Why Tesla Really Needs a Gigafactory 193
Hodejo1 (1252120) writes "Tesla has already put over 25,000 cars on the road with more to come and, presumably, most will still be running well past the 8-year battery warranty. What would happen if it is time to replace the battery pack on an old Model S or X and the cost is $25K? Simple, it would destroy the resale value of said cars, which would negatively affect the lease value of new Tesla automobiles. That's a big part of the real reason why Tesla is building its own battery factory. They not only need to ensure enough supply for new cars, but they have to dramatically bring down the price of the replacement batteries low enough so owners of otherwise perfectly running old Teslas don't just junk them. The Tesla Roadster was not a mass produced vehicle, so the cost of replacing its battery is $40K. The economies of scale of a gigafactory alone will drop battery costs dramatically. Heavy research could drop it further over the next decade or so."
Does the math work out? (Score:2)
Is this viable? Something sounds like the old fable of pulling yourself up by your own hair.
Re:Does the math work out? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Your savings will amount to the supplier's profit margin; effectively you're cutting out the middle-man by becoming the middle-man.
On the other hand, you could lose an amount approximately equal to the value of actually knowing what you're doing.
There's a reason most bakers don't grow their own wheat and mill their own flour.
Re:Does the math work out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your savings will amount to the supplier's profit margin
You also avoid transaction costs, and guarantee availability.
There's a reason most bakers don't grow their own wheat and mill their own flour.
Wheat and flour and widely available commodities. Car batteries are not (yet) commodities, and are often sole sourced. If all the wheat in the world was grown by a single giant ag-corp, then it might make sense for a baker to grown his own.
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That's such a scary thought, but probably not far from being reality.
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That's such a scary thought, but probably not far from being reality.
Get a grip. Wheat is grown commercially in more than 80 countries, by nearly 100 million farmers. That is about as far from being a monopoly as is possible.
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Many high end restaurants do in fact grow part of their own produce, especially if they have important ingredients that are of variable quality in the local market. Often they lease the field and the farmer, and give up the cost savings up front, in order to ensure quality and be "in charge" of that quality if a decision needs to be made.
Even with savings aside, this could really benefit Tesla because the battery market is driven by other industries with different needs.
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By "many" you mean "about three", and they're all within 200 yards of Google HQ, where you find the kind of people who'd spend thirty bucks on an ethically sourced sustainable cress sandwich.
I'm not going to say that an electron is an electron, and there are probably trade-offs to be made in designing for, sa
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There's a reason most bakers don't grow their own wheat and mill their own flour.
Bakers, as in a single person, no. But when a company like General Mills makes food, they generally do mill their own flour. Its just more cost effective that way.
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As soon as I posted I figured somebody would bring that up. I'm sure there are photographers out there that apply home-made collodion to glass plates themselves and people who raise their own sheep to make jerseys from.
Relevance to the discussion, and to anyone other than hipsters? Zero.
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They are most likely adding additional capabilities, and not "shifting" any "focus" at all, in any way.
The real question here is what their attitude towards their EV competitors will be, and if they'll try to retain proprietary batteries, or push towards standards. If they want to stay proprietary, then they'll look to build traditional batteries with their excess capacity; if they want standards, they might just revolutionize the aftermarket and do-it-yourself at the same time.
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There is a problem or two with hydrogen fuel cells, which is why everybody who played with the idea before long shelved it, or put it on the back burner "for later", sort of like fusion power.
1) They are phenomenally expensive.
2) They require exacting thermal management.
3) You can't just "turn them on" with a click like an electric motor, or even with a handful of seconds cranking like an internal combustion engine.
4) No practical way to store the fuel.
5) Kids, they don't last forever any more than internal
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Those are mostly all wrong. And indeed they didn't shelve the idea, the companies that have had hydrogen cars on the road for years and years have had great success with it; they just haven't pushed to build infrastructure, because the needs the different storage devices vary widely and it is still unclear which technologies will be most competitive.
3 is especially funny. Better go tell all those BWM owners their cars start slower than a hand crank... they'll probably laugh at you while turning the key to "
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30 minutes? After driving for a couple of hours, I'm ready to take a 30 minute break and stretch my legs...
Hydrogen? Seriously? 45 years ago, when I was little, they were saying Hydrogen was only 30 years away, and would roll out demo cars to prove it. I think they just said the same thing last week.
