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Current cost of battery pack replacement?

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Hi!,

I am not currently an owner of a Tesla vehicle but I am looking into possibly buying one one day.
I have been watching a lot of videos on YouTube regarding different aspects of ownership from the viewpoint of many owners and I was wondering one thing.

Does anybody know or have information on what the life span and cost of replacement is for a Tesla battery pack.
I have heard that there is an 8-year 100,000 mile warranty on it that Tesla offers but it isn't clear to me from the videos I've seen what the potential future replacement cost of the battery pack might be?

Yesterday, I walked into the local Tesla store located in the Boca Town Center square mall here in Boca Raton, FL. and briefly spoke with a sales floor associate who informed me that the current replacement cost was $15,000 to replace the pack and that it was designed to last 20 years with the idea being that you would buy a new vehicle before you would need to replace your battery pack. He also said that this price was not likely to be reduced over time because as he put it 'it was a technology thing rather than a production thing'. Can anybody confirm this for me? What has been your experience?

Thank you in advance for any information any of you can provide me with regarding this issue.
 
Some new batteries are expected to last 500,000 miles. Future batteries are expected to go 1,000,000. Third party battery replacements run $10-25,000 with core exchange depending on capacity. I am surprised that a sales associate would quote $15,000. I am pretty sure that an out of warranty service center pack replacement would be more.

It is an interesting side effect of having average battery life be longer than average car life, that when the cars are totaled the batteries are reused. Not always for cars as sometimes they get dismantled, but over time the replacement battery cost can only go down.

This is part of the reason I bought a 75. I figured that the cost savings will buy a 100 pack or its successor 125ish pack when I am out of warranty after eight years of ownership.
 
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The common number some people tossed around is 15K. The estimates put the cost to manufacture the LR pack in the M3 at around 13K, so 15K for out of warranty replacement sounds low. Nobody knows what the cost will be in the future, but its anticipated to be lower of course. This is largely meaningless speculation at this point, since the pack is most likely to last the life of the car for most people. Unless it outright fails, I wouldn't expect many people to pay for an out of warranty replacement even with huge degradation. With an 8 year warranty, the earliest one would expect to pay for a replacement would be 10+ years most likely. And by then, the value of the car would most likely be under 15K. So while you COULD pay to replace the battery, it would likely make a LOT more sense to buy a new car if you really needed the range. The new model would most likely be 2 generations or so newer and vastly superior.

Unless you plan on crashing into stuff a lot and damaging the battery without insurance, I don't see out of warranty replacement costs being terribly important. Its uncommon for people to replace the pack in Leaf's out of warranty since the cost is double the value of the car. And those batteries are low capacity when new, as well as degrade quickly. The hope would be the degradation is low enough replacements are almost never going to happen outside of failures.
 
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S/X cars came with an 8 year/unlimited mile warranty so barring things like salvage titles all of them ever made are still in warranty.

The 3 is 8 years/120k miles for LR cars, 8 years/100k for SR... so I suspect 100% of those are also still in warranty.


The 3 FWIW you can replace modules instead of the whole pack, and Elon Musk estimated that'd cost 5-7k

Tesla Model 3 battery module replacements to cost $5k to $7k, says Elon Musk
 
Tesla's guidance has consistently been that the cost of the pack is about a quarter of the cost of the car for most models.

That doesn't mean they'd sell one to a consumer for that, but gives an idea for what's involved.

The most likely source of an out of warranty replacement will be wrecked cars I'd think, and the cost will presumably continue to fall as the supply increases.
 
Do you usually keep your cars beyond 8 years? I haven’t seen anyone have to foot the bill for a battery replacement, since the first Model S debuted in 2012, so their 8 year/unlimited mile warranty should start to expire in 2020 for the very first ones. So we should know within the next few years.

Elon has said recent battery packs should last around 300,000-500,000 miles on average. There are quite a few older Model S’s rolling around with over 100,000 miles. The way I see it, even in the worse case scenario with my battery failing right out of warranty at 120,001 miles and I replaced it for $15,000, it still wouldn’t break the economics of the car. I’ll save around $15,000 in gas vs driving a 20 MPG car 120,000 miles at $3/gallon. And if the battery does last 300,000-500,000 miles, this is still over 20 years of life from the car, at which point I’d probably be shopping for a new one anyway if car ownership is still a thing then.
 
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Tesla's battery packs are effectively a RAID design. 70+ individual cells in parallel, each fused individually.

If one cell shorts, the link pops, and the pack goes on, having lost ~1.5%.

