Featured Emission Study; EV's Beat ICE, Cradle to Grave

I would agree with the Volt not being worth battery replacement since it carries all the baggage of ICE vehicles (and long vehicle life is not a historical GM strong point either). The Leaf may or may not evolve into something with battery replacement capabilities. Whether most car makers take advantage of this reliability direction remains to be seen, but judging from used Tesla prices, Tesla Motors is sure planning to harness this advantage.

 

Ummm.... Elon (hypemaster) has stated a goal of million miles which is silly as they can't seem to even make drive units that reliably even last 50K miles. (I agree with 100% drive unit failure rate?? - Page 33.)

Unlike the Leaf, where motor/transaxle replacements are almost nil, the Model S w/a much smaller population of vehicles has many people having their drive units replaced. Drive Unit Replacement Poll - View Poll Results for example. Ignore the 5+ guy, he was screwing around.

Most replacements are for noise. The ones for total failure are comparatively rare. It is unclear which symptoms are signs of impending failure (DU) stops providing propulsion vs. just excessive noise. That's a matter of a LOT of debate on TMC.

Model S Not Ready For Commercial Use Prime Time. Can I afford to own this car?
See 2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Wrap-Up | Edmunds.com under Maintenance & Repairs. They had replacements for noise, total failure then noise again, all within 30K miles.
100% drive unit failure rate?? - Page 27 was the first I'd heard of a 200K mile goal but they're not making that either, as far as I can tell.

Here are some recent DU replacement reports:
100% drive unit failure rate?? - Page 7
Drive unit #3 Shudder from stop, restart vehicle to continue driving - Page 2
100% drive unit failure rate?? - Page 25
100% drive unit failure rate?? - Page 7 (note the D Model S cars are AWD and were introduced April 2015)
100% drive unit failure rate?? - Page 8
Consumer Reports reliability of Model S - worse than average - Page 4
Drive unit replacement - getting better? - Page 2
Drive unit, new or refurbishishid? - Page 5
P85D Front Motor Died


It's great they have a long warranty. It's "only" 125K miles for those w/60 kWh packs (still pretty darn good), IIRC. Tesla needs to get this under control, for their own sake otherwise this will become costly for them and they'll have many unhappy folks when their drive unit warranty has expired.



Merged.

As for "worth" battery replacement, Leaf resale value is frankly terrible (which is good for used buyers though).

As I posted at Wholesale value of the 2013 Leaf @Auction-October '15 - Page 8 - My Nissan Leaf Forum, my used '13 Leaf SV w/premium package w/under 24K miles, built 5/2013 was $9,325 + tax and license. Replaced the '13 Leaf SV w/both packages (quick charge + LED and premium) I returned at end of 2 year lease, which later sold at auction for $11K w/auction fees. You can see original MSRPs at 2013 Nissan LEAF Press Kit - Nissan Online Newsroom under Pricing. Resale values are skewed by $7500 Federal tax credit. And, on 30+ month old (or 3 years, depending on when they were leased/bought) Leafs, they're skewed in California by the $2500 CVRP (rebate).

Leaf battery replacement is currently (a reasonable) $5500: Update on Nissan LEAF Battery Replacement - My Nissan Leaf Forum

One guy sold his '11 w/battery replaced under capacity warranty (he didn't pay the $5500) with the "lizard battery" (more heat degradation resistant) for $8990 (or less). Lots of thoughts on this at starting at FS 2011 Leaf with new battery $8,990 - My Nissan Leaf Forum.

For some (odd?) reason, Tesla resale values seem fairly good/high.

 

Spreading FUDs uh? I think battery packs in BEV would need to be replaced first way before that.

The UCS report said it adds 11% of the life cycle emission with the 2nd battery pack.

 

Careful you seemed to endorse a headline that claimes falsely 100% drive failures. That is far from correct, as you then note most of the time it is noise. It appears in early designs either parts were partially made incorrectly and needed shims or metal fragments in the fluid. Instead of repairing the units they are providing great customer service and replacing them. When out of waranty, I'm sure they will swap rebuilt units or fix them.

Don't believe the anti tesla hype. Its not failure, its sort of a common problem. Its a new car design with very high torque which is rough on transaxles. It appears that it was not properly designed for wear. Its not dangerous, its just noisy, and without the noise of an engine its more of a problem. You could put a noisy engine in there to cover it up ;-) Consumer reports when the problems were worse said above average reliablility, then later decided it needed to sell advertising and posted the old story.

Not much to see here, unless the new units in the 2015s have more problems than the 2014s.

1 million miles is hyperbole, but sure why not. You would expect to change spark plugs on a 200,000 car. Why would you expect no waranty work on a million mile car, and no fluid changes. No reason they can't get this right.

