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> "Further the labor is only 2,300 to replace a battery"

Why so much? Almost three working days at $100/hour?? Here[1] for example is a video of a Nio ES6 electric car in China with a battery swap station you can book on a smartphone, drive into, and it robotically swaps the discharged battery for a charged one in ~8 minutes, with possibly one person working there dealing with paperwork (of all things).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bahXXZ6Lxs



Tesla had one car with that option, but currently use their batteries as a structural element to save weight.

Hot swapping batteries is a design choice, but it comes with real trade offs.


https://youtu.be/DPVrraVbEIM?t=82 shows me that removing a Tesla Model 3 battery needs the front and rear seats, center console, and all the carpet and interior bits removed, because there are bolts going down to the battery pack. That explains the price.

(It doesn't explain the "only" $2300!)


I didn’t mean that 2300 was low, rather that labor is often equally or more expensive than the part but in this case it’s (only) 14%. Which means if the battery price drops by half you will see a replacement costs drop to 9,400.




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