500,000 Tesla vehicles, which is their planned or estimated annual sales by 2020 ( quite ambitious but doable ), hence the name, cooler-sounding and much shorter than (multi-)Gigawatt-hour-battery-factory

http://www.teslamotors.com/sit...

Hybrids

[Anonymous Coward]

Hybrids are different since they can run on just the gasoline side. I just wonder how effective that is. In five years or so, when the owners of the first generation of hybrids face that battery upgrade, they might start selling quite cheaply. They key issue may be both whether they can run well (i.e. up hills) without battery assist and whether they'll be safe to drive. A lot of their stability depends on the weight of those batteries below the floorboard. Keep them in, and the weight will hurt gas mileage. Remove them, and they might actually get pretty decent mileage.

Re:Hybrids

[Anonymous Coward]

Performance wise, the American market is biased toward high powered cars, even when the same model in RoTW trim would have a significantly smaller powerplant and still be considered adequate. Manufacturers of even hybrids are offering gas engines that are more than powerful enough to deliver adequate performance without the electric motor. I find it hard to believe manufacturers would allow their hybrids to operate without the battery attached, even if it were not functioning.

Re:Hybrids

[BasilBrush]

In five years or so, when the owners of the first generation of hybrids face that battery upgrade, they might start selling quite cheaply.

Huh? The first generation of hybrids were the original Priuses, which are 17 years old. And user reports are that many of them are still running on original batteries. Replacement if needed is of the order of $2000.

Re: Hybrids

[Anonymous Coward]

Hybrids use their batteries much less than pure electric cars. Hence their batteries are smaller and cheaper.

Re: Hybrids

[whois]

Hybrids use their batteries much less than pure electric cars. Hence their batteries are smaller and cheaper.

Different kinds of batteries too. Rather than a deep cycle full discharge you're only using the battery when accelerating and recharging it when braking. They need to consider this when designing the battery system. Although I don't think anyone does, you could use giant capacitors instead of true batteries since that is how you're using them for energy storage. If you did use capacitors I think the reliability would go up but the fire/explosion risk might go up too, so maybe that is why they don't do it.

Some strange hybrids like one of the Ferrari's uses a compressed air cylinder instead of batteries. You could also use a flywheel but then you've got gyroscopic forces on the car. London's subway trains use hills as an energy recovery mechanism. They go up a hill when pulling into a station (slowing down) and go down a hill when pulling out (speeding up). Not practical for a car but kinda neat.

Re: Hybrids

[AaronW]

The nice thing with the Tesla is that they tend to use their batteries far less than say, a Leaf. I average about 50 miles per day of driving. If I were driving a Leaf this would be a significant percentage of the battery. The hardest thing on the batteries is charging them to 100% and draining them near 0%. With the Tesla I typically keep it between 40-70% which allows the battery to last a lot longer. My Prius kept the battery between 40-80%. The plug-in hybrids will be a lot harder on the batteries.

real reason why....

[danknight48]

To cut down costs of replacing those batteries under warranty.

As long as the car isnt stored in a garage for weekend usage. "standard" usage will reach about 2/4 years before the degrade in mileage and performance warrants a replacement.
As a bonus, cut costs to customers outside of those warranties.

This is just Tesla's way of saving some money, 8 years life expectancy on a battery is high risk and they know it.

Re:real reason why....

[zwede]

"standard" usage will reach about 2/4 years before the degrade in mileage and performance warrants a replacement.

Not sure where you get your information from, but so far things are looking much better than that. The Tesla Roadster had a slightly older battery technology and they have about 80% of the battery capacity left after 100,000 miles. Still very usable. A couple of Model S have hit 70,000 miles and have ~95% of capacity left, so the Model S battery is better. The 8 year warranty is a fairly safe bet by Tesla.

Re:real reason why....

[BasilBrush]

"standard" usage will reach about 2/4 years before the degrade in mileage and performance warrants a replacement.

Bullshit. You have made that up.

Re:real reason why....

[fustakrakich]

Miles don't matter. Batteries are measured by the number of charge cycles.

Re:real reason why....

[fnj]

And the number of charge cycles is directly related to miles, duh.

Re:real reason why....

[Anonymous Coward]

do you know a way to accumulate miles in an all-electric car without a commensurate amount of battery cycling?

Re:real reason why....

[fustakrakich]

What, uphill, downhill, stop and go, steady state, with or against the wind? There's lots of things you aren't factoring in..

Re:real reason why....

[Anonymous Coward]

No duh. Charge cycles is related to the average journey length; driving to the store 2 miles away and back again a thousand times is not going to have the same effect on the batteries as making twenty round trip journeys of 100 miles.

When dealing with charge cycles it's not as simple as adding all the consumption and dividing by the capacity of the battery.

Re:real reason why....

[Hognoxious]

Yes.

Always drive downhill.

Re:real reason why....

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally the uphill and downhill will average out, since most cars start and end their days in the same place. And over many data points the others factors will average out as well. So long as you use a reasonable number of data points to get those figures you don't really have to factor in those things you mentioned.

Re:real reason why....

[Paradise Pete]

"standard" usage will reach about 2/4 years before the degrade in mileage

Only six months? Wow, that's not so good.

Re:real reason why....

[Anonymous Coward]

While comparing total consumption to the capacity of the battery isn't *exactly* the same, with modern battery chemistries, it's actually pretty darned close.

Re:real reason why....

[coinreturn]

Yes.

Always drive downhill.

And have it towed back up.

volume

[BradMajors]

Their factory will only "drop battery costs dramatically" if it runs at full capacity. Its capacity is about 500,000 cars per year, while Telsa has only sold 25,000 cars in total.

Re:volume

[TrekkieGod]

Their factory will only "drop battery costs dramatically" if it runs at full capacity. Its capacity is about 500,000 cars per year, while Telsa has only sold 25,000 cars in total.

The factory isn't for Tesla vehicles only. Tesla and Panasonic (the factory is a join venture) intend to supply other electric vehicle manufacturers with cheaper batteries. So the potential market is much greater.

