Tesla Model 2 will have 53kWh LFP battery pack | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Model 2 will have 53kWh LFP battery pack

arenaev.com

43 pointslsllc80 comments

That is a complete misinterpretation of Tesla's document.

That part of the document is calculating the global annual battery demand once we're fully electrified. The chart says that 42M compact cars are sold annually by all vendors across all countries, and that if electrified, those 42M compact cars will have an average battery pack size of 53kWh, leading to an annual demand for 36TWh of batteries for that segment.

Telsa obviously doesn't believe they're going to get 100% of the market, they don't believe they're going to sell 42M compact cars per year. The 53kWh figure is no more meaningful.

Heck, that TBD in the table doesn't even promise that Tesla will even enter the segment, internet commentary to the contrary.

They don't even believe the size of that market will be 42M compact cars. Autonomous cars will not be privately owned and be utilized very differently than privately owned cars. And of course, Tesla is investing in that as well.

A privately owned car is useless battery capacity that is sitting there not driving and fully charged for most of the time while you are sleeping, working, or whatever (i.e. not driving). An autonomous car owned by a company that sells rides is very different. It will be ferrying around people whenever it can. You need a lot less of those to satisfy demand.

Tesla will be selling lots of vehicles and batteries before we get there of course. But it would be a mistake to think of the market in terms of how things currently work. Which is the mistake this article makes.

> A privately owned car is useless battery capacity that is sitting there not driving and fully charged for most of the time while you are sleeping

That’s not necessarily true in the future. One idea I’ve heard is to use charging cars for energy grid balancing.

True, except domestic batteries will be cheap enough and more convenient. So we actually won't need the additional capacity from vehicles. Vehicle 2 grid will be possible but mostly redundant.

42M is the current number and Tesla would argue the worst case scenario. If you're calculating the cost of something you'd rather have a number closer to the worst case than the bad case.

If Tesla said that it would cost $5T instead of $10T to electrify the world because of FSD the world would laugh and dismiss the argument wholesale. 42M is the only defensible number they can use in their public calculations.

> Autonomous cars will not be privately owned and be utilized very differently than privately owned cars

Source? I find that to be a pretty bold statement.

May. Not will.

Until these cars are on the road there really isn't much point to articles like this.

There is value in industry rumors and speculation, but come on even official Tesla product announcements are basically rumors.

Do we know what the final prices of the Cybertruck are gonna be yet? They announced something back in the day, but they also claimed that they'd be on the road in 2021.

No, they will likely honor original pricing for people who made a reservation but they closed reservations and haven’t posted updated pricing yet.

If they ever ship.

Cyber trucks will start rolling off the assembly line in q4 this year and will achieve full production next year.

FSD will ship this year, too, right?

Precisely. You have to wonder why so many people still take Musk at his word.

I've got it on my car and I wouldn't want to go without it. It is particularly outstanding on long highway trips now with v11.

They likely won’t. They’ll gladly refund your deposit though. The deposit was for a spot in line, not a specific truck.

That's not true, people were able to make a reservation for one of three different models and select options like FSD to lock-in the FSD price before it was raised.

Current 272 mile range Model 3 is 60 kWh pack. So we might be looking at about ~250 mile range for this one, and hopefully a $30k price.

Why does a 62kWh Nissan leaf only go about 230 miles? Less efficient power train?

Judging from a Nissan Leaf's appearance, its short wheelbase alone isn't doing it any favors in the aero department...

aerodynamics mostly, motor efficiency partly

The aerodynamics checks out from my experience. I have one and when you drive it below highway speeds it seems to have great range. Would not surprise me if you got real close to model 3 range at 40mph. On the highway at high speeds the range is slightly worse than its advertised range at more like 210 miles vs advertised 230.

I was just curious since I always assumed the model 3 had a bigger battery but hadn’t checked.

It’s good enough for my uses and I still prefer it to a gas car for multiple reasons including zero latency acceleration.

Less efficient inverters, worse aerodynamics, weaker motors, heavier interiors, and probably worse software (that one is an educated guess).

From what I've heard Tesla's powertrain is still more efficient than every other EV's.

At Tesla's profit margin and economies of scale, it might be the first decent sub-20k USD EV

Are there any new ICE vehicles currently selling in the US for less than $20k? I'd expect the Model 2 to be priced at least at $30k.

There are some low end Nissans, Kias, and Mitsubishis on cars.com for sub-19k USD as of right now.

