Battery Cost

[sleepydoc]

You can do the math and figure out what makes sense for you. At $4k per month you’ve paid for the car in 18 months, although things like tires will add a significant amount to your costs, too.

The thing to remember is that the batteries don’t just up and die, they degrade. Time, temperature, state of charge and charge cycles are the enemies. Based on reports I’ve seen I’d expect you could easily get 150-200k on a battery.

 

[DanDi58]

As time goes along I suspect there will be options for batteries, that Tesla OEM won't be the only choice. There are already some third party installers which, I assume, use batteries from salvaged cars or maybe 'refresh' them, for the MS/X. I'm sure that will expand over time and bring down the cost of replacement.

 

[ggs gas]

Interesting thread. I’ll be following as I do about 30-35k a year. Currently waiting on MY, probably going to have to switch to a MYP based off how many times my delivery date has been pushed back.

With that in mind I’m considering still giving the majority of mileage load on my 2012 Prius currently with 190k on it. Part of me originally thought I’d sell the Model Y before hitting 120k so as to stay within the warranty, for this battery replacement reason. But if the car is in good shape and software isn’t completely unusable it might be worth it to keep it.

On the idea of non OEM battery replacement… it took over 10 years for someone to develop a Lithium replacement HV pack for Priuses. Surprisingly with as many on the road, I couldn’t believe it took that long, so I don’t have a ton of hope for non OEM Tesla packs. I haven’t even begun to research it tho.

 

[DanDi58]

Interesting thread. I’ll be following as I do about 30-35k a year. Currently waiting on MY, probably going to have to switch to a MYP based off how many times my delivery date has been pushed back.

With that in mind I’m considering still giving the majority of mileage load on my 2012 Prius currently with 190k on it. Part of me originally thought I’d sell the Model Y before hitting 120k so as to stay within the warranty, for this battery replacement reason. But if the car is in good shape and software isn’t completely unusable it might be worth it to keep it.

On the idea of non OEM battery replacement… it took over 10 years for someone to develop a Lithium replacement HV pack for Priuses. Surprisingly with as many on the road, I couldn’t believe it took that long, so I don’t have a ton of hope for non OEM Tesla packs. I haven’t even begun to research it tho.

Well, it stands to reason, doesn't it, that if EV's are going to be more and more prevalent, that someone will develop replacement batteries for them. The key will be a generic system that could replace multiple manufacturer's battery packs. That would be the holy grail. Someone will get there eventually. If nothing else, third-party refurbished packs should be here sooner than later in quantity enough to drive prices down.

 

[Rocky_H]

With that in mind I’m considering still giving the majority of mileage load on my 2012 Prius currently with 190k on it. Part of me originally thought I’d sell the Model Y before hitting 120k so as to stay within the warranty, for this battery replacement reason. But if the car is in good shape and software isn’t completely unusable it might be worth it to keep it.

Regarding old Prius batteries, if you're just trying to wring the last bits of life out of it, the good news is that the batteries will probably not cause the car to stop working. My father-in-law had his old Prius up well over 200K miles still with the original battery pack in it. The battery was pretty well trashed and degraded, but the car still ran fine. The symptom is that the battery becomes like a vestigial tail that isn't doing much. So the car gets a little under 40 mpg, rather than the high 40's mpg it used to get when it was able to get more benefit from that battery.

 

[sleepydoc]

I'd be a bit leery of 3rd party battery packs. As we've seen with EVs, high voltage lithium batteries are not simple devices and if you get it wrong it can have disastrous consequences. Remember the Samsung Galaxy 7 debacle? There are some things where I think it's worth it to pay a bit extra for the 'brand name' and an EV battery is one of them.

Another problem is even though Teslas have been around for many years they've had several battery configurations during that time and now will likely have another one with the 4680 packs. That makes the ROI harder for a 3rd party looking to develop a replacement.

 

[Mark-YSR]

Third party packs likely mean no Supercharging either.

 

[DanDi58]

Third party packs likely mean no Supercharging either.

I suspect that will change as well, since everyone will be able to use the SC network "soon"...

 

[Rocky_H]

Well, it stands to reason, doesn't it, that if EV's are going to be more and more prevalent, that someone will develop replacement batteries for them. The key will be a generic system that could replace multiple manufacturer's battery packs. That would be the holy grail. Someone will get there eventually. If nothing else, third-party refurbished packs should be here sooner than later in quantity enough to drive prices down.

This is already being developed by at least one company that I know of.

Third party packs likely mean no Supercharging either.

That depends on how well the control circuitry in the 3rd party pack can spoof itself to the car's detection.

The shop in North Carolina run by @wk057 has done many battery pack replacements on the older Model S and X and knows the control systems inside and out. I just tried to search to find the comment I read before about this but can't find it now. He has developed fully in house a new replacement battery pack for those older vehicles, and has tested it as a prototype and was able to Supercharge with it. And it has been able to receive updates from the car, apply what it needs to, and report back the appropriate information, so the car can't tell any difference. It's just not something they are ready to offer for sale yet. I think it's being so busy with what they have going on right now that they aren't ready to make such a big expansion with that new product yet.

 

[wk057]

This is already being developed by at least one company that I know of.