As long as you can replace the pack level bits like the contactors and BMS separately, you should never have to replace the pack for wear/degradation.
 
Tesla's battery packs are effectively a RAID design. 70+ individual cells in parallel, each fused individually.

If one cell shorts, the link pops, and the pack goes on, having lost ~1.5%.

As long as you can replace the pack level bits like the contactors and BMS separately, you should never have to replace the pack for wear/degradation.
I think the model 3 battery is composed of bricks. Each brick involves 46 cells in parallel, so that makes a 3.5 V, 230 ah battery, roughly. There are 96 of those bricks in series, if I remember correctly, which creates a voltage of about 340 volts*. The 96 are physically arranged into 4 modules, 2 of 23 bricks and 2 with 25 bricks.
My feeling is that it is a pretty awesome battery design and the individual 2170 cells (each close to 3" long) are pretty state of the art (to state the obvious). I imagine if you take good care of it it will last a very long time. I think both the architecture and the individual cells are significantly superior to anything made previously.
 
You're asking about what the price of a piece of technology will be a decade into the future. I don't know how you can expect a very informative answer to that.

I do plan to keep my car 20+ years, so I will probably be looking into a replacement pack someday, but the price will be such an unknown at that point, I'll just have to see how battery prices look in 10 or 15 years.
 
The cost for a replacement Model 3 LR pack is $15k plus 4 hours of labor. But that is if your pack is physically damaged.

Elon has said that you will be able to have the modules inside the pack replaced for $5-7k in the future when the degradation is too much and the pack is out of warranty.

Elon Musk on Twitter

Elon Musk‏Verified account @elonmusk Apr 13

Replying to @Gfilche

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.
 
Current price is still at $15K but 4.5 hours labor is tight for R&R. From what I see online, the entire lower interior needs removal as well as the obvious coolant drain/refill. (console, seats, carpet) Another point for people interested: major attachment fasteners are 1 time use and must be replaced once removed.
 
Hi!,

I am not currently an owner of a Tesla vehicle but I am looking into possibly buying one one day.
I have been watching a lot of videos on YouTube regarding different aspects of ownership from the viewpoint of many owners and I was wondering one thing.

Does anybody know or have information on what the life span and cost of replacement is for a Tesla battery pack.
I have heard that there is an 8-year 100,000 mile warranty on it that Tesla offers but it isn't clear to me from the videos I've seen what the potential future replacement cost of the battery pack might be?

Yesterday, I walked into the local Tesla store located in the Boca Town Center square mall here in Boca Raton, FL. and briefly spoke with a sales floor associate who informed me that the current replacement cost was $15,000 to replace the pack and that it was designed to last 20 years with the idea being that you would buy a new vehicle before you would need to replace your battery pack. He also said that this price was not likely to be reduced over time because as he put it 'it was a technology thing rather than a production thing'. Can anybody confirm this for me? What has been your experience?

Thank you in advance for any information any of you can provide me with regarding this issue.


Just curious if when you shop for a regular combustion engine car, if you go to the salespeople and ask them what the cost is for an engine replacement for the new car you are about to buy? If so, how does the cost of an engine replacement 8+ years down the road figure into your calculations?

On the BMW forums I frequent, sometimes people come and ask "what are the expected maintenance / repair costs for this car over XXX timeframe?" Totally fair question I think, if one is trying to decide if a car is too much hassle to own. I dont remember seeing anyone come and ask how much it was to replace the engine on a new BMW xxx they were considering buying though. I dont get the relevance of the question to the idea of buying the car.

An argument that ICE drivers like to use is "when you have to replace the battery, all the savings you have had over time will be gone so why are you even bothering?". This is a "FUD" argument, because as is stated, most of the batteries will still be usable way longer than the physical car around them is. Just like a gas car that gets less MPG over time, an EV will get less total range over time... but just like people tend to keep their old cars "closer to home", I envision a 10-15 year old tesla that used to have a 300 mile range having a 200 mile range, and still being perfectly usable even counting on the 90% charge, etc etc.

Maybe it becomes a persons "urban" car instead of their "everything" car, but it would still be fine from a battery perspective. The CAR is more likely to fall apart (lol) than the battery be an issue.

So, I dont get the question about planning on replacing the battery before buying the car, any more than I would get someone planning on an engine replacement in an ICE car before buying a new one. Maybe OP can explain the thought process behind the question?

EDIT:

I did not notice this was a semi zombie thread that was resurrected before I replied. I also notice that the OP never came back and responded again so it was a "hit and run" post. Given that, and that the original post was in july and this is now the end of september, its unlikely this OP will respond to my question. I will leave it as a rhetorical question open for discussion if people want to discuss.
 
