$35,000 Tesla Model III Is Coming In 2017

[Aikouka]

New pricing on the fully-loaded models:

3 = $63,990
S = $112,990
X = $124,990

Those are some pretty huge price drops...the 3 was around $70k fully-loaded before, and iirc the S & X nearly hit $170k at one point with the Ludicrous & FSD add-ons.

Yeah, the Model 3 Performance got a $5k price drop, which is considerable compared to the SR+, which I believe got a $1k price drop?

Although, what I'm wondering is... what's happening with the Model Y? All the other cars are seeing price drops, but I don't think the Model Y's price has gone down at all. To be fair, the car isn't even out yet, but if they want the Y to only be a slight increase over the 3, then they ought to consider keeping them in tandem. Right now, a M3P and MYP with the same options (Midnight Silver Metallic and Autopilot) are $55,990 vs. $65,500.

 

[JEDI]

New pricing on the fully-loaded models:

3 = $63,990
S = $112,990
X = $124,990

Those are some pretty huge price drops...the 3 was around $70k fully-loaded before, and iirc the S & X nearly hit $170k at one point with the Ludicrous & FSD add-ons.

Price drops?
Tesla can afford it?
Tesla stock going up?

 

[Kaido]

Yeah, the Model 3 Performance got a $5k price drop, which is considerable compared to the SR+, which I believe got a $1k price drop?

Although, what I'm wondering is... what's happening with the Model Y? All the other cars are seeing price drops, but I don't think the Model Y's price has gone down at all. To be fair, the car isn't even out yet, but if they want the Y to only be a slight increase over the 3, then they ought to consider keeping them in tandem. Right now, a M3P and MYP with the same options (Midnight Silver Metallic and Autopilot) are $55,990 vs. $65,500.

imo the Y is going to sell like hotcakes. I predict that it will be their best-selling vehicle: crossover, self-driving, electric. Easier to get into than the Model 3, which is pretty low to the ground. Not $100k+ for a fancy S or X. I think it will be "the" electric car to get!

 

[Kaido]

Price drops?
Tesla can afford it?
Tesla stock going up?

I think Tesla stock is a long game. I have a bit of a unique perspective where I have a lot of work clients & friends who have electric cars, so I get to talk about them on a weekly basis - Tesla, Leaf, Bolt, Fit EV, etc. - and see what the pros & cons & hassles are. In Tesla's favor, they have:

1. Over-the-air updates - this is huge. Completely under-rated. Taking it into the dealer to get patched is so last year

2. Nation-wide fast-charging network. You simply can't effectively road-trip in any other car, period. 1,533 Supercharger Stations with 13,344 Superchargers worldwide as of today.

3. Self-driving. Hardware chip #3. AI network that does fleet data collection. I'm starting to feel like true full self-driving is really going to be 10 to 15 years away, but Tesla has a pretty good setup for making progress on the problem. I'm not 100% convinced they can do it with only cameras (given how often they run into stopped cars, which is a complex problem, and have trouble seeing around corners & then actually stopping), but at least they have a pretty solid foundation right now.

Pretty much, no other car has continuous updates like a Tesla. Road-tripping is a pain in any other EV...it's not perfect with a Tesla, but having done a couple longer trips so far in my buddy's 3, it's pretty reasonable! Plus the existing self-driving is sooooooo nice on the highway & especially in traffic, especially on road-trips where you're driving all day or have a long commute. My daily commute averages 2 hours these days, because I service most areas of my state at this point & I'm in the center, so an hour there & an hour back, and then traffic congestion along the major routes along the way...Autopilot as it is today would be heavenly.

Anyway, as I look 5 years down the road at where say Ford is with their electric cars & self-driving abilities...I mean...meh. I think Tesla stock is going to hit $500 easily.

 

[JEDI]

I think Tesla stock is a long game. I have a bit of a unique perspective where I have a lot of work clients & friends who have electric cars, so I get to talk about them on a weekly basis - Tesla, Leaf, Bolt, Fit EV, etc. - and see what the pros & cons & hassles are. In Tesla's favor, they have:

1. Over-the-air updates - this is huge. Completely under-rated. Taking it into the dealer to get patched is so last year

2. Nation-wide fast-charging network. You simply can't effectively road-trip in any other car, period. 1,533 Supercharger Stations with 13,344 Superchargers worldwide as of today.