That depends on how well the control circuitry in the 3rd party pack can spoof itself to the car's detection.

The shop in North Carolina run by @wk057 has done many battery pack replacements on the older Model S and X and knows the control systems inside and out. I just tried to search to find the comment I read before about this but can't find it now. He has developed fully in house a new replacement battery pack for those older vehicles, and has tested it as a prototype and was able to Supercharge with it. And it has been able to receive updates from the car, apply what it needs to, and report back the appropriate information, so the car can't tell any difference. It's just not something they are ready to offer for sale yet. I think it's being so busy with what they have going on right now that they aren't ready to make such a big expansion with that new product yet.

Yep, hopefully will be a next summer thing for the S/X assuming everything comes together as planned.

Supercharging works fine, as the pack is what talks directly to the supercharger anyway. We have it enforcing the supercharging flag for the car itself, however, so like a car bought as a 40 or 60 with no supercharging, or (sadly) a car where Tesla has disabled supercharging for one reason or another still won't be able to supercharge with it.

It survives updates, currently, and is adaptive enough to survive any future updates Tesla is likely to push to the pre-Plaid S/X's... which isn't likely to be much honestly. If the update changes something drastic that our software can't account for, it will just cause the OTA update to fail pending a special update for just the pack from us (enable built-in WiFi with a special steering wheel control button dance).

I don't have pricing for our custom pack as of yet, but we're shooting to have them priced pretty close to our refurbished OEM packs.

In the meantime we're doing replacements with OEM packs we fully test and refurbish on the S+X at the lowest cost possible (generally ~$5k-ish for like replacements after processing the core pack). We haven't really bothered for the 3/Y as of yet for a few reasons, but mostly because those packs are pretty solid. We haven't seen a ton of failures outside of accidents.

 

[soumak]

i wonder if the cost they gave you is just for the price of the battery without any labor cost included.

 

[DanDi58]

i wonder if the cost they gave you is just for the price of the battery without any labor cost included.

The OP references both costs in his post.

 

[Physicslawyer]

And, I was told at another Service Center yesterday that the LFP battery and MYP 2170 battery would both be 15k to replace. Ugh. Do different service centers charge different amounts? A sales person told me the cost yesterday, where two actual advisors told me the prices I posted previously while looking at their computers.

 

[Physicslawyer]

The OP references both costs in his post.

They said with labor.

 

[sleepydoc]

And, I was told at another Service Center yesterday that the LFP battery and MYP 2170 battery would both be 15k to replace. Ugh. Do different service centers charge different amounts? A sales person told me the cost yesterday, where two actual advisors told me the prices I posted previously while looking at their computers.

There seems to be a lot of inconsistencies between service centers. I don’t know if that’s just due to lack of guidance from corporate or if they’re intended to be more independent.

There’s a lot of variability between dealer service centers, too, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.

Something else to consider is the actual cost of the battery pack may vary considerably over time so any price you get now will likely not be accurate anyway.

 

[Physicslawyer]

There seems to be a lot of inconsistencies between service centers. I don’t know if that’s just due to lack of guidance from corporate or if they’re intended to be more independent.

There’s a lot of variability between dealer service centers, too, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.

Something else to consider is the actual cost of the battery pack may vary considerably over time so any price you get now will likely not be accurate anyway.

I would hope the price would decrease over time..

 

[sleepydoc]

I would hope the price would decrease over time..

One would hope, but the materials used are commodities and batteries themselves are becoming commodities. With the increased interest and Production of electric vehicles battery prices have actually increased from what I understand. Part of Teslas strategy has been to secure material prices for their batteries.

 

[ArtK]

I own a 2005 Tesla with around 340,000 miles (those speedos can’t go past 299,999 so this is my best guess). For the first ten years I owned the car, I was quoted $7,000 plus four hours labor to replace the HV battery. Four years ago, a company called Greenleaf installed a refurbished battery for $1400 in 45 minutes. And they gave me a 4 year guarantee. And it continues to do great (one of my kids drives it). As stated earlier, time has a way of empowering very clever and highly motivated people to solve difficult problems. Can’t wait to see what the future holds.

 

[Madsen203]

Seems like it would be worth exploring buying a new one every 6 months and selling the slightly used model. The loss is likely less than maintenance and battery replacement. 25k miles would still have tires in good shape and be favorable to most buyers. With market as hot as it is, you could do quite well just placing a MYP order every 4-6 months and swapping cars each time.

If you spend $10k on tires, $15k on battery in 4 years, maybe it doesn’t pay off but worth exploring

 

[Physicslawyer]

Seems like it would be worth exploring buying a new one every 6 months and selling the slightly used model. The loss is likely less than maintenance and battery replacement. 25k miles would still have tires in good shape and be favorable to most buyers. With market as hot as it is, you could do quite well just placing a MYP order every 4-6 months and swapping cars each time.

If you spend $10k on tires, $15k on battery in 4 years, maybe it doesn’t pay off but worth exploring

I'm debating what to do. I was thinking of getting a M3 RWD because of the LFP battery and driving it as long as it would last. I'm getting rid of the current MYP at 14k (four months total) and I'm not sure which direction il heading, another MYP and doing the same, or drive a M3 sr as far as it will go.