I used to think the same thing, until I actually looked at the engineering realities regarding hydrogen. It's the lightest and smallest element on the Periodic Table, so it will migrate through steel, making it
Re:Random thoughts... (Score:5, Funny)
Hydrogen's fine. To stop it leaking and floating off you just need to attach it to some carbon. Chains of 8 atoms are good, give or take a few.
Re:Does the math work out? (Score:5, Insightful)
GM and the other car makers do not make money on cars. These stats predate the collapse, but GM wasn't make any money manufacturing cars. GM was making money on financing. As such, GM didn't go broke until the banking crisis hit. Similarly, the auto dealers don't make money selling cars. They make money in add-ons and services (including repairs.) For instance, many dealers charge $200 dollars to transfer your ownership, over and above the charges at the DMV. These extra charges add up. I'm pretty sure the repair parts operation at a modern OEM makes far more than the original cars.
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What? But the dealer has no legal role in car ownership after the car is initially purchased. What happens if the new (or old) owner doesn't pay? (I've sold two previous cars and never paid the dealership anything.)
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What? But the dealer has no legal role in car ownership after the car is initially purchased. What happens if the new (or old) owner doesn't pay? (I've sold two previous cars and never paid the dealership anything.)
You lose the warranty, or service agreement. Generally there are a whole bunch of "free" routine maintenance services that are already pre-paid as part of a service agreement, so that is what you're paying to transfer. Also there might be different prices for service for "members" or however they phrase it.
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I'm pretty sure the repair parts operation at a modern OEM makes far more than the original cars.
Anecdote time. Note that this example uses a GM car but is representative of stories I've heard from other manufacturers. My father has a 2002 Holden Astra Convertible. About 4 years ago the hydraulic hoses that control the roof ruptured spraying oil everywhere. The car was taken to the Holden dealer who suggested we replace all 4 hoses. Cost of the OEM parts is $500 per rubber hose. Yes that's right, rubber hoses holding hydraulic fluid. Additionally it would be another $1000 for installation for a total c
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After a bit of searching
Another quick search
How many hours, exactly, did he spend researching both issues? How much extra driving, phone calls, research, etc? How much auto repair know-how does he already have?
It's not like running around for two weeks looking for third party parts and installers is 'free'. A very large part of the price of the dealer is the fact that, yes, they do have access to everything for your specific car and the knowhow to diagnose and fix it the first time and in a timely f
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For a standard car maker, the dealers would have a wholesale price. This would mean about a 10-20% margin on the car at retail if the car had to be sold at low price in order to compete, or more if the care made a lof of money already. However, at best that just imburses the dealer for the time spent in the showroom, employees, marketing etc. - the bread, in other words. They really need the after sales for the butter.
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Doesn't something like a Honda Civic cost a dealer 13-14k factory and the sell around 19k retail?
Only a dufus pays the sticker price. You can find dozens of crowd sourced websites that will tell you exactly what the "real" price is.
Many people but at the lowest priced dealer and don't come back to be upsold on other stuff.
They don't have to make money on every customer. They just have to make money on average. I bought a new mini-van last summer. I negotiated hard and got them to accept a low ball offer. Then my wife started adding on custom floor mats, a sun roof, in-dash GPS, backup camera, etc. The salesperson's smile just got wider and wider.
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He better bring her with him to remember the GPS and backup camera, especially if she's not going to let him install it himself. And you really don't want to see what a do-it-yourself sunroof on a new car looks like. If you've done enough fiberglass to do the work, you've breathed too many fiberglass fumes to do the planning...
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Often they make very little on the cars. Most of the money is on service and financing. Sometimes they lose money on the cars they sell. http://www.thisamericanlife.or... [thisamericanlife.org] gives good insight as to what actually goes on with car dealerships and why they're the dirtbags they are.
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Something sounds like the old fable of pulling yourself up by your own hair.
That actually works but it has to be the hair located between the scrotum and the anus... half the population just doesn't have the balls for it and most of the rest just can't get a grip on the idea...
Seriously, states are giving huge tax breaks to attract business right now. In this economic climate it might even be possible to open a battery factory, although it would be cheaper in other countries. If you control production then the profit that would have gone to a manufacturer as well as a distributor
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sounds like the old fable of pulling yourself up by your own hair.
If your hair is long enough and you have pulleys in the right places, there is no problem at all with pulling yourself up by your hair.