3. Self-driving. Hardware chip #3. AI network that does fleet data collection. I'm starting to feel like true full self-driving is really going to be 10 to 15 years away, but Tesla has a pretty good setup for making progress on the problem. I'm not 100% convinced they can do it with only cameras (given how often they run into stopped cars, which is a complex problem, and have trouble seeing around corners & then actually stopping), but at least they have a pretty solid foundation right now.

Pretty much, no other car has continuous updates like a Tesla. Road-tripping is a pain in any other EV...it's not perfect with a Tesla, but having done a couple longer trips so far in my buddy's 3, it's pretty reasonable! Plus the existing self-driving is sooooooo nice on the highway & especially in traffic, especially on road-trips where you're driving all day or have a long commute. My daily commute averages 2 hours these days, because I service most areas of my state at this point & I'm in the center, so an hour there & an hour back, and then traffic congestion along the major routes along the way...Autopilot as it is today would be heavenly.

Anyway, as I look 5 years down the road at where say Ford is with their electric cars & self-driving abilities...I mean...meh. I think Tesla stock is going to hit $500 easily.

what I meant was tesla stock was going down on fears of running out of $.
if they are lowering prices, then that seems like the rumors are unfounded?

 

[herm0016]

what I meant was tesla stock was going down on fears of running out of $.
if they are lowering prices, then that seems like the rumors are unfounded?

or they don't want to show a decrease in volume, as the markets don't seem to care when they loose lots of money.

 

[manly]

what I meant was tesla stock was going down on fears of running out of $.
if they are lowering prices, then that seems like the rumors are unfounded?

https://www.thestreet.com/investing...-than-expected-q2-loss-cto-departure-15032244

Decide for yourself.

 

[JEDI]

https://www.thestreet.com/investing...-than-expected-q2-loss-cto-departure-15032244

Decide for yourself.

again, if losses are wider then expected, why is Tesla cutting prices??

on a diff note: are tesla's instant acceleration?
on my gas car (v4 engine), when I press hard on the pedal, there's like a 1 second delay before the car accelerates

 

[Kaido]

again, if losses are wider then expected, why is Tesla cutting prices??

on a diff note: are tesla's instant acceleration?
on my gas car (v4 engine), when I press hard on the pedal, there's like a 1 second delay before the car accelerates

Without getting into a deeper financial discussion, losses in publicly-traded companies can be a BS type of thing.

Yes, Tesla's have instant acceleration. They have fixed, single-speed transmissions. Press the button, go zoom! It's SUPER fun!

 

[ponyo]

Without getting into a deeper financial discussion, losses in publicly-traded companies can be a BS type of thing.

Yes, Tesla's have instant acceleration. They have fixed, single-speed transmissions. Press the button, go zoom! It's SUPER fun!

Pretty much. Tesla stock is highly manipulated by Wall St., press, and short sellers. This second quarter was good with record all time high delivery. But the press headlines made it seem horrible. You have to read past the deceptive headlines and look at the actual numbers. Q1 was bad. No way to spin that. Q2 wasn't so bad. But the press and short sellers are trying to shape the narrative it was horrible. Tesla had over $400 million positive free cash flow in Q2 quarter. That's good. And ended with over $5 billion in cash. As long as they remain cash flow positive, Tesla will be fine. I'm sitting on 1,000 shares for the long term with no plans to sell. Tesla and the Chinese are going to dominate the EV market.

Here's great interview with Chamath Palihapitiya on Elon Musk and Tesla.

 

[shortylickens]

I just looked at them and in order to make this thing work for me I'd need the extended range option and a super charger for my house. And on work days I would definitely need to take advantage of my companies charging station. On off days I'd need to keep my driving to the bare minimum. If not than it would actually end up costing me about as much as a cheap gasoline car which I already own. Also for long road trips it would be amazingly difficult to sit around for several hours waiting on a refill.
These bad boys are not yet ready for prime time. But as we drain fossil fuels around the world, we will eventually have no options.

 

[tweakmonkey]

I just looked at them and in order to make this thing work for me I'd need the extended range option

If you plan to drive 300+ mile days regularly, yes the long range model 3 is ideal.

You must drive a LOT! Way more than the average commuter if 300 miles/day isn't enough for you.

and a super charger for my house

Even with a regular 110 outlet you can drive 60+ miles every day and the battery could start each morning at 100% (enough to drive 300 miles), charging while you sleep/eat dinner/make breakfast etc. If you upgrade to any 220 charger, it can pretty much charge from empty to full while you sleep (300 miles/day). A supercharger means you could add 200+ miles in an hour. Nobody has a supercharger at home. Maybe you mean a dedicated 220 Tesla wall charger?

