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Note that this is the TesLoop vehicle. So the "$60,000" in fuel savings occurs because TesLoop doesn't pay for gas or for charging. Instead it shifts its electricity and charging costs onto Tesla by using the SuperCharger network.
[not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that; but a normal user (who charges at home) wouldn't experience these same "savings." TesLoop is a very special use case, and one that I suspect Tesla would prefer to discourage.]
Also, normal users would probably have higher maintence costs over 300,000 miles of use, many of which would usually occur after the warranty has expried. TesLoop, with an extremely high number of miles per year, gets a lot of benefit from the "infinite" milage (but finite duration) warranty.
Using the same calculated measurements, I've saved approximately $8,100.00 over the past 23 months of owning my Model S85D. (I have driven about 22K miles in that time and most charging done has been done either at the office or at Superchargers when traveling out of town). To date, I haven't spent very little on energy myself, except when charging at home about 1-3 hrs a week, so I have no reason to discredit or dispute the accuracy of their data. In that same amount of time, I have spent way more on service and fuel for my second hand ICE I now am considering putting out to pasture.
While it would cut into the bottom line if every owner did this, I bet Tesla is quite happy to shift its costs of extended-use durability testing onto Tesloop instead of having to pay for drivers, insurance, etc. OTA communication allows Tesla to monitor Tesloop's durability testing closely. I'd be very surprised if Tesla hasn't flagged Tesloop's VINs and doesn't download their data into a special queue for engineering review.
Here in Arizona we often see singletons or platoons of cars from virtually every manufacturer undergoing durability testing - and those are expensive programs to run. FoMoCo even used to donate cars to the Arizona Highway Patrol so they'd only have to pay for weekly or monthly engineering checks and not the drivers, insurance or fuel. The luxury models had signs on them to deflect complaints that tax dollars shouldn't be spent on such cars for police use.
This theory assumes that Tesla has been shortchanging it's internal durability testing. If Tesla has been doing the proper testing (and doing it early enough to make a difference in design), then it wouldn't seem that it would need (or rely) on the ad hoc "testing" done by TesLoop. My bet would be that Tesla is not happy to be subsidizing TesLoop's business plan in the way that has occurred.
300000 miles multiplied by 38 kWh per 100 miles (EPA rating for RWD S) is 114,000 kWh. Tesla charges $.20 per kWh in California for folks that aren't grandfathered in, and has a generic FAQ answer that they charge less than it costs them for Supercharging.
Taken at face value, that appears to mean ~$23k in Tesla costs for electricity that is in Tesloop's "savings."
This car they have named eHawk, had the following parts replaced which the Electrek article conveniently leaves out:
35,000 miles: Front motor was replaced. Source
200,000 miles: Main battery pack was replaced. Source
The article is not @FredLambert's best work because of the following reasons:
35,000 miles: Front motor was replaced. Source
200,000 miles: Main battery pack was replaced. Source
The article is not @FredLambert's best work because of the following reasons:
- The article implies the Model S drove 300,000 miles without major issues by omitting critical pieces of information about replaced major parts like the motor and the battery.
- The article is misleading because it suggests drivers could save $20,000 per 100,000 miles by driving a Tesla which is not true because most people rarely use superchargers.
- Bragging about fictional achievements is unnecessary. This is similar to Tesla advertising 691 HP for the P85D when the actual number was lower. Why taint actual achievements with fictitious ones? Tesla doesn't need this. They have many great achievements.
- When you want to create a lasting impression, it is a good idea to hide something and let people discover it later. For example, when Tesla announced Autopilot they said all cars made in the last two weeks had Autopilot hardware. That was impressive. However, if not careful, one can create a lasting negative impression by hiding something and letting people discover it later. For example, Tesla advertises infinite mileage battery warranty which creates a good impression but then people discover that the warranty document specifically excludes degradation. This is not a good thing and it is the kind of thing people don't forget easily. Similarly, this article skips the battery and motor replacements but when people find out, it creates a lasting bad taste. It undermines trust and you can't help but think about the credibility of all the other articles.
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New DU and Battery pack? Triggers Broom springs to mind!
I'm guessing you guys in the US don't have a classic program in the UK called Only Fools and Horses?
I'm guessing you guys in the US don't have a classic program in the UK called Only Fools and Horses?
100% agreed on 1,2 and 3. Sometimes the credibility of a site takes a hit if they come out as too fanboyish, or go the other extreme.
Do not agree on 4, specifically on battery degradation. No company warrants wear&tear items and specifically battery degradation. Nissan's '4 bar' warranty is a joke. Because by the time you lose 4 bars your ability to commute is severely impacted. Tesla should be lauded for the infinite mile warranty, but I don't think they had commercial cab/rental companies in their mind. They may be tolerant for now and even benefit from the results they get from Tesloop. But they are better off closing that loop.
Hi, @mkjayakumar. The Nissan Leaf has 75% (9 out of 12 bars) and the BMW i3 has 70% battery degradation warranty. In comparison, Tesla's warranty not only does not cover battery degradation, the warranty document specifically says that it is not covered. 99% of the time this is not a problem but I have seen people who had 85% range left in a short time. It happens. Also, Tesla does not cover battery component failure either, even in new cars. Only a complete failure is covered.
