A thought on the 'small' tesla?

I wonder if the 'small' tesla is waiting for big volumes of the 4680 battery as a key enabler of a 'City' car?

A couple of things make me think this, first and most simply, structural pack and castings will be important for keeping the BOM down, therefore keeping the cost down.

More complicatedly, the charge rate enabled by the 4680 is really important. One of the things that small EV's are fighting with is that you either go small pack (ala mini-e, the otherwise beautiful honda etc), which is light, fits easily in a small car, and just makes sense for a city car. Or you go for a bigger pack to hit around 200 miles (corsa and similar), but then you are carting that weight around the 90% city driving you do, and the owner is having to pay for all those batteries and it mostly doesn't make sense. But you need the bigger battery to enable intercity travel because not only does range scale with batteries, so does charging.

If you use ABRP to try and plan a medium length trip in any of the 'city' rated cars its just super super painful. Some of them top out charging at 40kw. Which means that while you might accept that you will have to stop quite often if you venture out of your city, not only are you stopping, you are stopping for an -hour-, every single time. Drive for 90 minutes, stop for 60. Which sucks.

The 4680 addresses this by enabling higher currant and better cooling while charging - enabling a small tesla battery to possibly hit higher rates? An inside EV's article I found (just the top google result, not deep research), suggested that a full model 3 sized pack could hit 275KW for the first 50%. If we go for a small pack of 30kwh (would be over 100 miles in a model 3, could it be 150 in a small car?) it would be hitting 110kw for the first 50%, and still at 80KW at 70-80%.

Now you are at less than 15 minutes to reclaim 100 miles, and you can use the SC's so they are everywhere.

Still not ideal, but to me, that moves a small batteried 'city' car into one that you could, in a pinch, get around the country in. Drive 1.5 hours, stop for 15 minutes is muuuch more acceptable. You would be stopping every 3rd SC, rather than every 5th-6th.

Or is the small/second car's ability to get up and down the country if needed only something my family cares about?

 

[spdpsba]

I wonder if the 'small' tesla is waiting for big volumes of the 4680 battery as a key enabler of a 'City' car?

A couple of things make me think this, first and most simply, structural pack and castings will be important for keeping the BOM down, therefore keeping the cost down.

More complicatedly, the charge rate enabled by the 4680 is really important. One of the things that small EV's are fighting with is that you either go small pack (ala mini-e, the otherwise beautiful honda etc), which is light, fits easily in a small car, and just makes sense for a city car. Or you go for a bigger pack to hit around 200 miles (corsa and similar), but then you are carting that weight around the 90% city driving you do, and the owner is having to pay for all those batteries and it mostly doesn't make sense. But you need the bigger battery to enable intercity travel because not only does range scale with batteries, so does charging.

If you use ABRP to try and plan a medium length trip in any of the 'city' rated cars its just super super painful. Some of them top out charging at 40kw. Which means that while you might accept that you will have to stop quite often if you venture out of your city, not only are you stopping, you are stopping for an -hour-, every single time. Drive for 90 minutes, stop for 60. Which sucks.

The 4680 addresses this by enabling higher currant and better cooling while charging - enabling a small tesla battery to possibly hit higher rates? An inside EV's article I found (just the top google result, not deep research), suggested that a full model 3 sized pack could hit 275KW for the first 50%. If we go for a small pack of 30kwh (would be over 100 miles in a model 3, could it be 150 in a small car?) it would be hitting 110kw for the first 50%, and still at 80KW at 70-80%.

Now you are at less than 15 minutes to reclaim 100 miles, and you can use the SC's so they are everywhere.

Still not ideal, but to me, that moves a small batteried 'city' car into one that you could, in a pinch, get around the country in. Drive 1.5 hours, stop for 15 minutes is muuuch more acceptable. You would be stopping every 3rd SC, rather than every 5th-6th.

Or is the small/second car's ability to get up and down the country if needed only something my family cares about?

I think we can't dismiss any of these - but what will trump the whole thinking is it has to make some financial/practical sense to the American market.

Call me old school but small Tesla don't make financial/practical sense to their primary market - the 'big cars' the American market is used to.

When it comes to the home market, I think our biggest problem is eternal range anxiety irrespective of how many chargers and how quick it gets. Even 200 miles in a small car may not cure our anxiety - we will go for something slightly bigger. A city car like mini with 200 miles is more than enough - if it has the right package for few occasional long trips and then city driving without carrying an excess weight - I think Fiat 500 got that spot on in terms of the range but that car isn't very practical if you have 4 adults unfortunately. The Renault Zoe's initial target market was very different to their current market as they are providing Zoe as an 'all in one' to manage our range anxiety!

