Battery replacement / upgrade?

[mikerb]

My plan is to keep my SR+ for as long as possible, the only thing which I would be tempted to do would be to perhaps change the battery pack after 5+ years if it were possible to replace with a larger pack. I’d imagine in 5 years time there might be some improvements in battery tech.

Anyone know if this is something likely to be offered?

 

[Akikiki]

My Crystal Ball says " - Maybe -".

 

[MaDProFF]

I doubt you would need to change the batteries after 5 years anyhow

 

[Lachie]

Definitely something I'd be interested in too. I wanted the long range but it was out of my budget. Who knows, in 5 years they might offer 100kw battery upgrades!

 

[MP3Mike]

Here is a video from Gruber where they say that they have talked to Tesla and that they will now offer a 90kWh pack that can be put in vehicles that came with a 40, 60, 70, 75, or 85kWh pack:

Though it sounds like they will charge ~$21k for that service.

It is said that they won't support going to a 100kWh pack because it weighs too much more and would negatively impact the crash structure and air bag deployment.

 

[Billbrown1982]

I mean there are companies doing this for Leafs and such, but even to change a pack for a leaf your looking at a fortune, at least in my mind when I heard it on Fully Charged yesterday.

I can see it being an option, but I think its going to be so bloody expensive I just don't know if it will be worth it.

To be honest thats my concern long term as I really want to keep my 2021 model 3 LR for a long long time, but will I get to a point where I'm losing more value because of the reduced range than I would to just trade it in? Who knows....time will tell.

 

[pdk42]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Model 3 is not designed for field-replaceable battery packs (unlike the S). Does anyone know for sure whether is possible at all?

 

[MP3Mike]

I can see it being an option, but I think its going to be so bloody expensive I just don't know if it will be worth it.

To be honest thats my concern long term as I really want to keep my 2021 model 3 LR for a long long time, but will I get to a point where I'm losing more value because of the reduced range than I would to just trade it in? Who knows....time will tell.

My biggest complaint is the warranty replacement packs come with. Only 4-year/50k miles... If they put an 8-year/150k mile warranty on them like come with a new car it would be much more reasonable...

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Model 3 is not designed for field-replaceable battery packs (unlike the S). Does anyone know for sure whether is possible at all?

Correct, the Model 3/Y require taking some of the interior out to drop the pack. I think it takes ~2 hours to replace a pack. Where the S&X I think it takes under an hour to replace the pack and it can be done totally from the outside. (It used to take ~20 minutes, but then they added some of the impact shields that take more time to remove and replace.)

 

[gangzoom]

Elon has always promised it would be possible but so far Tesla will not replace/upgrade packs.

The cost of a new 85 pack on a S is $15kish with Tesla keeping the old pack.

Third parties in the US will upgrade a 75->100 fo $20k+ I believe.

Economically is you need the range buy a LR car. Stopping for 10-15 minutes at a SC is roughly is difference between a SR and LR car. For me personally paying $20k to save 15 minutes of charging once every 6 months+ isn't worth it. But if you need the range every day its a different matter.

 

[SR-Plus]

I mean there are companies doing this for Leafs and such, but even to change a pack for a leaf your looking at a fortune, at least in my mind when I heard it on Fully Charged yesterday.

I can see it being an option, but I think its going to be so bloody expensive I just don't know if it will be worth it.

To be honest thats my concern long term as I really want to keep my 2021 model 3 LR for a long long time, but will I get to a point where I'm losing more value because of the reduced range than I would to just trade it in? Who knows....time will tell.

It was £8.5k to upgrade the Leaf from 24kwh to 40kwh. The range increases from 50 to 134 approximately but careful driving can see 160 odd.

 

[Jason71]

My biggest complaint is the warranty replacement packs come with. Only 4-year/50k miles... If they put an 8-year/150k mile warranty on them like come with a new car it would be much more reasonable...



Correct, the Model 3/Y require taking some of the interior out to drop the pack. I think it takes ~2 hours to replace a pack. Where the S&X I think it takes under an hour to replace the pack and it can be done totally from the outside. (It used to take ~20 minutes, but then they added some of the impact shields that take more time to remove and replace.)

By the sound of it that would be neither here nor there in the total cost of the job

 

[MP3Mike]

By the sound of it that would be neither here nor there in the total cost of the job

I remembered wrong, it takes ~4.5 hours to replace the Model 3 battery pack.

 

[SpareHeadOne]

It was £8.5k to upgrade the Leaf from 24kwh to 40kwh. The range increases from 50 to 134 approximately but careful driving can see 160 odd.

That's with a pack recovered from a crash-damaged write-off Leaf. New Leaf packs are ~£13k.

I'm reasonably sure that third parties will eventually offer battery replacements, but as the cost of the battery is a significant proportion of the car (40%?) you will be looking at that kind of money as a minimum I would expect.

What's being asked for is the equivalent of replacing the entire drive train of an ICE vehicle. (Engine, gearbox, diff, etc.). I had to have a warranty replacement engine for a car about 25 years ago and the engine was about ⅓ the original price of the car, on another car I had to have a warranty gearbox replacement (hadn't failed, they found a manufacturing defect in the batch) and that was about 6% of the car price, so to have both would have been around 40% including labour at a guess.

Obviously it's not possible to do a direct comparison, but I don't think it's too far off.

 

[Adopado]

I remembered wrong, it takes ~4.5 hours to replace the Model 3 battery pack.

In the near future the Tesla plan is to move the design of the cars to an integrated pack where the cells are bonded and form a structural member of the car (I think when they start using the 4680 cells). That will have some influence on the possibility of replacement ... I'm thinking more rather than less difficult as the structural design will need to significantly change with no backward compatibility. However, by the time that happens there will be a pre-existing fleet of Model 3s of many hundreds of thousands ... so as those cars age there will certainly be a huge market for newer tech batteries to be installed. A fascinating future!

 

[SpareHeadOne]

Interesting point about the plan to make the batteries structural, I wonder what that will do for repairability? I can't imagine Tesla would want to replace an entire chassis (or even car) in the event of a few cells failing under warranty.

 

[Uncle Paul]

Many feel it will be cost effective to repurpose your old degraded, but still highly functional battery pack for home storage use.

Will allow owner to recover much of the value of their traction pack when replacing.

While a battery pack with 20% degradation might no longer be acceptable in a car, it is more than sufficient to provide backup power and time shifting for home or business uses.

 

[yerEVan]

Flip it over. Take out ~8 screws, remove cover and unplug from the motherboard and swap.

It works for my HP Elitebook, should be a similar experience.

 

[DaSwede]

Definitely something I'd be interested in too. I wanted the long range but it was out of my budget. Who knows, in 5 years they might offer 100kw battery upgrades!

I'll wait with replacing my battery for when the 500 kWh battery comes out. Lol!

 

[ACarneiro]

It is said that they won't support going to a 100kWh pack because it weighs too much more and would negatively impact the crash structure and air bag deployment.

This is assuming the battery chemistry stays the same.
The interesting thing would be a future (5 years+) where energy density is such that it would allow replacement with a 100kWh battery pack with roughly the same size and weight as the current ones.
That would be an ideal scenario but somehow I doubt it’ll come to pass.

 

[Adopado]

This is assuming the battery chemistry stays the same.
The interesting thing would be a future (5 years+) where energy density is such that it would allow replacement with a 100kWh battery pack with roughly the same size and weight as the current ones.
That would be an ideal scenario but somehow I doubt it’ll come to pass.

It's my understanding that the 4680 cells would potentially offer the required space savings to fit a 100kWh pack... it's already at 82kWh in Model 3 with 2170 cells.