If you dont think this is true, then who do you believe is the battery leader and why?
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Anybody care to estimate cost to replace battery out of warranty?
- Thread starter insaneoctane
- Start date
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
Prius batteries have a better warranty and appear to last longer.
They also cost way less to replace.
from what I've read its the opposite. and the modular packs for the model 3 were made so you can swap them in and out..
Elon Musk makes incredible claims about Tesla Model 3 longevity, will offer battery module replacement - Electrek
Elon Musk makes incredible claims about Tesla Model 3 longevity, will offer battery module replacement - Electrek
They seem to have misquoted Elon in that article,
"Musk says that Tesla wouldn’t replace a whole battery pack, but they will offer battery module replacements for between $5,000 and $7,000."
He did not say that. He gave the price per module, but that does not mean you can replace them individually and expect a good result. I'm not saying you can't just replace modules, but I haven't come across anything compelling that says this would be fine.
The module approach may simply be for manufacturing efficiencies. If diagrams are to be believed, the SR+ simply doesn't use all the space in the pack because its modules are not as long. The LR takes up every bit of space. One could assume that the early mid-range used two shorter modules (found otherwise in the SR+) and two longer modules (found otherwise in the LR), but I have nothing to back this up.
I think it's also important to realize that replacing only a quarter of the battery does not make it all that much healthier. In addition to only getting back 25% of the original capacity at best, your $5000-$7000 investment to replace one module has left much of the series resistance left in the pack (less efficient, reduced power). I imagine that's not a great time when it comes to DC fast charging either (Superchargers or otherwise). At best I'd expect that the BMS struggles to keep things balanced. At worst you don't get to charge this way and need to use slower methods. The electric RC hobbyists know very well that you cannot simply slam high-voltage DC charging across an incredibly unbalanced pack, which is what a DC fast charger would be doing.
If nothing else you have to somehow manage the different discharge characteristics of a nearly dead module cooperating with a fresh one. The BMS may not help here outside of throwing an error that something is very, very off (because we're talking about discharge, not charging and balancing). Maybe they make this work somehow, no idea.
If it ain't clear, I'm really doubtful that being able to replace one or two modules is a reality. It just sounds better on Twitter to say $5000-$7000 and let people run with the misconception that that's the price for a whole pack. Can you imagine the response if he said $20,000-$28,0000 instead?
I don’t know who the leader currently is. This site has a pretty interesting tool to compare battery degradation between models: What can 6,000 electric vehicles tell us about EV battery health? | Geotab Tesla is right at the average for the S, and a bit below for the X. It will be very interesting to watch the trends over time. I can’t imagine Tesla’s push for ever faster DC charging is not going to affect the long term health of the batteries. We already know that once you hit a max DC charging cap, your car gets permanently throttled by them.
If Tesla IS the leader EVs are going to be a hard sell for long term use. The chances of a Tesla pack replacement between 100K and 200K is not negligible today, and that is the cost of a good used car. Past 200K and I assume the battery becomes a real risk.
We are all early adopters at this point. Who knows how this will turn out in the long run.
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
I agree it's way too early to say. Many Tesla owners are used to keeping cars for only a few year so for them it's really not an issue.
I'm far less worried about capacity degradation than the degradation in charge speed that some Model S owners are seeing. Having only 70% range wouldn't be so bad but not being able to supercharge at a reasonable rate would make the car useless for road trips.
Anyway, if you want a good scare read this thread: Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software
The unfortunate thing about this graph is that the larger the pack and the more efficient the vehicle, the better it looks on the graph. This is why the S is above the X despite using the same packs - the S is more efficient. In fact, this graph really only serves to make Tesla look unfairly good (perhaps not even intentionally).
A 2015 Leaf is worst on that graph because its battery is much smaller. If the same commute is done with a Nissan Leaf and a Tesla Model S 100D, the Leaf will always need a battery replacement first. But this is mostly because there is a lot less battery, so it goes through more cycles.
Cycle count is what matters, one cycle being defined as the energy used by one 100% discharge (not necessarily all at once, but over time). All else held constant, doubling the battery size will result in longer life in terms of miles traveled because less cycles are using for a given distance. I loosely remember last time I went through the data on Battery Survey « Plug In America (because they don't really have the right graphs either), I think the cycle counts were something like 1250 for the Model S, and 1000 for the Nissan Leaf. If memory serves, they expect 1500 cycles for the Model 3 cells. Note that the Leaf isn't incredibly terrible compared to the S, only 20% worse despite having zero active thermal management. Perhaps if they just thermally managed the darn things, Nissan might actually have better batteries!