Re:volume

[Anonymous Coward]

And with their capacity and the need for better / more batteries on the market, they can sell the extra. They are good for more than cars I'd wager.

Re:volume

[EvolutionInAction]

Battery packs are also a substantial cost in the NEW cars. This will let them drop their price point for new, and thus sell more cars. Glorious positive feedback.

Re:volume

[Anonymous Coward]

And if that means parts (batteries) are (almost-)standardised across all/most manufacturers that'll drop the price much further.

Re:volume

[Hognoxious]

How are they going to make them cheaper? If there was a way of doing so, wouldn't somebody be doing it already? And if they're going to research it, that's all well and good, but why couldn't existing battery manufacturers do that before? It's not like Panasonic are a two-bit outfit operating out of somebody's garage.

Seems to me there are many people out there who think Elan Musk is some combination of Midas & Canute.

Re:volume

[immaterial]

How are they going to make them cheaper? If there was a way of doing so, wouldn't somebody be doing it already?

No, because the last guy that thought of some efficiency or tech improvements didn't bother to implement them - after all, surely somebody else did it already...

Re:volume

[BasilBrush]

How are they going to make them cheaper?

Economy of scale and efficient recycling of old batteries.

If there was a way of doing so, wouldn't somebody be doing it already?

The incentives for battery companies and an EV company are different. A battery company is quite happy if the market price of a battery remains high. An EV company wants it as low as possible.

Seems to me there are many people out there who think Elan Musk is some combination of Midas & Canute.

Seems to me that as soon as a successful tech entrepreneur starts to become a household name, there's a irrational wave of vitriol and spite comes across a minority of Slashdot posters.

Re:volume

[timeOday]

That reminds me of the old saw about the economist and his friend walking down the street. The friend spots a $20 bill on the street and says, "whoah, it's a $20 bill!" The economist, not even looking down, says "nope, if there were a $20 bill lying there, somebody would have picked it up already!"

Re:volume

[Hadlock]

If only there were another use for high quality, high capacity batteries, like laptops...

Re:volume

[imsabbel]

There isn't that much to gain from economy of scale, as those types of cells are already produced in 100s of millions per year. So we are realistically looking at something like halfing the price at most, not cutting it down by an order of magnitude or something.

Re:volume

[BasilBrush]

Halving the price would be an enormous gain!

Re:volume

[currently_awake]

many current electric car batteries consist of laptop batteries in large clusters. designing a battery specifically for a car should reduce cost.

Re:volume

[Hognoxious]

A battery company is quite happy if the market price of a battery remA battery company is quite happy if the market price of a battery remains high. An EV company wants it as low as possible.ains high. An EV company wants it as low as possible.

Marvellous.

First question, is there only one battery company in the world?

Second question, what has price got to do with cost?

Re:volume

[BasilBrush]

First question, is there only one battery company in the world?

The idea behind your question is that competition always ensures the lowest price for products. That is clearly not true, even in the naive theories of Adam Smith. It's even less true when you consider that the true mechanism is game theory, and Nash showed there are other equilibriums.

Second question, what has price got to do with cost?

Lower the costs and reduce the profit margins by cutting out middle men and using economies of scale, and you can reduce the price. If you are motivated to do so.

You gotta love Elon

[50000BTU_barbecue]

Here in Quebec we have several "dynasties" of rich people who got tons of money from their parents. Like Pierre Karl Peladeau. The guy's a billionaire but does sweet fuck all with his money as far as I can tell. At least Elon is doing something with his money. I have no idea why his electric car brings up so much animosity with people though. The point is that here in Quebec we have surplus electricity, we have universities, we have electrical engineers, we have research into electric cars.

And we did fuck all with it. I wish we had one Quebecker with the vision of an Elon Musk. All we have is Guy Laliberte putting on a clown nose in space, and Pierre Karl going "full loon" in political mode. What a waste.

Re:You gotta love Elon

[F34nor]

At one point in college in the 90's someone told me that ~70% of Canada's foreign cash income came into Québec and ~70% of that was hydropower sales to NYC. That's a lot of electricity. Québec did some really interesting work on aerogel single pane windows.

Re:You gotta love Elon

[BasilBrush]

I have no idea why his electric car brings up so much animosity with people though.

Because conservatives can't stand change. And because the media that forms their opinions is funded by old money that's tied to oil.

Re:You gotta love Elon

[fustakrakich]

Old money is in banking and finance. New money is in oil.

Re:You gotta love Elon

[BasilBrush]

Sure. If you are a socialite of 100 years ago. New money these days is Tech. Oil is old money. Indeed it's heading towards an industry in decline.

Re:You gotta love Elon

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because it took Elon Musk to create the EV... Oh, wait... not that's not right... It took Elon Musk to create a consumer friendly EV.... Oh, wait... that's not right either.
 
For all the praise Elon Musk gets around here he does little but offer a high end EV which he's profiting from handsomely. I really don't know why he makes everyone's balls tingle around here. He's a billionaire looking to make more money on a product that next to no one here could truly afford and would be scoffed at if it were offered by any large auto maker. Teslas really are great because they're leading in terms of range but given their price point I'd certainly fucking hope so. I wish the affordable EV market would get this kind of free promotion. Dollar for dollar Chevy's Spark EV will get better than range than the Model S but I have yet to see a story about it here.
 
Meh.
 
Oh, and as a conservative... I'm looking to replace my car in about 4 years and when I do I fully plan on going to an EV. I need at least 100 mile range under cold weather conditions but I'm hoping that's an afterthought at the time I'm ready to buy. If Tesla can do it at a good price point I'm there, otherwise I'm not going to hold out just so my car's badge can be waved around as a token of pride. That's the crazy kind of fuckery that makes markets hard on honest providers.
 
My guess is that it'll be either Volkswagen or Nissan who'll take my money.

Re:You gotta love Elon

[AaronW]

Elon almost lost everything on Tesla. He leveraged everything and was saved at the last minute by Toyota and Daimler. It was the same with Space X. They were one launch away from failure. Elon sank everything he had into both companies.

Re:You gotta love Elon

[50000BTU_barbecue]

That's the kind of guts you don't see in Quebec. All a bunch of pussy crybabies here.

