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What is Tesla's upcoming 'under your nose' announcement?
- Thread starter yobigd20
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- Tesla Inc.
It just dawned on me what Tesla needs to do. They need to rent people a Model S to a non owner to see if we would like driving it for extended time. Could I go from a SUV (hybrid 26 MPG) to a sedan??? I have driven the S and rode in them twice. I one time went from a SUV to a car for several years but am back with a SUV. Maybe they can arrange that rental payments can be used to buy a car either the rental or order one in a certain timeframe.
The 10k stuff is pretty clear that battery swap is on their radar and it makes sense with Elon's tweets.
Your objection is the part that I'm having the most trouble resolving. Free vs premium is the best I could come up with.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
It still seems like too much effort for a very low demand product. Trips longer than a single supercharger can handle are extremely rare other than a few holidays.
...and yet it resolves the Last Issue, that One Thing that so many people give for upholding the dominance of ICE.
Jonathan Hewitt
Active Member
and that would get the Model S up to a Consumer Reports score of 100. Also, could the $200 million CAPEX expenditures be related to all of this? I'm not quite a believer of the recent turn in this thread but I can't think of a better idea so, uh, I guess we will wait and see.
CapitalistOppressor
Active Member
Lol. I participate in the forums at nasaspaceflight.com and starting last year we had a thread debating whether SpaceX should develop a Methane fueled Staged Combustion engine. I wont go into detail, but the thread resulted in a general consensus that they could and should develop such an engine. Elon announced that SpaceX would develop Methane fueled SC engine called "Raptor" earlier this year.
Ever since then we decided that SpaceX ends up with such brilliant ideas by simply watching the forum and waiting until everyone decides what would be smart to try
Terribly blindered thinking, there. Your driving situation is not the same as John's or Bill's or Mary's....or mine.
To a great extent, every single time I get into a vehicle, I'm off to the store. The problem for me is that to get to the store - any store - it's either a 400- or 600-mile round trip. Over the highest mountain range in North America. And for 8 or so months out of each year, in temps well under freezing...under by 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 degrees.....
CapitalistOppressor
Active Member
That's ok, I've been participating in the recent discussions, but fundamentally I don't have a clue whats going to happen. If Elon hadn't been tweeting the tweets he's tweeted I'd consider all of this fanciful.
If not for the fact that the SuperCharger announcement was separate from the "Under your nose" announcement, I'd guess it was all just about an increase in SuperCharger speed.
Only it seems as if Elon was talking about the "mystery" announcement when he talked about charging faster than you can fill a tank. Plus, I seriously doubt they can do full charges "faster" than a gas refill. 15 minutes maybe, but refilling a tank only takes a couple of minutes.
So I am pretty confused and grasping at straws at this point. Who knows what the details of the SuperCharger announcement will be.
"Under your nose" probably means that Tesla has developed a new Angry Birds app for the touchscreen.
The announcement is just going to be that they are upgrading the superchargers to charge 1.5x faster. Combined with musk-math (it takes 15 minutes to fill your ICE tank because you drive around 5 minutes to find the best price and then you spend 5 minutes walking into the station to prepay for your tank with cash, and another 5 minutes to get change when you are done), you can recharge your tesla "faster" than filling up your ICE.
There will not be battery swaps.
There will not be battery swaps.
CapitalistOppressor
Active Member
Don't forget the adding the amortized time cost savings of not having to perform yearly Smog Checks!
Not blindered at all. He said trips needing more than one SC are extremely rare. They are, that's a perfectly statistically valid statement. The fact that you're someone that make such trips in no way invalidates the statistic.
Drives me bonkers when folks make perfectly valid statements about an overall statistic and someone inevitably goes "Uh, uh, can't be, I know one guy that's different." Well, of course there are exceptions, that has no relevance to the validity of the original statement.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Not the Last Issue, there is still price. Plus, unless swapping is nationally available then ICE's still dominate in range.
Hardly, I'm using averages, not my own situation. Numbers do not lie, trips beyond the range of a single supercharger stop are so rare they are probably less than 1% of all passenger car travel.
wow, I was very skeptical about battery swaps, but it's starting to seem quite possible given everyone chipping away at it here as well as Capitalist Oppressor's remarks.
I could see a system within economic range (though some remaining logistical hurdles).
