How often do cars get taken off the road because the ENGINE died? it's extremely rare. cars fall apart first. The Tesla will be the same, how long the motor lasts is irrelevant, nobody will want to drive it long before that.
In places where cars are not exposed to salt like the west and warmer climates, the most frequent reason cars go to the junk yard is a major failure like the engine or an accident. I'm driving a Buick that will be 24 years old in a few months. The original starter is beginning to get a little weak, though the car has never failed to start and the manifold at the engine has a small leak, but the body is in excellent condition with the paint getting a little thin in places, but that's it. Inside the upholstery looks almost new with only some minor wear on edges that get a lot of friction.
Around here old cars tend to move down the socio-economic ladder until they quit running. Some people with acreage park them around back and let the blackberries have them, but most get towed to the junk yard when the engine or drive train finally gives out.
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Agreed. Looking at the fact that tech usually doubles in functionality/speed every 2 yrs, I would think our cars may even be akin to the iPhone 3G in abt 5-7 yrs. The next wave of EV will undoubtedly come cheaper, lighter, faster, sleeker...more user friendly and will make the previous gens obsolete or at least dated. Think 3G/4/5...in car terms. Obviously MS is scalable in tech but to a point. 9 yrs ago Apple came out with their revolutionary disruptive smart phone...I don't believe a single person is using the 1st/2nd gen phones. Eventually MS 2 and Model 3 will overtake and many MS owners may want to upgrade. Infact that's what tech companies model their future revenues off of...continued brand loyalty and mutiple product sales to the same one individual. Enter Audi, Ford and others into the EV mix and we will start to see EV, car sharing, on demand and autonomous all linking together. Can't wait!
As JB Straubel pointed out in one of his talks, car tech doesn't follow Moore's Law or anything like it. The electronics possible in a car may follow Moore's Law, but the rest of the tech is not evolving anywhere near that fast, nor are costs dropping at anywhere near the rate, if at all. The mechanical bits in a car aren't evolving much at all and the prices are, if anything, going up. Mechanical systems cost what they cost. Mass production can lower the cost a bit, but there is a floor you hit. This is one reason why phones have fewer buttons than they used to, a touchscreen button is many times cheaper than a mechanical button and the touchscreen version is getting cheaper as electronics evolve.
Battery tech is getting cheaper, but it doesn't follow Moore's Law either. On average, the price of Li-ion batteries drops by about 7% a year and Tesla is aiming to accelerate that curve a bit with the GF.
Just in case anyone is unfamiliar with Moore's Law:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
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What's the estimated time for that?
I think the last estimate I saw was from about 6 months ago that was predicting production of car batteries to start about a year from then. Since then I've seen articles that said the GF was ahead of schedule and other things saying they are producing batteries for Powerwalls there now (starting late November, early December last year). They might start producing car batteries as early as April or May at a guess.
I suspect at least initially they will source batteries for the older 70 and 90 packs from Japan and build the batteries for the newer higher capacity packs at the GF. Once production at the GF hits full stride they may discontinue the older pack sizes and maybe offer an 80 KWH pack as the entry level or something like that at roughly the same price. The plan, as I understand it, is that they will still buy some batteries from Japan, but if they source all batteries from the GF between spin up of the GF and the Model 3 introduction, it would allow the plants in Japan to retool for the new battery chemistry and possibly make batteries for stationary systems.
I just Googled on an estimate for battery production start date at the GF. Since the confrontation with the reporters Tesla has been very quiet about the GF. There was an article about start of production for stationary storage systems starting dated late November. In there the article said Tesla has already pre-sold $1 billion stationary storage systems. They are going to need a fair bit of batter capacity to fill all those orders, so Japan might be supplying some of those once they retool.