Re:You gotta love Elon

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Yeah... you need to take a risk to make real money. What an astonishing fact that one is...
 
Most businessmen nearly lose everything at some point in the game. Or do you think success if a given? You people just don't seem to understand what it takes to be a great success. I had a friend basically swindle his way to starting his first commercial website. If the plan would have failed he'd still be paying back the debts today while taking on the job as a code monkey. He risked, the site flourished and he's retired before 50. That's the way being an entrepreneur works. Hundreds try, a couple make it.

What size does one take?

[paiute]

I'm in the market for a Tesla. If it takes D batteries, I'm all set. I can get those at Costco for cheap.

Re:What size does one take?

[iggymanz]

It takes something a little bigger than an AA battery. the 11 battery "sectors" are built out of 18650A lithium ion batteries , 651 in each, The 18650A form factor are about 1.5 cm longer and 0.4 cm thicker than an AA battery.

Re:What size does one take?

[AmiMoJo]

I read somewhere that it uses over 7000 18650 size cells, which are similar to AA but a bit longer. Unfortunately they are not user-replaceable.

Re:What size does one take?

[nickersonm]

They are in fact 18mm wide and 650mm long.

Re:What size does one take?

[iggymanz]

rather 18.6 x 65.2mm, and the "about" in my sentence was due to the allowed variation in AA battery of 13.5 to 14.5 diameter X 49.2 to 50.5 mm length

Re:What size does one take?

[willy_me]

That was the original plan - 18650 batteries give you the most capacity for the smallest price. But once you start producing thousands of cars things change a little. It would now seem prudent for them to design their own. This would give them more efficient use of space and would make it easier to adopt new upcoming technologies. The economies of scale with respect to 18650 batteries will no longer apply.

Re:What size does one take?

[EETech1]

I worked on a hybrid demo that used 14,400 of them.

25 of them connected in parallel.
(3.7V @ 75Ah)

12 groups of the 25 in series.
(44.4V @ 75Ah)

16 of the 25 X 12 sets in series.
(710V @ 75Ah)

3 of the 16 X 25 X 12 sets in parallel.
(710V @ 225Ah)

Very scary to work with, especially in the bilge of a boat!

We went way overboard with the charge monitoring, but when we had cells fail while we were testing, they could be easily identified, and swapped out, then the rest of the pack was returned to service. I think the same could be done here.

My guess is there will be rebuilders that spring up to disassemble and test the cells, and replace the few bad ones with other used ones of similar vintage and capacity, and sell the used / repaired packs. A few weak cells can really hurt the pack as a whole.

When I used to race R/C everyone had their secret methods of treating cells to boost Voltage and or Capacity, and I'm sure there is some money to be made if someone can recondition the cells to get some of their lost capacity back. Perhaps take the packs apart, hook them up to a windmill, and cycle them through a few test and re-conditioning charge cycles to bring some of their life back while making a little coin as grid storage.

1. collect old EV batteries
2. disassemble
3. test (PROFIT!!!)
4. sort
5. recondition (PROFIT!!!)
6. reassemble
7. PROFIT!!!

Go the the removable battery gas station model.

[F34nor]

I know there is some criticism of the Tesla demo of the robot battery swap but the idea is sound. By taking the battery ownership and distributing it amount uses you create range, optimum care conditions, and on demand premium batteries for specific conditions. The cost of the battery can be distributed over the its life and depreciated by a business.

Re:Go the the removable battery gas station model.

[Anonymous Coward]

More than sound - it's proven. Better Place was doing it in their couple dozen swap stations in Israel and their taxi demo project in Yokohama.

They may now be bankrupt but it wasn't because of the swap technology.

Re:Go the the removable battery gas station model.

[BasilBrush]

If it's anything like bottled LPG, no thanks. Sometimes when you go to get a bottle they don't have any of the type you need in stock, and you have to chase round to find one. Then there's the problem of what you do when you run out of LPG and the shop is closed.

Re:Go the the removable battery gas station model.

[AaronW]

In this case the battery swap is handled at the charging station. It's unmanned so it's unlikely to be closed. If they're out of batteries you can just charge and it's unlikely the grid will run out of power.

The other thing is that you are expected to always pick up your battery on the return trip or you will get charged the difference in value.

You have a choice of either paying for a battery swap or charging for free. It will be interesting to see how the swap stations work out since it's time vs money.

Re:Go the the removable battery gas station model.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't buy any of your arguments.
1st why is it unmanned? People need shitty jobs.
2nd why would they be out of batteries? If google apple and ms know they commute of every mobile phone in the US I highly doubt that that one time you drive to the beach is going to have any impact on the supply and demand curve. The market for liquid fuels is very flexible fungible But with enough buffer any unitized commodity can be stocked to optimum levels.
3nd why do you need to return it to the same place? The whole point is that you drop it off at any other battery station. It wouldn't even be hard for different brands to have reciprocal swap agreements. You need a truck to balance stations anyway.

nano dots

[Anonymous Coward]

Just think, if they came out with a battery big enough for a car. Bam I'd get 2 teslas

this is why I leased my Leaf

[plurgid]

Everyone I know gave me tons of shit about leasing a new car. I still think a lease was the right decision.
Others may disagree, but in my opinion until battery prices come down (or the technology has a mega-improvement), electric cars are more of a service than an asset.

My Leaf is amazing. It's like driving a spaceship ... completely silent, smooth as silk, no transmission, acceleration like there's a rocket strapped to your ass ... damn near zero maintenance, and it costs about 1/10th per-mile to drive as opposed to my gas-guzzling "Canyonero" SUV.

IN FACT, the amount of money I USED to spend in a month, just buying gas for my old car, is $80 less than the monthly lease payment on the Leaf (and of course, I knew this going in, which is why I did it).

The battery is by far the most expensive single part of the car. In fact, when you look at it, you're really sort of buying a very expensive battery with some car-shaped accessories. The fact that the battery WILL fail as a matter of scientific certainty, and that we can even know more or less exactly when that will happen, makes me not want to own one of these.

