And before Elon Musk does. He must be planning for Tesla 2.0. By 2020, Tesla 1.0 would have exhausted all the federal credits ($7,500 for first 200K cars). He can simply start Tesla 2.0 to restart the credits, i think.
This is not how it works. All the batteries are used. With the extra range you don't discharge the batteries as low or charge them as high so the capacity is lower. One advantage of the lower range model is that the batteries will have a slightly longer life before beginning to lose capacity.
Toyota used to offer a button on some Priuses sold outside the U.S. that allowed the batteries to be charged higher and discharged lower to increase the electric range. Some U.S. owners hacked in that capability.
The reason that these manufacturers are able to offer these long battery warranties is because they are so conservative with their charging and discharging, plus THEY get to decide when a battery is defective. A gradual loss of capacity is not grounds for a free battery replacement.
I was surprised that they just use 18650 cells. Thousands of them. I would have thought that they would use larger cells with a lower quantity of case material.
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