Don't be scared off by the wrong problem, or let people confuse you with hair when you need a pulley. Even worse would be confusing vertical integration with hair, without consideration of pulleys or efficiency.
WTF is a 'gigafactory'? (Score:2)
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Does 'gigafactory' mean 10^9 (or even 2^30) individual factories?
No, it simply means a giant [wiktionary.org] factory. As opposed to your ordinary megafactory, which is just a large [wiktionary.org] factory.
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so why not a MONSTER (tera) factory, it wouldn't be quite that big? I guess Telsa's future Chinese competitor can grab that one
Re:WTF is a 'gigafactory'? (Score:4, Funny)
Actually they started with a monster factory, but the production line kept generating eldritch horrors that devoured the employees, so they had to scale back their ambitions. Those OSHA folks can be *so* demanding.
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640,000,000 factories should be enough for anyone.
real reason why.... (Score:2)
To cut down costs of replacing those batteries under warranty.
As long as the car isnt stored in a garage for weekend usage. "standard" usage will reach about 2/4 years before the degrade in mileage and performance warrants a replacement.
As a bonus, cut costs to customers outside of those warranties.
This is just Tesla's way of saving some money, 8 years life expectancy on a battery is high risk and they know it.
Re:real reason why.... (Score:5, Insightful)
"standard" usage will reach about 2/4 years before the degrade in mileage and performance warrants a replacement.
Not sure where you get your information from, but so far things are looking much better than that. The Tesla Roadster had a slightly older battery technology and they have about 80% of the battery capacity left after 100,000 miles. Still very usable. A couple of Model S have hit 70,000 miles and have ~95% of capacity left, so the Model S battery is better. The 8 year warranty is a fairly safe bet by Tesla.
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Yes.
Always drive downhill.
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"standard" usage will reach about 2/4 years before the degrade in mileage and performance warrants a replacement.
Bullshit. You have made that up.
volume (Score:3)
Their factory will only "drop battery costs dramatically" if it runs at full capacity. Its capacity is about 500,000 cars per year, while Telsa has only sold 25,000 cars in total.
Re:volume (Score:5, Interesting)
Their factory will only "drop battery costs dramatically" if it runs at full capacity. Its capacity is about 500,000 cars per year, while Telsa has only sold 25,000 cars in total.
The factory isn't for Tesla vehicles only. Tesla and Panasonic (the factory is a join venture) intend to supply other electric vehicle manufacturers with cheaper batteries. So the potential market is much greater.
Re:volume (Score:4, Insightful)
How are they going to make them cheaper? If there was a way of doing so, wouldn't somebody be doing it already?
No, because the last guy that thought of some efficiency or tech improvements didn't bother to implement them - after all, surely somebody else did it already...
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How are they going to make them cheaper?
Economy of scale and efficient recycling of old batteries.
If there was a way of doing so, wouldn't somebody be doing it already?
The incentives for battery companies and an EV company are different. A battery company is quite happy if the market price of a battery remains high. An EV company wants it as low as possible.
Seems to me there are many people out there who think Elan Musk is some combination of Midas & Canute.
Seems to me that as soon as a successful tech entrepreneur starts to become a household name, there's a irrational wave of vitriol and spite comes across a minority of Slashdot posters.
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There isn't that much to gain from economy of scale, as those types of cells are already produced in 100s of millions per year. So we are realistically looking at something like halfing the price at most, not cutting it down by an order of magnitude or something.
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Halving the price would be an enormous gain!
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Marvellous.
First question, is there only one battery company in the world?
Second question, what has price got to do with cost?
Re:volume (Score:4, Funny)
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Battery packs are also a substantial cost in the NEW cars. This will let them drop their price point for new, and thus sell more cars. Glorious positive feedback.
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If only there were another use for high quality, high capacity batteries, like laptops...
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Because Elon Musk.
He's got what plants crave, judging from replies to my posts where I asked the same thing.
You gotta love Elon (Score:2)
Here in Quebec we have several "dynasties" of rich people who got tons of money from their parents. Like Pierre Karl Peladeau. The guy's a billionaire but does sweet fuck all with his money as far as I can tell. At least Elon is doing something with his money. I have no idea why his electric car brings up so much animosity with people though. The point is that here in Quebec we have surplus electricity, we have universities, we have electrical engineers, we have research into electric cars.
