Is the Tesla Model 3 Actually Going To Cost $50,000?

cartechboy writes How low can battery costs go, and how fast? That's the question automakers are dealing with when it comes to the future of electric cars. Tesla is betting big on electric and has already proven many skeptics wrong with its Model S sedan. The company is making even bolder claims with its upcoming Model 3 stating it'll have about 200 miles of range and a base price of $35,000. That's a nice goal, but is it possible. Battery skeptic Menahem Anderman wrote a new report suggesting that the pace of cost reduction for electric car batteries won't be as swift as Tesla's CEO Elon Musk suggests. This leads Anderman to predict the actual price of the upcoming Model 3 will be in the range of $50,000-$80,000.

Comments

Re:More importantly

[Anonymous Coward]

The price will be offset by other maintenance/repair costs. You'll win out in the long run.

Traditional gas engine cars need a lot of maintenance. They run very hot. They have a lot of fluids. Lots of rubber bits that wear out. Lots of moving parts that need lubrication. Lots of mess. You also need a lot of electronics to get modern levels of performance and effiency.

Electric motor systems are much more reliable. Less cooling.. Less wasted heat. (Less thermal stress) Simpler transmissions. (Having full torque at zero RPM solves a LOT of problems) Less complicated overall. They're lighter too, so you need less energy all together.

Whatever you will spend on a new battery will be a lot less than what you pay to maintain your gas engine car over it's lifetime. There is already a robust market for rebuilt battery packs and that will baloon in the near future. (Not all cells go bad at the same time. Just replace the bad performing cells and you're good to go)

Re:Still pretty affordable

[flarb936]

It's not necessarily true in LA because of the way electricity is billed. If you are going for pure usage based--you will easily blow through tier 4 usage limits when charging an EV every night. This brings you into the 34 cents per kwh level. (in Los Angeles) Which also is what the rest of your house will be billed at too. This also doesn't include taxes and so-called "delivery charges" which may bring your electricity into the 50 cents per kwh range. My Volt takes like 12-14 kwh to charge. And I get maybe 40 miles range on that. So that's like $4-4.50 to charge. Maybe $6 if you add in all the fees added on top of it. I get the equivalent of a little over a gallon of premium gas in range--so maybe $5-6 of gas for $4-6 worth of electricity. I suspect the Tesla gets more miles per kwh than the Volt, though. The only way to really save money on charging your car is to get a separate meter to your garage, and have that meter billed at the time of day rate--so during the day it's 34 cents and at night (like midnight to 9 AM or something) it's 11 cents kwh. And charge only at night.

Re:Still pretty affordable

[AaronW]

I added a second meter for charging my Tesla. Other than paying an electrician to do the wiring I just had to fill out some forms to get a permit, add a second address for PG&E and pay for a disconnect-reconnect from PG&E. I don't think I paid more than $100 for the permit and second address. I pay around $0.12/KWh on my second meter when I charge between 11pm and 6am on weekdays or any time on weekends. It was trivial to set my Tesla to start charging at 11:05pm at whatever current draw I want (up to 80 amps in my case). Most EVs and plug-in hybrids let you choose the charging times. Now I did end up paying $4500 for all of the electrical work I had done, but this involved replacing the main breaker panel on my house, installing a second one with the two meters and running a 100A circuit around 100 feet to my garage with a fair amount of thick conduit and an emergency shut-off in the garage. The Tesla charger was another $1200, which as far as car chargers go is not bad especially considering that it handles 80 amps.

Before getting two meters I was able to get a special time-of-use EV rate so the cost wasn't that bad.

I typically pay $40-60/month for charging my car and I average around 15,000 miles/year.

Re:Maybe 40k

[catchblue22]

Except that these cars ARE CO2-emitting cars, unless you have arranged to get the power for your charger from renewable sources (difficult and expensive in most parts of the country). Here in Texas, these actually become a combination of coal, natural gas and nuclear burning cars.

I addessed this issue in this post. Short answer: even if the electricity is produced by coal, the large efficiency of electric motors, thermal power plants, and the electricity transmission system will ensure less emissions caused by an electric car than from a gasoline powered car. And my calculations didn't even take into account the emissions from processing oil into gasoline, which are especially high if the source is from tar sands. My calculations are referenced and I believe them to be reasonable.