this post was submitted on 06 May 2024
370 points (93.2% liked)
Technology
59534 readers
3195 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Sure:
It's cheaper to manufacture and maintain a single version of a product. It's cheaper to ship and store a single version of a product. It's also easier to adapt to quickly changing market needs if you don't need to spend six months spinning up a production line for a different version of a product.
Also, the existing market for low-range EVs might not be large enough to justify the expense of maintaining a separate line.
If there is competition in the space, it's safe to assume that some portion of these savings are passed on to the customer to better edge out competitors over price.
If you want to be very charitable: wealthier people who can afford the full-range version are partially subsidizing the lower range (tighter margin) version for more budget-conscious consumers.
Edit: Especially when talking about the structural battery of the Model Y, it may help to understand how these packs are made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozesI3OZEG0
The batteries themselves maintain the rigidity of the pack. If they removed some, they'd have to slide some dead weight in there. Also, once the packs are sealed, it's impossible to remove a portion of the batteries without destroying the pack. These are designed features developed to reduce the overall weight and cost of manufacturing the pack.
If they can sell the same battery, just one has a software limitation, they can just forgo the limitation altogether and sell full battery capacity models at the reduced limited capacity price. The only reason this limitation exists is to juice customers and it’s bullshit. They are going out of their way to make a product worse that costs them exactly the same regardless of if the limitation is there or not. You cannot convince me that the software limitation they impose is anything but hostile to consumers.
I mean, they can just give the batteries away for free too, but most businesses have a vested interest in making money. In Tesla's case, they also have an interest in paying back the massive investment it took to get the first car off the lot.
Saying "they can sell the same battery" is ignoring the fact that they would not be able to sell the limited capacity version of the battery if nobody was buying the full capacity version.