With gas cars, you buy them doing calculations about repair cost and resale value that simply do not apply to the situation with electric cars. It's damn unlikely (unless I get in a wreck) that ANY repairs will ever be needed on my Leaf other than the big one ... the battery will eventually go, and at that point I might as well buy a new car.

Which is why leasing electric cars is the way to go, until the battery technology has a massive improvement, or the cost comes way down ... or some car company figures this out and makes interchangeable batteries with a leasing program for the battery. I'll happily own the car if I don't have to own the battery too!

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[Anonymous Coward]

"acceleration like there's a rocket strapped to your ass..."

The zero to sixty time is 9.9 seconds, making it one of the worst accelerating cars sold today.

In the future, please clarify that you mean an Estes rather than NASA type rocket.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to say that I'm surprised that Tesla is selling batteries at all. The Battery swapping recharge stations would be much easier if no one owned batteries. Just make the owners pay for each recharge cycle (or each kWh used), and a bit for each month on top, and noone has will ever have to worry about being unlucky with a failing battery.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla offers something like a lease. It's a guaranteed buy-back IF you do the loan from Tesla itself.

I decided to look elsewhere for my auto loan and got a better deal by about 1 point (I think Tesla was offering 2.5% and I got 1.7%).

Depends on how you want to take the risks. I'm betting that 8 years after I purchase the car (when the battery warranty runs out) the cost of a replacement cell is going to be less than 50 percent the cost of the car.

As it is, the linked to article includes $8000 for labor. By this time next year Tesla is going to be having rapid battery exchanges available in California which will swap out all of your cells in under 90 seconds for less than $100 (it's essentially a rental of a full set of batteries). I can't believe the labor cost markup is going to remain 2 orders of magnitude above that for a permanent change out.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[Hognoxious]

IN FACT, the amount of money I USED to spend in a month, just buying gas for my old car, is $80 less than the monthly lease payment on the Leaf (and of course, I knew this going in, which is why I did it).

That's not really the right comparison, is it? You should really be comparing it to running a similar-sized conventionally-powered car like a VW Golf.

As to depreciation, leasing can't make it disappear, it can only hide it or redistribute it.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[plurgid]

I think it's a pretty fair comparison.
I said to myself: "there are these new-fangled electic cars, I wonder if I could obtain one for around the same monthly cost as what I used to spend in gas?".

and by Jove, the answer was "yes", so I went and did that.

could I have saved more money, by possibly getting something like a smart car with a moped engine in it? yeah I dunno maybe. But I'd still have to put gas in it, and I'd still have to deal with the maintenance nightmare that is an internal combustion engine.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[AmiMoJo]

Tesla rate their battery pack lifetime at 250,000 miles, similar to a petrol engine, and the warranty is 8 years unlimited mileage. Even when you get 250,000 miles in say 15 years time chances are you will be able to sell the battery pack for recycling since much of it will be perfectly good. It's made up of over 7000 cells, and considered "dead" when down to 80% capacity, so many of the individual cells will be fine for use in other devices. Solar smoothing and whole-house UPS, for example, and of course re-conditioned packs for people wanting a lost cost replacement option.

Having said that a lot of people would be fine with a Model S and 80% or even 30% remaining range. 30% is 100 miles, equivalent to many EVs on the road today, and fine for many people's daily commute. Unlike most old cars with high mileage a Model S shouldn't need much maintenance either.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[Anonymous Coward]

interesting point how much would a battery pack be worth assuming its really really dead (holds 0% charge) and how much would it be worth in just pure raw materials.

I assume there is degradation of raw materials by the chemical process that is happening in the batteries.
Would that affect the raw materials price and if so how much?

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[BasilBrush]

It sounds like insurance. You are paying someone else to take on the risk. That costs extra money, but it's predictable.

Personally I self-insure everything for which there isn't a legal necessity to have insurance. I don't see any point in paying someone else to take a risk when I can do it myself.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[Anonymous Coward]

I said to myself: "there are these new-fangled electic cars, I wonder if I could obtain one for around the same monthly cost as what I used to spend in gas?".

and by Jove, the answer was "yes", so I went and did that.

Or you could have bought a Civic.

I'd still have to deal with the maintenance nightmare that is an internal combustion engine.

Total 'maintenance nightmare' of five years driving a Civic: three or four oil changes, brake fluid change, one new battery, one new block heater. I think that totalled about $600.

And, unlike an electric car, we can actually drive it hundreds of miles in a day without having to stop for hours to 'refuel'.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[Hognoxious]

I think it's a pretty fair comparison.

Well you're wrong. A comparison should be like for like. The fact that you've owned both of them does not constitute fulfilment of that condition.

It's like claiming that New Zealand and Ivory Coast have the same murder rate because you've been to both and (sadly) didn't get killed.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[AaronW]

I decided to skip the $12K pre-paid battery replacement. I took some of that money and bought Tesla stock at $35. I'm kicking myself for not buying more stock than I did, but it will have more than paid for a new battery. I too got a loan from my credit union for 1.99% instead of the 2.99% Tesla loan (which was not available when I got my car).

It's the first time I financed a car. It's one of the best decisions I've made since all I have to do is do better than 1.99% and I'm ahead.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[AaronW]

Usually it's the cathode that degrades with time. The hardest thing on a lithium ion battery is charging it to 100% and discharging it to 0%. All of the materials are recyclable. See http://www.mecheng.osu.edu/nlb...

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/... discusses how they're recycled.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[ZorinLynx]

Dude, you're disappointed someone didn't get killed for "being wrong on the internet."

C'mon, perspective.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[swb]

Why is the Tesla battery considered dead at 80%?

