So you have no evidence to back up your statement. Thank you for clarifying.
So it is your OPINION. And you are welcome to your opinion.
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Long-Term Fundamentals of Tesla Motors (TSLA)
- Thread starter Robert.Boston
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- elon is an ass investing TSLA
So it is your OPINION. And you are welcome to your opinion.
So now you are changing your position after having conceded that you have no evidence to support your original statement.
Your new position seems to be that part of the cost of a replacement Tesla battery is money that Tesla allocates to covering their cost of providing free Supercharging to that battery.
That may be true. Only Tesla knows for sure how the allocate and manage the money they derive from selling cars and batteries.
The fact remains that, as Tesla has stated, if you buy a car with Supercharging enabled, charging is free for the life of the car, not the battery.
The big evidence is $45K battery price. That seems to include quite many supercharging fees. If one day there are cheap 3rd party or Tesla batteries available for supercharging enabled cars I will be wrong but I very much doubt it. Of course it's only about $2K addition to battery price which goes unnoticeable with current battery price levels.
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Here is my original statement: "The way this works is that only a Tesla battery will work in a Tesla. If you want a new battery you pay for supercharging.". Did you understand it so that there would be two fees: battery price + supercharging fee? Sorry if that happened, I never meant that.
Good, now it sounds like we almost agree.
OK, so you're just expressing an opinion as if it's fact.
Incidentally, I completely disagree with your opinion. In my opinion Tesla will continue to take the money up front in the price of the car, unless they believe that lowering the initial price of the Model 3, 4 etc would substantially increase sales.
The reasons for this are:
- New car buyers are more willing to spend the money up front; used car owners are value buyers who are more calculating
- Improvements in technology should make future batteries cheaper, lighter and possibly higher capacity, and it is not in Tesla's interests to do anything that would discourage purchases of new batteries that would not only earn income but would _decrease_ Supercharging.
ChadS
Last tank of gas: March 2009
The battery is not $45k; that was from when they were battery constrained and included a car's profit with the battery. Ask a product specialist for the current price. It is $25k, which is a great price for 85kWh.
That's great news. Obviously it still includes supercharging fee (Leaf 24kWh battery is $5K).
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How would it decrease supercharging?
Money is fungible. Clearly they make some profit on selling replacement batteries. Elon is quite insistent that they don't do stuff like that at a loss. They sink that money (at the moment anyway) into stuff like growing the supercharging network and buying new robots. If they had an accounting line that said "provision for supercharging" and transferred money into it from "battery sales", you might have a point. Otherwise it's just as valid to say "Obviously it still includes new robots fee."
Right, but there just happens to be a tight connection between a battery and supercharging. That's why I would call it a supercharging fee but others can use other terms if they want. The bottomline is that the money for supercharging (long term >10 years) must come from somewhere and if it does not come from battery sales I don't understand where it would come from.
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More capacity increases range.
Newer batteries have more range.
Lighter batteries decrease vehicle weight and increase efficiency, increasing range.
The more range the battery has:
1) the more trips you can make without needing to use a Supercharger
2) and when you do go beyond range the less you need to use a Supercharger
The higher the capacity the faster you can charge the battery.
The faster you can charge the battery the less time you spend at a Supercharger.
The less time you spend at a Supercharger, the fewer Superchargers are needed.
A more efficient car gains range faster at the Supercharger.
If a car that uses 400 wh/mile gains 100 miles of range in half an hour at the Supercharger, then a car that is 200 wh/mile will gain 100 miles of range in only 15 minutes - when the charging rate is the same.
So a more efficient car needs less time at the Supercharger, and fewer Superchargers are needed.
Increasing efficiency without changing battery capacity can be a huge win.
ChadS
Last tank of gas: March 2009
That may be possible, but I disagree that it is obvious. In fact, I think it is unlikely.
First, the LEAF battery is $5,500. Second, Nissan has said that the current price is subsidized (they expect to hold the price steady and make money later; it's not a big deal as they are selling in extremely tiny numbers now). Third, there is more to the Tesla's active-cooled battery than there is to the LEAF's passive-cooled one. Fourth, money is fungible as ggr pointed out. Fifth, it doesn't fit with Tesla's stated business model. Sixth, the battery was designed to last the life of the car (~16 years), so there should be very few cars getting replacement batteries for old cars to extend vehicle life. There may be some people getting upgraded batteries in relatively new cars if Tesla ever offers that, but I'm not at all convinced that would increase Supercharger use.
I can't prove my case, but I'm not trying to do that because I don't see it as a big deal - if Tesla includes a "Supercharger fee" by any sort of accounting method, that's fine with me. But I don't see any evidence or need for it.
