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Game changing idea to greatly reduce the cost of a new Tesla
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- Tesla Inc.
deonb
Active Member
If you can't afford a $76k Model S on a 7 year term, you can't afford a $50k Model S with battery rental either.
The monthly cost of renting a battery and swapping it has to be more than the cost of owning the battery. It's the same item that's amortized over close to the same period. (If we assume a battery lasts 8 years).
Tesla can't magically make the cells cheaper by renting it out, and the cost of the swapping station will add to the cost of the rental.
Sure, initially there will be some unscrupulous lenders that will lend you $50k but won't lend you $76, even though they know you're also going to be picking up that additional rental payment. After a few defaults, they'll learn their lesson (or have it be taught to them via regulation).
As per the "You want to rent a 50GWh battery (bit arbitrary number but in the ballpark) from us every night"? part. They don't need to own the battery for that to happen. Send me a monthly check and I'll plug the car in... Or better - just give me the ability to use my car as a UPS in an emergency, and I'll give you grid storage for free.
"You can't" build an electric car that is fast, stylish, roomy, and goes over 250 per charge.
A lot of can'ts here. Tesla is a can company. You have to think bigger than better place and old motor companies to win. I am not advocating for no charge port electric cars (that likely makes little sense) but altered models for attracting new customers and generating new revenue streams never before possible seems wise and disruptive to the traditional models. We must also think outside the Model S and to when Tesla might have millions of cars on the road.
A lot of can'ts here. Tesla is a can company. You have to think bigger than better place and old motor companies to win. I am not advocating for no charge port electric cars (that likely makes little sense) but altered models for attracting new customers and generating new revenue streams never before possible seems wise and disruptive to the traditional models. We must also think outside the Model S and to when Tesla might have millions of cars on the road.
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As far as I can tell, most participants in this discussion are thinking about the long term.
I don't see the economic argument for battery rental/lease, and I'm sure Tesla doesn't either, or they would have chosen to offer it. Now, maybe some kind of untraditional payment model might make sense, but I don't see that this model has been proposed here. If or when someone comes up with such a model, we can discuss it in depth.
deonb
Active Member
New models & revenue streams are good, but there has to be at least one long lived advantage to it. At the moment battery rental's only advantage is by betting against the future availability of home chargers. I wouldn't take that bet. That would be like Iridium & Teledesic in the 90s that bet against widespread availability of cellular phones and broadband wired internet.
bonnie
I play a nice person on twitter.
One more advantage, of course: If you are worried about battery degradation / replacement costs, a battery rental model renders that worry moot.
Not saying I want that! But you can't leave that out of the equation. Many people (mostly those neanderthals
who are still driving an ICE) worry about that. Lord knows there has been enough FUD over recent years. Doesn't matter if it's a legit worry or not - for some, it is a barrier to adoption.
Not saying I want that! But you can't leave that out of the equation. Many people (mostly those neanderthals
who are still driving an ICE) worry about that. Lord knows there has been enough FUD over recent years. Doesn't matter if it's a legit worry or not - for some, it is a barrier to adoption.
deonb
Active Member
One more advantage, of course: If you are worried about battery degradation / replacement costs, a battery rental model renders that worry moot.
Not saying I want that! But you can't leave that out of the equation. Many people (mostly those neanderthals
Yes, but if you take the extra money you're spending on the rental battery and dump it into a savings account, you'd be able to afford a new battery in 10 years time.
A rental battery will not last as long as an owned battery. If you own a battery, and 8 years down the line you get e.g. 200 miles of rated range instead of 260, you'd still accept it - your S85 is now a S60, but that's still a usable vehicle. On the other hand, if you rent a 85kWh battery and only get 200 miles out of it, you're going to kick up a storm. So that means the rental batteries will need to be taken out of circulation long before owned batteries would be. That early cycling would have to be added to the rental price.
Yeah, I know, I know, there are people who would go for it. But it irks me when products are exclusively marketed at people who suck at math. Also see store warrantees and lottery tickets.
bonnie
I play a nice person on twitter.
Again, I'm not arguing in favor of the model. I'm just pointing out that the worry about degradation is a barrier to entry for some & shouldn't be left out of the conversation. Explaining how much interest would accrue and how it's a better deal ... just doesn't work for a lot of people (you know, those that respond to soundbites instead of facts).
Maybe Tesla could increase the number of customers with a battery rental/lease option. I see Renault is still requiring the battery lease some places in Europe, and they're still moving cars, so there's at least some demand.
But at the very least, as long as Tesla is supply limited, so there's no reason to start offering it.
But at the very least, as long as Tesla is supply limited, so there's no reason to start offering it.
There is plenty of room for new models and new financing ideas. Some way to not own the battery may be helpful, unfortunately someone has to pay for it in the end - spreading the payments out doesn't really change anything. Swapping batteries doesn't help anything, it only hurts. Swapping batteries is a huge drain on efficiency, wastes the capacity of the battery, wastes your time, and has an infrastructure cost that is far too large.