Is the car not usable at that level? I would think it would just lose 20-ish percent of its range and maybe some of its peak acceleration.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[cbhacking]

It's not "dead" at all. That's the point at which the company basically says "your battery is no longer worth as much as it was" or, to put it differently, "what you have now is a lower-value variant of the part we sold you". If you'd wanted a Model S with 80% the range of the one you bought, you'd probably have bought a different variant (and paid less for it). It's something the company can use when advertising how long their battery lasts, and estimating when they'll need replacement. It's something the buyers can use when comparing cost options.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[Paradise Pete]

If leasing is such a better deal than buying that means somebody made a mistake. If you get to avoid the cost of battery decay then (obviously) somebody else is paying for it. So it should have been factored into the price of the lease. Either they miscalculated or you did, but somebody is wrong.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[AmiMoJo]

"Dead" from a warranty point of view, obviously a car with over 200 miles range left would still be extremely useful to most people.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[Paradise Pete]

Personally I self-insure everything for which there isn't a legal necessity to have insurance. I don't see any point in paying someone else to take a risk when I can do it myself.

Yes. About the only time insurance makes financial sense is when the outcome would be ruinous otherwise. This obviously excludes, for example, extended warranties. Whoever came up with that one is probably in the Retail Sales Hall of Fame.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[drinkypoo]

With gas cars, you buy them doing calculations about repair cost and resale value that simply do not apply to the situation with electric cars. It's damn unlikely (unless I get in a wreck) that ANY repairs will ever be needed on my Leaf other than the big one ... the battery will eventually go, and at that point I might as well buy a new car.

The suspension is pretty much guaranteed to be ripe for a rebuild by or before that time, because they're still not using polyurethane bushings. That's spendy and it's no less (or more) spendy on the Leaf.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[Anonymous Coward]

You drove your Civic between 20K and 25K miles over the course of 5 *YEARS*, and you think your maintenance is typical of car owners?

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[plurgid]

nobody is wrong, and nobody made a mistake.

Battery degradation is most definitely factored into the lease. There is no "magic" here other than the fact that the amount of money Nissan wants to make leasing me their electric car (+ the cost of the electricity it eats) is per-month , just right about $80 more than the amount of money I would have spent feeding gas into my old car (which I still have for road trips and such).

From my perspective, I don't have to give as much of my money to oil companies anymore and I get to drive a brand new car for about $80 more a month than I was spending before.

The best part is that by the time the battery won't hold a charge anymore, I'm not stuck with the task of figuring out how to unload it without losing my shirt, or spending a shitload on a new battery. That's Nissan's problem, which ... really is the best situation anyhow ... they have the infrastructure to recycle batteries, etc, etc. They made their batteries proprietary, it's not like I'd be able to sell the old one to anyone else really.

Some may look at that deal and feel they are being taken advantage of ... to those people I say "hooray for you and your DIY ethos, I'll be over here driving my brand new electric car for the cost of a single tank of gas every month".

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[plurgid]

The oldest Leaf is like 3.5 years old now. How could you possibly know that the suspension will require a rebuild before the battery goes? Even the first generation of these cars haven't hit their 5 year battery warranty yet, let alone been around long enough for an epidemic of suspension rebuilds to be happening.

Not that I'd put it past a car manufacturer to intentionally build in shit that will break on schedule, so as to throw their dealerships (who make a lot of money out of their service departments) a bone. I could totally buy that, but there is absolutely zero evidence of that happening yet on these particular cars, nor that the problem with these is notably different than on any other kind of car.

But again, another great reason to lease these types of cars. By the time that happens, my lease will be way over with.

Personally I'm hoping by the time my leaf lease is up, there will be a Tesla model that has the same sort of affordability, as they do not have a dealership network to try and support with these sort of shenanigans.

Re:this is why I leased my Leaf

[drinkypoo]

The oldest Leaf is like 3.5 years old now. How could you possibly know that the suspension will require a rebuild before the battery goes?

They didn't just pull this battery chemistry out of their assholes, you know. And the suspension isn't based on new principles either, which is my point. They know that rubber bushings will fail. They also know that polyurethane bushings won't (unless subjected to the kind of abuse that would certainly obliterate a rubber bush) and that's why they don't use them. And by "they" I mean automakers, not Nissan.

The cars are designed to be cheap to build, easy to put together, difficult to service (small and inexpensive changes would make service vastly easier on most vehicles) and guaranteed to disintegrate. Cars are just made to fail, and they're made that way on purpose. We have better designs and/or materials for pretty much everything which does typically fail, which simply aren't used. EPDM breather hoses crack and fail, silicone will last damned near forever anywhere but on the sleeve directly connected to my turbocharger. There's a plastic coolant tube between the engine block an the oil cooler on the A8, about two inches long, which always breaks. There's just no reason for it not to be made of Aluminum. Thousand dollar service job to have the oil cooler pulled out. None of this is by accident.

Personally I'm hoping by the time my leaf lease is up, there will be a Tesla model that has the same sort of affordability, as they do not have a dealership network to try and support with these sort of shenanigans.

No, but you do have to pay your yearly contract fee to Tesla if you want to maintain your warranty.

Longetivity of electric car batteries

[eschatfische]

Currently, Tesla's EV batteries have remarkable longevity. Everybody talks about replacing them, but you really don't need to. Tesla Roadsters (lithium-ion) and 1st-generation RAV4 EVs (NiMH) are still on the roads with their original battery packs and much less range degradation then expected, the 2nd generation RAV4 EV has an 8 year/80k warranty on its Tesla-manufactured batteries, the Model S has an 8 year/125k warranty on its batteries, and both are going strong after a couple of years and are expected to last substantially beyond their warranty. My understanding is that most people in the EV community expect these cars to be fairly easily able to go 10-15 years on their original batteries, albeit with reduced range.

I think we can reasonably expect the Tesla-produced EVs to provide reasonable range for over a decade and for 150k miles. After a decade or 150k miles, assuming electric vehicles will continue to be mass produced at the same rate they are now and are not rarities, resale value of these 10 to 15 year old cars will already be greatly reduced due to other factors, as they are with decade-old gas cars. There will be wear and tear on the body and interior, weather and paint damage, dents, issues with the electrical and HVAC systems due to age. Even if battery packs are $8000 or even $5000, folks will still be wondering whether it's worth it to replace them, much like engine replacements are reasonably uncommon in older gas-burning cars due to other wear and tear. At some point between 12 years and 20 years, 150k and 200k miles, the battery pack will actually die, and that's pretty close to the average lives of gas burning cars. That's *without* the gigafactory.