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Sorry to bring back a dead post.

I have been wondering the same thing. I’m waiting to get my model 3 and have come to the realization that after the 8 year warranty if I want to repair or replace something. Things will get quite expensive especially dealing with service at tesla service centers. Then I was wondering about battery replacement. Some people said it would be around $35k. That’s a lot and makes it feel like like there is a time limit on my car and that after a certain time I should trade it in to get something new.

Me personally. I keep cars until they are run into the ground. I think to get the value out of them you should use them until they are completely dead. Every time you buy a new car, half of the emissions are emitted to create the car the other half from driving.

So I do not want to have to buy a new Tesla before the warranty is up. I want to keep the car for as long as possible. Then the price of replacing the battery sounds a bit crazy to me.
Someone compared it to swapping out a new engine... a new engine on a regular commuter car like a Honda would be around $1000-$3000 So it’s a bit unrealistic to compare the two. I’m buying a Tesla to save on gas in the long run. To have to eventually swap the battery or buy a new Tesla doesn’t sound like saving on gas in the long run and now I’m second guessing myself if I made the right choice. It’s just a large amount of money. Want to make sure.
 
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Sorry to bring back a dead post.

I have been wondering the same thing. I’m waiting to get my model 3 and have come to the realization that after the 8 year warranty if I want to repair or replace something. Things will get quite expensive especially dealing with service at tesla service centers. Then I was wondering about battery replacement. Some people said it would be around $35k.

Who said that?

There's posts just a few before yours citing 15k if you need the ENTIRE system replaced, and 5-7k if you just need one module replaced (which is more likely- if you need anything at all).



So
That’s a lot and makes it feel like like there is a time limit on my car

There's Model S/X cars out there with 300,000-400,000 on the original battery pack and still running fine. And that's an older technology pack- the one in the 3 is likely going to get you nearer 500k.
 
These packs are very very robust. They probably have a cycle life of 750 to 1000 times (if not many more!) 250 mile pack at 750 cycles would be 180k miles. (Yes you can argue that you don’t get 250 miles on a full discharge at highway speeds, but in city driving I’ve seen usage that would equal almost 270 miles if I used a full discharge, so it probably averages out.)

Now that doesn’t mean 1 cycle past their “life” means the battery stops working, it means that it’s probably below 80% capacity or something. Tesla considers 70% capacity the warranty threshold, but that probably isn’t just down to cycle wear on the cells, it’s probably also from “abusing” them with high charge/discharge, etc.

If you plan to beat the crap out of the battery (like many of those 300-400k mile cars) you’ll probably be on the worse end of the curve, but still probably see well over 150k on the battery. Those vehicles were used mainly as fleet vehicles and supercharged three and four times a DAY. If you supercharged even twice a week you would probably be in the heavy use class and still would see strong performance out of the battery upwards of 150k miles (I would guess we’ll above 80% of original capacity and maybe even above 90% original capacity.)

If you mainly charge at home (even at max level 2 power the car can accept) and can work in a comfortable range (mainly 70-80% full charge for day to day usage and not discharging under 10%) then you’re being extremely easy on the battery and that will greatly extended its life. Don’t be afraid of supercharging when going on a trip, but even 15 to 20 times a year would be really easy on the battery.

Tesla has some of the best designed cells when it comes to chemistry and more importantly some of the absolute best designed packs (thermal management, balancing, etc).

Take away point? Don’t worry about it. You’ll be protected for 8 years or over 100k miles. Very likely you’ll easily get out to 150k and I wouldn’t be surprised if you got to 200k with minor capacity loss. That’s 10 years if you drive 15k miles a year.

Also, are you a two car family? After 10 years even if you did only get 70% of your original capacity that might be plenty for to work and back and your second car would likely have been replaced somewhere in that time frame (hopefully another Tesla) and have ~5 years or newer technology and even better longevity batteries.

Or maybe some lucky kid now gets the Model 3 as a car when they’re in high school ten years from now. Even a majorly degraded battery with 150 miles max range left would be way more for them to get to school and a job (if they could charge overnight at home).

The car is not likely to just up and die in year number 9, and if it does, it would be extraordinary and I wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla was willing to work with you to some point. They just don’t want someone that’s supercharged 200 times a year for 8 years to come bitching in year number 9 that they’ve lost a bunch of range and it’s “Tesla’s fault.” (I’m almost certain that’s why unlimited mile warranty has disappeared. It’s hard to police if you’re using it for fleet use, Uber type use, or just a power user and driving constantly, etc.)