And on work days I would definitely need to take advantage of my companies charging station. On off days I'd need to keep my driving to the bare minimum.

What's your daily driving typically? If you can charge at home you could drive 200+ miles every day easily with a 220 charger, only charging while they sleep or park at home.

If not than it would actually end up costing me about as much as a cheap gasoline car which I already own.

I don't expect most people to save money by buying a Tesla but it's a GREAT car to drive and cheap is the last reason we bought one. Sure, a Corolla is cheaper. But the Tesla is a much better experience (like driving a BMW 5-series vs a Camry). If saving money is your goal, a used hybrid will get you there quicker. Some day Toyota/Honda may make long range cheaper econoboxes. The Tesla is not an econobox.

Also for long road trips it would be amazingly difficult to sit around for several hours waiting on a refill.

The time you save not going to gas stations makes up for a road trip a couple times a year. So it's either save 5-10 minutes/week not stopping for gas (or in your case every day!), or spend a couple hours on a road trip a couple times a year. With a Model 3, you'll spend about 1 hour of charging for every 300 miles of driving. But you can usually combine that with dinner/lunch stops, parks, sight seeing, city centers and so-on as most people do stop to eat and go to the bathroom. Also you start the trip with a "full tank" and at any destination charger (hotel, house you stay at etc.) you could theoretically leave with a full tank also, giving you 4+ hours before you have to stop for 30-minutes or so...

These bad boys are not yet ready for prime time. But as we drain fossil fuels around the world, we will eventually have no options.

No offense but "prime time" is not 300-mile every day (I think the USA average is something like 30-miles/day). Almost nobody drives that much. If you do, you drive way more than most people it sounds like. These cars totally suit the needs for most people even as an only car, and almost 100% of users that have more than one car in their household. If you drive 100-miles every day or even 200 miles every day, the only concern with you would be road trips. Otherwise the Tesla will save you tons of time.

 

[Ichinisan]

If you plan to drive 300+ mile days regularly, yes the long range model 3 is ideal.

You must drive a LOT! Way more than the average commuter if 300 miles/day isn't enough for you.



Even with a regular 110 outlet you can drive 60+ miles every day and the battery could start each morning at 100% (enough to drive 300 miles), charging while you sleep/eat dinner/make breakfast etc. If you upgrade to any 220 charger, it can pretty much charge from empty to full while you sleep (300 miles/day). A supercharger means you could add 200+ miles in an hour. Nobody has a supercharger at home. Maybe you mean a dedicated 220 Tesla wall charger?



What's your daily driving typically? If you can charge at home you could drive 200+ miles every day easily with a 220 charger, only charging while they sleep or park at home.


I don't expect most people to save money by buying a Tesla but it's a GREAT car to drive and cheap is the last reason we bought one. Sure, a Corolla is cheaper. But the Tesla is a much better experience (like driving a BMW 5-series vs a Camry). If saving money is your goal, a used hybrid will get you there quicker. Some day Toyota/Honda may make long range cheaper econoboxes. The Tesla is not an econobox.


The time you save not going to gas stations makes up for a road trip a couple times a year. So it's either save 5-10 minutes/week not stopping for gas (or in your case every day!), or spend a couple hours on a road trip a couple times a year. With a Model 3, you'll spend about 1 hour of charging for every 300 miles of driving. But you can usually combine that with dinner/lunch stops, parks, sight seeing, city centers and so-on as most people do stop to eat and go to the bathroom. Also you start the trip with a "full tank" and at any destination charger (hotel, house you stay at etc.) you could theoretically leave with a full tank also, giving you 4+ hours before you have to stop for 30-minutes or so...



No offense but "prime time" is not 300-mile every day (I think the USA average is something like 30-miles/day). Almost nobody drives that much. If you do, you drive way more than most people it sounds like. These cars totally suit the needs for most people even as an only car, and almost 100% of users that have more than one car in their household. If you drive 100-miles every day or even 200 miles every day, the only concern with you would be road trips. Otherwise the Tesla will save you tons of time.

I still wonder why they don't build like 1/3 of the battery capacity into a quick-swap module and then standardize it for all brands of EVs.

 

[tweakmonkey]

Cause it weighs 1000 lbs, you own it (so your good / bad charging habits will either wear the car out sooner or later depending on what you do), and it only takes 15 minutes to add 200 miles to its range on a supercharger so swapping will probably never make sense from an economics point of view. And chargers are getting faster all the time. There are even more reasons why they won't be standard across all brands and car sizes/types.