 

[DenkiJidousha]

In my mind a "small" Tesla would just be smaller (probably 4 seats) and lighter, so would get a smaller battery - but still big enough to still have 200 miles of range. Tesla are of course expanding the SuperCharger network, but it much easier to plan if all their cars have a similar minimum range.

But I don't live in a City, and as you say, a small Tesla primarily for city driving could be very different. I don't expect them to make that though.

 

[prabhu]

My guess is that Tesla's small EV cars probably wouldn't have any steering wheel and pedals and purely FSD only. Only recently such a drastic change has been approved in the US. So, we are talking few more solid years before we can see all the factors to materialise.

 

[MrBadger]

My guess is that any 'small' Tesla would be made in partnership with a company that could mass produce at the sort of global scale that a small vehicle may need. My money would be on Toyota... who knows whether it would be branded a Toyota or a Tesla, but I would think that its more likely to be a Toyota (substitute other potential partners here) with Tesla battery/drivetrain.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I think weight of the pack will be key. Improved energy density, lighter pack, more range. If it charges faster too (e.g. "New Tech") then that's a clincher.

I'm carting a ton of battery around for the once a month, or once every two months, journey that needs it.

 

[Avendit]

I think weight of the pack will be key. Improved energy density, lighter pack, more range. If it charges faster too (e.g. "New Tech") then that's a clincher.

I'm carting a ton of battery around for the once a month, or once every two months, journey that needs it.

ahhh you see. If they had gone modular battery, you could be leaving 2/3rd your battery on the drive most of the time!

 

[GRiLLA]

I really hope it wouldn't be a 'city' car, they seem to be hugely compromised and really we shouldn't need cars driving around cities. The Model 3 is 'executive' class (whether agreed or not) so really something better value is what's best. If Tesla can't make a decent car that's like a Fiesta or a Corsa for the same money then I don't see what they would be achieving.

 

[WannabeOwner]

If they had gone modular battery, you could be leaving 2/3rd your battery on the drive most of the time!

Whole new take on "Tesla build quality"

 

[Andy_T_73]

you can use the SC's so they are everywhere.

Very much agree with what you're saying, I'm sure I read somewhere that the Model 2 or whatever it may be called is dependent on 4680 cells to be able to get to the cost/price/usability balance right for a small EV. I'd happily consider one as I don't need a car as large as the M3, a Golf sized Tesla hatch would be far more suitable for me most of the time and I'd happily do short hops for longer journeys. But for one problem....

Last long journey I left Portsmouth for Glasgow at 8am on a wet Sunday in Feb:

1. queued at Winchester SC (15 min wait, only 2 stalls, 20 min charge, slow V2), another one miles off the main A34 route
2. straight in at Banbury SC (40 min charge, V3 so nice and fast) but 5 miles off the motorway in a retail park....why?
3. queued at M6 Charnock Richard (15 min wait. 12 stalls, 50 min charge, V2),
4. had to use M74 Ionity Gretna for a quick 10KW bump to get me to Abingdon SC as the 4 Gretna SC stalls were full and queued)
5. queued again at M74 Abingdon SC (20 min wait, 6 stalls, V2).

Summing it up I queued for 50 mins and charged for probably 130 mins for a 450ish mile journey on a wet and windy Sunday in February. Sure the weather probably made it worse with one extra stop but hey, we're an island at the ar$e end of the north Atlantic so it's not that unusual.

I would happily have a small battery EV where you only have to charge for 15 mins and off you go for the next 100 miles or so. However, with a few hundred thousand more little Teslas on UK roads and no SC capacity increase you'll have long wait lines to charge. I can't see more SC stalls coming online quickly enough on key motorway routes to support the number of Teslas we have on the roads today. The situation on open chargers is even worse. I don't think any service station on the M6 has more than 2 or 3 stalls.....?

I don't have range anxiety but I do have charger anxiety. I've done the above journey maybe 3 or 4 times a year since I got my M3 in Nov 19, it's getting more painful to travel distances in an EV, not easier.

 

[Avendit]

Very much agree with what you're saying, I'm sure I read somewhere that the Model 2 or whatever it may be called is dependent on 4680 cells to be able to get to the cost/price/usability balance right for a small EV. I'd happily consider one as I don't need a car as large as the M3, a Golf sized Tesla hatch would be far more suitable for me most of the time and I'd happily do short hops for longer journeys. But for one problem....

Last long journey I left Portsmouth for Glasgow at 8am on a wet Sunday in Feb:

1. queued at Winchester SC (15 min wait, only 2 stalls, 20 min charge, slow V2), another one miles off the main A34 route
2. straight in at Banbury SC (40 min charge, V3 so nice and fast) but 5 miles off the motorway in a retail park....why?
3. queued at M6 Charnock Richard (15 min wait. 12 stalls, 50 min charge, V2),
4. had to use M74 Ionity Gretna for a quick 10KW bump to get me to Abingdon SC as the 4 Gretna SC stalls were full and queued)
5. queued again at M74 Abingdon SC (20 min wait, 6 stalls, V2).

