Realist:
Frankly there is nothing wrong with your thinking process. The series of well over a dozen bankruptcies of electric car companies makes your point that getting into the car business is hard work. I recognized kind of early on that the shorts would not have the deep knowledge to be able to differentiate Tesla from Azure Dynamics, Brightspeed, Phoenix, Aptera, Think, et al.
You do get in a little trouble with your engineering. The average US Houshold uses just over 900 kWh per month. I understand that this must sound horrendous to you guys in California, but here in the hinterlands it is not unusual to run air conditioning 24x7 from late May to late September. It never shuts down. This much higher use is what gets us much lower rates - 8.2 cents per kWh instead of California's 27.5 cents. The trucks and wires are amortized over more kWh here.
That's more like 30 kWh per day. You will struggle to find your Tesla in your monthly bill at all. Here in Missouri it will take test instruments. The vampire load is not the problem you think just as the charging efficiencies of the fast charge were not.
The car is an astoundingly good car. The guys at Motor Trend and Consumer Reports are just not dummies. You don't have to devine a spider in the car. It's been gone through. It's now about demand and production and growth.
Technically, there IS a little bit of a problem long term. The cells they use in the car are ultimately designed for consumer use. Flashlights. Cameras. RC toys. Smoke alarms. Thermostats. There really is no impetus to make them long lasting vis a vis cycle life.
They WERE rated at about 800 cycles. With the advent of the automotive application, they have simply REMOVED cycle life from the data sheets. Vague references to longer cycle life. Mumble, mumble.
But if you check the SEC filings, Tesla has already copped to a little problem in the 5-7 year range.
This goes to the problem people really have with electric cars - childhood experiences with flashlights and batteries. And they know the batteries are expensive.
What does this do to resale? Let's see, a four year old Tesla, with a battery good for five years???? Hmm..... And Elon has "guaranteed" resale values - a depreciation feel good.
But it remains a problem. And I cannot believe they are going to take the hit on this one. I was SURE he woudl announce it with the battery swap demo and he walked away from it hard.
Basically, the way out, is to introduce the $1 shave club for men, but for Teslas. Let's say you pay $200 per month and join the club. Now you can swap your battery anytime you like. Never or a couple of times per day.
Almost immediately, the batteries become Teslas and are divorced from the car. A better Better Place actually. The batteries WILL get better, particularly with regards to energy density which there IS a huge motivator to increase by Panasonic et al.
The Model S batteries are ridiculously modular. They can pull those blades, dump the old 18650's and plug in new ones in a New York minute, and you are down to inspecting threads in the mounting bolts. No battery warranty worries.
If Tesla upgrades their cells, you automatically get better ones in the swap. End of depreciation concerns. End of battery life issue. And a recurring revenue stream from 99% of Tesla owners who opt in for the program.
Over several years inevitably more range from the SAME car.
I was astounded he didn't announce all this at the perfect moment when he was standing in front of the battery swap. I can only assume he is holding it in reserve as an ax to chop off the heads of the shorts AGAIN.
Now lets 'talk about your range issue and the "freedom" of your car that precludes success forever for electric vehicles.
FIRST. It's all in your head. We LIKE having a car we can drive to the moon. Nobody drives to the moon. A very small percentage actually use their cars cross country. And for MOST of us, it is a 20 mile per day gig. Let me tell you a little secret. I have about nine different electric cars and have been driving electric for four years. I don't charge every night. In fact I charge a car about twice a week. And there are more people drive cars like me than drive them 100 miles a day or drive to California four times a year.
Your use of your car is more than likely VERY different from what you think it is. 14500 miles per year is 40 miles per day. If you drive 100,000 miles per year, an electric car is just not for you at this point. Welcome to the 1% club.
Beyond that, inronically, just about the time the American public is acculturated to what they REALLY use a car for 99.999% of the time, it won't be a factor anyway. It's chicken and egg like all disruptive technologies. When enough people have crossed the border and done the electric car thing, the fast charge station deployment will be such that they really can drive anywhere JUST as freely as they do now.
The batteries have been able to charge in 20 minutes all along. It was the power to charge them that has been the problem. For a big car, it takes a quarter million watt station. If we need them, we can build them.
ANd here is where electric diverges from all the other alternative fuel concepts. The infrastructure buildout is trivial. To put a fast charge station every 50 MILES across our ENTIRE Interstate Highway system is about 1150 charge stations. If they each cost a million dollars, and at that price we are talking solar panels, huge reserve battery arrays, and upscale convenience stores for Ho'Ho's and Ding Dong's and the famous Bloomberg Big Gulp, it's 1.1 BILLION. Add up all the sour money at Enerdel, Think, Azure Dynamics, A123 and Fisker. They could have ALREADY DONE IT. For what they squandered like drunken ho's and sailors.
Ok, no Ho'Ho's for you Californians. Picture alfalfa sprout pita pockets and vitamin water. But you get the picture.
Point is, just about the time the American public gets OVER the need to "have the freedom to drive anywhere" they'll be able to drive anywhere. The Supercharger network is a demonstration of that, and a brilliant one.
Jack Rickard