The Model 3 SR in China is ~$33000USD and in the US (after tax credit), about $34000. Tesla is aiming for a much lower cost to produce... they've stated 50% COGS of the Model 3, which would put its cost at about $18000 USD. Their goal is to achieve > 20% gross margin, which would still be achievable at a selling price of $25K USD.

Except... by the time it actually ships, probably $40k :(

A base model Nissan Versa is $15k MSRP. They have other models in that range.

Or you can get a new Toyota Corolla for $21k MSRP, which is close enough.

Now do the math for now expensive the gas is for that in LA going out to the next ten years assuming ten miles a day commute during the week and 30 miles on weekends.

With how the Hoover dam and others are looking as well as taking into account a rising number of people that will want to charge EVs, maybe you want to do some scenarios around electricity pricing as well.

The people increasingly charging their EVs from their solar panels on the roof?

As more and more cars become electric, wouldn’t the price of gas also drop in the next decade?

Heavy industrial demand won't change. And let's not expect the petrostate cartel to make the transition away from their product to be an easy one.

Why am I pricing the gas in LA? Most car buyers do not live in LA.

1. Less than a handful. $25k brings several options.

2. To effectively be a $20k car EVs have an advantage because of their tax subsidies. {Base Price} - {Tax Credit} < $20,000 is plausible. It's impossible to say who will qualify or how big of a tax credit US customers will have by the time this would launch.

Nissan Versa, $15,830

Mitsubishi Mirage, $16,245

Kia Rio, $16,750

Hyundai Venue, $19,650

Kia Forte, $19,690

Subaru Impreza, $19,795

Kia Soul, $19,890

Tesla is behind the competition. There are already multiple sub-20k USD EVs on the market, such as the BYD e2 ($15k) or the Geely Geometry EX3 (below $10k).

I suppose he has to do something. I can't imagine if BYD came to America.

https://www.arenaev.com/15000_byd_e2_comes_with_405_km_of_ra...

I've seen a few of their vehicles at shows, etc and they look decent.

The Supercharger network. This alone sets Tesla apart from all other BEV brands. The hodgepodge of alternatives simply cannot compete on speed, widespread availability, and most importantly, reliability [1]. I wish it was different but until this changes, Tesla is the only game in town for me.

[1] I have heard many horror stories first hand of being stranded next to a non-working charger and read plenty online.

Yeah. BYD is the biggest threat to EV manufacturers worldwide if they ever move outside china with any real velocity.

OK, same strategy as BYD - mostly lithium iron phosphate batteries, some lithium-ion (that's what Tesla means by "high nickel") for the high end.

Here's the BYD presentation from 2020.[1] BYD managed to get the energy density per unit volume of lithium iron phosphate batteries close to that of lithium-ion. They're substantially heavier, but not bigger.

Lithium iron phosphate battery chemistry doesn't have the thermal runaway problem. Fires are still possible but tend not to be as intense.

[1] https://insideevs.com/news/406839/byd-blade-battery/

Lithium iron phosphate is still lithium-ion. Tesla's main other battery type is nickel cobalt aluminum (NCA). The names in both cases refer to the cathode material, but they're both still lithium-ion.

(There are also other lithium-ion cathode materials that don't contain nickel, such as LMO)

BYD is introducing Sodium Ion for the low end next week:

https://m.arenaev.com/11600_byd_seagull_launches_on_april_18...

It's astounding to me how much less appealing Tesla has become as a brand since Musk decide to YOLO his way into Twitter. SpaceX is still so far ahead, no one questions it. But other auto manufacturers are already shipping alternatives to Tesla. Despite its early lead, when there are alternatives, goodwill and trust count for an awful lot, two qualities Musk is most assuredly not known for inspiring in the general public of late.

FAFO indeed.

Are there metrics in which Tesla sales are dropping? I can't find any by googling, but I also can't find accurate data for the last two quarters.

If your evidence for this 'finding out' is purely the prevailing sentiment of HN/reddit/twitter, then I would mostly disregard it.

I expect sales are trending upwards but maybe not as quickly as they forecast- the price drops kind of speak for themselves imho.

In my opinion they are on track to meet the 1.8M deliveries forecast. The only question is how much margins were hit with the price drops.

Tesla is still selling every vehicle they can produce. They are still supply constrained.

They sold more EVs last quarter than their competitors combined all last year.

Why are they cutting prices, then?

Tesla is in an infinite loop of building efficiencies and lowering manufacturing costs.

Elon has said many times that the lower the price of a car, the more market share opens up.