 

[Kaido]

Soooooooo my buddy just ran an OTA update on his Model 3 (SR+ RWD)...and it bricked his car. Typical reboot procedures didn't work; the resolution is that it requires a firmware reinstall by a technician. He can drive it forwards & backwards, but everything else, including power steering, is gone - we tried to move it in his driveway by hanging on the wheel to turn it so that it was out of the way, but it's crazy-hard to steer. His car is effectively dead.

On top of that, Tesla can't get a tech out to him for 2 weeks. So his $43k Tesla car is not driveable & can't get fixed until the middle of August. He tried for hours to get ahold of a live human being to talk to. The best he got was he could find a tow himself & get it towed to the service center, which would still take a full week before he'd get it back. No loaner, no tow from Tesla...and it's only like 3 months old. I'd love to get a Tesla, but I can't be down like that in my situation...going to have to wait a few years before service is improved to the point where you can get issues turned around pretty quick.

Also cracks me up that a software update bricked his car. Such a #FirstWorldProblem lol.

 

[Kaido]

I'm sitting on 1,000 shares for the long term with no plans to sell. Tesla and the Chinese are going to dominate the EV market.

Can I come swim your Olympic-size pool at your ATOT Mansion when you cash out?

Seriously though, Tesla is a steal right now at ~$242. 5 years from now, that stock is going to be amazing. Easily double that, I bet. No one else has:

1. OTA updates
2. A Supercharging network
3. Functioning self-driving

I'd imagine we're still 2 to 4 years away from Tesla tiles, 4 years from the Tesla pickup truck, and 10 to 15 years from full self-driving...but it doesn't even matter because Tesla has so many advantages over everyone else right now & growing into the future. You can't effectively road-trip in any other electric car. Despite my buddy's software-bricking issues, other EV's have to be run into the shop to get patches, instead of ongoing streaming patches all the time. Netflix is supposed to be out at the end of August, for crying out loud. Forget cryptocurrency, invest in Tesla!

 

[manly]

again, if losses are wider then expected, why is Tesla cutting prices??

Honestly, it's not rocket science. Tesla would not have cut prices several times since Jan. 1st if they didn't need to (in order to maintain demand). Some of their sales tactics have made little business sense, mixing price drops, complete shut down of retail, then partial reversal of prior decisions and re-jiggering of prices every couple months.

The biggest problems right now are that Model S is an old car design, and demand for high profit margin S/X has cratered. And yet they recently eliminated the entry level variants of these vehicles (presumably to simplify production). So their product mixture is dominated by Model 3 sales, and their gross margin is eroding.

As Kaido alluded to, net profit is not the best way to evaluate Tesla's current state. FCF in Q2 looks pretty good, but you'll have to remember that they had 10,000 vehicles in transit to Europe/China at the end of Q1. So a lot of revenue was in essence pushed back from Q1 into Q2.

If you're a Tesla bull, you think their growth ramp-up of Model 3 sales can continue into the foreseeable future. I think this is relatively unlikely, despite a near term China bounce. The current global sales leader in the compact executive class is Mercedes-Benz C-Class and they move about half a million units per year. Is it realistic to believe that Model 3 can out-sell C-Class on an annual basis, going forward? It's not impossible, but sedan sales are shrinking. And even if Tesla sells 450k Model 3's in 2020 (roughly 50% YoY growth), can they do so profitably?

Obviously we don't know how this will turn out, but analysts no longer think Model 3 sales are profitable enough to ensure the company's long term survival. Tesla claims it will be FCF positive going forward, which will be good enough to bridge them to a 2021 Model Y production ramp.

Disclosure: I have no long or short position in TSLA and never have.

 

[Kaido]

Honestly, it's not rocket science. Tesla would not have cut prices several times since Jan. 1st if they didn't need to (in order to maintain demand). Some of their sales tactics have made little business sense, mixing price drops, complete shut down of retail, then partial reversal of prior decisions and re-jiggering of prices every couple months.

The biggest problems right now are that Model S is an old car design, and demand for high profit margin S/X has cratered. And yet they recently eliminated the entry level variants of these vehicles (presumably to simplify production). So their product mixture is dominated by Model 3 sales, and their gross margin is eroding.

As Kaido alluded to, net profit is not the best way to evaluate Tesla's current state. FCF in Q2 looks pretty good, but you'll have to remember that they had 10,000 vehicles in transit to Europe/China at the end of Q1. So a lot of revenue was in essence pushed back from Q1 into Q2.

