[miratrix]

The problem is that once you get down to ~$30k pure electric car, you're going to end up something that looks like the Nissan Leaf, even 5 years from now. There is no magical Tesla dust that allows them to circumvent the laws of physics and economics.

The problem is in the batteries - Tesla Model S batteries come in 60 and 85 kWhr capacities. Using the most generous specific energy estimates and the price estimates (265 Whr/kg and 2.5 Whr/US$ - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery), you're looking at 500 to 700 lb of extra weight and $24k~$32k due to batteries alone. Even if the price halves in 5 years, you can't make money spending up to half the price of the car in batteries alone.

As a premium car, Tesla can charge the extra money required for the large battery pack and things like all aluminum chassis in Model S. At the lowered price point, the revenue just is not there to justify these things.

This basically means that to hit the $30k price point, you're going to end up with a much smaller battery pack (like Leaf's 24kWhr battery pack) and much smaller car so that they can hit the (lowered) performance target in both the driving characteristics (acceleration, top speed, etc which depend greatly on curb weight) and range (weight and battery capacity).

If you look at the engineering trade-offs required to get to $30k pure electric car in 5 year timeframe, it's hard to imagine something drastically different from Nissan Leaf in range, size, and driving characteristics.

[dylandrop]

I think what you're saying is unnecessarily pessimistic. Lots of things evolve quickly in a period of 5 years in technology. If Tesla claims it will develop a $30k consumer car, I'd say they probably know what they're talking about, and they'll probably build it with quality. I mean, what's the point of going this far, if Musk just wants to piss away all of his credibility by making a crappy $30k electric car? If you want to guesstimate costs and hack them together, we can do this all day, but I'd say the only way to tell is to wait and see.

TL;DR - it's hard to make claims to the quality the next Tesla car without having any idea of what they're going to do.

[miratrix]

I worked on electric vehicle space in early 2000s - there are many improvements for sure since then, but in the battery technology, not much has changed. 10 years ago, top of the line 18650 Li-Ion cell (same ones used in laptops and the Model S) weighed 46g, had capacities of 2.6Ahr, and cost about $10 a pop. Now, it weighs the same but have capacities of about 3.4Ahr and cost about $5. 30% improvement and half the cost is nothing to laugh at, but that also took 10 whole years!

The biggest problem with batteries is that they're chemistry-bound - you don't get the free twice-every-2-years type of thing that we're used to in computing world.

Even with the Nissan Leaf type of vehicle, the growth in battery capacity and more efficient / lighter chassis may result in extension of range to, say, 150 miles from 100 miles by 2018. Will that make it a no-compromise electric car? What would the no-compromise range be?

Looking at what Tesla has done, and what Elon has said (who actually very carefully said "sort of affordable" - http://greenenergyholding.blogspot.com/2013/08/teslas-next-e...) what's more likely is a new model starting at, say, $40k ($30k after tax credits) with fairly limited range, with really usable range starting at around $50k. Is that affordable? Probably not. But probably does fit the label of "sort of affordable".

[qbrass]

A $30k Tesla doesn't have to differ drastically in range, size, and driving characteristics over the Leaf. As long as they make something that doesn't look ghastly, it's already got an advantage over the Nissan.

They don't need to profit directly on the low end cars, they're looking at increasing the number of Tesla owners, which will help to push pro-Tesla agenda and sell charging stations or other Tesla technologies.

[miratrix]

The problem with $30k Tesla in 2018 that doesn't differ too much from Nissan Leaf... is that we already have the 2013 Nissan Leaf. :-)