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Tesla was never serious about replaceable batteries. They could get more tradeable credits for replaceable batteries, so they told everyone they’ll do that, got

Tesla was never serious about replaceable batteries. They could get more tradeable credits for replaceable batteries, so they told everyone they’ll do that, got the credits for the cars that were supposed to have replaceable batteries, and never followed up with the actual tech.

signatoremo 4y ago
I did recall Tesla wasn’t serious about battery swapping but can’t find any information about getting credits for doing that, let alone just announcing it. Can you back that up?
- marvin 4y ago
  The statement is worded critical of Tesla, but IIRC there's some truth to it. They engineered the Model S to be battery-swappable, and there was some advantage wrt. the regulatory credits to doing so. Can't find a link, but I remember reading it. They rolled out this service to a couple of spots in California, which was probably sufficient for the the credit regime, but ended up not expanding the program further and terminating it after a few quarters. The official explanation was that it was not widely used. https://youtu.be/H5V0vL3nnHY?t=57 https://youtu.be/H5V0vL3nnHY?t=57 There may have been other business reasons. I have no idea what was discussed on the executive level but wouldn't be surprised if they considered some tradeoffs of complexity, costs and customer attractivenes to not be worth it. Honestly, it's very rare that you actually need or strongly prefer to have this kind of service rather than just recharging at 150kW for 15 minutes. So if it adds considerable cost or complexity, I could understand the decision to drop it. A short time later, they started welding an extra metal shield onto the bottom of the Model S, to act as an extra layer of protection against collisions with highway debris that caused some high-profile battery fires. I had the impression that this precluded battery swap, so at that point the business decision must have been made to not expand the program further. If the regulatory incentives was key in the decision to do this and then later drop it, that's a fundamental property of incentives to do something that might not be a good idea in isolation.
  - snotrockets 4y ago
    I am critical of Tesla, as it success was largely due to to public subsidy, and I believe we should hold such enterprises to the highest of standards, to guarantee the public made a sound investment. But I digress. A short summary of the extra government subsidy Tesla got out of the non-existing battery swaps is here: https://seekingalpha.com/article/2724835-after-earning-tens-of-thousands-of-zev-credits-tesla-has-built-zero-swap-stations https://seekingalpha.com/article/2724835-after-earning-tens-...
bryanlarsen 4y ago
That's FUD as far as I'm concerned. If they were just aiming for regulatory credits it weighs have been far cheaper to use human labor to do the swaps than to develop the robotic apparatus they developed. Tesla did a decent market test on batteries, the test failed and they moved on.
- dangrossman 4y ago
  The "market test" was a shack across the street from a 100% free Tesla Supercharger station. To use said shack, you had to be one of a select group invited, make an appointment days in advance, pay a fee, and risk that you're trading your $20K battery for a worse one out of someone else's car. They invited a couple owners and journalists to do a few swaps for the magazines, collected their extra ZEV credits, and then disconnected the phone and let the one person staffing the place go back to his normal job. If that looks like an honest market test to you, then I don't know what else to say.

signatoremo 4y ago

I did recall Tesla wasn’t serious about battery swapping but can’t find any information about getting credits for doing that, let alone just announcing it. Can you back that up?

marvin 4y ago
The statement is worded critical of Tesla, but IIRC there's some truth to it. They engineered the Model S to be battery-swappable, and there was some advantage wrt. the regulatory credits to doing so. Can't find a link, but I remember reading it. They rolled out this service to a couple of spots in California, which was probably sufficient for the the credit regime, but ended up not expanding the program further and terminating it after a few quarters. The official explanation was that it was not widely used. https://youtu.be/H5V0vL3nnHY?t=57 https://youtu.be/H5V0vL3nnHY?t=57 There may have been other business reasons. I have no idea what was discussed on the executive level but wouldn't be surprised if they considered some tradeoffs of complexity, costs and customer attractivenes to not be worth it. Honestly, it's very rare that you actually need or strongly prefer to have this kind of service rather than just recharging at 150kW for 15 minutes. So if it adds considerable cost or complexity, I could understand the decision to drop it. A short time later, they started welding an extra metal shield onto the bottom of the Model S, to act as an extra layer of protection against collisions with highway debris that caused some high-profile battery fires. I had the impression that this precluded battery swap, so at that point the business decision must have been made to not expand the program further. If the regulatory incentives was key in the decision to do this and then later drop it, that's a fundamental property of incentives to do something that might not be a good idea in isolation.
- snotrockets 4y ago
  I am critical of Tesla, as it success was largely due to to public subsidy, and I believe we should hold such enterprises to the highest of standards, to guarantee the public made a sound investment. But I digress. A short summary of the extra government subsidy Tesla got out of the non-existing battery swaps is here: https://seekingalpha.com/article/2724835-after-earning-tens-of-thousands-of-zev-credits-tesla-has-built-zero-swap-stations https://seekingalpha.com/article/2724835-after-earning-tens-...

bryanlarsen 4y ago

That's FUD as far as I'm concerned. If they were just aiming for regulatory credits it weighs have been far cheaper to use human labor to do the swaps than to develop the robotic apparatus they developed. Tesla did a decent market test on batteries, the test failed and they moved on.

dangrossman 4y ago
The "market test" was a shack across the street from a 100% free Tesla Supercharger station. To use said shack, you had to be one of a select group invited, make an appointment days in advance, pay a fee, and risk that you're trading your $20K battery for a worse one out of someone else's car. They invited a couple owners and journalists to do a few swaps for the magazines, collected their extra ZEV credits, and then disconnected the phone and let the one person staffing the place go back to his normal job. If that looks like an honest market test to you, then I don't know what else to say.