I'm elated that Tesla is working on producing cheaper, higher-capacity, more performant batteries, to bring the costs down on their cars and make the EV experience better. But longevity? It'll be nice for sure, and I certainly look forward to cheaper and longer-life EV batteries, but things are good enough today that I'm just not sure that's the biggest issue Tesla has to deal with. There's a lot of FUD in the non-EV community about EV batteries, when in fact, long term reliability on Tesla's existing packs has been quite good.

Re:Longetivity of electric car batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

that warranty on the miles driven on the battery doesn't cover the degradation of the battery.

it covers damages to the battery but not if your battery can hold a charge or not in the Tesla warranty its pretty clear listed.

so when your car loses its charge take a hammer to the battery pack and hope you destroy some cells for a free replacement.

Re:Longetivity of electric car batteries

[AaronW]

Actually it does. According to this thread http://www.teslamotors.com/for... Tesla will replace it if the capacity drops below 70%. People have already hit 75,000 miles and are reporting only a few % loss in capacity.

Re:Longetivity of electric car batteries

[blagooly]

Prius batteries have held up well too.

I suspect Elon is also quietly thinking about home setups. Store the juice from solar/wind arrays. Combine this with efficient choices in everything, from refrigeration, lighting, etc. It would be very hip and trendy, pricey at first, like the Model S.

The tech would enable a trend of folks moving to undeveloped areas, no grid needed. Even at $30,000, someone looking to build in isolated spots where running poles, wires would cost that. I think that is the number for even long, spiffy driveways?

This in turn could combine with building desire to have the Fed Gov't loosen its hold on the half of the US land it is currently sitting on. 21st century homesteading. Hideouts for the 1%ers at first. Then spread to the mainstream as costs fall, and folks see that it works. Huge social costs of the grid, centralized power plants etc are saved. Save the world from CO2, live on your own private Idaho.

Is this really a problem?

[Powercntrl]

So, you're telling me someone who can afford to drop $70,000 on a car is going to want to be seen driving it 8 years later? Sure, there's probably a handful of people who scraped together their pennies to buy their Model S, but by and large it's a toy for the rich who will trade in and replace it for a newer model long before the battery is ever a problem. Hey, it works for Apple with their iDevices.

I'm not entirely convinced "economy of scale" even applies much to Lithium Ion batteries. Their cost these days is largely related to mining and processing the materials that go into them. Sure, Tesla will be able to stabilize their supply of batteries and squeeze out profit that would've went to a middleman, but unless they've developed Star Trek-style replicator technology, they're not getting the prices out of the "WTF?!" zone anytime soon.

Re:Is this really a problem?

[Osgeld]

it is if you want your company to be more than a 1 time, "that was neat" fad for rich people that need a toy

Re:Is this really a problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I also thought, the volume isn't the problem, but the technology is. Lithium is scarce and an ecological disaster when mined in large amounts.

Re:Is this really a problem?

[BasilBrush]

I'm not entirely convinced "economy of scale" even applies much to Lithium Ion batteries. Their cost these days is largely related to mining and processing the materials that go into them.

Two things. One is that things are always cheaper the more you buy. So those mined materials come cheaper if you have a big manufacturing facility.

Second is that actually most of the raw materials for the batteries will come from recycling old batteries. At the moment Tesla only does a minimal reprocessing themselves, then send old batteries off to 3rd parties to recycle. And those materials don;t come back.

The new factory will recycle as much as possible of the batteries into new batteries. Of the order of 90%.

Re:Is this really a problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lithium mining is not an ecological disaster. Lithium is mined the same way salt (any many other household chemicals such as boron, sodium carbonate, etc.) is "mined" from salt water. Elemental lithium does not exist in nature, it exists primarily as lithium-chloride dissolved in water that leeched the lithium-chloride from rocks containing that salt. Lithium mining is a process of finding water with lithium chloride, pumping it in to a retention pond, and letting the sun evaporate the water.

Lithium *can* be mined by going after the rocks that contain the lithium-chloride, pulverizing them, then dissolving and extracting the lithium, but that's not economically feasible. Lithium is produced this way, but only as a by-product from hard rock operations that are going after other minerals.

Re:Is this really a problem?

[Parafilmus]

So, you're telling me someone who can afford to drop $70,000 on a car is going to want to be seen driving it 8 years later?

Someone will be driving it 8 years later, unless you exepct the original owner to just throw the car away.

Re:Is this really a problem?

[fnj]

things are always cheaper the more you buy

I rather suspect you'll find the cost of 10,000 tonnes of steel ingot will be pretty exactly 10,000 times as much as one tonne of steel ingot.

Re:Is this really a problem?

[BasilBrush]

And I rather suspect you will find it's not.

Re:Is this really a problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, it works for Apple with their iDevices.
 
Care to cite?
 
Most Apple owners I know hold onto their devices just as long if not longer. I've kept both of my iPhone longer than any other cell I've ever owned. I own a 7 year old functional iPod and my MBP has outlasted any of my top-of-the-line HPs I've ever bought.
 
Sounds like you've drank the kool aide.

Re:Is this really a problem?

[Hognoxious]

Will it be half, which is what you claimed higher up about batteries (admittedly in reply to some imbecile who thought it'd be a tenth)?

Re:Is this really a problem?

[fnj]

I figured you would say that. The trap you fell into is that economy of scale is about manufacturing, not consumption. If you had to mine one tonne of iron and process it into steel ingot, it would cost you a lot, but the process is globally run on such a vast scale that it is very cheap. But the idea that if you buy a crapload of steel they will give you a special price is silly. Nothing you do is going to affect the global scale of the industry.

Re:Is this really a problem?

[drinkypoo]

So, you're telling me someone who can afford to drop $70,000 on a car is going to want to be seen driving it 8 years later?

That depends. Top Gear reports when the cocks have shifted brand, I believe they've moved from BMWs to Audis just in time for me to buy one and remove all doubt. Otherwise, they seem to get rid of their cars (What's a $70k car? S-Class, A8, Jag...) about the same time all the electrical stuff takes a dump. I don't think they're worried about being current, only having the correct brand.