And we did fuck a
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At one point in college in the 90's someone told me that ~70% of Canada's foreign cash income came into Québec and ~70% of that was hydropower sales to NYC. That's a lot of electricity. Québec did some really interesting work on aerogel single pane windows.
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Sure. If you are a socialite of 100 years ago. New money these days is Tech. Oil is old money. Indeed it's heading towards an industry in decline.
Re:You gotta love Elon (Score:4, Informative)
Elon almost lost everything on Tesla. He leveraged everything and was saved at the last minute by Toyota and Daimler. It was the same with Space X. They were one launch away from failure. Elon sank everything he had into both companies.
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What size does one take? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What size does one take? (Score:4, Informative)
It takes something a little bigger than an AA battery. the 11 battery "sectors" are built out of 18650A lithium ion batteries , 651 in each, The 18650A form factor are about 1.5 cm longer and 0.4 cm thicker than an AA battery.
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rather 18.6 x 65.2mm, and the "about" in my sentence was due to the allowed variation in AA battery of 13.5 to 14.5 diameter X 49.2 to 50.5 mm length
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I read somewhere that it uses over 7000 18650 size cells, which are similar to AA but a bit longer. Unfortunately they are not user-replaceable.
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Go the the removable battery gas station model. (Score:2)
I know there is some criticism of the Tesla demo of the robot battery swap but the idea is sound. By taking the battery ownership and distributing it amount uses you create range, optimum care conditions, and on demand premium batteries for specific conditions. The cost of the battery can be distributed over the its life and depreciated by a business.
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If it's anything like bottled LPG, no thanks. Sometimes when you go to get a bottle they don't have any of the type you need in stock, and you have to chase round to find one. Then there's the problem of what you do when you run out of LPG and the shop is closed.
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In this case the battery swap is handled at the charging station. It's unmanned so it's unlikely to be closed. If they're out of batteries you can just charge and it's unlikely the grid will run out of power.
The other thing is that you are expected to always pick up your battery on the return trip or you will get charged the difference in value.
You have a choice of either paying for a battery swap or charging for free. It will be interesting to see how the swap stations work out since it's time vs money.
this is why I leased my Leaf (Score:4, Interesting)
Everyone I know gave me tons of shit about leasing a new car. I still think a lease was the right decision.
Others may disagree, but in my opinion until battery prices come down (or the technology has a mega-improvement), electric cars are more of a service than an asset.
My Leaf is amazing. It's like driving a spaceship ... completely silent, smooth as silk, no transmission, acceleration like there's a rocket strapped to your ass ... damn near zero maintenance, and it costs about 1/10th per-mile to drive as opposed to my gas-guzzling "Canyonero" SUV.
IN FACT, the amount of money I USED to spend in a month, just buying gas for my old car, is $80 less than the monthly lease payment on the Leaf (and of course, I knew this going in, which is why I did it).
The battery is by far the most expensive single part of the car. In fact, when you look at it, you're really sort of buying a very expensive battery with some car-shaped accessories. The fact that the battery WILL fail as a matter of scientific certainty, and that we can even know more or less exactly when that will happen, makes me not want to own one of these.
With gas cars, you buy them doing calculations about repair cost and resale value that simply do not apply to the situation with electric cars. It's damn unlikely (unless I get in a wreck) that ANY repairs will ever be needed on my Leaf other than the big one ... the battery will eventually go, and at that point I might as well buy a new car.
Which is why leasing electric cars is the way to go, until the battery technology has a massive improvement, or the cost comes way down ... or some car company figures this out and makes interchangeable batteries with a leasing program for the battery. I'll happily own the car if I don't have to own the battery too!
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That's not really the right comparison, is it? You should really be comparing it to running a similar-sized conventionally-powered car like a VW Golf.
As to depreciation, leasing can't make it disappear, it can only hide it or redistribute it.
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I think it's a pretty fair comparison.
I said to myself: "there are these new-fangled electic cars, I wonder if I could obtain one for around the same monthly cost as what I used to spend in gas?".
and by Jove, the answer was "yes", so I went and did that.
could I have saved more money, by possibly getting something like a smart car with a moped engine in it? yeah I dunno maybe. But I'd still have to put gas in it, and I'd still have to deal with the maintenance nightmare that is an internal combustion engine.
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Dude, you're disappointed someone didn't get killed for "being wrong on the internet."
C'mon, perspective.
