QOTW: Are you tempted by the Tesla Model 3?

[jigger]

I get the sense the last sentence is sadly the most likely outcome! There maybe pressure in future to reduce the "throw away car" culture though.. upgrade-able batteries being a one possibility I imagine.

But you still have to throw away the old battery and good cells to a large extent. It will be interesting to see how these cars hold up after 10 years/100,000 miles and how you would go about overhauling the battery once it starts causing problems. The price of a new battery and fitting could mean the car becomes worthless.

[anselhelm]

Needs to be sub £10,000.

[cheesemp]

Yes but I doubt I can afford it by the time $=£ is applied and government electric grant is removed (I understand this is due to end soonish). Shame but I'll probably buy a second hand leaf or Zoe instead. Only need it for commuting as wife has the big family car.

[flearider]

But you still have to throw away the old battery and good cells to a large extent. It will be interesting to see how these cars hold up after 10 years/100,000 miles and how you would go about overhauling the battery once it starts causing problems. The price of a new battery and fitting could mean the car becomes worthless.

does anyone read links that have been put on by other members ? the new biostar batterys are here ..
From the Bisosolar website:

Breaking the $100/kWh Cost Barrier to Mass Market Adoption
Materials account for more than 70% of the cost of a battery. In particular, the cathode material makes up 20-35% of the total materials costs. Therefore, lowering the cost of the cathode is an effective way to lowering the total battery cost. The estimated raw materials cost of our cathode is similar to that of inexpensive plastics, with a very high possible energy density of 1,000 Wh/kg.

Our Super Cathode can be used to manufacture a super battery that is 2 times higher capacity than the batteries currently used in a Tesla Model S, at 4 times less cost.

Processing materials and time are additional cost drivers. Our cathode can be processed from water and eco-friendly solvents, which (i) eliminates the use of costly and toxic solvents, (ii) eliminates high temperature drying processes, and (iii) speeds up the production throughput.

Many analysts in the electric vehicle and solar industry consider $100 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to be the “holy grail” price threshold. In the case of electric vehicles, $100/kWh will make them undeniably cost-competitive with gas-powered vehicles. And in the case of solar, it will finally be cost effective to store daytime solar electricity for nighttime use and be less reliant on, or completely independent of, the power grid.

Our current estimate of the cost of a full battery using our Super Cathode with a conventional graphite anode is approximately $54/kWh.

Compared to Existing Batteries Based on internal experimental data, other published data, and a calculation model adopted from the Energy Laboratory of Samsung Electronics, we have estimated the energy density and energy costs of a complete super battery that uses our Super Cathode technology.

so thats 459wh/kg for $54/kwh compared to tesla model s 225wh/kg for £200/kwh .. it is going to change the way we look at electric cars

[jigger]

Thats got nothing to do with what I said. The problem is the battery life span and the cost to replace a battery with dead cells and the waste from that.

[Xlucine]

...That means Tesla is coal powered - far, far worse than petrol for pollution and efficiency...

There's surprisingly little coal capacity in the UK:
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Over the last week it didn't even reach 5GW at any time, while gas was always between 5 and 20GW and nuclear gave a consistent 8GW. EU emissions rules have meant coal plants have been scrapped wholesale, since including the cost of emissions they just aren't economical anymore.

I meant to say if you could upgrade the 215-mile battery with say a 400 mile battery in future, that would be a great selling point for me at least.

I'd seriously consider a second hand tesla when I need a new car if that was the case, since the rest of the car ought to be pretty solid. Without that the resale value for electric will be woeful, and for good reason

But you still have to throw away the old battery and good cells to a large extent. It will be interesting to see how these cars hold up after 10 years/100,000 miles and how you would go about overhauling the battery once it starts causing problems. The price of a new battery and fitting could mean the car becomes worthless.

No-one's going to toss a battery set in landfill - lithium is expensive, once electric cars become common then companies that recycle dead lithium batteries will follow in large amounts. I can hear the "we buy any battery dot com" jingles already...

I get the sense the last sentence is sadly the most likely outcome! There maybe pressure in future to reduce the "throw away car" culture though.. upgrade-able batteries being a one possibility I imagine.

This is off topic, but the throw away car culture is here to stay due to inherent parts of the design of any car. Every silicon chip has a finite design lifespan, before thermal fatigue or electromigration or something else kills it, and when it fails the module using that chip may as well be a paperweight. Tech advances so rapidly that support for older cars rapidly tails off, so all modern cars will reach a point when it's completely uneconomical to keep them running. When the ECU or immobiliser or any of the other computers on a 15 yr old car go, then that car is a write off - and good riddance, what with the advances of safety and emissions standards and the efficiency of car recyclers. For the cost of a replacement ECU for a 15 yr old car you could buy a 10 yr old car, which will be far nicer - and so the average car on the road improves in line with the improvements in new cars.