Unfortunately the website above doesn't have data for the newer EV makers, I'm assuming partly because they either haven't hit consumers yet or their current fleets are incredibly small. Excited to see the data for VW especially over the next few years.
Backing up to what you said though, you're right. Beyond 200,000 miles, you're creeping close to that 300,000 mile optimistic expected life point of an SR+ pack. We will see failures at 200,000 miles. It will be ludicrously expensive to replace, 60% of the price of a brand new SR+ (which would also have a new motor, suspension, computers, body, computers... all things to start worrying about beyond 200k miles). The future used market of these things makes me really nervous (especially if there isn't one because it's cost-prohibitive and they just get trashed).
No, Elon was not giving a per module price he was giving the price for replacing all of the modules in a pack. How do we know? First, they are currently selling whole non-warranty LR Model 3 packs, with the trade-in of the old damaged one, for ~$13,000. Second, he was predicating future prices, years in the future, when packs have been worn to an unacceptable level of degradation, not what the price would be today.
Do you really think that replacing just the modules in a pack in ~5 years is going to cost more than replacing an entire, physically damaged, pack today?
Step 1: Read Elon's tweet. Emphasis mine.
"Model 3 drive unit & body is designed like a commercial truck for a million mile life. Current battery modules should last 300k to 500k miles (1500 cycles). Replacing modules (not pack) will only cost $5k to $7k."
That is indeed a per module price. How do we know? Because that's what he said.
Step 2: Read all the posts you marked "Disagree" on again.
To restate with less words, yes, replacement packs are currently ~$13,000-$15,000 on trade-in of the otherwise reusable old (but young) pack. And I agree, he was quoting the future replacement cost of a worn out battery. If you scroll back to the origin of this thread, the question is about what will happen outside of warranty (this is indeed after the packs are worn, because you need to put on a fair number of miles).
No, I don't think 5 years is it, because the battery warranty is 8 years or the mileage limit, whichever comes first. But yes, I do think replacing a pack that is sufficiently worn out (which likely puts it outside the warranty period) will be more expensive than replacing a physically damaged pack that is otherwise good today.
You're still wrong. He said: "Replacing modules (not pack) will only cost $5k to $7k." he didn't say: "Replacing modules (not pack) will only cost $5k to $7k each." or "Replacing each module (not pack) will only cost $5k to $7k." You're adding a word that isn't there.
If I said replacing the batteries in your flashlight will cost $5, and your flashlight uses 4 batteries do you really think that it will cost $20 to replace the batteries in your flashlight? How about "those apples will cost you $5-7." Do you think that means each apple will cost $5-7? That just isn't how English works.
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This is why corporate communication via Twitter (a platform that encourages using less words) is a terrible idea, but it sure gets people talking...
What would he mean if not one module? 2 modules? 3 modules? Let's generously say it was $5-7k per 3 modules. That's an awkward amount to specify, since there are 4 modules. Will they only sell them in packs of 3, so you'd have to buy 6 to fully refresh a pack? Nah.
What about if he meant 2 modules? At least we're then looking at $10,000-$14,000 which is better than I thought, but this is an extremely odd way to phrase it. So nah.
Let's say he meant all 4 modules, and the distinction he's trying to make is that you're not replacing the pack shell and power electronics and such in the rear compartment. Perhaps this is what he was trying to say, but it would be an odd choice for a car manufacturer (especially Tesla). The industry has had a lot of movement to sealed units for remove/replace "repairs" to the consumer.
That's not to say Tesla wouldn't replace modules themselves and use them as refurbished packs (new cells, old power electronics/fuses/shell/etc. replaced where necessary) for either warranty repair or out-of-pocket customer replacements.
Now, let's say the LR (75kWh) pack was $28,000 to replace (saying he meant per one module). That's $373/kWh, putting us back in 2015 territory for lithium ion prices (based on a quick google) and implying that interpretation of the tweet is entirely incorrect. But raw lithium ion costs don't include the cooling hardware, pack shell, power electronics, all the thermal goop between cells, design overhead, etc. I'd be surprised if all that doubles the cost of the battery though honestly, it shouldn't. That said, Tesla fetches a premium price in most aspects.
