Yes I remember that. That was for directly urban dwellers, but I am talking about people who live in units like mine, but don't have garages that are not necessarily in major metropolitan areas. I guess you can call it sub- suburban... I'm just thinking in context of the Tristate Area. Probably not like this in the rest of the country.
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Short-Term TSLA Price Movements - 2013
- Thread starter Robert.Boston
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Yes I remember that. That was for directly urban dwellers, but I am talking about people who live in units like mine, but don't have garages that are not necessarily in major metropolitan areas. I guess you can call it sub- suburban... I'm just thinking in context of the Tristate Area. Probably not like this in the rest of the country.
I agree completely with everything you said.
However, the apprehension is a emotional reaction by investors, not enthusiasts.
Remember the short squeeze? That was a result of a lot of investors reacting to shallow arguments about Tesla's failure.
Announcing a business model for battery swaps, when another well spoken of company just folded, is bound to affect investors.
I am not saying battery swapping lowers the value of the company, I am saying that it will negatively impact the PERCEPTION of worth of enough investors to hopefully give me a buying opportunity.
Here is how I think the economics of battery swapping will work:
The battery swapping system will show that it not only takes less time than Supercharging, but less time than filling up an ICE car with gasoline. This will be attractive to anyone, and especially people for whom time is money. By comparison, charging up the existing battery in your Tesla, while free or nearly free, isn't nearly so cool, as you have to sit and wait.
Therefore it will be acceptable to CHARGE MONEY to swap your battery. The amount of electricity required to charge up a battery is what, $3 ? That would be the minimum acceptable charge for swapping your battery. $5 might be a sensible start. I currently drive a Honda Civic which can cost $40 or more to fill it up, for a 350-mile drive. Paying Tesla $5 will seem like peanuts.
In fact Tesla could charge a lot more than $5... they could even vary the charge according to market conditions - what the market will bear, equivalent price of gasoline...etc.. What if they charged $20 to swap battery, and the price of gasoline was $50/tank?
Tesla owners seem to worry about losing track of "their" battery when they do a swap. As I see it, you will wave bye-bye to your battery forever if you start swapping. You only have a specific battery in your car for a few days, maybe a week, right? Much less if you are driving across the country. You will be using batteries you never saw before and will never see again. To me, it's not a big deal to surrender the initial battery that was in your car "into the system."
Tesla can always say "if you want free fuel forever, just go to the nearest Supercharger. Up from that in cost is charging up at your home. If you want to have am ALMOST-INSTANT recharge, faster than any gasoline car can be filled up, it will cost you money." Tesla could make loads of money.
(to answer the question about different battery pack capacities, the 60kWh pack might cost $5 to swap, the 85kWh might cost $6 to swap and the 100kWh when it comes out might cost $7 to swap. Those ratios would be worked out correctly, and all three prices might wander up and down with the market.)
The battery swapping system will show that it not only takes less time than Supercharging, but less time than filling up an ICE car with gasoline. This will be attractive to anyone, and especially people for whom time is money. By comparison, charging up the existing battery in your Tesla, while free or nearly free, isn't nearly so cool, as you have to sit and wait.
Therefore it will be acceptable to CHARGE MONEY to swap your battery. The amount of electricity required to charge up a battery is what, $3 ? That would be the minimum acceptable charge for swapping your battery. $5 might be a sensible start. I currently drive a Honda Civic which can cost $40 or more to fill it up, for a 350-mile drive. Paying Tesla $5 will seem like peanuts.
In fact Tesla could charge a lot more than $5... they could even vary the charge according to market conditions - what the market will bear, equivalent price of gasoline...etc.. What if they charged $20 to swap battery, and the price of gasoline was $50/tank?
Tesla owners seem to worry about losing track of "their" battery when they do a swap. As I see it, you will wave bye-bye to your battery forever if you start swapping. You only have a specific battery in your car for a few days, maybe a week, right? Much less if you are driving across the country. You will be using batteries you never saw before and will never see again. To me, it's not a big deal to surrender the initial battery that was in your car "into the system."
Tesla can always say "if you want free fuel forever, just go to the nearest Supercharger. Up from that in cost is charging up at your home. If you want to have am ALMOST-INSTANT recharge, faster than any gasoline car can be filled up, it will cost you money." Tesla could make loads of money.
(to answer the question about different battery pack capacities, the 60kWh pack might cost $5 to swap, the 85kWh might cost $6 to swap and the 100kWh when it comes out might cost $7 to swap. Those ratios would be worked out correctly, and all three prices might wander up and down with the market.)
I had been in the camp that TSLA would run up during this week to Thursday likely to 110, then who knows when the announcement comes out. I'm surprised that it is down today on an up day in the market. That doesn't bode well for the remainder of the week, as yesterday and today are two up days in a row, and therefore it is likely there will be a down day or two between now and Friday. A down day would hold back TSLA to an extent.
I still say we should see a bump through Thursday. I'm buying at $99 and change today if I can.
I still say we should see a bump through Thursday. I'm buying at $99 and change today if I can.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
If the battery (or the whole car) were to be leased, swapping becomes much simpler in terms of battery ownership. Will they announce something around this as well ?
deonb
Active Member
So why did we (TSLA shareholders) just pay $60 million to create the SuperCharger network? Is that to target a set of customers that will pay $70'000 or more for a car, but refuse to pay $5 for a swap?
Put another way, how many sales would we lose if we only had a $5 Swapper network instead of a free SuperCharger network?
@deonb... I didn't know there was anyone who would pay $70,000 on a car but refuse to pay $5 to swap the battery. Who are these people?
