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Tesla Batteries


SteveEnergi
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If anyone watched 60 Minutes this past weekend, there was a story on Tesla (Elon Musk) and the Model S.  Toward the end of the segment, Elon Musk mentioned that he is in the process of building an electric battery manufacturing facility in the United States.  The goal of this facility is to not only supply the Model S with batteries, but all electric car batteries.  Musk wants to be the #1 battery manufacturer in the world.  If anyone can do it, he certainly can (ie SpaceX).

 

Musk also mentioned the driving cost for these cars are the batteries, so solving this problem will really drop the price of the cars with a goal of perhaps manufacturing a less expensive Tesla.

 

In my mind, I started to speculate that one day, if he succeeds with his battery manufacturing facility, that Tesla may make a smaller, higher capacity replacement battery for our Energi's.  Now that would be cool, replacing our battery with one that is perhaps 3 times the capacity and the same size, or smaller/lighter.

 

Only time will tell.

 

Comments?

 

Steve

 

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One of the few cars I could ditch the active cruise for would be a Tesla... but the price has to come down. Not that I do not think that the car is worth the money (I do) it is just that I can not bring myself to drop that much money into a depreciating asset like a car. I am also out of the car buying market for the next 5-7 years as I recently purchased a very nice car :)

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While there is no disputing the Tesla as an awesome car, I'm looking at the battery technology and whether or not Elon Musk and his battery manufacturing facility will manufacture batteries that are compatible with other e vehicles (it seemed so from the interview).  I think at some point, you might be able to get an "after market" replacement battery back for the FFE that is more efficient.

 

In 3-4 years, would you spend say $3k to $8k for a FFE replacement battery manufactured by Tesla that could get triple or quadruple the mileage (60-100mpc)?

 

Steve

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In 3-4 years, would you spend say $3k to $8k for a FFE replacement battery manufactured by Tesla that could get triple or quadruple the mileage (60-100mpc)?

 

For me, absolutely not...it has to make financial sense.  Are you going to make up that $3k-$8k investment over the life of the car?  I would certainly not.  Those who have longer commutes, possibly.  It comes down to how you justify gas savings/convenience vs cost.

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Another bit of information I discovered from the user videos up at the Tesla site, is how they have an option to "fully" charge their battery for a scheduled longer trip.  The video mentions if you know you need extra mileage the following day to set the charge to "maximum" (some term).  This will charge the battery to 100% rather than 85% which is the default charge level.  If you don't set it back, the car will automatically set it back to 85% after 3 days.  The 85% is to prolong the health of the battery.

 

Since the Tesla batteries have such a great capacity, this is a pretty good feature.  If it were in our FFE's, I imagine everyone would have the setting to max every day so we can glean another 3 to 5 miles out of the battery but to the detriment of the battery.

 

Steve

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