Tesla announce battery price 40kw $8000

Tesla announced:

The price of a 40 kWh pack is $8,000. Another $2,000 gets the 60 kWh pack, and the 85 kWh pack costs another $2,000 on top of that.

Wow. Nissan can I have a 24kw battery pack for $4800 please, when the time comes.

Considering that those are retail prices, that's not a bad deal at all. Even considering it is prepaid, with today's and likely tomorrow's negligible return on investment funds, it is still a good deal. It makes Nissan look even worse in comparison...

Hartleaf said:

Tesla announced:
The price of a 40 kWh pack is $8,000. Another $2,000 gets the 60 kWh pack, and the 85 kWh pack costs another $2,000 on top of that.
Wow. Nissan can I have a 24kw battery pack for $4800 please, when the time comes.

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That's interesting. The pricing for the Model S is $50K for the 40kwh, $60K for the 60kwh, $70K for the 80kwh. This is in $10K increment. But the battery pricing only goes up by $2K increment. The math somehow doesn't work.

What if somebody buys a 40kwh version for $50K, then buys a new 8kwh battery for $12K and swap batteries. Then they'd effectively have a 80kwh version for only $62K. And they also have the original 40kwh battery they can sell off to recover some of the cost.

Now we're never going to get a battery price quote from Nissan in light of this, unless Nissan can manage to make their price comparable so they don't look bad.

TomT said:

Considering that those are retail prices, that's not a bad deal at all. Even considering it is prepaid, with today's and likely tomorrow's negligible return on investment funds, it is still a good deal. It makes Nissan look even worse in comparison...

Hartleaf said:

Tesla announced:
The price of a 40 kWh pack is $8,000. Another $2,000 gets the 60 kWh pack, and the 85 kWh pack costs another $2,000 on top of that.
Wow. Nissan can I have a 24kw battery pack for $4800 please, when the time comes.

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The battery chemistry and pack electronics are such that they are not swappable, at least that is what Tesla says.

Moreover even if they were swappable, these are not packs or prices that you can just go to Tesla home page or store and buy it as if you were buying a spare light bulb. These prices are specifically for a replacement at the end of 8th year of ownership, presumably to be replaced by a Tesla technician. Not any sooner.

$12K/85kwh = $141/kwh -> too good to be true? I thought the current range is $500/kwh.

Has the holy grail in battery cost been reached by Tesla????

You guys are missing the key point in Tesla's offering. That is that you buy an option to purchase the battery at those prices at a future time. So whatever that buy-in cost is ($2-3K?). The FV of that buy-in is applied to the cost of the battery. This means that your actual cost is closer to $12-13K for the smaller battery. Lastly, don't forget the core credit for the old battery.

Of course this brings in the question of if the option is transferable, what will be the probability of one still owning the car when the option becomes active, market prices for the technology when the option is active, etc.

Volusiano said:

$12K/85kwh = $141/kwh -> too good to be true? I thought the current range is $500/kwh.

Has the holy grail in battery cost been reached by Tesla????

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My understanding is that you "prepaid" more than that with buying the respective Tesla model, which has $10k increases, rather than $2k, which comes out at a rather different price per kWH (unless the higher capacity models have added other features...)

this is a "decent" deal at best.

its 141/kwh for 85
its 167 for 60
and 200/kwh for 40

now double that and you have just about what you are paying for the batteries today. its a $10K jump from 40 to 60 to 85 or about $500 Kwh.

so take that 12,000 now. add in investment (most will double your money in 7 years) and add in the natural drop in prices for new technology that is ramping up in volume and you have a "marginally" decent deal that you might get burned on...

8 years is a long time

Volusiano said:

$12K/85kwh = $141/kwh -> too good to be true? I thought the current range is $500/kwh.

Has the holy grail in battery cost been reached by Tesla????

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Tesla needs cash. They collect today and hope to supply a battery on the cheap in eight years.
The holy grail is cash. If they go bk there will be no battery.

It's sort of like buying an extended warranty that caps the price of the battery 8 years from now.

I bet few people who buy cars in the $75-$110k price range will still have them eight years from now. Even if it's transferable, they know they numbers won't be that bad to deal with. Who knows Tesla might not even be around in eight years, or they may have "restructured", leaving owners of older cars out in the cold WRT warranties and other obligations like this. Not that I'm hoping for that to happen, but I've seen it with RV manufacturers, some times repeatedly.

I think the difference is that this is an exchange price so you can't exchange a 40 for a 60 or an 80, or buy it outright at that price... I'm not sure, but there may also be some difference in features and accoutrements between the different versions of the vehicle...

Volusiano said:

That's interesting. The pricing for the Model S is $50K for the 40kwh, $60K for the 60kwh, $70K for the 80kwh. This is in $10K increment. But the battery pricing only goes up by $2K increment. The math somehow doesn't work.

Click to expand...

Volusiano said:

That's interesting. The pricing for the Model S is $50K for the 40kwh, $60K for the 60kwh, $70K for the 80kwh. This is in $10K increment. But the battery pricing only goes up by $2K increment. The math somehow doesn't work.

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Maybe they want to make an obscene profit on the original vehicle sale, but are willing to forgo the future profits from fat markups on replacement packs to drive higher vehicle sales today, facilitated by an increased customer comfort level with an upper bound on the replacement cost.

If this is the strategy, Nissan should take a page from that playbook.

LTLFTcomposite said:

Volusiano said:

That's interesting. The pricing for the Model S is $50K for the 40kwh, $60K for the 60kwh, $70K for the 80kwh. This is in $10K increment. But the battery pricing only goes up by $2K increment. The math somehow doesn't work.

Click to expand...

Maybe they want to make an obscene profit on the original vehicle sale, but are willing to forgo the future profits from fat markups on replacement packs to drive higher vehicle sales today, facilitated by an increased customer comfort level with an upper bound on the replacement cost.

If this is the strategy, Nissan should take a page from that playbook.

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ummm, no. Tesla has economies of scale on their side. we really cant expect Nissan to offer us the same deal @ $200/K like the S 40 simply because 40 is bigger. so we are looking at ? $250/K now that is $6,000 and being forced to live with a degrading pack for how long? guessing Nissan cant go more than 4-5 years at most with the current pack technology.

In a good TMS, after 8 years I wouldnt be surprised to see most Tesla owners reporting no more than 15-20% degradation meaning that the old pack would still be worth a LOT of money. that is another reason why the deal sounds good but Tesla knows what they are doing and it aint for our benefit

So does this mean the $3000 price quoted on the Chevy dealer's parts list for the Volt may be correct after all?

DaveinOlyWA said:

this is a "decent" deal at best.
its 141/kwh for 85
its 167 for 60
and 200/kwh for 40
now double that and you have just about what you are paying for the batteries today. its a $10K jump from 40 to 60 to 85 or about $500 Kwh.

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Chinese laptop batteries are around $200/kWh, granted they are not the Japanese Panasonics that Tesla uses but the precedent has been set. An importer friend of mine was showing me the price lists for cells from China a few months ago, including a couple of PTCs built into the cell. I believe the cells used in the 85kWh S are a different different from the standard cells used in the 40kWh, thus the higher price.

Does anyone have a link to document these prices?

Herm said:

Does anyone have a link to document these prices?

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http://insideevs.com/tesla-bumps-pricing-on-model-s-for-2013/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The Tesla web site also has the battery pack prices.
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/2013-model-s-price-increase" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;