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stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I don't believe you can freely hand-wave it away like that. A supercharger fee means the money goes directly toward supercharging expenses. This is different from the money just going to profit, which can go toward any general expense/investments in the company.
The only evidence we have so far is that $500 explicitly comes out of every car sale towards supercharging and previous SEC filings say the early infrastructure came out of the marketing budget.
That any supercharger money comes out of battery sales is complete speculation, as there is no evidence they are doing accounting that way, nor that there is enough battery sales to make such a contribution significant. I think that is what people want to make clear (plus the way you worded it misled people to believe that people will lose their supercharging capabilities after swapping a battery, given your accounting method implies supercharging is tied per battery, not per car).
Note that in the Nissan case, they are losing money selling 24kWh replacement batteries for $5k, but they don't care since there has been so little demand (plus the rapid deterioration of their batteries in hot climates meant they needed to offer it given the negative PR).
If you are using the archived thread above as your reference, it does not support your assertion the $45K cost is for "a 85kWh supercharger enabled battery".
That thread contains the keyword $45K exactly 4 times. None of them refer to anything other than he cost of am 85KWH battery. No qualifications.
That thread contains the keyword Supercharging exactly 2 times. Neither of them is in reference to a replacement battery.
Technically, it's possible provided any signals/protocols/etc... were reverse engineered and implemented correctly. You'd be able to drive with it.
If your point is that supercharging wouldn't work because of it being a non-Tesla battery, if the above implementation was such that the car accepted it to drive and "normally" charge, I'd expect it would supercharge too.
Again, I've seen no evidence to suggest that the Supercharging is enabled within the battery itself. There's lots of evidence (ncluding screenshots that have been posted here) that the car's computer is what maintains a configuration database for all of the car's options.
Folks have done the calculations using "reasonable" Supercharger usage, and the up-front charge can pay for a significant amount of electrical cost. All that has to happen is for the average to work out within Tesla's financial model. There will likely be some outliers that supercharge more than than what their initial $2K covered. There will also be those who barely use it.
Finally, once Tesla has solar generation in play, the financial model takes another turn in their favor.
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JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Panu's entire premise seems to rely on the idea that a Model S will need a replacement pack after 10 years or so. 12K average miles per year is 120K miles after 10 years, for a 265 mile pack means 453 full charge cycles. The pack should last more than twice that long and still have more than 80% capacity, so I would not expect many cars to need replacement packs.
Some people drive a lot more than 12,000 miles per year. Someone that drives 60,000 miles per year will likely need to buy a new (or refurb) pack after 8-10 years. (Based on 2000 cycles life). Limousine services, such as TMC member pcmacafe, will find this limit for us.
Even normal drivers will start running into the maximum calendar life of the cells at about 15 years. I think buying a pack may be more popular than scrapping the car. The Model S will be a classic and well worth keeping on the road.
Tesla will continue to get revenue from selling not only new cars, but also "replacement cars" and parts. Supercharger maintence will come from Tesla's revenue, so I think Panu is essentially correct.
GSP
Even normal drivers will start running into the maximum calendar life of the cells at about 15 years. I think buying a pack may be more popular than scrapping the car. The Model S will be a classic and well worth keeping on the road.
Tesla will continue to get revenue from selling not only new cars, but also "replacement cars" and parts. Supercharger maintence will come from Tesla's revenue, so I think Panu is essentially correct.
GSP
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I don't think using outliers is helpful. Average mileage would seem more useful. While we do expect Tesla vehicles to last longer than most I think we also expect cell chemistry to become more robust and provide greater range, both factors will further reduce the need for new packs over time. When Tesla is producing 500K-1million+ vehicles per year the SC "revenue" proposed from a few thousand early vehicles that may need a new pack will be fairly small.
LiIon cells are subject to degradation both from cycling and the passage of time ("calendar aging"). You'll have a stronger pack after 200k miles if you did those miles in 5 years rather than 10 (all other things being equal).
Chickenlittle
Banned
What data are you quoting. I charge to 85% on a Dailey basis and still start with a range of 276 miles at the end of that charge. The car is two years old with 30,000 miles. This range is actually higher than when new. Nobody knows where cars will be at 8 years of age. How you can say likely is beyond me
Hawaii has one of the highest per capita purchase rates of the Model S, and we have exactly zero superchargers, and I'm sure there are very many owners on the mainland who rarely if ever use a supercharger either. This surely counterbalances the outliers of those that use it for their limousine service.
Hogfighter
Professional Lurker
I'd be happy to sell y'all a product for 100 grand, and then pay you 6 bucks every now and then.....
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