Roadster - a collectors item!

[Mitrovic]

The french magazine Auto retro ( Le monde de l'automobile de legende ), a magazine covering oldtimer cars has published a special issue: 13 autos a essayer avant de mourir . 13 cars to try before dying.

Guess what, there are cars like the AC Cobra 427, the Aston Martin Lagonda, The Lamborghini LM 002 and our Tesla Roadster!
The Roadster is by far the youngest car of those 13 cars.

What does this mean? It means that the roadster starts to become acknowledged as a legendary car.

I think that the future looks bright for the roadster. The EV car revolution has started and will grow stronger each year. There is no similar car on the market and there is no similar car in the pipeline. The performance of the roadster is significantly better then any available EV car, the number of the cars built is very limited. So, I think that the roadster will be seen as an iconic car in the future. Someday I think it will be looked upon like the Jaguar XK 120 for Jaguar fans.

This means that also the values of the car will start to rise. I think that the price for used roadster will decline for the next 3 to 5 years, but then it will start to rise sharply!

Any thoughts?

 

[asgard]

The french magazine Auto retro ( Le monde de l'automobile de legende ), a magazine covering oldtimer cars has published a special issue: 13 autos a essayer avant de mourir . 13 cars to try before dying.

Guess what, there are cars like the AC Cobra 427, the Aston Martin Lagonda, The Lamborghini LM 002 and our Tesla Roadster!
The Roadster is by far the youngest car of those 13 cars.

What does this mean? It means that the roadster starts to become acknowledged as a legendary car.

I think that the future looks bright for the roadster. The EV car revolution has started and will grow stronger each year. There is no similar car on the market and there is no similar car in the pipeline. The performance of the roadster is significantly better then any available EV car, the number of the cars built is very limited. So, I think that the roadster will be seen as an iconic car in the future. Someday I think it will be looked upon like the Jaguar XK 120 for Jaguar fans.

This means that also the values of the car will start to rise. I think that the price for used roadster will decline for the next 3 to 5 years, but then it will start to rise sharply!

Any thoughts?

If we can figure out a way to keep it alive. Parts availability will become a challenge.
I'm not talking about parts like the suspension or body panels - those can be custom made.
I'd worry about the electronics - PEM components, motors, various boards, etc. and the proprietary firmware.

 

[rolosrevenge]

I'm pretty sure that as long as Tesla is alive, they'll keep parts available for their first car.

 

[qwk]

The french magazine Auto retro ( Le monde de l'automobile de legende ), a magazine covering oldtimer cars has published a special issue: 13 autos a essayer avant de mourir . 13 cars to try before dying.

Guess what, there are cars like the AC Cobra 427, the Aston Martin Lagonda, The Lamborghini LM 002 and our Tesla Roadster!
The Roadster is by far the youngest car of those 13 cars.

What does this mean? It means that the roadster starts to become acknowledged as a legendary car.

I think that the future looks bright for the roadster. The EV car revolution has started and will grow stronger each year. There is no similar car on the market and there is no similar car in the pipeline. The performance of the roadster is significantly better then any available EV car, the number of the cars built is very limited. So, I think that the roadster will be seen as an iconic car in the future. Someday I think it will be looked upon like the Jaguar XK 120 for Jaguar fans.

This means that also the values of the car will start to rise. I think that the price for used roadster will decline for the next 3 to 5 years, but then it will start to rise sharply!

Any thoughts?

Yep. The Roadster will be very sought after in about 20 years or so.

 

[dhrivnak]

I do believe the Roadster is and will remain legendary which is the reason I bought one. Everyone who has driven it has been quite impressed.

We just need a shop manual to keep them going.

 

[strider]

I'm pretty sure that as long as Tesla is alive, they'll keep parts available for their first car.

They've already run out of halogen headlights. Only HIDs available. And they've run out of some of the wheels. So the some tings are inevitable. Hopefully they'll keep electronics available. As asgard said, many things we can make or have made. Also people will start buying up crashed ones and hoarding parts.

 

[Mitrovic]

I think that as long as the company exists, there will be parts available. May be not all options, but there will be parts available. Tesla as a company can not afford to get bad publicity because they no more support a car they have made.

 

[VolkerP]

There are legal obligations for car manufacturers WRT availability of spare parts. Something around 10 years IIRC. Might get waived for small production number cars, though.

If PEMs ever get short, this might spur an owner driven development of up-to-date roadster charging architecture. Think of Model S charger retrofit, BRUSA NLG6 for 3 phase and so on.

 

[vfx]

Wheels can be copied. Electronics will be much harder. Even for Tesla. At some point the stock battery supply will be gone.

It was said that even Tesla was buying crashed cars for parts. What does that tell you?

 

[asgard]

Wheels can be copied. Electronics will be much harder. Even for Tesla. At some point the stock battery supply will be gone.

It was said that even Tesla was buying crashed cars for parts. What does that tell you?

The battery pack I'm less worried about. It can be rebuilt with newer chemistry batteries.
Tweaking the charging program is the hard part.
And the electronics. Without functional specs it will be extremely expensive to reverse-engineer.