Summing it up I queued for 50 mins and charged for probably 130 mins for a 450ish mile journey on a wet and windy Sunday in February. Sure the weather probably made it worse with one extra stop but hey, we're an island at the ar$e end of the north Atlantic so it's not that unusual.

I would happily have a small battery EV where you only have to charge for 15 mins and off you go for the next 100 miles or so. However, with a few hundred thousand more little Teslas on UK roads and no SC capacity increase you'll have long wait lines to charge. I can't see more SC stalls coming online quickly enough on key motorway routes to support the number of Teslas we have on the roads today. The situation on open chargers is even worse. I don't think any service station on the M6 has more than 2 or 3 stalls.....?

I don't have range anxiety but I do have charger anxiety. I've done the above journey maybe 3 or 4 times a year since I got my M3 in Nov 19, it's getting more painful to travel distances in an EV, not easier.

Wow. I also use the top end of the M6/M74 a fair bit, but I've not been since around xmas. That all sounds nasty! Gretna is a total pain, but its unusual for Abingdon to be so full! I will be reliant on Gretna on Thursday for a trip, am already not looking forward to it :/.

Conversion to v3 is becoming important. The extra speed is good, but they aren't paired so eg the 4 at Gretna would probably suddenly be enough with the increased throughput.

On topic, hopefully the small cars would be Ok for SC's tho, as they wouldn't be there all that often. Not sure what the long term answer for services is tho - In the US they are heading for 48 stall SCs , but long term when everyone on the motorway is EV? How does that work? Every parking stall a charger? or are we just on some transition tech at the moment?

 

[Andy_T_73]

Conversion to v3 is becoming important. The extra speed is good, but they aren't paired so eg the 4 at Gretna would probably suddenly be enough with the increased throughput.

Personally I'd rather have 8 x slower V2 stalls than 4 x V3s with higher headline speeds. If you can get a V2 stall and you're sharing charging at 75KW or so then you're still charging. Sitting in a queue waiting for a V3 you're charging at 0, then when you get a spot it's a case of I have to get to 90% as either the next stall is 200 miles away or the next stall is gonna have a queue and I don't want to stop again and I need 90% to get home. I haven't found any advantage V2 vs V3 over about 60% SoC as the charge speed slows down to what a shared V2 would get anyhow.

It's worth keeping an eye on the car's map, you'll see how often Abingdon, Gretna, Tebay and Charnock Richard are full. Checked just now (14:30) and all have space but look again during the evening peak, weekends and bank holidays and you'll see low availability or continuous waits.

Hopefully things might be different when 4680s are common and then V3s make more of an impact on throughput. Right now a short hop strategy with an M3 LR isn't easy. Not enough stalls and sites too far apart to make it possible or easy to stay in that 80-20% SOC/charge speed sweet spot.

 

[GRiLLA]

Very much agree with what you're saying, I'm sure I read somewhere that the Model 2 or whatever it may be called is dependent on 4680 cells to be able to get to the cost/price/usability balance right for a small EV. I'd happily consider one as I don't need a car as large as the M3, a Golf sized Tesla hatch would be far more suitable for me most of the time and I'd happily do short hops for longer journeys. But for one problem....

Last long journey I left Portsmouth for Glasgow at 8am on a wet Sunday in Feb:

1. queued at Winchester SC (15 min wait, only 2 stalls, 20 min charge, slow V2), another one miles off the main A34 route
2. straight in at Banbury SC (40 min charge, V3 so nice and fast) but 5 miles off the motorway in a retail park....why?
3. queued at M6 Charnock Richard (15 min wait. 12 stalls, 50 min charge, V2),
4. had to use M74 Ionity Gretna for a quick 10KW bump to get me to Abingdon SC as the 4 Gretna SC stalls were full and queued)
5. queued again at M74 Abingdon SC (20 min wait, 6 stalls, V2).

Summing it up I queued for 50 mins and charged for probably 130 mins for a 450ish mile journey on a wet and windy Sunday in February. Sure the weather probably made it worse with one extra stop but hey, we're an island at the ar$e end of the north Atlantic so it's not that unusual.

I would happily have a small battery EV where you only have to charge for 15 mins and off you go for the next 100 miles or so. However, with a few hundred thousand more little Teslas on UK roads and no SC capacity increase you'll have long wait lines to charge. I can't see more SC stalls coming online quickly enough on key motorway routes to support the number of Teslas we have on the roads today. The situation on open chargers is even worse. I don't think any service station on the M6 has more than 2 or 3 stalls.....?