Its now unlimited miles for the drive unit for 8 years. Great customer service.
Tesla Model S Drive Unit Replacement by the Numbers - TESLARATI.com

 

It comes down to ease of maintenance. Some designs consider that, and some don't.

Both ICE and EV should go 100k miles without a problem, and 200k shouldn't be much of a stretch. But with the same drives and climates, they will both look about as beat as the other. So the first or second owner will likely sell them both at about the same time. Assuming the cosmetic wear and possible body rattles aren't a factor for the owners, the EV should be on the road longer. In a non-luxury car, it won't be the car's worth vs. repair cost that does it in, but rather if that final, likely lower waged, owner has the cash for the repair. In the near future, parts for the ICE car will still be readily available, specially used ones. So while the cost over time might be worse keeping the ICE car going, it is a cost spread out, and not a single lump like a battery replacement.

I know the entire battery doesn't have to be replaced, and that just the bad stacks could be swapped out. But this goes back to the ease of doing so. Swapping out the Tesla pack is easy, if you have access to the service bay with the lifts to do so. Doing that in a driveway won't be as easy, and I think you have to drop the pack to get to the individual stacks.

Ignore the rust issue. Future ICE cars will use more and more aluminum for weight, and the typical EVs will use some steel to cut cost.

They will both need to be replaced in time. The battery in a BEV could perhaps go longer before that than a fuel cell in terms of absolutely have to be done. If unavailable range is still good enough, then it can wait. Sounds like a degrading fuel cell will effect the car's performance. An owner might be able to delay if that doesn't bother them, but degradation of ICE performance is more noticable, and bothersome, to most people than dropping fuel efficiency.

But we really don't know enough about this generation of fuel cells to say more than they will fail in time. The hydrogen tanks are the real concern in terms of car life and value. In the Mirai, it seems to be 10 to 15 years based on the the filler door label before they have to be replaced, and that may be coupled with an aging fuel cell.

Can the individual cells of the fuel cell stack be replaced, or is an all or nothing bit?

Can the individual fuel cells of a stack be replace, or is it an all or nothing deal?

If fairness, reduced capacity of the BEV battery will also result in performance loss. I think the range loss will force the repair before that becomes an issue for the owner.

When the flaws came up, Tesla fixed them in a timely fashion that left the customer happy. That isn't something the other car companies have done in their histories.

 

I wasn't "endorsing" that thread title at all. That was the title of the thread over at TMC, which Priuschat picked up.

I'm not the one looking at anti-Tesla hype... I still sometimes visit TMC to see what's going on. I used to be a bit more active there but haven't been able to, due to lack of time

They've been installing remanufactured units for awhile, as replacements. As for "early", well, it still keeps happening now w/the replacements and on new motors on the D (AWD) Model S, sometimes w/pretty early failure (as opposed to just noise).

Ominous Noise - 2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test has the noises at the 10.7K mile mark from Edmunds' first drive unit. That got replaced.

Stuck on the Freeway - 2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test is what happened at 18,828 miles. Stuck on the Freeway - 2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test was the resolution.

Drive unit developed milling noise and needed replacement again at 30,160: Drive Unit IV: The Milling - 2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test.

Not sure what you're talking about. CR doesn't have advertising in their publications, so there's none to sell. Their predicted reliability rating went to worse than average from average. I was surprised that it even got at high as average given what I've observed at TMC.

Only on currently sold models and the 85 kWh models from before.

On 60 kWh models, it was 8 years, 125K miles, NOT "infinite/unlimited" mileage. Tesla Model S Drivetrain Warranty Rises To 8 Years, Same As Battery Pack and others like Tesla Includes the Model S Drive Unit in Its Battery Warranty noticed this.

I posted about this last year at Toyota Rav4 EV Forum • View topic - Tesla unlimited mileage drivetrain warranty. You can see the 60 kWh battery warranty at Model S Features | Tesla Motors from back then: "8 years, 125,000 miles".

Infinite Mile Warranty | Tesla Motors doesn't bother to mention the deal for the 60 kWh units.
"The Tesla Model S drive unit warranty has been increased to match that of the battery pack. That means the 85 kWh Model S, our most popular model by far, now has an 8 year, infinite mile warranty on both the battery pack and drive unit"

The way it was spun and the way much of the media picked up on (e.g. infinite mile warranty w/o the 60 kWh caveat) is just another example of the hype machine that is Elon and Tesla. And, the way it was spread, the misinformation easily spreads amongst those who are non-enthusiasts and/or who haven't followed closely.


Merged.

The noises for some became so bad that it became objectionable to both passengers and those outside the car.

