How I Used and Abused My Tesla – What a Tesla Looks Like After 100,000 Miles

Sure, and that makes sense in most realistic cases. A $35,000 car that returns an expected $30,000/year isn't a realistic case. Anywhere remotely close to that, and the case for selling the cars to consumers to realize (reduced) returns more quickly and insulate the manufacturer from risk just isn't there.

Heck, even if the company decides they don't want to be in the business of owning the fleet, the fact that it is expected to return $30K a year means that the price that can be supported will be much higher (or, conversely, the fact that the car can be sold for $35K will drive down the returns as more people buy the car, and supply drives down market clearing price for all the productive uses.)

But if they own the cars they can save a metric ton of money.

You would be surprised just how much of the cost of a mid range car is in the interior not only because they need to outsource those materials and gadgets usually but because the interior is one of the few things that is still done mostly manually.

An autonomous car that drives people around doesn't need an infotainment system, doesn't need fancy driver and side passenger seats doesn't need tons of stuff. Heck you would be able to take out the driver/passenger side completely out of the picture if you are designing a dedicated autonomous taxi. Add to that all the other crap that every car now has to have to be competitive and it adds up to a metric ton of saving. Ford/GM/Whoever can design the cheapest simplest shittiest car they can think off that no one would ever want to buy because it doesn't have 5 different suspension settings and xband radio that sync with your phone to get you your latest podcasts and a climate controlled cup holder that keeps you drink cool in the summer and warm in the winter, seat warmers padded pedals and that turbo charger because when buying a 30K it's 0-60 is still important for no apparent reason. They can cut the cost of making the car by probably 50% easily if they don't have to built it to compete in the market, no one cares about 0-60 or xband when they take a 15min uber ride.

And not only would you save money on the manufacturing you would save tons of money by being able to recycle the cars afterwards, you can get a very large part of the cost of the BOM of a car by recycling it and since car manufacturers basically say bye bye to the car once they ship it to the dealer they never see a penny out of it.

The next big saving/cost reduction is not having to deal with customers a very large portion of the cost of a car is the infrastructure and network a car manufacturer has to set up to support the car. They have to provide service for the first 3 years 100,000 miles - that's gone, they have to setup a network of authorized dealers and provide support and training - that's gone, they have to setup a network of authorized repair and service providers - that's gone.

They have to track every car and know where and when it was sold and where it is if they need to do a product recall - that's gone or well every easy since they run all the cars. They have to support the car by law by providing replacement parts sometimes for decades depending on the country which means they either build considerably more parts than they need or have to continue to have the ability to construct them for years which is expensive as duck - this is also gone. Heck the advertisement costs alone is probably couple of 100's of millions a year globally if not N/A only, take that out too because now you don't need to tell people what's in your new Fjord Mikata M30 because you aren't selling direct to customers anymore.

If you can reduce the cost of the car by 50%, and get 60-80% of the cost of the BOM back by recycling it after 3-5 years it's a no brainer to cut the middle man and stop selling cars to people period.

When take out all of that the financing becomes a non-issue the cars are assets not only that they have value but they also generate income even if Ford/GM needs financing they won't have issues getting it for the same reason that for individuals it's easier to get financing for a work vehicle than for a leisure car.

That is, having remote drivers assisted by all the "autopilot" features that improve situational awareness. These features make it easier to drive a car in person, but they could also be used to make it easier to remote a car.

I see many possibilities for this. Designing cars that don't have a driver seat, holding more passengers. Having passengers be able to face each other.

Remote pilots handoffs to other pilots via overlapping handshake. Might be able to figure out a way for multiplexing multiple cars across a smaller group of pilots.

Anyway, I think this is far more achievable than self driving in the near term.

That's because those are real rideshare groups, not Uber-style quasi-taxis; the additional cost of an extra passenger when you are already planning on taking such a trip is small (at $15, you are well above it, and recovering costs you would have born without the extra passenger.)

That really tells you nothing about the costs when you aren't piggybacking on someone already planning on making the trip.

Well, no, it would take longer but the profits would be higher, too, so it would still be the smart move to make.

A car company can raise capital and manage fleets much better than individuals can.

Sell the car and let people loan it out to an autonomous fleet with the app. Tesla would also have its own fleet for cities without enough Tesla owners.

This would allow people who could otherwise not afford a 35k electric car (before incentives) to buy one and is the reason he doesn't think it'll be necessary to build another cheaper version.

Car companies already run their own financing companies so they are used to this model of technically buying their own product.

I don't think his experience with the battery and drivetrain are typical. I've heard that earlier cars had a lot of drivetrain replacements, but not so much recently. And when Tesla replaces them, it's often because of a simple problem and it's just easier to throw in a new one than to fix the existing one on site. They then ship the old one back to the factory, refurbish it, and use it for another replacement. I haven't heard much about battery replacements under warranty. From what I do hear, most people with high-mileage Model Ss are still doing great with their batteries.

When they start putting in, as you say, refurbed parts that already had 70,000 miles on them, will they really be as good as new?

I could see competing products (Apps) with less infrastructure launching this business model though. So I guess it might exist in one way or another in the end.

Plus, when Teslas are usable as self-driving cars, the value of the rides provided will drop precipitously -- that figure would be more like $5000, and you'd have to lock up usable hours for it and perhaps pay some penalty to renege on specific hours.

We're not replacing coal power stations. It isn't an "upgrade" away. Our energy demand is increasing so any new stations supplement rather than replace existing power stations. The stakeholder wouldn't shutdown a power station before its lifetime anyway. They need to recoup their investment. The current operational units at the station will not be shutdown until 2025 and they'll probably add more to extend the lifetime of the station.

And furthermore, if the plant was to be supplemented with solar, where do you think the energy will come from at night when the car is plugged in?

I'd be interested to hear the reasons so much needed to be replaced, instead of just a passing mention that a large amount of repairs were done

>will pay for it by charging to charge

will subsidize supercharger access for Tesla vehicles via selling access to non-Tesla Electric vehicles