I don't have range anxiety but I do have charger anxiety. I've done the above journey maybe 3 or 4 times a year since I got my M3 in Nov 19, it's getting more painful to travel distances in an EV, not easier.

What a lot of worst cases combined, for comparison I did 440 miles from Oxford to Lancaster and back in Feb and

1. Left with 100% charge from overnight
2. Got to Charnock Richard with 19%, charged to 63% in 15 mins. No queue, no one parked next to me although most other bay were in use. It would seem to me that white Model 3's like parking next to other white Model 3.
3. Arrived in Lancaster, didn't both charging as BP Pulse and would rather stab myself.
4. Next day on the way back I used the MFG chargers at M6 J27, on the roundabout. Spent 30 mins to get from 36% to 80%. Probably spent a bit long but I avoid Keale South and wanted to get to Warwick.
5. Warwick spent 14 mins from 11% to 49%, not sharing although others were
6. Arrived home with 29%, should have left Warwick sooner.

So 442 miles in Feb, average temp 6.9 not constant but some heavy rain. Total of less than an hour of charging and no waiting.

I also go far past Glasgow in the summers, I've never had to stop between Charnock and Abington.

 

[Andy_T_73]

I also go far past Glasgow in the summers, I've never had to stop between Charnock and Abington.

Strong headwind - was the weekend following Eunice. On a good day I can just make it home from Charnock if I charge to about 95%, arrive home with around 5-10% taking it easy at 65-70 all the way. I've had good days with no queues but last 3 trips I've always had a queue at Gretna and Abingdon. Sundays seems to be worst.

 

[GRiLLA]

Strong headwind - was the weekend following Eunice. On a good day I can just make it home from Charnock if I charge to about 95%, arrive home with around 5-10% taking it easy at 65-70 all the way. I've had good days with no queues but last 3 trips I've always had a queue at Gretna and Abingdon. Sundays seems to be worst.

Given Gretna is always difficult, wouldn't it be better to use the cross over at Tebay to make sure you reach Abington ? There's a Gridserve hub planned for Annadale Water, between Gretna and Abington, I'm hoping some v3 Tesla SuC go in there, M74 does need more options.

 

[Unclepaul]

Given that Tesla is currently battery constraints, making a low profit small car would take away from their ability to make a higher profit larger car. Why would they do that?

 

[WannabeOwner]

5 miles off the motorway in a retail park....why?

May have felt like it! but I think its more like a mile. I actually prefer just-off-motorway as all chargers are available to traffic travelling either direction - so better for holiday traffic without having to have huge numbers of stalls both sides of the road.

There's some history to the rollouts - Banbury opened 2020 so fairly recent, but location of older sites had a lot to do with farsighted? landlords choosing to invite Tesla - for the additional footfall. And Ecotricity had a monopoly for Motorway service stations (which it then didn't fully exploit) which kept others out of them. There were also motorway sites, in the early days, where Tesla did their installation and then some other infrastructure work stalled - in some cases for more than a year. There was then a change to choose sites based on the winner of the paperwork & red tape race!

Portsmouth for Glasgow on a wet Sunday in Feb

For my MS LR ABetterRoutePlanner has 53 mins charging (10C and wet) [for 20C and Dry its 44 mins] with stops at Hilton Park, Charnock and Gretna Green. Departure charging varied from 53% to 69%, personally I would charge 10% over that to provide some leeway, and thus arrive at 20% rather than 10% (and in practice I would speed up if arrival at 20% was definite)

That's assuming the chargers aren't full when you get there of course...

Adding a stop at Tebay (crossover), as @GRiLLA suggested, reduced the (wet journey) charge time to 49 mins (added a bit to the drive time), and then skipped Gretna Green.

 

[Avendit]

Given that Tesla is currently battery constraints, making a low profit small car would take away from their ability to make a higher profit larger car. Why would they do that?

This isn't about the currently, this is once the big battery lines are established and there are enough to spare to do a small car with. The total addressable market of a £15-20k car is waaaaaay bigger than the £50-60k car that the model 3/y is. Finally, I think that tesla stand to do better in this market than the old manufactures jamming some batteries into the tank space on their ICE.

You could also see it at 1 LR battery pack in a £50k big car with £10k profit, or 3 model 2's (or whatever) with 0.3 packs at £20k and 5k profit - which is better comes down to specifics which we can't even guess at. But the 3 small cars vs 1 big one actually do more to accelerate humanity towards a BEV future (or whatever the tesla goal wording is).

 

[Avendit]

skipped Gretna Green.

Life Pro Tip is always in the comments...

 

[Andy_T_73]

addressable market of a £15-20k car is waaaaaay bigger than the £50-60k car that the model 3/y is.

Be interesting to see how things pan out if we see some of the Chinese manufacturers entering the UK market like Xpeng. Are there any on the way?