Their margins are in the 20-25% range whereas a legacy auto maker is below 13%.

There is a lot of room to cut prices and still make money.

Well that's confusing, people seem to be claiming different things. One is that they sell cars as fast as y If they continue to 100% sell out, why reduce margins?

Hmmm, message got mangled.

"Well that's confusing, people seem to be claiming different things. One is that they sell out immediately, the other is that they need to reduce margins to increase the market size. If they continue to 100% sell out, why reduce margins?

Manufacturing capacity and output are also increasing as they build more Gigafactories and optimize existing ones. The price changes are an optimization to balance sales and production output to avoid shortages or inventory.

Because they want to undercut all their competition. Their profit margins are insane compared to every other car maker especially in the EV space. It puts more downward pressure on Ford, VW, Kia, etc to cut into their already razor thin margins.

Tesla could sell the model 3 at 30K and still make a profit but they have zero reason to do that.

Because they have inanely high profit margins since their cars have something like 1/10th the number of moving parts, making them remarkably cheap to manufacture.

Lower prices = more market share.

But wouldn’t other manufacturers EVs ALSO have fewer moving parts? Why are there margins so thin?

I think this is still true but worth noting more recent data shows inventory climbing[1]. I don't think it's drastic yet - just a reflection of the economy contracting. Price drops are keeping them moving but at the cost of their traditionally excellent profit margin.

1. https://twitter.com/TSLAFanMtl/status/1642700991341494272 (random Twitter source, no other verification done but I have seen this mentioned in a few places. Could be short propaganda I guess!)

> Tesla cuts US prices for fifth time since January

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/07/business/tesla-cuts-prices/in...

It seems like there is some effect or they probably wound't be cutting prices.

They are cutting prices because they are cutting manufacturing costs. They are able to obtain the same margin after lowering the prices. The price cuts result in more sales.

That would only be true if production had stagnated, which isn't the case. If they produce twice as many cars as they did last year, cutting prices does not mean that they are selling less due to the twitter takeover.

Musk has really hurt the Tesla brand but they are still crushing the competition in the EV space.

I keep waiting for one of the legacy brands to compete and they keep screwing it up

so many says that, but does any tesla owner actually think so?

I am a Tesla owner but I am not a car guy. I wanted an EV that could replace my ICE vehicle.

It is changing but right now, I still wouldn’t consider a non-Tesla vehicle, not because of the cars but the charging network. I have the adapter to charge at CCS1 stations(everyone but Tesla) but they are always broken and not maintained. The charging infrastructure network sucks for everyone but Tesla.

The best thing that happened for non-Tesla EVs is Tesla committing to install CCS1 magic docks at new supercharger stations. That is great for them and a negative for Tesla owners.

Amusingly, everywhere else in the world Teslas have CCS charging as do most people, and we all carry type 2 adapters for non CCS charging stations.

> legacy brands [...] keep screwing it up

Mr Musk is not doing his own "legacy" any favours. Maybe he is subverting his own reality-distortion field. But I admit it, you have "nerd-sniped" me.

According to this report, global EV sales are about 10% of vehicle sales.

(https://insideevs.com/news/651978/world-top-ev-oem-sales-202...)

So who is selling all the vehicles in the world? Ford, Toyota, and GM are the leaders. ("Legacy"...)

(https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2022-us-vehicle-sales-figures-...)

The EV market has grown but it is still small. Tesla has a big piece of a small market. Tesla is leading in this small market, but there is no way that Tesla can put as many cars on the road as some of the "legacy" manufacturers. The company is constrained by capacity, by cost demographic, and by electrical infrastructure.

Sales may also be affected by the antics of Elon Musk.

As for the "legacy" manufacturers right now, Ford, GM, Toyota, Hyundai, and Kia sell respectable BEVs.

GM had the Volt PHEV and then discontinued it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt). By all reports, the car was a winner. "Until December 2018, the Volt/Ampera family of vehicles was the world's all-time bestselling plug-in hybrid vehicle. As of December 2019, the Chevrolet Volt is listed as the all-time top-selling plug-in hybrid in the American market." Then GM made exploding Bolts, unfortunately...

We can reasonably say that the hybrid solution is still a good solution for many buyers. So Toyota hasn't been wrong.

Also keep some doubt in mind about laws being passed in some large markets that aim to constrain and eventually eliminate sales of ICE vehicles. It's reasonable to be skeptical about the economics of such laws. EU manufacturers are trying (and succeeding) to include some form of ICE in the legal framework of future transportation. It would not surprise a skeptical observer to see them succeed in the end.