So perhaps it's most correct to interpret $5-$7k as replacing all four modules. Now we just need to hope that is both achievable (in cost) and accessible (a service they'll actually offer in a reasonable timeline ). This requires just breaking the $100/kWh barrier and we're allegedly around $150/kWh right now. Demand is picking up steeply though, it will be interesting if the supply end can keep up so the prices can keep dropping. I'm gonna do some more reading on this all.
Heck man, I don't know
English is hardEDIT: It does beg the question why he specifically decided on the word "modules" and not dumb it down for us with "all the cells" or "all the individual batteries" or just "the guts" for those who don't bother to look up how the pack is put together, especially for such a grand statement. But, again, a Twitter stream of consciousness isn't an ideal place to go over word choice, so here we are.
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Not really, some small packs like the Volt and Renault showed really good numbers over time. Volts (14kWh) are driven a ton of cycle counts because of how they are setup: I used to cycle my Volt pack daily since you basically drive it from 100% to 0 every time, minus the buffers Chevy carves out. By the way, there are a lot more cars to graph, if you go to the page, you can see how VW is doing.
Geotab - EV Battery Degradation
Well, I wasn’t going to mire this thread down with that one, LOL, but yes. I am not currently capped for my P85D (as verified by the canbus data), but we aren’t sure if it has been charge capped. We never see over 80kW when supercharging, but we don’t take the S on road trips, so it is really hard to tell if the problem is the car, or the crappy stations around me.
He didn't specify a quantity so it would only make sense that it would be all of the modules in a pack.
Now your getting it. Chevy has all of the instructions for dealers to take their Bolt packs apart and replace failed cells, but their pack is designed differently than Teslas.
You couldn't say "the guts" as that would include all of the power electronics as well. And you can't replace "all of the cells" as they are glued in and then covered in a goo, and you would destroy the rest of the module getting them out. He was specific that they would replace "the modules" in the pack with new ones.
If I can't eat some humble soup once in a while, I think I've failed as a human. Thanks for pointing out the alternate interpretation!
It is not in Tesla's interest for you to replace the battery cheaply.
Same thing as Toyota did with replacement Prius batteries. They charged $2.5k for 1.7kWh and a have a crappy warranty.
Tesla will want profit on the battery that matches profit on a new vehicle.
Their replacement packs had a 1 year warranty.Prius batteries have a better warranty and appear to last longer.
They also cost way less to replace.
The 10/150k CARB and 8/100k non-CARB warranty on a new car was standard, as it was needed to meet the CARB TZEV requirements.
Agree, not only $2500 for new battery, but rebuilt batteries not that cheap either. Very reputable Prius mechanic in SF I used to go to quotes about $2200 for rebuilt battery - none of these includes labor to swap the batteries). These are on model years that have been on the market at least 5-15 years, with hundreds of thousands of vehicles on the road providing continual supply of salvaged parts.
$3-5K for a refurb older Tesla battery, even in 3-5 years, is wishful thinking.
M3BlueGeorgia
Active Member
If sufficient batteries fail in one of the 4 battery packs on a Model 3, it appears that Tesla's intention is to replace that pack, and charge US$5K-$7K to do it. Also safe to assume the same on Model Y.
Its a better design than on the S & X where they have to swap out the entire battery pack.
The sensible thing for Tesla would be to then ship that (old) pack to a refurbishment center, swap out the bad or poor performing batteries and create a refurb'ed pack. Maybe getting 2 usable packs out of every 3 they receive?
Then offer refurb'ed packs to drivers with old Model 3 & Y, remembering that by the time these fall out of battery warranty, the cars will have 150+K miles (maybe 300+) and therefore be lower-value well-used cars.
Again, looking at older Model S, we see two very different scenarios:
- There's the routine slow degradation in battery capacity, and its highly unlikely someone with a 8 - 12 year old Model 3 or Y with 300K miles will want to spend $25K to refresh their batteries.
- There's the catastrophic battery fail, and that's the case where swapping out one of the four packs would be viable for an old vehicle.
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
Tesla charges $15k just to fix a broken coolant fitting on the Model 3 pack. There is no way they’re going to replace all the cells for $7k. The sensible thing for Tesla to do is to get people to believe that they will make packs cheap in the future and then not do that.
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