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Comment by ghostfish | Hacker News Reader

There is an 8 year warranty on the battery in a Model S, with mileage depending on which capacity version you own.

Oh that's a start. It's still hard to swallow that a 50K+ car will be worthless in 8 years.

I talked to a sales rep in one of their stores and they said the Roadster with the most mileage has 160K miles and the battery is still at 70% capacity. Not worthless but definitely less range.

160k miles isn't too much to sneeze at, and it's not unheard of for ICE cars to have 30% loss of power over that mileage. It still does hurt a bit thinking that you're buying a car with an expiration date built in, though.

People don't seem to remember that Tesla's car won't be consuming any gas for that 8 year period and that the only (almost) maintenance cost is changing the tires/breaks once in a while. Also the average ownership length [1] is less than 5 years.

Take all into consideration and a base Model S at 50k is closer to a 25-30k car.

Combine all the "not spent" gas and maintenance cost and you can very well afford a new battery 8 years down the road.

[1] http://www.kbb.com/car-news/all-the-latest/average-length-of...

A lot of the "gas" you wont be spending money on would be because the range is pretty small.

Next weekend I will be hopping into a car that has sat outside the house doing nothing for a month or so and drive it 1,000 km to the South West of France. I will stop briefly on the way to fill up with fuel (10 minutes?). It will be dark for quite a lot of the time and the car will have the headlights on. Oh - it might even rain so the wipers might be needed. The journey should take about 12 hours including the section where we cross the English channel.

A couple of weeks later I will do the reverse journey. No fuss at all. How many days would it take to do the same journey in an electric car?

Answer: you rent a car.

If you go a month at a time without using your car, then the financially optimal number of cars to own is zero. Since you own more than zero cars, then your ownership is based on reasons other than financial ones.

Which overlaps nicely with Tesla owners: anybody who buys a $100,000 car is doing it for reasons other than financial ones. They just have different reasons than you do.

P.S. Not judging here. My wife owns a BMW, which is also more than just a way to get from point a to point b.

WRONG! "you rent a car" is not a unit of time!

An electric car is completely inappropriate for that use.

Just the same as a Miata is inappropriate for a family of 6, or a smart car is inappropriate for guy who has to haul lumber, or a minivan is inappropriate for a single guy in his 20's.

Yet all of those cars sell enough to carve out markets for themselves.

But all of those cars would make the same journey without any problems - you are confusing carrying capacity with the fundamental utility of the things we call cars.

That's a whole different discussion/argument by itself.

For most transportation 400km is plenty. That's a week of transport for my family and me.

Next weekend I will be digging an in-ground pool. I will use my backhoe and complete the digging in about 6 hours. No fuss at all.

How many days would it take to do the same digging with a spoon?

(unstated, but strongly implied point: Therefore, spoons are worthless)

If someone can afford an electric car, especially a Tesla, they will probably just fly first-class to their destination, where they will undoubtedly have a second electric car waiting for them.

So my estimate would be about 1-2 hours.

Gas is about $1,000 a year, very roughly. (10000 miles @ 30 mpg @ $3 a gallon. You can of course change those numbers in either direction.)

8 years may not quite pay for a new battery. It depends if you can extract any value from the used one.

In California, where most fuel-efficient/electric cars are sold, gas ranges between $3.50-$4.00/gallon (or above $4.00 during periods of "high demand"). Gas in the areas targeted by Tesla (i.e., Beverly Hills) starts at $4.25 and goes up from there.

Also, very few cars on the road anywhere in the U.S. get close to 30mpg, excepting hybrids and 2012 or 2011 versions of some (but not all, or even most) smaller sedans. The most popular models of the most popular sedans of the last decade, i.e., the Camry, Accord, and Civic, do not get 30mpg--they tend average around 22-25mpg in real-world conditions. MPG is even worse among the luxury cars that compete with Tesla.

Consequently, the gas cost savings experienced by Tesla owners would be significantly greater than $1,000/year.

Where gas is more expensive, people will tend to have cars with higher MPGs.

MPG is even worse among the luxury cars that compete with Tesla

That's the key question. If someone is getting a Tesla because they care about mileage, they probably were not driving a 20 MPG car beforehand. If they were getting it to show off that they can afford a $100,000 car, then maybe they were.

Electricity isn't free. It is usually cheaper than gas, but it's still a significant cost to charge cars like this.

Tesla Roadster's have been on the roads now for 6 years, and I think you'll find it is pretty hard to find one at any significant discount off it's MSRP.

Tesla also offered a $12000 replacement plan for the Tesla Roadsters, so you could get a fresh set of batteries if there was a failure.

really? What kind of person spends that much on a car, then keeps it for 8 years?

I mean, Tesla, I think, did the right thing by going for the luxury market; people there are accustomed to considering a ten year old car essentially worthless. (Yeah, a ten year old BMW still runs, but for what you pay to keep it running, unless you have the auto repair hobby, well, you probably want to get a new one.)

Battery longevity is going to be a huge problem when these cars move to the economy market. But for the luxury market? I think that the technology is just fine. Using an 8 year old car, to them, would be like me using a cellphone from the '90s. (Personally, I think Tesla needs to be careful to provide luxury service; Charge a little more and roll that 8 year 'no questions' battery warranty into the purchase price. I mean, if I'm going to spend $100,000+ for a car? clearly I'm not trying to save money... but also clearly I expect a 'premium' experience. I mean, the nature of ridiculous high end cars is that they are less reliable than a Toyota, but the service had better be goddamn good.)

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