If you're a Tesla bull, you think their growth ramp-up of Model 3 sales can continue into the foreseeable future. I think this is relatively unlikely, despite a near term China bounce. The current global sales leader in the compact executive class is Mercedes-Benz C-Class and they move about half a million units per year. Is it realistic to believe that Model 3 can out-sell C-Class on an annual basis, going forward? It's not impossible, but sedan sales are shrinking. And even if Tesla sells 450k Model 3's in 2020 (roughly 50% YoY growth), can they do so profitably?

Obviously we don't know how this will turn out, but analysts no longer think Model 3 sales are profitable enough to ensure the company's long term survival. Tesla claims it will be FCF positive going forward, which will be good enough to bridge them to a 2021 Model Y production ramp.

Disclosure: I have no long or short position in TSLA and never have.

Yeah, I don't think high Model 3 sales can go on forever. You really need to spend at least $40k to get a decent 3, which is out of many people's price range. That, and America loves crossovers. So if they can monkey around with prices & features until the Y comes out, and then ride the Y for awhile, and then flip on the Semi & the Pickup Truck, they'll have a few good years of heavy car sales (for their size) ahead of them.

 

[rstrohkirch]

Soooooooo my buddy just ran an OTA update on his Model 3 (SR+ RWD)...and it bricked his car. Typical reboot procedures didn't work; the resolution is that it requires a firmware reinstall by a technician. He can drive it forwards & backwards, but everything else, including power steering, is gone - we tried to move it in his driveway by hanging on the wheel to turn it so that it was out of the way, but it's crazy-hard to steer. His car is effectively dead.

On top of that, Tesla can't get a tech out to him for 2 weeks. So his $43k Tesla car is not driveable & can't get fixed until the middle of August. He tried for hours to get ahold of a live human being to talk to. The best he got was he could find a tow himself & get it towed to the service center, which would still take a full week before he'd get it back. No loaner, no tow from Tesla...and it's only like 3 months old. I'd love to get a Tesla, but I can't be down like that in my situation...going to have to wait a few years before service is improved to the point where you can get issues turned around pretty quick.

Also cracks me up that a software update bricked his car. Such a #FirstWorldProblem lol.

Same thing happens to others cars but it happens at the dealer. So half the issue still exists but the other issue of getting the vehicle to where it needs to be doesn't. In regards to happening at the dealer, the dealer tries an update and bricks the infotainment system which controls a ton of things in the vehicle. You won't have your car for at least a week by the time they order another unit, receive it and get it installed/tested.

This is going to happen to other vehicles soon. I know others like BMW and Jag are starting to allow OTA updates and it's going to happen.

 

[Ichinisan]

Cause it weighs 1000 lbs, you own it (so your good / bad charging habits will either wear the car out sooner or later depending on what you do), and it only takes 15 minutes to add 200 miles to its range on a supercharger so swapping will probably never make sense from an economics point of view. And chargers are getting faster all the time. There are even more reasons why they won't be standard across all brands and car sizes/types.

"1000 pounds" -- for the whole battery? ...or for 1/3 of the battery?

I was suggesting only a portion of the total battery capacity (1/3) would be modular quick-swap. It would still be a robotic machine you drive up to (or a platform you drive onto). The swappable module would itself be composed of a few hundred cells. For most end-of-life batteries, only some of the cells inside are actually bad and the rest art still perfect. There would be infrastructure and procedures for refreshing them by replacing only the worst performing cells. Even that could be done almost entirely by machine.

The price would cover the cost wear / refurbishment / recharging and a small premium for convenience.

 

[Kaido]

Same thing happens to others cars but it happens at the dealer. So half the issue still exists but the other issue of getting the vehicle to where it needs to be doesn't. In regards to happening at the dealer, the dealer tries an update and bricks the infotainment system which controls a ton of things in the vehicle. You won't have your car for at least a week by the time they order another unit, receive it and get it installed/tested.

This is going to happen to other vehicles soon. I know others like BMW and Jag are starting to allow OTA updates and it's going to happen.

My reddit thread is still the top google search result for "Jeep Renegade lemon":

https://www.reddit.com/r/JeepRenegade/comments/4rj3rg/anyone_successfully_lemonlaw_their_renegade_or/

The central computer fried half a dozen times & took out my entire vehicle each time. I can't even remember how many times I had to get towed. I really like Tesla's service model of sending someone out to your house to fix the vehicle, because in my friend's case, it just needs a software reinstall. It stinks, but cars these days are complex & computer-driven, so it happens. What isn't OK is waiting a full 2 weeks while your car is literally undriveable, but Tesla is also in a growth & expansion period right now, so that's the price & risk of being an early adopter for a smaller car company.

