Gigafactory

Quote: Pacomartin

This photo was taken about 80 miles from me as part of an article about how local coal heating was making a comeback
.

Up till 1986 I had a coal furnace.
Cheap to run and put out a hell
of a lot more heat than gas. It
was only sold at one place and
when they stopped carrying it,
I changed to gas. When it was
10 below zero I could get it so
warm in the house I had to open
the back door to cool it off.

Quote: Pacomartin

A Tesla battery is 1200 pounds and has capacity of 85 kWh. One gallon of gasoline is equal to 33.7 kWh.

Omfg, 1,200?!?!

That made me look. A Model S weighs more than my Silverado. Forget insane "mode", this whole thing is insane.

Silver lining - it makes the performance specs all that more impressive.

A warranty for the battery is nice. But does it cover labor as well as parts? With all the car warranties I've had, labor's not covered for most parts replacements covered by the warranty. How about accidental damage not covered by the warranty? say floods or fires? Can you get insurance for that?

I don't mean to nitpick away at this new development. I do want to get an idea of the overall costs. The capital costs in the initial purchase are already rather high.

Quote: Nareed

A warranty for the battery is nice. But does it cover labor as well as parts? With all the car warranties I've had, labor's not covered for most parts replacements covered by the warranty. How about accidental damage not covered by the warranty? say floods or fires? Can you get insurance for that?

A good question about the labor. I could be thinking of a different EV, but isn't it a case of removing the entire cockpit/body of the car to get at the centrally mounted batteries? All of the controls and electronics that would need be disconnected is a day of work, and the cheapest labor I got here is $70 an hour. I've seen $120.

Also, and this was one of my other points, is that batteries go to s#$% over time. Even abiding their least damaging charging practices, it's gonna take longer to charge and last less on a charge as the years roll by, and I see that trait is expressly not covered by the warranty. I wonder how bad it has to be before they consider it "broken" and replace it.

I'm OK with losing 60hp out of 300 and 3mpg down over the life of a petrol motor (or car, which is ~8yrs here). But all of the batteries I have are great for a good time, OK briefly, and then fall to bad quickly after that. That's frustrating when it's my Xbox controller. I can't imagine if that trait existed in my commuting world. And there ain't nothing I've ever had that went no 8 years. Not even 3.

I'm glad this thread keeps popping up. I want to follow this story. Like the aluminum bodied Fords, I can't wait to see what happens.

Quote: Nareed

I don't mean to nitpick away at this new development. I do want to get an idea of the overall costs. The capital costs in the initial purchase are already rather high.

Well you are putting a lot of money into a battery which degrades rather dramatically compared to the normal wear and tear of a gasoline car. There is a lot of speculation among EV owners about what the price of a battery will be in 8 years.

This blogger below said the original list price of his car had been $73,000. He called Tesla and was given a trade-in value for his car (nine months old, with 10,000 miles) of $49,900. That is really horrific depreciation (31.6% in 9 months).

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/life-tesla-model-battery-upgrade-60-kwh-85-120010866.html

I don't know if this is interesting to anyone. So, I'll post it anyway!

Quote: Face

A good question about the labor.

It's always the questions you don't think about that trip you.

Quote:

Also, and this was one of my other points, is that batteries go to s#$% over time. Even abiding their least damaging charging practices, it's gonna take longer to charge and last less on a charge as the years roll by, and I see that trait is expressly not covered by the warranty.

Think about break pads on a normal car. No manufacturer will cover a part that is supposed to wear out.

Quote: Nareed

Think about break pads on a normal car. No manufacturer will cover a part that is supposed to wear out.

For sure. 100% correct on all counts.

Now, when one of these "wear parts" happens to be the biggest, most important, and most expensive part on the car...

Quote: Face

Now, when one of these "wear parts" happens to be the biggest, most important, and most expensive part on the car...

Aye, there's the rub.

Maybe you can buy a new battery in installments. Maybe you can recycle the car then and get credit for a new one. I do wonder what Tesla's policy is.

Quote: Pacomartin

A Tesla battery is 1200 pounds and has capacity of 85 kWh. One gallon of gasoline is equal to 33.7 kWh. I am very skeptical, but I don't know if we have any control over the possibility that gasoline will go to $10 gallon within the next decade.

FYI, in early February, I started leasing an EV. The first thing I did after driving home was to call my local electric utility and switch to their rate plan marketed towards EV owners. The plan is structured so that I pay just 11 cents per kWh for electricity consumed late at night: 11pm to 7am. (The car has a timer, so I can customize when the charging begins.) I average about 4 miles per kWh, (the car keeps track of these statistics for me.)

As I write this the U.S. average for gasoline is $2.04/gallon (gasbuddy.com). For every $2 I spend on electricity, my car will go about 73 miles.

Occasionally I cheat and charge up at Volta stations (we visit my mother-in-law a couple times a month, and there's a Volta at the Target store which is 1 mile from her home.) How much does it cost to charge at Volta? It's free.

We still waste money on oil changes and gasoline for our '07 Toyota. Last week I spent a few hundred dollars replacing the drive belt and water pump on that thing. That '07 Toyota feels like ancient pre-historic artifact that needed a water pump.