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Tesla rate their battery pack lifetime at 250,000 miles, similar to a petrol engine, and the warranty is 8 years unlimited mileage. Even when you get 250,000 miles in say 15 years time chances are you will be able to sell the battery pack for recycling since much of it will be perfectly good. It's made up of over 7000 cells, and considered "dead" when down to 80% capacity, so many of the individual cells will be fine for use in other devices. Solar smoothing and whole-house UPS, for example, and of course r
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Why is the Tesla battery considered dead at 80%?
Is the car not usable at that level? I would think it would just lose 20-ish percent of its range and maybe some of its peak acceleration.
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Usually it's the cathode that degrades with time. The hardest thing on a lithium ion battery is charging it to 100% and discharging it to 0%. All of the materials are recyclable. See http://www.mecheng.osu.edu/nlb... [osu.edu]
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/... [howstuffworks.com] discusses how they're recycled.
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It sounds like insurance. You are paying someone else to take on the risk. That costs extra money, but it's predictable.
Personally I self-insure everything for which there isn't a legal necessity to have insurance. I don't see any point in paying someone else to take a risk when I can do it myself.
Stoplight Acceleration is very fast. (Score:2)
"The zero to sixty time is 9.9 seconds, making it one of the worst accelerating cars sold today."
Only test car drivers and street racers do 0-60. I also own (lease) a Leaf and everything the poster says is true. Its a great car.
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There may be a difference in perception too especially when compared with turbocharged 4 cyl cars. The electric car produces maximum torque from the get go, other cars typically need to get into their powerband to get some real pull, once in the powerband though they'll take off. Then there's the whole avoiding gear change business.
It is quite possible that an all electric car will give worse 0-60 times while at the same time feeling far more powerful at take off.
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I must say that in my Tesla P85 it's a lot of fun doing 0-60 and it gets rather addictive the way it quietly punches you back in the seat like a rocket. I got used to my Prius which was around 10.5 seconds 0-60. It was also a nice car to drive, though for other reasons. You didn't buy it for the handling and acceleration, though I did take it on some rather twisty roads and steep grades at times.
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I decided to skip the $12K pre-paid battery replacement. I took some of that money and bought Tesla stock at $35. I'm kicking myself for not buying more stock than I did, but it will have more than paid for a new battery. I too got a loan from my credit union for 1.99% instead of the 2.99% Tesla loan (which was not available when I got my car).
It's the first time I financed a car. It's one of the best decisions I've made since all I have to do is do better than 1.99% and I'm ahead.
replacements rare on Prius (Score:2)
When I was car shopping ten years ago i was worried about expensive battery replacements. but that doesnt seem to be the case.
Re:resell value already bad (Score:5, Interesting)
An electric car is pretty much a write off the moment you drive one off the lot.
I suggest you try searching for used Model S prices, before just offering your reasoned-out guess as fact. Year-old vehicles are going for incredibly close to retail. So much so that it doesn't make sense to sell back to Tesla at their Best Resale Value Guarantee [teslamotors.com], which assures that the depreciation is going to be less than equivalent BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Lexus or Jaguar vehicles.
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With today's interest rates it is very easy to make very safe investments that earn higher than the interest rate on the loan. The problem is when people overextend themselves or make risky investments that they can't afford to lose.
In my case I paid 40% up front and got a 1.99% loan from my credit union. If my investment beats 1.99% I'm ahead. I took some of that money and bought a bunch of Tesla stock at $35. I am very far ahead now while still able to handle the case if my investments head south. Other i
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that resell guarantee is only if you use their financing option to actually buy the car.
which is not that smart buying a car on credit is the most wasteful thing you can pretty much do. Cars unlike for example real estate will go down in price guaranteed
That is not argument against buying on credit. That is an argument against buying at all. If you are going to insist on buying, with interest rates being what they are, and with inflation being what it is, it would be stupid to pay cash money in current dollars for it. Plus the lending party is taking all the risk. The risk of your future money being worth less, the risk that you won't even pay them back, etc. All they can do is seize the car, which is worth far less than the original purchase price. They
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I disagree with you. I ran the numbers. Financing a car is a great way to save money. For example, I got a loan for my Tesla Model S. With the money I did not spend up front I invested it. If I am able to beat the 1.99% interest rate I'm paying on the loan I'm ahead. It's not hard to do.
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Er, "average" is "mean". They are synonyms. Perhaps you meant "median" for one of your two income figures?
re: few people having business buying new (Score:2)
You might have a point, except owning a reliable car tends to tie in to other factors.
