The full text (pdf) of the reconciled tax bill has been released, and it looks to me like they are keeping the EV rebate. With Rubio agreeing to vote for it, this will probably pass. My reading, half-assed quoted below, is that the conference bill does not include the House provision to remove the credit. I mean, that is plainly what it says, but I’m not a tax lawyer, so maybe I’m not understanding what it says, and in fact electric vehicles now require buying a coal fired furnace.
The relevant part is:
**Repeal of credit for plug-in electric drive motor vehicles […]
**Present Law
A credit is available […] House Bill
The provision repeals the credit […] Senate Amendment
No provision. Conference Agreement
The conference agreement does not include the House bill provision.
And yet in spite of this, after 11 years, and a huge 50% DoD, there is still 77% capacity remaining. You can see the factors they included in the model on the preceding page. Microfractures, etc. ares already built into their simulation.
With a more normal DoD in the 10-15% range, it’s not hard to imagine that decades might be possible.
Of course, it’s possible that the 50% DoD curve has a knee like the 80% DoD, but further out. But wherever it is, it’s past 11 years. And very likely that as you go to even lower DoD, the knee is pushed farther and farther out.
Binary distinctions between “fixed” and “not fixed” miss the point, anyway. The chemistry just has to be good enough that it’s not the first thing that breaks. A battery that does well for 10 years is good enough. If it approaches 20, it’s fantastic. Hardly anyone keeps their car that long.
Thanks for the link. That’s one relatively bright point in a bill that’s otherwise quite damaging to us coastal elites. Of course, I’d trade that subsidy for a gas tax (or carbon market purchase) that accounted for the relative share of costs for CO2 emission…
InsideEVs has a test drive/review out for the Model3:
highlights:
[ul]
[li]some minor misalignment with body panels[/li][li]doors are heavy, require a little bit of extra force to close[/li][li]Too much reliance on the center screen for certain functions like wiper or cruise control speed adjustment. (I wouldn’t be surprised if a software update ends up enabling these to be controlled via the steering wheel knobs, which don’t have a whole lot of other stuff mapped to them right now).[/li][li]Rear visibility isn’t so great, which seems like a downstream effect of trunk access/height. [/li][li]Brake Regen is a little weaker than some of the other EVs out there. [/li][li]Power, handling, and steering feel are impressive[/li][/ul]
Right now deliveries appear to be limited only to employees, and current/previous Tesla owners located near Fremont, CA. I don’t think anyone on here falls into that category.
Early reservation holder here, near Fremont, but non-owner. No confirmation email yet, though the status page still gives a “Dec-Feb” delivery date.
People do seem to have been reliably receiving their cars <4 weeks after the order confirmation. And confirmations seem to be coming in weekly batches. But as YamatoTwinkie, nothing for non-employee/non-owners yet, except for one special case of a terminally ill cancer patient that Tesla fast-tracked.
Too Long, Hate Links… Energy density of Li batteries could triple with this discovery meaning the whole range anxiety thing is a ghost if it works out.
This is the main reason I have any hesitation in buying an electric car. Reports about battery technology with greater energy density, better wear resistance, don’t explode, etc. are reasonably common. Even if these things take years to move from the lab to mass production, it still means that battery technology in 5 or 10 years will be much better than it is today. I feel like electric cars are advancing at a pace closer to laptops than other cars.
If I didn’t need a new car, I wouldn’t be considering it. My main car is into the death spiral of “what’s wrong today?”, and I think electric cars are good enough that I don’t want a gas car.
I also expect that in 10 years Tesla or the aftermarket will offer battery replacements that take advantage of the new technology.
[ul]
[li]Base warranty: 4 year or 50,000 miles[/li][li]Seat belts and airbags: 5 years or 60,000 miles[/li][li]Battery 70% energy retention and drive unit: 8 years or 100,000 miles (standard range) or 120,000 miles (long range)[/li][/ul]
The information about the base warranty isn’t new, but the battery warranty is new information.
So, if there is a big energy drop in 8 years, it will get replaced. The stuff I’ve read suggests that a drop to less than 70% in 8 years would be due to a defect, and not normal wear.
That is good news! That’s also about the average most people keep their cars as well so I suspect there will be a host of used Model 3s for sale around that time frame. If I understood the article I posted correctly this discovery is something that could be implemented in existing designs without a lot of fuss as noted:
“The team’s work is truly a counter intuitive success. Its seems after a review of the paper that the technology may be incorporated into battery manufacturing without a complete retooling and massive investment. This may be the breakthrough that more intense use of battery power needs to expand the market for devices.”
They’re betting that a very high fraction will drop <30% in 8 years. Since there is a distribution (not just in construction but also in usage and environment), it’s likely that the majority stay well above that, say 85%.
Fortunately, batteries have fairly predictable performance over time, and (although it’s not quite apples-to-apples), Tesla has been selling cars for nearly 8 years. So they should have pretty high confidence in those numbers (which is why they’re doing it…).
Tesla is betting the predictable performance is 100,000 miles within 8 years. Beyond those numbers it’s your nickle. Why you think you need to spin this I don’t know. They’re not horrible numbers. If Tesla actually produces cars in quantity in 2018 then 8 years from then the price of batteries should have gone down and the quality should be higher.
This article from Edmunds in 2010 would seem to imply that Tesla does, in fact, do validation testing. Tesla has done some pretty dumb things but I seriously doubt they’re going to bankrupt themselves by not testing the heart of the vehicle, especially seeing as they are manufacturing for other car makers like Toyota.
Highlights:
[ul]
[li]Build quality (panel gaps, paint defects, etc) for both cars appear to be pretty good, or at least on par with most manufacturers. [/li][li]Interior noise is good even at highway speeds. [/li][li]Steering is responsive, but somewhat numb in terms of feedback from the road.[/li][li]Jalopnik didn’t really find the handling to be much better than the Chevy Bolt, while Electrek really emphasized multiple times how great the handling of the Model 3 is. I thought this was odd, Jalopnik seems to be somewhat of an outlier here. [/li][li]Poor rear window visibility due to the height of the trunk lid. [/li][li]Suspension is tight, but comes with a harsher ride.[/li][/ul]