(https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/eu-pro...)

Ford now makes few passenger cars. The Mach-E is selling a fraction of Tesla sales but reviews suggest that the Mach-E is a good vehicle. (https://fordauthority.com/2023/02/ford-mustang-mach-e-sales-...) (https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a42409121/ford-n...)

The F150 Lightning was not priced realistically at the outset (perhaps for marketing reasons). It is hard to see people outside the North American market buying many F-150 Lightnings.

(https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/17/23514435/ford-electric-f...)

Toyota has debuted a BEV and has the depth to gain more of the market. Its BEV is #2 in Norway, for example. Toyota is selling more models and roughly three times more vehicles than Tesla. Its PHEVs have been successful. Toyota can recover in the US BEV market... It might help if Toyota found a name more appealing than "bZ4X" for its first large-battery BEV. Then there was the problem with the wheels not staying on... Oops.

(https://jalopnik.com/toyota-only-expects-to-sell-10-000-bz4x...)

I view his takeover positively. If I need a car in the future, I would love to make it a Tesla.

Not buying a car because of twitter antics is something only the terminally online would do to be honest. Tesla car sales prove exactly that, they are basically doubling their production every year. And this is coming from someone who has 0 interest in buying one and has never bought into the Musk hype. But even the biggest Musk detractors have had a lot of trouble just leaving Twitter for good, so the average joe is completely unconcerned by his antics.

The only reason why I could see Tesla losing its "cachet" is that they are now so common that I almost seem to see more of them (here in Quebec) than Honda Civics. But maybe that's more of a regional thing.

I absolutely would never support him in any way based on how he's treated Twitter employees. Call it what you want, I'm quite sure I'm not an outlier.

Just wait until you find out how restaurants treat their employees. Or how grocery stores do. Or farms for that matter.

The plight of well paid IT employees is not at the top of the list of reasonable concerns.

It's interesting that there's a lot of people that will not buy a Tesla because of Elon Musk's politics/twitter/whatever, but at the same time they have no problem buying a VW, after Dieselgate (not saying that's your case).

I'm extremely confident you are an outlier. Most people buying cars don't know the car company CEOs name, much less their management record.

This was bound to happen either way.

I saw a great video on YouTube a while ago. I can’t remember who made it. It analyzed Tesla’s history and forecasted they were in big trouble. The thesis was basically they wasted every lead they had.

They could have gotten the X out the door faster and cheaper without the gull-wing doors, something probably no one cared enough about to base their buying decisions on.

The 3 could have been out faster if Musk didn’t keep trying to fully automate production from day one, something no one had accomplished, and flush a ton of money in the process.

They could have been further on the semi if they had focused on it. They could have had a truck on the market for years by now (when Ford and Chevy now do) if they weren’t trying to do something so out there. Trucks are the number one category of vehicles in the US and they chose to blow ignore that market.

They’ve had tons of time to get better at quality. They may have the best charging network but but the standard everyone else uses is being built fast, so that advantage is shrinking. The visual designs of the cars have never really changed when other automakers change them every few years. Service complaints are still a big problem.

And all that time and money (and bad PR) on “full self driving” that is still is nowhere close to the original promise. But that seems to be almost the number one focus.

It basically gave a very strong case for poor management. Tesla has done a ton, no question. EVs wouldn’t be as big today as they are without the huge push from Tesla. But Tesla could have been so much further ahead if they had chosen to be.

I think the Twitter drama is just highlighting his management style and making people take a more realistic look at things, removing a lot of benefit of the doubt he was given before.

Pity the maker of the video didn't start their own car company to smash the competition with their superior as strategic talent.

Tesla's software is light years ahead of other EVs and ICEs.

This view seems pretty disconnected with reality.

1. Most people are not on Twitter and know little about Twitter or its ownership. In fact if you want to refine that down, this applies to most people capable of buying EVs in the world. You are likely in a bubble if you disagree here.

2. There are no alternatives that beat Tesla on price, performance and range. Many win on 2 (and BYD are moving the right way), but I've been hearing this for the 15 years Tesla has made cars for. Nobody seems to be getting close, and this so called "early lead" seems firmly established now.

3. Similar to 1, most Tesla owners know little to nothing about the CEO, just like most Ford owners. This was not true early on - or even 4 years ago - but the ownership has swelled and those early adopters with high knowledge are a much smaller percentage now.

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