For example, the majority of people in the U.S. don't live in one of the big cities where mass transit is truly practical as an alternative to driving to get to and from work each day. Even for many who DO live in such cities, mass transit imposes too many limitations. (For example, if you work as some sort of on-site service technician -- for computers or copiers perhaps? A good, reliable vehicle may be a requirement to
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even before the end of the battery life the battery would give diminished returns and it would hurt the resell value more then non electric cars.
ICE cars also give diminished returns over the years. Those MPG figures quoted for cars only apply to new cars. As engines, gearboxes and wheel bearings wear, so the efficiency falls, and you get less MPG.
If you keep the car long enough, you'll have to have the IC engine switched or reconditioned.
Of course with an EV, when the time does come to replace the batteries you'll probably get a new set that's even better than the original, with a greater range. Because the technology will have improved in the inte
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> And the amount of "battery research" that resulted in nothing, where we were told they'd be the next big thing in 5-10 years time? Innumerable.
Welcome to research. Many research projects, even really successful ones, just end up with a gain of knowledge, but no commercial value. Research projects that actually change the world are few and far in between. That's why it is called research, and not development.
Just read the history of Lithium batteries. Most of the big steps were made at universities in
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Your opinion is that batteries don't make incremental improvements, but only revolutionary improvements once in long while when a completely new battery chemistry comes along.
Your opinion is completely wrong.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]
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it is if you want your company to be more than a 1 time, "that was neat" fad for rich people that need a toy
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I'm not entirely convinced "economy of scale" even applies much to Lithium Ion batteries. Their cost these days is largely related to mining and processing the materials that go into them.
Two things. One is that things are always cheaper the more you buy. So those mined materials come cheaper if you have a big manufacturing facility.
Second is that actually most of the raw materials for the batteries will come from recycling old batteries. At the moment Tesla only does a minimal reprocessing themselves, then send old batteries off to 3rd parties to recycle. And those materials don;t come back.
The new factory will recycle as much as possible of the batteries into new batteries. Of the order of
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I rather suspect you'll find the cost of 10,000 tonnes of steel ingot will be pretty exactly 10,000 times as much as one tonne of steel ingot.
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And I rather suspect you will find it's not.
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Will it be half, which is what you claimed higher up about batteries (admittedly in reply to some imbecile who thought it'd be a tenth)?
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So, you're telling me someone who can afford to drop $70,000 on a car is going to want to be seen driving it 8 years later?
Someone will be driving it 8 years later, unless you exepct the original owner to just throw the car away.
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Lithium mining is not an ecological disaster. Lithium is mined the same way salt (any many other household chemicals such as boron, sodium carbonate, etc.) is "mined" from salt water. Elemental lithium does not exist in nature, it exists primarily as lithium-chloride dissolved in water that leeched the lithium-chloride from rocks containing that salt. Lithium mining is a process of finding water with lithium chloride, pumping it in to a retention pond, and letting the sun evaporate the water.
Lithium *can* b
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In five years or so, when the owners of the first generation of hybrids face that battery upgrade, they might start selling quite cheaply.
Huh? The first generation of hybrids were the original Priuses, which are 17 years old. And user reports are that many of them are still running on original batteries. Replacement if needed is of the order of $2000.
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Hybrids use their batteries much less than pure electric cars. Hence their batteries are smaller and cheaper.
Different kinds of batteries too. Rather than a deep cycle full discharge you're only using the battery when accelerating and recharging it when braking. They need to consider this when designing the battery system. Although I don't think anyone does, you could use giant capacitors instead of true batteries since that is how you're using them for energy storage. If you did use capacitors I think the reliability would go up but the fire/explosion risk might go up too, so maybe that is why they don't do i
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The nice thing with the Tesla is that they tend to use their batteries far less than say, a Leaf. I average about 50 miles per day of driving. If I were driving a Leaf this would be a significant percentage of the battery. The hardest thing on the batteries is charging them to 100% and draining them near 0%. With the Tesla I typically keep it between 40-70% which allows the battery to last a lot longer. My Prius kept the battery between 40-80%. The plug-in hybrids will be a lot harder on the batteries.
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Actually it does. According to this thread http://www.teslamotors.com/for... [teslamotors.com] Tesla will replace it if the capacity drops below 70%. People have already hit 75,000 miles and are reporting only a few % loss in capacity.