Tesla Discontinuing Least Expensive Model S with 60 kWh Battery Pack Next Month

[Megalith]

The Model S with a 60 kilowatt-hour battery pack, which costs $68,000, will be discontinued next month. The vehicle line will now begin with the 75 kWh version that costs $74,500. The company claims that most people opt for the latter anyway, and with the Model 3 coming, the larger price gap may make more business sense.

April 16th, 2017 will be the last day to order the Model S 60 and 60D. The vehicles were the least expensive models that customers could purchase from Tesla – starting at $68,000. The Model S 60 and 60D were equipped with 75 kWh battery packs software-locked to 60 kWh. Owners were able to unlock the remaining 15 kWh through a software update for a fee at any time after the purchase if they decided that they wanted more capacity. Tesla says that they are making the change because most customers ultimately end up upgrading to 75 kWh and they want to streamline the ordering process.

 

[Deleted member 88301]

Nifty. I'd still prefer a nice GMC truck. But YMMV.

 

[BloodyIron]

Seems reasonable to me.

 

[NeoNemesis]

I think it's a pretty smart decision. You don't want people thinking the lower range vehicle is representative of the entire line.

 

[collegeboy69us]

While the idea of "hey I can just pay some money and upgrade my battery instantly over the air" is novel and kinda cool... it makes zero financial sense seeing how it costs more to upgrade later down the road (which is somewhat reasonable)

a 75kwh battery seems to be way more popular than the 60, if you do the upgrade later, it winds up costing something like $3000 more than if you just bought the 75 to begin with. I'd say it's fair to assume that the average Tesla buyer is a little more in tune with long term thinking, and knows its pointless to buy the lesser one and upgrade later. Combined with the fact that the average Tesla buyer has enough disposable income to instantly go for the higher battery pack and just not care about the extra initial cost.

The original claim of the Model 3 having a 60kwh battery and a 215 mile range put me off a bit because for the biggest trip I make a few times a year, I need 250 miles minimum in one shot. Yeah I'll probably stop at a supercharger for 10 minutes but I don't want to have to rely on it. Since the word is the Model3 will have battery options, I'll seriously look at selling my Volt and getting one hopefully around 2019 or so once the car has had a shakedown and supply has caught up with demand.

 

[Advil]

So you are carrying araund 15KWh of battery you can't use unless you pay more. That makes total sense. They need to make cars that won't let you use the bottom 5 gallons of gas unless you pay for the upgraded fuel tank even though it's already in there. You know, the car just shuts off when the fuel gauge gets down to 5 gallons remaining. I mean, it makes perfect sense. Microtransactions for cars baby!

Not to mention this is supposed to be "environmentally friendly" right? They're producing extra battery cells that may not ever be used even though they are sitting right there in the car?

Yep. I can see why they are discontinuing this sales tactic. It's the whole barrel of goodness: Stupid, sleazy, expensive and has to be actively managed by the car maker after the initial sale.

 

[collegeboy69us]

So you are carrying araund 15KWh of battery you can't use unless you pay more. That makes total sense. They need to make cars that won't let you use the bottom 5 gallons of gas unless you pay for the upgraded fuel tank even though it's already in there. You know, the car just shuts off when the fuel gauge gets down to 5 gallons remaining. I mean, it makes perfect sense. Microtransactions for cars baby!

Not to mention this is supposed to be "environmentally friendly" right? They're producing extra battery cells that may not ever be used even though they are sitting right there in the car?

Yep. I can see why they are discontinuing this sales tactic. It's the whole barrel of goodness: Stupid, sleazy, expensive and has to be actively managed by the car maker after the initial sale.

Go do some reading on economies of scale. In the end it's actually cheaper to Tesla to design, test, certify, and build a 75kw pack than it is to do a series of packs that may or may not sell well. What's better? Having a single version you know will get used? Or ending up with a crap ton of un-used 60kwh packs sitting around that will *never* get used? One side benefit that nobody ever seems to understand is that this method also has the byproduct of less wear and tear on the battery itself. It's not like there is 15kwh worth of batteries sitting idle in your car that are never being actively used. the limit is the (lower) State of charge limit that the car puts on itself. Every cell in every Tesla is used, no matter what "size" battery you get.

