I think I have done a poor job in explaining what I meant as it seams like you have not understood what I was trying to say.
No, no, excellent post. It's so well-expressed that I am going to use the points to shine light on facets of the "Hardware Sizes Only Plz" thesis. And I'm giving you a HELPFUL so don't throw things TOO hard at me either...
Yes, different strokes. But really, aren't over 20% of people going to have EITHER a job change OR a home move OR both within the ~8 year time you'd keep a battery? "Oops, looks like I won't be able to charge at the new job. Wish I'd bought a longer range battery. Wish there were a magic wand to wave to get more range from the same pack! That'd be of so much VALUE to me..."
And again, most college careers aren't going to outlive the battery's "career," either, and options that don't require recycling and a service visit (probably costing the same as a theoretical SW range-upgrade too!) would be a thing of value to both parties.
Others could opt to spend their money on Supercharger access at purchase, and spend for unlocking later when it makes more sense. Potato, to-mah-to.
Fair enough. But, they might not be!
There wouldn't be idle cells anyway. The limit in the software would be like the limits on a "classic" pack, which already keeps the "true 100%" and "true 0%" states of charge out of reach of children, uh, I mean, us.
We might be gazing into different brands of crystal balls, I agree cell-prices will keep going down but OTOH the savings in cost of labor to do a physical swap (and deal with evaluating the trade-in), the time and effort for the owner to get the car in for service, separate manufacturing configs, etc. make me think the flip-a-software-switch scenario is of a very high value to the company.
Good points. I would guess that... The base car will have a 55 kWh available capacity, but that will be software limited from either 70 kWH or 75 kWh. I still hope that a higher capacity battery pack, with a full 90 kWH or 100 kWh is offered as well. So, for the sake of marketing, three capacities, and for the ease of manufacturing, only two. Naturally, I'd expect the 70 kWH and higher capacities to include the 'FREE for LIFE!' access to Superchargers.
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or look at it another way... states that offer sales tax exemptions for battery upgrades would have it make sense to upgrade after the purchase vs at the time of purchase (assuming the $8000/$8,500 upgrade costs on the MS).
. I think what I was driving at was that there is a large part of the country where people live in moderately large, but isolated cities like Fresno, Reno, Spokane, Twin Cities where they may change jobs occasionally, but are not suddenly driving 90 miles per day round trip. There are lots of people who are school teachers or other government employees who do not change jobs during their careers. (By the way, I have at least a dozen clients who fit either of these situations.) They might move to a nicer house, but their commute does not change that much. Fleet sales would also fall into this category where the daily driving range is never more than 100 miles or so.
Could it be possible that they're still the same hardware, and the 60 comes with a "Surprise! You have 75 kwh available, but you'll have to upgrade for $X" type of message after a while?
the opposite I think.
Its the same battery Jeff. Same hardware. That's why you can remotely upgrade from a 60 to a 75.
