Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading • Hacker News Board

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#251

Post by pmarreck » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 8:16 PM UTC

tajen wrote: post #212

pmarreck wrote: post #181

Tesla is going to be a gigantic company one day. Disclaimer: I own one (Model S P85+, about 2 years old). And everyone I let drive it (yes, I am crazy enough to do that... As a fan who pushes the bleeding edge, it's important to share the experience in order to change minds... Anyway, my insurance covers me even when I'm a passenger!) cannot stop talking about it afterwards. I actually think Tesla's market is limited…

How do you deal with the 8-year limited lifetime? I evaluate a Tesla at 4x the cost of a normal car: I can get a new car for €15k lasting 15 years with a lively second market, Teslas are ~€30k, with free supercharger network, and 8 years warranty but no road license after that, and no second-hand market for spare pieces. Have you calculated the total cost of ownership (including insurance and free petrol) and how did…

First of all, cars are not investments, they depreciate very rapidly. So if you're already looking at the numbers when it comes to buying a Tesla, you should just not buy any car, period. Or buy a used one that will depreciate the least in dollar value. If you buy a Tesla, you expect to lose money on it, and if you're in that market, the precise amount of the loss is not as important.

What I can say with certainty is that the free charging is nice, and that brushless electric motors have historically had extremely long run times before they break down. And by the time it is time to replace the battery, it will be extremely cheaper and likely much higher capacity and allowing for a higher charge rate. That is all based on extrapolating current trends in battery technology.

Lastly, you're getting a car that will outperform cars that cost more than twice as much. Is that a steal? I guess it's all relative.

The intangible value proposition is the experience of driving and owning one.

I don't know anything about the eight year lifecycle thing, but historically, Tesla has treated past owners of its cars very well, such as offering owners of their first car a battery upgrade and things like that.

I think Musk is smart enough to know that pissing off well-heeled customers is not a good long term business proposition. Whatever you've heard about "8 years and then dead" is probably hysteria or FUD

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#252

Post by tajen » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 8:21 PM UTC

delecti wrote: post #244

tajen wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with the 8-year limited lifetime? I evaluate a Tesla at 4x the cost of a normal car: I can get a new car for €15k lasting 15 years with a lively second market, Teslas are ~€30k, with free supercharger network, and 8 years warranty but no road license after that, and no second-hand market for spare pieces. Have you calculated the total cost of ownership (including insurance and free petrol) and how did…

Can you elaborate on the 8-year limited lifetime? I've never heard anyone mention anything about that before, and "but no road license after that" almost makes it sound like it's a legal thing rather than a physical/practical thing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11233898

Basically you can drive a Tesla past 8 years, but after any repair, it can only be re-validated for the road by Tesla. Given Tesla has no warranty after 8 years and no published pricing yet for servicing after 8 years, we don't know whether we'll be able to have a car revalidated, let alone repaired.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#253

Post by goldenkey » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 9:36 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #235

goldenkey wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought railguns could shoot projectiles with speeds faster than almost anything. And since they are all about stored electricity inducing magnetism can't a terrorist just charge up a huge capacitor like battery for a year and then release a shit ton of energy in the form of a uranium or heavy lead slug??

Yes, although for terrorism purposes why is this tactially useful given the high cost and complexity? It's not particularly easy to build a 3km/s railgun in your garage, and the power storage ends up being hugely bulky. Conventional terrorist attacks involving homemade explosives, firearms, mortars, and even rockets have been quite cost-effective enough. I'm more worried about someone combining quadcopters and explos…

I suppose you're right. Its fun to think about the massive power of railguns and their simplicity though.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#254

Post by teslaberry » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 10:46 PM UTC

if you want electric cars to scale, you must RAISE GASOLINE TAXES AND ELIMINATE ELECTRICITY ( CARBON TAXES ).

EXXON has decided to support the global warming narrative and lobby for carbon taxes because it ensures that gasoline is NOT TAXED 'DOWNSTREAM'.

gasoline is being treated equal to other sources of 'carbon' on an upstream basis, such that natural gas is taxed like petroleum and coal is taxed even more.

coal being the CHEAPEST SOURCE OF ELECTRICITY.

so you are seeing gasoline companies ensure decades of stagnant technological uptake to the market by ensuring electricity prices go up, electricity supply becomes more scarce (through tax and regulation) and gasoline stays shit ass cheap and low taxed and in good supply.

if only all you environmentalists understood this.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#255

Post by koberstein » Thu, Jun 09, 2016, 5:43 AM UTC

Aelinsaar wrote: post #3

Between this and the projected increase in PV solar efficiency, drop in cost and toxicity of manufacture... I don't think I've felt this kind of cautious optimism for a renewable energy infrastructure before.

Check out Electrovaya, they have a non-toxic battery production process. Cautiously optimistic here as well :)

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#256

Post by SEJeff » Thu, Jun 09, 2016, 11:16 AM UTC

qaq wrote: post #118

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Musk has often claimed that the cost of batteries doesn't magically go down due to big new innovations like we've seen in some other industries. Rather it's due to constant iterations, making small improvements, and economies of scale. Particularly that latter part is hugely important and hasn't been much of a factor yet in the specialised market that is car batteries. And that's why they're building a gigantic…

It's a function of both $ & time. You can't spend a trillion and build a Gigafactory in 1 day even though you are spending 200X the amount of money.

Bingo! This reminds me of the fallacy of the mythical man month which I often compare to pregnancy in women. With 9 women, you can't have a baby any faster. The gigafactory is monstrous (second largest building by square footage in the world I believe) and is doing some quite new things. This requires R&D and no matter how you skin it, that requires time, often in serial.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#257

Post by bubuga » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 7:55 AM UTC

nl wrote: post #197

walrus01 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy STORAGE is a huge bottleneck issue for anyone that follows renewable energy news as well... Solar power itself has been cheap enough to be viable for a long time, 330W 72-cell panels for roofs have been $0.64/watt for several years now. You can quite economically cover the roof of a building in enough high-efficiency 60 or 72-cell panels to generate far more kWh in a year than the building will consume in the…

Flow Batteries[1]! They work (as in: are being used in Africa & South America to power mobile networks). Also my (office) building is powered by one. They don't cost much more than lead-acid They last much, much longer than lead-acid or lithium* There is no limit to the number of power cycles(!!) and they can be deep-discharged. They do have disadvantages - they aren't suitable for cars, and are currently fairly nois…

> Flow Batteries[1]!

From the wikipedia article, it appears that typical flow batteries only reach 10% to 20% of lithium polymer's power density.

That means that it would take a flow battery that weights 5 to 10 times as the standard lithium polymer batteries that equip a Tesla/Nissan Leaf/whatever electric car you imagine to deliver the same power.