Superchargers aren't built with the sole expectation of serving owners of $70,000 cars, you ought to know that. Not only will they serve cheaper (and more expensive) cars, but I am sure Tesla will license their plug socket technology to anyone who wants to use it. If Ford electric cars were to line up at Tesla Superchargers, I don't think anyone would be unhappy about it.
As for your hypothetical question... I have no idea and don't care to consider it. We're going to have both swappers and Superchargers (in addition to home charging etc.).
Superchargers aren't built with the sole expectation of serving owners of $70,000 cars, you ought to know that. Not only will they serve cheaper (and more expensive) cars, but I am sure Tesla will license their plug socket technology to anyone who wants to use it. If Ford electric cars were to line up at Tesla Superchargers, I don't think anyone would be unhappy about it.
As for your hypothetical question... I have no idea and don't care to consider it. We're going to have both swappers and Superchargers (in addition to home charging etc.).
marvinat0rz
Member
Everyone bringing down a mountain of negativity regarding battery swapping should also consider the implications this has for future ZEV credits. This will continue being a good revenue source for some time to come, and Tesla will practically monopolize the market on these credits.
Battery swapping is good. It's great. It's a disruptive move that turns Tesla's cars into even more of a software product while making future upgrades trivial. It's brilliant.
Battery swapping is good. It's great. It's a disruptive move that turns Tesla's cars into even more of a software product while making future upgrades trivial. It's brilliant.
It may be a negative impact, so bad from a stock perspective. Battery swapping may not count as a fast refueling for ZEV purposes.
Well, battery packs have a specific a form factor. That makes them more of a hardware item and that's less amenable to future upgrades, whereas charging which is independent of the form factor.
The question, from an investor and stock price question, is if SCs are such a great and disruptive thing then why have battery swaps? Or vice versa? At this point is Tesla seems to be spending money on two competing solutions for their own currently proprietary market. From an investor perspective, that seems wasteful rather than brilliant. Tesla has been pretty good about avoiding silly, wasteful things though so I'm very curious to see how it's promoted on Thursday.
Here's a tweet that Elon added at 07:57 PDT to this morning's twitter thread in response to a comment about Shai Agassi of Better Place: "Shai actually got the idea from a visit to Tesla. The idea is obvious (many things allow battery swap), but the technology is not."
Hi Curt, I saw that tweet but didn't know how to interpret it. It seems like Elon is implying that Better Placed used the wrong technology but that Tesla is going to use the right technology. Don't know what this would mean though. The only thought I have is that somehow Tesla's battery swap robot is super compact and not expensive (compared to Better Place's big stations).
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Didn't know about this.
I hope the swap idea won't be as revolutionary as the "lease" deal.
jeff_adams
Member
Crazy idea, but what if there was a machine that removed your battery from the car, super cooled it and "jolt charged" it full in a couple of minutes, then reinstalled it. No one has to worry about giving up "their" battery. No storage issues for Tesla. The amount of power needed to do that would necessitate grid storage of power. They already revealed they have that on site.
Trying to charge like that while connected to the car would likely fry wiring harnesses and stuff. An "ultra charge" outside the car might be doable
What’s the latest rundown of what we are expecting now that we know its some sort of swapping program:
1. Swapping out of the main battery for a fully charged one, perhaps at locations that are different than the SC’s
2. A new range extending battery (possible metal-air) in the frunk that is swappable at any service center. Since its range extending it would only be used in an emergency so it would need to be swapped out that often.
3. Swap out your existing 60 or 85 kwh for a bigger battery that you could rent when you plan on taking a long trip, with the option to buy it at any time (JRod0802, props for remembering that “400, why not 500” comment. I was taking notes during that call and that statement caught my attention too J. To get 500 miles of range, using the existing batt tech, the pack would have to be 160kwh. That would be pretty crazy if they offered that.
I wonder how many existing owners would go for that pack. How much would it cost?
Might be a no brainer if you drive long distances. Wow.
What else are we thinking?
1. Swapping out of the main battery for a fully charged one, perhaps at locations that are different than the SC’s
2. A new range extending battery (possible metal-air) in the frunk that is swappable at any service center. Since its range extending it would only be used in an emergency so it would need to be swapped out that often.
3. Swap out your existing 60 or 85 kwh for a bigger battery that you could rent when you plan on taking a long trip, with the option to buy it at any time (JRod0802, props for remembering that “400, why not 500” comment. I was taking notes during that call and that statement caught my attention too J. To get 500 miles of range, using the existing batt tech, the pack would have to be 160kwh. That would be pretty crazy if they offered that.
I wonder how many existing owners would go for that pack. How much would it cost?
Might be a no brainer if you drive long distances. Wow.
What else are we thinking?
mitch672
Active Member
Maybe they don't even have to remove the pack from the car, on the picture of the pack I've seen, there are several "port" looking holes on the end of the pack near the motor/inverter, perhaps they devised some type of pack to pack quick charge capability, the "robot" might just be a wiring harness that gets plugged in, and the pack is DC charged quickly. The cooling system might be adequate, that's an unknown.. We'll see on Thursday evening
That's an crazy cool idea. But I don't think the technology is anywhere close to making that happen (esp. with lithium-ion batteries).
ShortSlaver
Member
Well, the stock didn't tank on the revelation of the news today - this is good.
I do like how it is slowly marching up, building up sustainable support and then marching on again. The exciting days of high volatility may be behind us - for now.
And just as I type this the stock pops real nice! Gott love that TSLA.
I do like how it is slowly marching up, building up sustainable support and then marching on again. The exciting days of high volatility may be behind us - for now.
And just as I type this the stock pops real nice! Gott love that TSLA.
Bardlebee
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