> A service manager then informed him that “it’s a brick” and that the battery would cost approximately $40,000 to replace. He was further told that this was a special “friends and family” price, strongly implying that Tesla generally charges more.
> $40,000 (or more) to fix his car
> full $40,000-plus cost
> At the same time, the Model S pricing starts at $49,900 (after US tax incentives), broadening the market to households of far more modest means than the owners of the $109,000 and up Roadster. This in turn makes it even less likely that Tesla buyers will have the necessary tens of thousands of dollars to spare if they ever allow their battery to fully discharge.
("Implying that battery cost will be the same as for Roadster, car that costs 2.5 times more")
Statements like this are generally bad for an article that tries to operate with facts.
>This may not be terribly different than a German luxury make you could be cross shopping in the price range, but it’s something to bear in mind.
Definitely seems higher. I just checked the price for insuring a 2019 Mercedes-Benz E-Class (hybrid). It was 1350 €/year or 2100 €/year if I choose the premium coverage options. For a 2019 Tesla Model 3, the same prices were 2030 €/year and 2670 €/year.
2019 Tesla Model S was even worse at 2400 €/year and 3260 €/year. Model S is definitely more expensive than an E-Class, so I also compared to a 2019 Mercedes-Benz S-Class (hybrid), which was about 16,000 € more expensive to buy than the Model S. Got 1920 €/year and 3060 €/year.
(Premium coverage options were parking coverage, glass insurance, better write-off compensation and temp car coverage.)
> That neglects the fact, that most of the maintenance costs are not engine related. Like the brakes have to be regularly checked. It neglects the fact, that a battery will wear out sometimes between 3 to 6 years and has to be replaced, which is a huge cost related issue. The guarantee Tesla has, does not help, because you will pay for that guarantee otherwise.
It seems like the battery management of Tesla is pretty good. I'd imagine 10-year to 15-year replacement of battery packs... which is still far more expensive and costly than a transmission rework (ie: a 150k to 200k Camry).
> Does anyone know if electric cars have less problems that require expensive repairs?
My impression from watching a few Youtube videos of Tesla owners who are not in warranty [0] is that they aren't actually very cheap to run.
In theory, they should be inexpensive - electricity < gas and there are physically fewer parts, but it sounds like there were substantial teething pains. We'll see if/when they got to Toyota levels of reliability.
> Guess where we are now? I'll calculate this for you. Tesla announced that their replacement batteries cost $12000 for the 85kWh version. That is $140/kWh. Right now, in 2015, we are to the left of this entire diagram already.
Does the Tesla do 240 Wh/mile? I searched quickly and saw 480 from someone, is there an official figure for this?
> The headline is the clickbaity and misleading part.
It really isn't misleading. They demonstrate that it takes a 20-year service life for Tesla Model 3 owners to recover their expense when compared to Toyota Camry owners of they charged at hime, and demonstrated that the problem would be worse if they used superchargers.
Thus they covered both extreme cases, which bound any real-world example, and showed that the Camry would be cheaper even when compared with Tesla's most favourable scenario.
>Maybe Tesla just reserves some capacity for longer lifespan of batteries?
Maybe. But if they cut 10% the owners should get the equivalent of 10% ranges worth in damages (not the charging cost but the price difference in their current car and one with 10% less range). Of course they should also be allowed to sell the car back to Tesla as some of these owners have proven they no longer can bet on always reaching their destination without an extra charge. I would personally have bought another car of I were in that position.
> But, overall, the data offer some basis for confidence that a Tesla Model S will lose—on average—less than 15 percent of its battery capacity over the average 150,000-mile (250,000-km) life of a vehicle.
>I bet the higher frequency of claims is either because people who buy electrics are worse drivers or simply more litigious. Probably both.
I think you should re-read what you are quoting. My reading is that the electric cars that were not made by Tesla had fewer claims than their ICE counterparts.
That's a thing that blew me away about Teslas, the whole deal with insurance. Maybe it'll be somewhat solved in the upcoming F-150 (which has the big advantage of being a decent whole-house backup power supply, useful in a place where the power company shuts us off whenever it's windy).
I guess it's also worth considering that the technical changes are still coming pretty quickly. Capital goods pricing combined with consumer electronics obsolescence.
Honestly, I'd probably rather just spend the $50k on a Chevelle SS.
> A 75kWh battery pack that is limited to 60kWh is better than having a real 60kWh pack.
Why? Wouldn't the weight reduction be useful?
> If you look at this as a $6000 or so discount on a new Tesla, it actually seems like a pretty good deal.
Yes.. but the whole battery is still being used, and is still in a position to require service. It could be the case that I have a 60kW tesla, but still need to pay the full 75kW repair price, because of the way they structured this.
> The Tesla Model S P85 is a single-motor, rear-wheel-drive car. High power and torque was an issue in the early Teslas, which caused a few motor replacements. Three units were replaced by 680,000 km and the fourth one was running up to 1,000,000 km.
Not sure how you read that as 3 motors where replaced at the same time. It would be somewhat pointless given that the Model S only has a single motor. Three were replaced before 680,000km and the final replacement made it to 1,000,000km.
The word recall doesn't appear in the article. The first battery had a fault. By the sounds of things Tesla may have found a design fault which was then fixed because of the investigation into that particular battery but that interpretation is reading between the lines.
>My tesla model s is about 10 years old now and it's cost of ownership is far lower than any gasoline car I have had... total cost of ownership of EVs will be lower than gasoline cars by 2025
are you saying your tesla's total cost of ownership is higher than gasoline cars you've had? Or that your car is somehow unusually cheap, given that you bought an expensive one and we are before 2025?
>Sigh, another article focusing on Tesla battery fires when it is a common failure mode to most of not all EVs.
The article uses Tesla as a way to catch the readers eye. The actual article shows that Senator Scott asked not only Tesla, but other manufacturers such as Ford, GM, and Stellantis about what they were doing to mitigate this.
> "I read about Hertz having problems with EV maintenance but experience leads me to believe that it's nothing to do with being EVs."
It's not so much that EVs require more maintenance/repairs (if anything, the opposite is true!), but the high costs of parts etc when repairs are needed. This is particularly a problem with Teslas, which also leads to higher insurance premiums.
> This is a confirmation that cheaper electric cars are back in the cards for Tesla, though we should take the cost predictions with a grain of salt since Tesla doesn’t have a great track record on that.
> The Model 3 was supposed to start at $35,000, which it only briefly did and that was before the inflation crisis, and the Model S was supposed to start $50,000, which it also briefly did but with a software-locked version that was quickly discontinued.
This seems pretty important metric to me.
> Injury related coverages were also not included due to the small numbers of claims associated with the electric vehicles.
I would like to see more of this with the comparison.
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