 

[Aikouka]

Soooooooo my buddy just ran an OTA update on his Model 3 (SR+ RWD)...and it bricked his car. Typical reboot procedures didn't work; the resolution is that it requires a firmware reinstall by a technician. He can drive it forwards & backwards, but everything else, including power steering, is gone - we tried to move it in his driveway by hanging on the wheel to turn it so that it was out of the way, but it's crazy-hard to steer. His car is effectively dead.

On top of that, Tesla can't get a tech out to him for 2 weeks. So his $43k Tesla car is not driveable & can't get fixed until the middle of August. He tried for hours to get ahold of a live human being to talk to. The best he got was he could find a tow himself & get it towed to the service center, which would still take a full week before he'd get it back. No loaner, no tow from Tesla...and it's only like 3 months old. I'd love to get a Tesla, but I can't be down like that in my situation...going to have to wait a few years before service is improved to the point where you can get issues turned around pretty quick.

Also cracks me up that a software update bricked his car. Such a #FirstWorldProblem lol.

Was it plugged in while updating? Makes me wonder if he ran into an issue with the 12V battery while updating since the 12V battery powers most non-drive components in the car.

 

[manly]

I still wonder why they don't build like 1/3 of the battery capacity into a quick-swap module and then standardize it for all brands of EVs.

For one, Tesla has no reason to have any interoperability with competitors.

Secondly, Tesla did at one point have a full battery pack swap pilot project for the Model S. IIRC they rolled it out at one location and discovered that nobody would use it. I think it has to be well engineered from the get-go, rather than created after the auto design. Honestly, who's going to trust a (fancy) SuperCharger facility to safely swap a half ton battery pack?

Finally, new V3 Supercharging is fast enough that swapping the battery pack is pretty much wholly unnecessary.

 

[tweakmonkey]

"1000 pounds" -- for the whole battery? ...or for 1/3 of the battery?

I was suggesting only a portion of the total battery capacity (1/3) would be modular quick-swap. It would still be a robotic machine you drive up to (or a platform you drive onto). The swappable module would itself be composed of a few hundred cells. For most end-of-life batteries, only some of the cells inside are actually bad and the rest art still perfect. There would be infrastructure and procedures for refreshing them by replacing only the worst performing cells. Even that could be done almost entirely by machine.

The price would cover the cost wear / refurbishment / recharging and a small premium for convenience.

Oh didn't see you said 1/3.

That's a better point but I think that seems even worse to me when you look at charging speeds.

If you can swap 1/3 of the range of a model 3 (100 miles), how fast could it possibly be? Because you can charge the bottom 30% of the battery in about 8 minutes on a V3 supercharger I think (adding that same 100 mile range as a swap like this), with way simpler and safer gadgetry, and a much smaller footprint at the charging dock. Though it would need less instant power!

Of course you can't easily charge the bottom 30% - you'd more likely be charging the middle 30-60%. But even then it would probably take around 10 minutes I think? Maybe 15. I guess you get back to how fast can you swap it etc. But again I think there's a lot more complexity than just plugging it in and charging can still get a lot faster over time.

Also the cooling system runs through the battery. I don't know how you could hot swap it without making a mess or adding even more complexity.

I think swapping might make sense for trucking (swap part of the trailer) or bottom part of the rig or something.

Just speculating and thinking - I heard some Chinese companies have a lot of swapping stations around so I'd have to learn a lot more before claiming to be a real authority though.

 

[drnickriviera]

"1000 pounds" -- for the whole battery? ...or for 1/3 of the battery?

I was suggesting only a portion of the total battery capacity (1/3) would be modular quick-swap. It would still be a robotic machine you drive up to (or a platform you drive onto). The swappable module would itself be composed of a few hundred cells. For most end-of-life batteries, only some of the cells inside are actually bad and the rest art still perfect. There would be infrastructure and procedures for refreshing them by replacing only the worst performing cells. Even that could be done almost entirely by machine.

The price would cover the cost wear / refurbishment / recharging and a small premium for convenience.

That wouldn't work for adding range as the pack voltages need to match. Model S uses 23ish volt packs. You drive in with the battery at 25%, say 18V per module and try to dump a 25V pack in there it will want to even out the voltages....quickly