The best way to reduce the cost of the car is to reduce the size of the battery.
An autonomous car that drops you off and then goes to find a charge port solves the big battery problem completely. It charges *every* time you stop somewhere. Now you have a cheaper useful car that can have a tiny battery. Adding charge ports accessible to the autonomous cars is orders of magnitudes cheaper than battery swap stations, and they can be added incrementally.
If you still want to get rid of battery ownership you are not thinking big enough. You need to get rid of car ownership. Why should I own the car when it will come at my beck and call and take me where I want to go by itself?
Now you have less expensive ( because the batteries are smaller ) useful cars that you don't have to pay the full price for, because you are sharing them with others.
deonb
Active Member
If there is plenty of autonomous cars to go around, and car ownership is not the question, it doesn't matter. The autonomous car can drive you 100 miles, you get out and stretch your legs, and the next autonomous car is waiting for you to take you further.
Requires a robot to reload the luggage. And a female robot to provide commentary to the other robot on how to reload it...
All in due time.
Exactly. The hive mind will route the best available car to you. When you don't need to go far ( most of the time ), it sends you a small battery car, or one with a partial charge. Long trips that exceed the battery of the largest cars just use multiple cars. How convenient it all is depends on your service plan.
Many of the people replying to this idea don't "get" it, unfortunately. Listen, I have two electric cars and I charge them at home regularly, an option I would never want to give up. But when I talk about electric cars with my co-workers, most of whom are younger than me, they have literally zero chance of getting one for themselves because of two primary problems: 1) cost (a generally Tesla-specific problem...the only electric car the want to consider, due to range anxiety and the ability to take long trips because it would be their only vehicle), and 2) recharging ability (they often reside in a rental apartment or condo and there is no convenient way for them to charge). I was trying to find a way that regular folks (i.e not someone who can afford a Tesla and easily charge it at home) could actually be able to afford and live with a Tesla. An electric car that costs the same as a comparable gasoline car, and costs about the same to refuel/recharge (and is just as convenient and speedy as purchasing gas) solves those problems for them.
This option also overcomes another fear I often hear from non-electric vehicle owners: it is going to cost a fortune to replace that battery when it goes bad.
It it is wonderful that you guys love your Teslas. Now open your minds a bit and try to figure out a way to give some form of that satisfaction to the other 99%.
This option also overcomes another fear I often hear from non-electric vehicle owners: it is going to cost a fortune to replace that battery when it goes bad.
It it is wonderful that you guys love your Teslas. Now open your minds a bit and try to figure out a way to give some form of that satisfaction to the other 99%.
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deonb
Active Member
Rental does NOT address #1. Monthly cost will be higher with a rental battery than an owned battery that's leased over the lifetime of the battery. It has to be. (Efficient market theory and so on).
Rental does indeed address #2. But it's suicidal for a company to have a business plan that bets against there being local recharging ability in the future. See post #20 on this thread.
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Tedkidd
Member
Solving a future problem assuming current charging infrastructure and current levels of EV ignorance/FUD.
First, let's focus on the 50% or so of households who can have charging at home. Once we reach a meaningful market share for EVs, it becomes more important to focus on charging for everyone else. Now, how should the future of charging look like?
Virtually everyone parks regularly for many hours in two locations. Home and work. We need to provide charging for everyone in at least one of those locations. Now, there are many ways to do this. The easiest way is with government regulation. The goverment can require all apartment complexes, workplaces and the like to install at least one charging point for every five parking spaces, for instance. But for the politicians to get involved to any real degree in this, you need EVs, a lot of them. Their voters must be begging them to implement these sorts of measures.
Another way is to get private companies to build out for-profit charging networks. But for there to be any sort of viability in these companies, you need EVs, a lot of them.
I'm quite sure that by 2025, the charging situation will be starting to resolve itself, with millions of EVs on the roads and everyone understanding the importance of getting this done. All Tesla has to do is keep doing what they're doing.
I don't want to share primary cars with others. Call it greed or call it a lack of desire to be in a car used as a trash receptacle. Most people don't care for their own cars, much less the cars of others.
jeffro01
Active Member
Yeah... No... No way in hell I'm going to drive a car that's been turned into a trash receptacle like so many people do to their cars. The only people that get to drive "our" cars (my wife and I) are my wife and I, as I don't trust anyone else. I don't see it as greed or anything like that.
Jeff
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Battery rental doesn't really solve number one. Whether you lease the battery or the car as a whole, if you can't afford the monthly payments, separating it into the battery and car won't change things. In fact, the battery swap scheme make it worse because the monthly payments must also include the cost of the swap infrastructure.
As for #2, I think this crowd will be the last the EV market addresses. First we should focus on switching over the 50+% that have access to home charging. When that happens, it's only natural public chargers will be built. Right now EVs are well less than 1% of the market and governments/private parties are already moving to install more public chargers. Grow that by 50x and the incentive would be extremely high to do so.
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