I think it would brilliantly complement the Supercharger Stations. It would satisfy those out there who think they'll never be okay wainting 40 minutes to charge. Perhaps more importantly, during holidays when the SuperChargers would otherwise run into log jams, customers would have another option, swap out their battery for hold until they return. Just like rental cars, Tesla could require a reservation at these times to help manage the system.
Why not just more Super Chargers to help at the high traffic times instead of complicating the system with battery swapping? Because unlike capex for Supercharger capacity well beyond everyday use, the battery inventory necessary for high volume time would NOT be extra expense.
Here's how all those batteries for the rare high volume times will not require underutilized capex: charge per mile of use on the rented battery. If Tesla can make an 85kWh battery for $25,000, and it has 125,000 useful miles to it, that comes to $.20/mile, or 20 mpg if gas is selling for $4/gallon.
So if Tesla charges customers $.20/mile used on the "rental batteries", once the battery has been used up, it's also been paid for.
How does this look to a Tesla customer?
20 mpg isn't far off from other cars in Tesla's class.
but here's the big kicker- the $.20/mile you pay on your "rental" battery would be entirely offset by the $.20/mile you would have depreciated on your own battery had you logged those miles on it instead of the rental.
(While this may not be 100% of how depreciation is calculated, for the battery usage is the basic driver in the calculation.)
Can they afford all the capex of all the swapping stations? I think so. If they basically had 1 or 2 swapping bays at or very close to Supercharger locations they could cover very high volumes. Two at locations in high traffic corridors, one in less populated, would mean roughly 150 of these bays, at $500K each, $75 million. Two shifts of modest costing labor would add $10 million per year (no need for 24/7, off peak hours with far less volume, if battery swap is out of order, you just deal with Supercharger. Not perfection, but big improvement.
So for roughly $85 million in year 1, and $10 million ongoing they could pay for this. I think 10X that spent in advertising wouldn't do them nearly as much to convince people to buy the cars. And it wouldn't hurt to have two shifts of staff available to help with any Supercharger glitches as well.
Edit: I overestimated that savings of $.20/mile on depreciation on your old battery... that's the cost of using up your existing battery, the cost of replacing those miles of use when you buy a newer more advanced battery will be as much as half as cheap depending how far off in the future you'll be replacing).
I could see a system within economic range (though some remaining logistical hurdles).
I think it would brilliantly complement the Supercharger Stations. It would satisfy those out there who think they'll never be okay wainting 40 minutes to charge. Perhaps more importantly, during holidays when the SuperChargers would otherwise run into log jams, customers would have another option, swap out their battery for hold until they return. Just like rental cars, Tesla could require a reservation at these times to help manage the system.
Why not just more Super Chargers to help at the high traffic times instead of complicating the system with battery swapping? Because unlike capex for Supercharger capacity well beyond everyday use, the battery inventory necessary for high volume time would NOT be extra expense.
Here's how all those batteries for the rare high volume times will not require underutilized capex: charge per mile of use on the rented battery. If Tesla can make an 85kWh battery for $25,000, and it has 125,000 useful miles to it, that comes to $.20/mile, or 20 mpg if gas is selling for $4/gallon.
So if Tesla charges customers $.20/mile used on the "rental batteries", once the battery has been used up, it's also been paid for.
How does this look to a Tesla customer?
20 mpg isn't far off from other cars in Tesla's class.
but here's the big kicker- the $.20/mile you pay on your "rental" battery would be entirely offset by the $.20/mile you would have depreciated on your own battery had you logged those miles on it instead of the rental.
(While this may not be 100% of how depreciation is calculated, for the battery usage is the basic driver in the calculation.)
Can they afford all the capex of all the swapping stations? I think so. If they basically had 1 or 2 swapping bays at or very close to Supercharger locations they could cover very high volumes. Two at locations in high traffic corridors, one in less populated, would mean roughly 150 of these bays, at $500K each, $75 million. Two shifts of modest costing labor would add $10 million per year (no need for 24/7, off peak hours with far less volume, if battery swap is out of order, you just deal with Supercharger. Not perfection, but big improvement.
So for roughly $85 million in year 1, and $10 million ongoing they could pay for this. I think 10X that spent in advertising wouldn't do them nearly as much to convince people to buy the cars. And it wouldn't hurt to have two shifts of staff available to help with any Supercharger glitches as well.