How would you feel if your Leaf sounded like this (or worse yet, your $70K+ formerly quiet EV or in the case of Edmunds, their $110K formerly quiet EV): Ominous Noise - 2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test after 10,770 miles? You'd want it fixed, right?

Here are two more that I picked up from Drive Unit failure symptoms and thresholds for replacement - Page 9.

Do you have a link to them actually succeeding at million miles on a drive unit? Elon simply said at Three Dog Day | Tesla Motors "While working on our goal of making the power train last a million miles". Low Speed, High Pitch Whine - Page 4 doesn't sound that far off. Read the next post after that one, as well.

Until you pass 8 years or for the 60 kWh model, 8 years/125K miles.

It's been going on for years. I'm 99% sure that Edmunds noises that they posted about in Oct 2013 weren't the 1st case.

Elon has only given these two sets of explanations, AFAIK. There are likely many different causes and I doubt he's named all of them or most of the major ones.

From late July 2014:
Drive unit problems explanation by Elon

From November 2015:
The latest drive unit explanation and even The latest drive unit explanation.

 

don't think so. Average age of car on the road is now 11.6 years, so lifetime mean 16-17 years. Even with 15k/annual will the battery last?

 

The best battery change time on a Tesla is about 30 minutes. That is not all models, most take much longer. The 5 minute battery swap was a scam to get CARB credits ( big money).

 

What you meant to say is about 90 seconds. Yes there still is a swap station in california and its about dead
Tesla's battery swap program is pretty much dead - Fortune

Not a scam, tesla was using the CARB extra bonuses for fuel cell cars, which probably are a scam. you see people just don't want to pay extra to change a battry in 90 seconds when there is a supper charger around that can get you to 80% in 30 minutes. Carb changed the rules to make sure tesla couldn't get the credits for fast fueling, then added 2 more credits to help fuel cell vehicles out. Without CARB saying fueling bonus there is no reason to build out swap stations, as customers at least right now don't want to pay to use them.

Perhaps it is the CARB fueling bonus, that now applies only to FUel cell vehicles, and not phevs that fuel much faster that is the scam that you mean to be talking about. Tesla just took advantage of that carve out until CARB's Mary Nichols showed her true colors and said not its really not about fast fueling, its about giving fcv an extra bonus.

 

No, on an expensive vehicle though it might be recycled and replaced. If a new one costs $10,000 to make (tesla's estimates before 2025) and an old one is worth $3000 as grid storage, then cost net net is about $7000. Say its sold with labor of the replacement of $14,000 and a old model S with a new battery is worth $35,000 - a lot of people may do the swap. Economics don't work for a leaf, as people will want a bigger battery so the car with the changed out battery won't be worth more than the cost and salvage value.

 

It can't be ignored that the average also includes beater pick-ups, garage queens, show cars, and classics. There are still registered Model T's rolling around on the road. Yes, daily driver cars are being kept longer, and it started to go up due to the Recession, but it is also because cars have been getting more reliable over time.

That said, while you and I may think 'until the body rusts out' as the lifetime of a car, that is not what the industry means when they are using the term lifetime. To them it appears to be 'the longest likely period of time, or vehicle miles, that the original owner will keep a car.' That seems to be 10 years or 150k miles, which is the range of this study. So when a company rep or dealer uses lifetime when talking about the transmission fluid, oil bathed timing belt, traction battery, or hydrogen tank, kind in mind they are using a different definition than you.

No one expects a BEV battery to last 15+ years in most cars. The batteries will still be usable for other purposes, which would need to be considered if the study was for a longer time. Then the replacement pack cost needs to be compared to the ongoing maintenance, and potential failures, of the ICE. The time is going past the lifespan of 'lifetime' components. Being registered doesn't mean a 12+ year old ICE car didn't need some major repair to get there, or that it is going through the same amount of oil between changes while new.

 

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory published results very similar to these in 2010 already. It is a very interesting read in my opinion.

 

Yes, Yes it is

 

IMHO batteries are not cheap and dense enough for economics to work, but they are getting better and they are getting close to break even point.

 

Works for me, but for those who cannot access the link, I've attached the pdf to this post.

 

1 million so far world wide. I'm thinking the economics are working for the initial adopter niche. In 10 years they may be low cost enough for the early majority.

I'm not sure what break even means here. No new car breaks even versus a 5 year old weill maintained economic.

 

Well no doubt the definition of the break point will be different for different folks. For me the purchase and TOC cost of new EV must be equal or cheaper to equivalent gasser, and the inconveniences of owning one (range, charge time and accessibility) should be below tolerance level. Now this is not objective definition, but we could probably make it quantitative.