The one thing that will eventually kill a Li-Ion pack is the number of charge cycles, and how deep those cycles go into the battery. With the artificial limit there, longevity has an additional 20% buffer against whatever degradation would otherwise occur should you have discharged deeper. Translation: if you drive it long enough, you would see a noticeable amount of LESS range lost after 100/200/300k miles. My Gen2 volt has an 18.4kWh pack, of that I'm only able to "Use" 14.1 or so of that. i WISH there was an option to unlock more, but that's not how GM rolls.

You say it's sleazy... it's actually the exact opposite. They found the absolute most cost effective way to build battery packs and then from there give options to the customer on what they want to do. How is that sleazy? Old school auto maters would have said "oops fuck you, if you want an extra 15kwh, you have to go buy the car again" for 80k

 

[Vildayyan2003]

So you are carrying araund 15KWh of battery you can't use unless you pay more. That makes total sense. They need to make cars that won't let you use the bottom 5 gallons of gas unless you pay for the upgraded fuel tank even though it's already in there. You know, the car just shuts off when the fuel gauge gets down to 5 gallons remaining. I mean, it makes perfect sense. Microtransactions for cars baby!

Not to mention this is supposed to be "environmentally friendly" right? They're producing extra battery cells that may not ever be used even though they are sitting right there in the car?

Yep. I can see why they are discontinuing this sales tactic. It's the whole barrel of goodness: Stupid, sleazy, expensive and has to be actively managed by the car maker after the initial sale.

Yea, sleazy is a pretty good word for it since all they need is $$$ from you and they hit enter on a keyboard somewhere. Sounds like how alot of the internet companies work.

 

[Snowdog]

Yea, sleazy is a pretty good word for it since all they need is $$$ from you and they hit enter on a keyboard somewhere. Sounds like how alot of the internet companies work.

Sleazy? I would love to get an EV with free extra capacity.

It was awesome for anyone buying 60KWh model. While they didn't beneft from the extra range. They still benefit from the ability to charge faster with less degredation, to deliver more power, and greater durability.

60KWh owners could never charge the battery over 80%, increasing the durability by a huge amount. Those 60KWh locked packs will probably last the life of the car..

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

What is interesting to me is that the 60kwh model is actually a gimped higher end battery that can be software unlocked to the larger version...

 

[collegeboy69us]

Yea, sleazy is a pretty good word for it since all they need is $$$ from you and they hit enter on a keyboard somewhere. Sounds like how alot of the internet companies work.

So it's sleazy to ask a customer to pay for a useful added benefit/feature? The alternative in this situation is they only put an actual 60kw pack in the car, it costs more to design/produce/test, you pay more for the car, and on top of that there's the very real risk nobody winds up buying them. Tesla loses money, resources are wasted.

Same with all the autopilot hardware thats being included standard (whether you pay for it or not) on every new Tesla. In the long run its cheaper and easier to just build a single version of something and let economies of scale kick in. The net result is everyone has the hardware and if you want it... it's there to use for a price.

Look at the history of how the auto industry has done business. Historically it's "you do it our way, or no way at all". Tesla is giving customers the option to pay for what they want. Don't want to have a 75kw battery? You don't have to pay for it. If you choose to go this route, you save money, Tesla saves money (from having to design a special low capacity pack), you get faster charging, you get longer battery life.

It's like people complain just because the want something to bitch about. They are discontinuing the 60 because nobody is buying it. Whenever the Model 3 hits, I know that a 60kw battery would just be just shy of the range I need, so if they offer a 75kw unit for that... it would be my starting point basically.

At the end of the day it's not unreasonable to ask a customer to pay for a feature they want to use. The new concept of being able to unlock more battery for your car via software upgrade only gives customers more options, and how are more choices a bad thing? Thier setup even has tangible benefits for those who choose not to purchase the upgrade.