Edit: I overestimated that savings of $.20/mile on depreciation on your old battery... that's the cost of using up your existing battery, the cost of replacing those miles of use when you buy a newer more advanced battery will be as much as half as cheap depending how far off in the future you'll be replacing).
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Yea, no way I want to pay $4/gallon equivalent to "charge". I'd much rather have more SC's.
Part of the point in my getting a Tesla is not worrying about mileage costs.
Aargh, I see a big hole in my model, having just gone over a post from DonPedro. I have not included the cost of charging up all those batteries.
If I undersood Don his model suggested $100K/per supercharger. I just looked at this quickly, and a Business Week article I found wrote $250,000 per 5 cars charging. As I've not spent a lot of time on this, I couldn't say what is accurate. If it is $50,000 per one battery charging capacity, that would add $75 million (assuming capacity needed to charge 1,500 batteries, that is 10 batteries at each bay).
Adding $75 million would make this a tougher sell, $160 million in Year 1 now. One possible offset to the $75 million. Most of the battery swap capacity in this model is for peak times. If 95% of the time only 20% of the system is used, that would leave 75% of the power generated by the solar panels for the swap bay available to sell to the grid.
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ckessel did you read the part about how you're not using up miles on your own battery, depreciating it? This offsets at least a good chunk of the cost (granted not all the cost as I now realize your replacement battery will cost less than original battery).
If I undersood Don his model suggested $100K/per supercharger. I just looked at this quickly, and a Business Week article I found wrote $250,000 per 5 cars charging. As I've not spent a lot of time on this, I couldn't say what is accurate. If it is $50,000 per one battery charging capacity, that would add $75 million (assuming capacity needed to charge 1,500 batteries, that is 10 batteries at each bay).
Adding $75 million would make this a tougher sell, $160 million in Year 1 now. One possible offset to the $75 million. Most of the battery swap capacity in this model is for peak times. If 95% of the time only 20% of the system is used, that would leave 75% of the power generated by the solar panels for the swap bay available to sell to the grid.
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ckessel did you read the part about how you're not using up miles on your own battery, depreciating it? This offsets at least a good chunk of the cost (granted not all the cost as I now realize your replacement battery will cost less than original battery).
It is the same reason why I don't buy used cars. I don't know if or how that car was taken care of. I will take care of my battery. I don't want a used mystery battery in my car when my warranty is up. I have no idea if it is really a 2 year old battery, that has serious abuse, but only 28% degradation. When my 8 year old battery had 30% degradation. And that 2 year old battery is about to die, on my 8 year old warranty.
40kWh -> 60kWh = +$10k
60kWh -> 85kWh = +$10k
So you are paying ~$10k per 20kWh, so an 85kWh battery packs costs roughly $40k.
And if you want to buy a spare 85kWh battery pack, they run $44k from Tesla. I think that was an installed cost.
Actually, it's not. I'm very sensitive about PM scams, and love debunking them. This would be a "powered" roller. But it is definitely fanciful.
El Supreme - It's not clear if you're considering that this "mystery battery" would be in your car only for the length of time & miles it takes for you to deplete it, at which point you would be exchanging it for yet another. Put another way, I'm thinking it's darned analogous to the lack of knowledge you have regarding that gas station's fuel that you're about to put into your Bentley...or Yugo...every time you pull in for a fillup with your ICE.
I'm acutely aware of this: I spent a little over $4,300 and three days in southern Idaho back in February, as a result of eight ruined injectors and fuel pump in my diesel F-350, as a result of pouring in a helluvalot of water with bad diesel obtained on the road. Does that mean I never trust any diesel again? Hardly - don't have the choice!
ckessel & jrp3 - Your points are well taken. I was, admittedly, using my driving habits to validate what I consider a game-changing point Mr Musk has made - that "faster than filling up an ICE" tease. FOR ME, that is super-important as refueling is a part of effectively every trip I take.
I'm acutely aware of this: I spent a little over $4,300 and three days in southern Idaho back in February, as a result of eight ruined injectors and fuel pump in my diesel F-350, as a result of pouring in a helluvalot of water with bad diesel obtained on the road. Does that mean I never trust any diesel again? Hardly - don't have the choice!
ckessel & jrp3 - Your points are well taken. I was, admittedly, using my driving habits to validate what I consider a game-changing point Mr Musk has made - that "faster than filling up an ICE" tease. FOR ME, that is super-important as refueling is a part of effectively every trip I take.
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