Re:Is this really a problem?

[BasilBrush]

And you fell into the trap of not considering that price is about negotiation and the power you have to negotiate.

Re:Is this really a problem?

[BasilBrush]

Will it be half, which is what you claimed higher up about batteries (admittedly in reply to some imbecile who thought it'd be a tenth)?

Wow! One sentence and you managed to make comprehension errors on both short posts you mention.

I never claimed it would be half, and the person I replied to never claimed it would be a tenth.

Re:Sorry,

[thsths]

> And the amount of "battery research" that resulted in nothing, where we were told they'd be the next big thing in 5-10 years time? Innumerable.

Welcome to research. Many research projects, even really successful ones, just end up with a gain of knowledge, but no commercial value. Research projects that actually change the world are few and far in between. That's why it is called research, and not development.

Just read the history of Lithium batteries. Most of the big steps were made at universities in research projects: the use of Lithium, the intercalation, the reversible chemistry, improved electrolytes, chemistries etc. Some steps came from commercial laboratories. All major improvements were the result of research projects.

Re:Sorry,

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow.

If you are not completely anti-electric, then...wow.

I think most of not all of the early adopters purchased their Tesla as a second or third vehicle. They are not overly concerned with resale, or the threat of being stranded by a dead battery. I think very few Tesla customers are driving in areas where charging stations or home/destination are more than 100mi apart. I think your statement would be best applied to a Nissan Leaf or Smart Electric. Tesla's packaging addresses all of those concerns specifically.

As for the battery, you may well be right on the mark. We will see. As an aside, Toshiba developed LiPo battery packs for their laptops in the late early 2000's. Saw on in a sales event on a Portege, then waited for the release but it never happened, or at least not for the next few years while I was still purchasing Toshibas for my job.

A.C.

Random thoughts...

[Frosty Piss]

I think more than a few of the "big" car companies have shifted focus (back?) to hydrogen fuel cells. In the near future at least, the whole recharging "issue" is what bothers the big guys.

Very few Tesla owners are going to drive their $70 - 100,000 car across the country, take it to the Grand Tetons, do a tour or great Civil War historical sites in the South.

But people that buy cars from Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota... They use their cars for things other than tooling around town from wine bar to chic noshing establishment.

Sure, Tesla now has a cross-country "Super Charge" network, but Americans are impatient, and 30 minutes is too long. The liklyhood of breaking the boundaries that prevent faster charging in the near future are slim.

"Back in the day" when a "road trip" was an adventure, people would have had no problem with a 30 minute super charge, they would have plugged in and had a picnic lunch. Think "Airstream Culture". Those were the days when travel was exciting, now people just want to get the fuck where the are going and plug in to the nearest Wi-Fi.

So maybe the Big Guys have a point with hydrogen power cells that in reality are no more dangerous than 20 gallons of vaporized gas hitting a flame - if you're in an accident that punctures the tank and causes an explosion, your gone either way.

Random thoughts...

Re:Random thoughts...

[fnj]

There is a problem or two with hydrogen fuel cells, which is why everybody who played with the idea before long shelved it, or put it on the back burner "for later", sort of like fusion power.
1) They are phenomenally expensive.
2) They require exacting thermal management.
3) You can't just "turn them on" with a click like an electric motor, or even with a handful of seconds cranking like an internal combustion engine.
4) No practical way to store the fuel.
5) Kids, they don't last forever any more than internal combustion engines or batteries do.

Re:Random thoughts...

[Aighearach]

Those are mostly all wrong. And indeed they didn't shelve the idea, the companies that have had hydrogen cars on the road for years and years have had great success with it; they just haven't pushed to build infrastructure, because the needs the different storage devices vary widely and it is still unclear which technologies will be most competitive.

3 is especially funny. Better go tell all those BWM owners their cars start slower than a hand crank... they'll probably laugh at you while turning the key to "on" and driving away.

Hyundai actually has a mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell car (well, SUV) now, and Europe is building out limited infrastructure. Even people who want to build the infrastructure are slightly hesitant because everybody is worried that new technology will be ready "soon" that will make them look silly with the old tech. But the build-out is starting anyways.

The European infrastructure project is being supported on the automaker side by BMW, Daimler, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota, and on the hydrogen supply side by Air Products, Copenhagen Hydrogen Network, ITM Power, Linde and OMV.

That is actually all news from last spring, kids.

Re:Random thoughts...

[hot soldering iron]

30 minutes? After driving for a couple of hours, I'm ready to take a 30 minute break and stretch my legs...

Hydrogen? Seriously? 45 years ago, when I was little, they were saying Hydrogen was only 30 years away, and would roll out demo cars to prove it. I think they just said the same thing last week.

I used to think the same thing, until I actually looked at the engineering realities regarding hydrogen. It's the lightest and smallest element on the Periodic Table, so it will migrate through steel, making it brittle as it goes. The only way to make hydrogen in the industrial quantities needed is with steam reforming of petroleum based hydrocarbons (check Wikipedia if you don't believe me). Then there is the energy density and storage nightmare of hydrogen which isn't even nearly as good as current gen car batteries.

And that is just to replace the current fuel in an internal combustion engine (not so efficient) with a lower density fuel (even worse efficiency). Now a fuel cell, where the fuel is converted directly into electricity is promising, except that to produce the amount of power needed to drive a vehicle would require an oxidation rate right up there with a controlled explosion trying to go uncontrolled.

And you still haven't gotten away from using petroleum, or the wars,corruption and crime involved in dealing with it. So, hydrogen isn't really looking too good now, is it?

I would think that just changing the power generation method for a hybrid from an IC engine to a micro-turbine generator, with it's higher efficiency, flex fuel capability, fewer and more reliable parts, would provide the fast recharge capability that you say you want. In fact, some companies are starting to do this already. Neil Young's LincVolt was such a conversion, by H Line Conversions in Wichita, KS.

But I think that, except for niche applications, the end of life for the internal combustion engine is in sight. It has to be over-sized and over-built for performance use, and can't compare (favorably) to microturbines for power generation. They are expensive, complicated, dirty, and require an expensive and violently fought over fuel.