[realstock]

I'm not sure you have a clue what you're talking about.

Totally meant Hydrogen there my bad.

You mean the reactors we've been using since the 1950s? The ones with massive piles of toxic waste lurking around them?

...and Fusion not Fission.

Fusion itself hasn't been mastered yet and won't be for decades so how you ever had any hope at all of it doing anything in your lifetime I don't know.

when we do crack it, whether its decades or more, providing that its lives up to hype of clean, cheap power. Electric cars will then be a smart cost cutting move, considering the spiralling costs of oil, not to mention to pollution and the fact it won't last forever.

[cflymo]

Totally meant Hydrogen there my bad.

Hydrogen is deeply inefficient and unlikely to ever make a suitable mass market alternative to fossil fuels for cars.

...and Fusion not Fission.

#
when we do crack it, whether its decades or more, providing that its lives up to hype of clean, cheap power. Electric cars will then be a smart cost cutting move, considering the spiralling costs of oil, not to mention to pollution and the fact it won't last forever.

I agree that when we do crack it (and we will, eventually), it will make a whole raft of technologies much more attractive, including EVs. As someone else pointed out, burning fossil fuels to generate electricity for an EV is still pretty daft. But in the more immediate future I'd have thought that Tesla's own power storage products combined with home solar/wind capacity might make more impact since you could charge the power bank up during the day and then charge the car off that at night. I think the next five years will really see work in that area expanding rapidly and EVs taking off in a far bigger way.

I still cannot see a Zoe or Leaf and not think that the driver is probably a tedious lentil munching berk, but Tesla are making EVs that you might actually want to won and which have usable range. I think the shift is coming and whilst those horrible little early EVs like the Leaf laid the foundations (and no one can deny that they have), Tesla are likely to be the catalyst that really causes the sector to grow, and that will have side benefits such as encouraging more research and development in solar PV, energy storage and battery tech. Now is the time to look at shares in companies in that arena I reckon, and if oil companies have any brains at all, they'll get in on the ground floor and start to change their business models because they of all people must know that their days are essentially numbered but if they evolve then maybe they can survive and prosper without being quite so evil.

[StealyClint]

It won't seem so cheap in five years time when it's worth nothing due to the batteries only holding half a charge.

[AlSomething]

My car lives on the street, so no way of charging it. I would of used the money to buy a house with a drive.

I also want to know if the battery can be replaced and recycled safely.

A 200 miles charge is fine for most days, but why can't they stick a solar panel on top. So when I go off on a day trip, park up for the day it charges itself so I can get home.

I'm someone will create a solar panel for the boot, maybe I should get funding from kickstarter now.

[jigger]

The solar panel needed to charge such a huge battery would need to be massive. I think the electronics in the charge controller and cost of the solar cells would probably add a few thousand to the price and offer very little extra mileage. It could possibly be worth looking at if some one invented very efficient solar cells and charging system.

[directhex]

It won't seem so cheap in five years time when it's worth nothing due to the batteries only holding half a charge.

Tesla's numbers, based on stats from the Roadster, put it at 15% range loss after 100,000 miles. Most EVs should get similar numbers (although the Leaf is an exception which degrades particularly quickly)

[directhex]

No-one's going to toss a battery set in landfill - lithium is expensive, once electric cars become common then companies that recycle dead lithium batteries will follow in large amounts. I can hear the "we buy any battery dot com" jingles already...

Already a thriving industry. All those "powerwall" type batteries for homes/businesses with solar to store their excess? Recycled car batteries. Actually, there's a massive shortage of "binned" batteries for these companies to reprocess.

[directhex]

Yes but I doubt I can afford it by the time $=£ is applied

Tesla Model S 70 UK price (of which VAT in brackets): £54100 (£9017)
Tesla Model S 70 US price (no tax included): $70000 = £49573

Tesla Model S P90D UK price (of which VAT in brackets): £87300 (£14550)
Tesla Model S P90D US price (no tax included): $108000 = £76479

Tesla's vehicles are *cheaper* in the UK, pre-tax, without grants, than in the US. You expect that to change for the Model 3? On what basis?

[directhex]

I meant to say if you could upgrade the 215-mile battery with say a 400 mile battery in future, that would be a great selling point for me at least.

Not an impossibility - Tesla sell a battery capacity upgrade for the old Roadster as a standard offering, and there are stories like this one of one-off upgrades being done by service centers.

[big_hairy_rob]

No. I would never spend that amount on a car. I also have serious concerns regarding the potential second hand market of these cars, especially with the existing requirement to replace batteries at certain points in time (as in non Tesla makes). I would still like to see Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars take over, but this technology seems to have died a death. Until petrol becomes scarce (and exceptionally expensive), there is no real incentive for either consumers, or the industry to push these cars & as others have already commented, time may well prove that the chemicals used in their batteries may well end up being far more damaging...