 

[brianman]

Wheels can be copied. Electronics will be much harder. Even for Tesla. At some point the stock battery supply will be gone.

It was said that even Tesla was buying crashed cars for parts. What does that tell you?

Cost efficiency (for Tesla). Supply protection (for Model S and X).

Or did you mean something else?

 

[Mitrovic]

From my experience in the oldtimer world, I think that there allways will be parts to keep the roadster going. They might not be original, but they might be better.
You can look at the pre war ( ww II ) cars. You still can keep them going even though I think that those wheels or cylinder heads or pistons or anything are much more difficult to remanufacture then the electronics on the Tesla.

 

[wiztecy]

From my experience in the oldtimer world, I think that there allways will be parts to keep the roadster going. They might not be original, but they might be better.
You can look at the pre war ( ww II ) cars. You still can keep them going even though I think that those wheels or cylinder heads or pistons or anything are much more difficult to remanufacture then the electronics on the Tesla.

Working with electronics and software myself I believe reverse engineering PCBs, chips, firmware code, and the software code is extremely difficult. Its not impossible, but very very difficult. Reason being, there's so many inputs and outputs these components can take, second of all chips have a very short end of life. So yes, you may get newer versions but the cost would be high. The cost of research and development is the highest cost / investment of any electronic device.

As for the switchpack, its a switcher of voltage that also I believe controls the 12v from the ESS 400V pack out to the aux components like lights, windows, cig lighter, etc. I don't think that would be difficult to make. However, again the cost. In 2011 the switchpack cost $777 to replace and install, now its double that in what, a little over 2 years. And at the rate these switchpacks go I don't see anyone investing in a garage setup to redesign or manufacturing them.

The WWII car/parts comparison is a little different, close. That's more mechanical engineering where the variables relatively are constants and are known. Reverse engineering from that is rather easy, its just your investment in tooling that is the difficult and costly part.

 

[asgard]

Working with electronics and software myself I believe reverse engineering PCBs, chips, firmware code, and the software code is extremely difficult. Its not impossible, but very very difficult. Reason being, there's so many inputs and outputs these components can take, second of all chips have a very short end of life. So yes, you may get newer versions but the cost would be high. The cost of research and development is the highest cost / investment of any electronic device.

As for the switchpack, its a switcher of voltage that also I believe controls the 12v from the ESS 400V pack out to the aux components like lights, windows, cig lighter, etc. I don't think that would be difficult to make. However, again the cost. In 2011 the switchpack cost $777 to replace and install, now its double that in what, a little over 2 years. And at the rate these switchpacks go I don't see anyone investing in a garage setup to redesign or manufacturing them.

The WWII car/parts comparison is a little different, close. That's more mechanical engineering where the variables relatively are constants and are known. Reverse engineering from that is rather easy, its just your investment in tooling that is the difficult and costly part.

The switchpack ought to be far more reliable. There is something fundamentally wrong with the design thats causing a significant fraction of them to die out.
I have collectible power amplifiers sitting in my garage that were manufactured in the 1960s and are still going strong and they have wide swings in output power.

The challenge with making the switchpack is the firmware. I have no idea what the software does or how it bootstraps itself.
When they replaced mine, supposedly it had to be programmed at the factory with my specific VIN#.

 

[Mitrovic]

Working with electronics and software myself I believe reverse engineering PCBs, chips, firmware code, and the software code is extremely difficult. Its not impossible, but very very difficult. Reason being, there's so many inputs and outputs these components can take, second of all chips have a very short end of life. So yes, you may get newer versions but the cost would be high. The cost of research and development is the highest cost / investment of any electronic device.

As for the switchpack, its a switcher of voltage that also I believe controls the 12v from the ESS 400V pack out to the aux components like lights, windows, cig lighter, etc. I don't think that would be difficult to make. However, again the cost. In 2011 the switchpack cost $777 to replace and install, now its double that in what, a little over 2 years. And at the rate these switchpacks go I don't see anyone investing in a garage setup to redesign or manufacturing them.

The WWII car/parts comparison is a little different, close. That's more mechanical engineering where the variables relatively are constants and are known. Reverse engineering from that is rather easy, its just your investment in tooling that is the difficult and costly part.

I don't subscribe to your point of view…. ( I LOVE that song ), but who knows who will be right!

The combustion engines are EXTREMELY difficult to rebuilt correctly. E.g. you have to know what alloys have been used and what settings ( valves ) are correct for what compression, and don't let me start about the ignition points… ( I 've been through two restorations recently ).
To rebuilt the Tesla roadster in 20 years exactly as it is now: Yes that would be difficult, but you will be able to buy a different battery pack together with its charger and its controller, hook it up to the motor and it will work. It will not be original, but IMHO it will be so much easier then for combustion engined cars. For them it will be difficult to find the correct fuel, too!

As an example you can look at the Aston Martin Lagonda wedge car. Much of its at that time futuristic electronics are no more available. E.g. the little CRT TV screens. So what now? There are different suppliers who have sourced LCD screens in the correct size, and have programmed little computers to take over of the old computer. It's even not very expensive. And they have built only 640 cars.

So: The future is bright for the Roadster!