Re:Random thoughts...

[Hognoxious]

Hydrogen's fine. To stop it leaking and floating off you just need to attach it to some carbon. Chains of 8 atoms are good, give or take a few.

Re:Random thoughts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody said anything about HAND crank, twit. And you are full of shit.

Yup. This is totally amazing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Since 2003 Tesla has (already) put over 25,000 cars on the road. Why, that is like, 2500 cars per year for TEN YEARS! Ford put out 2.5 million cars last year alone.
What Tesla needs to do is come out with a $10,000 car which can be recharged anywhere in the USA within the car's range of 200 miles. Until they do that they can go suck chunks as their business model won't work to overthrow the powerful gasoline engine, ever. Get to work on that...

Re:Sorry,

[BasilBrush]

Your opinion is that batteries don't make incremental improvements, but only revolutionary improvements once in long while when a completely new battery chemistry comes along.

Your opinion is completely wrong.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Stoplight Acceleration is very fast.

[Aero77]

"The zero to sixty time is 9.9 seconds, making it one of the worst accelerating cars sold today."

Only test car drivers and street racers do 0-60. I also own (lease) a Leaf and everything the poster says is true. Its a great car.

Re:Stoplight Acceleration is very fast.

[thegarbz]

There may be a difference in perception too especially when compared with turbocharged 4 cyl cars. The electric car produces maximum torque from the get go, other cars typically need to get into their powerband to get some real pull, once in the powerband though they'll take off. Then there's the whole avoiding gear change business.

It is quite possible that an all electric car will give worse 0-60 times while at the same time feeling far more powerful at take off.

Re:Stoplight Acceleration is very fast.

[AaronW]

I must say that in my Tesla P85 it's a lot of fun doing 0-60 and it gets rather addictive the way it quietly punches you back in the seat like a rocket. I got used to my Prius which was around 10.5 seconds 0-60. It was also a nice car to drive, though for other reasons. You didn't buy it for the handling and acceleration, though I did take it on some rather twisty roads and steep grades at times.

Re:Stoplight Acceleration is very fast.

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep thinking that. You P85 has the punch of a 25000 USD ricer. But if that's what it takes for you to think your car has "real balls"...

re: few people having business buying new

[King_TJ]

You might have a point, except owning a reliable car tends to tie in to other factors.

For example, the majority of people in the U.S. don't live in one of the big cities where mass transit is truly practical as an alternative to driving to get to and from work each day. Even for many who DO live in such cities, mass transit imposes too many limitations. (For example, if you work as some sort of on-site service technician -- for computers or copiers perhaps? A good, reliable vehicle may be a requirement to perform the job.)

When you purchase a vehicle brand new and finance it, you usually get a better interest rate than lenders will give you on a used one, for starters. And then, you have a consistent payment every month for the next 5 or 6 years, as you pay it off. That consistency is "key" for most people earning those "under 6 figure" salaries. Surprises like a cheaper, used car suddenly having a transmission failure outside the warranty period, are a much bigger problem to tackle.

When your new car, under a factory warranty, has a problem -- you're generally given a loaner to drive while it gets repaired. That means no interruptions with your work.

The trick is to buy only a new vehicle that offers a warranty as long as your financing period. That "3 year, 36,000 mile" stuff they used to sell everyone wasn't such a good value at all.

There's a bit more to it than that

[Anonymous Coward]

AMD designs chips for GlobalFoundries or TSMC to manufacture. Intel designs chips for Intel to manufacture.

This way, Tesla will be making batteries that work best for what they want batteries for. Other companies might have other priorities.

Now, the baker market is pretty big, so there are lots of mills that make flour that is good for them to use. Also, the market is very mature, so everyone knows what standards and prices to expect.

we need to move away from gasoline

[Anonymous Coward]

fixing carbon is hard. Ethanol amounts to a waste of good farm land, or bad farm land that could support livestock.

Ammonia would work well. We just need lots of electricity, heat, and an ecosystem of ammonia fuel cells.

Ammonia is much, much better than hydrogen. There are of course other ideas.

how do you get 18650A out of a battery that small?

[Anonymous Coward]

does a battery of that size even have enough electrons? Can a wire be made to carry that current from that battery?

bigger is not always better

[Anonymous Coward]

i am curious how this factory will manufacture batteries more cheaply. does panasonic have secret plans on how to make a super efficient, giant production line, or will this factory be tons of existing, line production lines?

BYD's original innovations were to patent a variant of its chemistry, and design a production line that used human labor instead of expensive machinery. That worked when chinese wages were low. that would not scale up with factory size. I wonder how cheap BYD batteries manufactured in north korea would be...

Re:bigger is not always better

[Hognoxious]

i am curious how this factory will manufacture batteries more cheaply.

Because Elon Musk.

He's got what plants crave, judging from replies to my posts where I asked the same thing.

replacements rare on Prius

[peter303]

I know several people who have been driving prius more than twice the battery warranty period without replacement. i recall Consumer Reports did a article on this too.
When I was car shopping ten years ago i was worried about expensive battery replacements. but that doesnt seem to be the case.

Two year old article on roadster, not Model S...

[Anonymous Coward]

The article cited about the battery is over two years old and is discussing a guess at the cost of replacing the (hand made) roadster batteries... The 25k cars mentioned in the headline are mostly Model S which have a different battery and are presumably benefiting from Tesla's state of the art robotic manufacturing facilities.

A Gigafactory? Great Scott!!

[Ginger Unicorn]

What the hell is a Gigafactory?

tesla was a eugenics fan who called for the holoca

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously. hitler was a way nicer, better, more loving guy than tesla. it's very clear in historical accounts, biographies, statements from the man... it's really offensive that they're naming cars after him. he wanted to kill jews, homosexuals, people of color, polyamorous types, the dumb, the ignorant, the mentally ill, the autistic... the list goes on and on of who he wanted killed right then. he'd be incensed that gay people were driving cars with his name on them. and, their cars suck. they spend so much money on crappy, useless things and make it a horrible driving experience for all involved. tesla sucks. hardcore.