Tesla is fast

SNIPPERMAN provides exactly ZERO references for his pedantic ramblings - PAR FOR THE COURSE!

The difference in retail price hasn't got much to do with the cost of the extra hardware, and everything to do with what the customer will pay for it.

The fact that a halfwit like Commander Kinsey is scared silly about the prospect of a lithium ion battery will catch on fire means that he will pay loads of money so that he can be less anxious about it.

None that Flyguy's decaying brain can recall. Here's one such reference from way back in thread.

Neither of them is all that specific. What Flyguy seems to need is a detailed course on the subject from the first principles (which he doesn't seem to know about) right through to the practical applications that he barely understands. Granting his rather selective comprehension of what he condescends to read, he probably didn't process either of them and has persuaded himself that he can blame me for that.

Of course nobody is paying $15 per cell, or it would cost $100,000 for each Tesla. I would think that Tesla's cost of production is around $5 and protection circuit would be more like 30% to 40% in addition cost.

Unless it magically gets cheaper, Lithium batteries are not economically viable for a car. You either have s*it range, or the car costs triple what a petrol one would.

There's nothing magic about economies of scale. The rule of thumb is that manufacturing in ten times the volume halves the price. It has worked a couple of times now for solar cells.

In 2020 electric cars were 4% of car sales. Get that close to 100% and they would cost about the same a petrol car (even if your factor of three were right, which seems improbable). They also happen to be cheaper to run. The "s*it range" claim is nonsense. It may be that one of the economies of scale may involve developing a better battery (which does seem to be a popular sport at the moment), but my long distance driving regime involves taking a break every two hour or so and having a cup of coffee while the car recharged would fit that perfectly.

For some of portions of the car market the price is already competitive and the other features are similar or better. For example the Tesla Model 3 vs a BMW 3 series -

When the fuel cost is included electric cars competitive on price even with average cars like a Toyota Camry. The average new car cost in the US has risen to about $47,000. The cost of a base Tesla Model 3 is $46,990.

The absence of regular servicing is very convenient - I have had mine for just about 4 years and it hasn't been to the dealer once. Whereas my Prius has required 8 services in that time according to the manual.

The cost and energy requirement to manufacture the batteries continues to drop - it is below $100 per kWh now from many times that ten years ago.

kw

A BMW is not a sensible car. Now please look at cars that cost what they're worth. The cheapest petrol car brand new and the cheapest electric car brand new that go a decent mileage (a few hundred miles), are £6K and £25K. Electric is a nice idea, but it's nowhere near ready for the public to use. Lithium Ion is not suitable for such a massive amount of power storage.

It's a problem for every single driver. Most people do not drive 2 miles to the post office. By the way that range drops like a stone as the battery ages. My petrol tank doesn't age.

WTF are you doing paying $47K for a petrol car? I could buy 6 cars for that.

Ignore the manual. Take the car to the garage when it goes wrong.

Then I will wait another 10 years.

I don't think the Tesla (50kWh) battery cost below $5000.

Nothing made by Tesla is a sensible price, I'm sure Musk is related to Jobs. It's the same Apple tactics.

Sorry, SNIPPERMAN, but you are not considering simple supply and demand economics; the price of lithium has skyrocketed with the large increase in demand:

All of it actually. Since all the "green" juice is already being used, additional usage from more cars wil come from burning coal/oil/gas faster. So no change to the environment, apart from Lithium problems. So actually worse for the environment. Electric golf carts yes, electric cars don't be daft. Batteries are for phones and cordless drills and are wholly unsuitable for something that uses 100kW.

Neither is a Tesla.

Apples and pears.

It works just fine. You want to redefine "suitable" to mean "agreeable with Commander Kinsey's prejudices".

Electric care batteries are ageing a lot more slowly than they used to. Commander Kinsey is behind the game. as usual.

And would be silly enough to do it.

Commander Kinsey does take the ignorant half-wit approach to car maintenance.

Probably not a wise choice, but Commander Kinsey clearly isn't wise.

The bottom line is that so-called Progressives are far TOO STUPID to think anything through.

These days Apple and Tesla are relying on their prestige to sell good products at an inflated price in the same way.

So people are starting new lithium mines all over. The mining pages of Australian newspapers are crawling with local lithium nine start-ups, sojme of them even in Australia. This is exactly how supply and demand economics works, even if you don't understand it.

There are a variety of source of lithium. Mining is a pretty localised activity, and there are places where tree-huggers (not a huge proportion of the population anyway) are thin on the ground.

But solar farms produce it more cheaply, and car batteries don't much care when the get recharged, so long as they are fully charged when they set out. Car's spend 95% of their time parked, and as electric cars become even more popular you will be able to recharge them almost anywhere where you are allowed to park them.

Yip, it's called gut instinct, they behave like animals. They can't actually make sensible decisions.

It's Flyguy who doesn't understand supply and demand economics. The current rise in the price of lithium is motivating lots of people to start digging new lithium mines. The mining pages of Australian newspapers are full of start=ups doing just that.

Commander Kinsey hasn't notice how fast the electrical supply industry is switching to renewable sources, which happen to generate electricity more cheaply you can get it by burning coal. Electric car batteries are their ideal customer - they can charge the batteries when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing and power is particularly cheap. This was pointed out back in 2008, but not anywhere where Commander Kinsey would have noticed.