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Originally Posted by Hersbird
So a $35,000 Tesla Model 3 is all battery? Clearly there is a ton of room to decontent and simplify a very fancy model 3 and lower that price a bunch. Or maybe Musk just threw a few out there so he wouldn't be a liar and it is $35,000 worth of battery and $10,000 worth of red ink for Tesla.
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I didn't say it is "all battery" I said the battery is the most expensive part of an EV. A base Model 3 has a 54 kWh battery pack which is about $8000 at $150 / kWh. Also the cheapest Model 3 is $39,990 + $1200 delivery fee. It is a pretty basic car selling for luxury car prices. As of 2019, Tesla is still losing money selling EVs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hersbird
Still, just take a Ford transit van, put the Dana Spicer Electrified eS5700r e-Axle under the rear wheels, give it a battery that will carry it 60 miles at city speeds, and sell it to delivery fleets of USPS, FedEx, UPS, Amazon, florists, Best Buy, Home Depot, Office city, Dunder Mifflin, Cakes-R-US, etc, etc.
This building from the ground up is unnecessary, delaying implementation, and adding to the costs.
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It isn't nearly as simple as that. Where do you put the batteries? The Transit is unibody so you would have to redesign the floor to accommodate batteries, build new stamping tools, then test and certify that it still meets crash standards. Nobody is going to retrofit an old design to do that.
Mercedes has basically done that with the Sprinter. With the new redesign they built in the option to have a battery version. It comes with two different battery options: 41 kWh for 115 km ranger or 55 kWh for 168 km range. It won't be cheaper than the gas version as a battery that large is more expensive than an engine but we will see how it sells.