For example, forum member @Kevin Sharpe was a UK owner who bought a brand new Roadster from Tesla but before the car arrived, some battery modules were faulty and underperforming. However, Tesla argued that degradation is not covered under the warranty and the capacity is acceptable. The way they found out that modules were underperforming even before the delivery was through a legal procedure. They requested the car's logs from Tesla. You can read his story here. The guy was endlessly attacked by fanboys. I think he sold his car.
Additionally, the issue here is not whether or not Tesla's warranty should cover degradation. It is fine if they don't want to cover it. The issue is misleading advertising. Tesla advertises infinite mile warranty without saying that it excludes degradation. Whenever there is any discussion about degradation on Reddit, some people jump in to mention the 8 years unlimited mileage warranty. Without exception, it happens every single time.
For example, people say something like, I'm worried about degradation and the response is, don't worry, Tesla has 8 years unlimited miles battery warranty. This shows that the advertising is misleading. When people find out that degradation is not covered at all in any shape or form, it creates a lasting negative effect. This is similar to other overly optimistic advertising by Tesla like HP numbers and range numbers. I recently gave some examples here.
For example, forum member @Kevin Sharpe was a UK owner who bought a brand new Roadster from Tesla but before the car arrived, some battery modules were faulty and underperforming. However, Tesla argued that degradation is not covered under the warranty and the capacity is acceptable. The way they found out that modules were underperforming even before the delivery was through a legal procedure. They requested the car's logs from Tesla. You can read his story here. The guy was endlessly attacked by fanboys. I think he sold his car.
Additionally, the issue here is not whether or not Tesla's warranty should cover degradation. It is fine if they don't want to cover it. The issue is misleading advertising. Tesla advertises infinite mile warranty without saying that it excludes degradation. Whenever there is any discussion about degradation on Reddit, some people jump in to mention the 8 years unlimited mileage warranty. Without exception, it happens every single time.
For example, people say something like, I'm worried about degradation and the response is, don't worry, Tesla has 8 years unlimited miles battery warranty. This shows that the advertising is misleading. When people find out that degradation is not covered at all in any shape or form, it creates a lasting negative effect. This is similar to other overly optimistic advertising by Tesla like HP numbers and range numbers. I recently gave some examples here.
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That would be when taken at totally wrong face value. Tesla will pay commercial rates with demand charges.
Unless the taxis are the source of peak demand, then for SCE the cost impact is energy-related and will cost Tesla $0.06/kWh to $0.10/kWh depending on time of day and season.
Corollary: busy chargers lower cost per mile.
I'm not sure what assumptions go into Tesla's numbers about peak pricing or amortization of the installation/maintenance or anything else.
You can either choose to accept what they said, or decide that you know better than the people with access to the actual numbers and announce that anything that's done using the number provided by those people must be "totally wrong."
Hi, @keydiver. I calculated 75% from 9/12=0.75. I assumed they would honor the 75% but apparently, you are right because I found some sources that say Nissan was using 70% in the past. However, I found other sources that say they have changed that now. In fact, if you look at the Nissan website here, it says the following. Hopefully, Tesla can match or exceed what the competition is offering. That is something @FredLambert should make a story about.
You need to lose 4 bars before you can claim a newer battery. And remember all the 12 bars do not have equal weightage. If my memory serves right, the first bar is more like 13% of degradation followed by the remaining bars are equally portioned at around 7%. So in the end a 4 bar loss would be: 13+7+7+7 = 34% loss.
A Tesla with 15% range loss in "a short time"? That must be extremely rare. Please provide a source to support your assertion beyond "I have seen".
The Plug In America survey data shows a few percent loss in the first 100K miles.
There was one case of an early version of Roadster which had higher than average loss of range. The details around how the car was used and how many mileage on it is a little murky for me now, but I recall that it was not your standard usage. The owner - a blogger? - demanded that Tesla fix or give him a new battery. Tesla said, No. And he went around blogging about it everywhere.
Another one was a celebrity of some sort - a car racer - who raked in quite a bit of miles (150k miles??) on his roadster in just 18 months and had more than usual loss of range.
..again my memory is a little murky on this
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It is rare which is why it would make sense to cover those under the warranty. Based on my calculation, this problem affected only 3 people out of 344 in a battery survey. That's 0.9%. The examples are from the MaxRange battery survey. To see these, open this page, then on the second chart click on the blue dots near the 85% line. To switch mileage from km to miles, you can select a random username from the USA tab.
Example 1:
These two were submitted by the same person:
16,217 mi 84.7%, Model S 60 (Entry ID #51 on the USA tab)
17,697 mi 86.7%, Model S 60 (Entry ID #60 on the USA tab)
Example 2:
17,560 mi 88.7%, Model S 90D (Entry ID #103 on the USA tab)
Example 3:
29,814 mi 85.6%, Model S 60 (Entry ID #144 on the USA tab)
This person has also posted the details here in the forum.
I can't really manipulate the data on my phone - how old were these cars at the time of reporting?
Is there any information about what SoC they kept the cars at?
As I'm sure you're aware, keeping the battery fully charged will kill it, especially at high temperatures. (That's what killed all the Leaf packs, since they have no TMS and the EPA decision resulted in Nissan programming them all to go to 100% every time.)
I'm not convinced of that. Tesloop provides a good deal of free publicity and advertising for Tesla;most marketing people would consider that $23k in electricity costs would be less than they would pay for a comparable amount of conventional advertising (which Tesla doesn't do).
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