Of course they aren't 90kWh. more like 55 and 75 in 2 options. Still that is 32GWh per year in battery production on a single factory alone. Shouldn't be hard to make it to 1TWh a year worldwide if electric vehicles to ever have anywhere like mentionable penetration.
In a way, electric car batteries have demonstrated to outlive their cars by 2x-3x (there are already several Teslas who were driven beyond median lifetime of a car and they lost just a few percent of capacity). So when i car is trashed, a battery is essentially still new. They can be bought out for say half the price and used for electricity storage.
If there is a billion electric cars in the world instead of the current billion gas powered ones, and they are on average 55kWh of which 10% is lost while they are in a car, and another 20% is lost while they are used for grid storage, on average they will have 45kWh of capacity. Grid storage takes 6 hour capacity (pumped hydro plants usually have 6 hour storage, enough to compensate any daily cycles), so 7.5kW power per battery or 7.5TW overall... the world has 6.3TW of installed generation capacity.
Probably grid storage will be a side business of car makers because all storage plant will need to use same type of battery. Maybe they'll even offer like 10% discount on a new car on a condition that the battery is theirs and to be returned when a car is scrapped.
Any (non-tesla?) source? Model S has only existed for nine years.
Also, the life-time of a car that needs a $20.000+ battery replacement will obviously prematurely make the car utterly worthless.
Usage and weather most certainly have a huge impact as well.
Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in a used model 3 when that time comes. But that hinges on that you can replace the battery for a reasonable cost, reasonable even for an older car.
It only existed for 7 years, but some small fraction of cars are driven much more than others. Typical lifetime of a car is 15 years, so why are you surprised that some are driven 2x more than average? Of course there are many such cars, maybe whole 1% of those made in the first year - hundreds of them. That is not an extreme, one in a million case - one in a million case looks like this: http://www.tilburyautosales.com/used/Ford/2014-Ford-F-250-2d...
No, Teslas will never need battery replacement. Contrary, batteries outlive cars severalfold (yes they can be bricked by grossly violating their usage rules in a way BMS can't prevent, but this is not wear and tear - it is equally easy to do with a brand new or 10 year old car - that's approximately an equivalent of what happens if you fill a gasoline car with diesel). With a normal averagely intense usage and a good driver, a battery will last 40-50 years which is much, much more than it makes sense to keep using a car itself.
"Tesla Tech Talk (06/13) - Speaker's main points:
1) battery degrades everyday
2) battery degradation is non-linear over time; meaning it starts very very slow, but after 4-5 years, it gets faster
3) after the first 5 years, degradation may be as low as 5%. But by the 8th year, they expect about 30% degradation."
Batteries will without any doubt seriously affect second hand markets for EVs. Especially when considering cold climates and the fact that the range can be quite limiting even when the battery is brand new.
in 2013, there was no data to tell what happens after 8 years of typical use, first Model S was just a year old by then and even more intensely used ones didn't have that much use - 8 years of normal use equivalent. Now there are many of those that were driven beyond median lifetime of a vehicle.
I have no idea what to make of the claim that no further degradation is expected. It's not like batteries are a new not understood technology, batteries don't behave like that.
Is that an ad?
It is expected for the capacity to drop off significantly with age. The main weapon tesla has used against this is good cooling and sensible charging patterns, but that is just stalling the inevitable.
In a way, electric car batteries have demonstrated to outlive their cars by 2x-3x (there are already several Teslas who were driven beyond median lifetime of a car and they lost just a few percent of capacity). So when i car is trashed, a battery is essentially still new. They can be bought out for say half the price and used for electricity storage. If there is a billion electric cars in the world instead of the current billion gas powered ones, and they are on average 55kWh of which 10% is lost while they are in a car, and another 20% is lost while they are used for grid storage, on average they will have 45kWh of capacity. Grid storage takes 6 hour capacity (pumped hydro plants usually have 6 hour storage, enough to compensate any daily cycles), so 7.5kW power per battery or 7.5TW overall... the world has 6.3TW of installed generation capacity.
Probably grid storage will be a side business of car makers because all storage plant will need to use same type of battery. Maybe they'll even offer like 10% discount on a new car on a condition that the battery is theirs and to be returned when a car is scrapped.