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Re:Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey by D_Alex on Monday April 14, 2014 @05:35AM (#7585259)
Referring to your 350 hp example:

1. That motor is a low speed motor, as such it is massive. It weighs 3044 pounds. The Tesla motor runs at nearly 10 times the speed, and ought to be roughly a factor of 10 lighter. 2. See how the price drops by almost 10% when you buy more than 5 of these motors? Now imagine you are buying 20,000+... 3. You can bet the manufacturer of the motor (Baldor) did not get $25k for it. I imagine the markup for the reseller is of the order of 30-50%, on top of other costs such as transport. These do not apply to Tesla.

I am pretty sure even $6000/unit is an over-estimate.

I have some information from an occasionally reliable source that the entire car costs around $20,000 to make. This is the "incremental cost", after tooling, R&D etc has been paid for. This is apparently about the same as a top level mass produced luxury Benz - for the Benz, the much higher inherent production cost is offset by the scale and efficiency of their production line.

Re:Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey by jesusmichael on Monday April 14, 2014 @01:09PM (#7587403)
The comparison is retail to retail... Not wholesale cost. I'm sure if you need a motor, because yours failed after 6 years, they aren't going to sell it to you for wholesale. And if they are marking up the cost of the car by 400% than if their motor is $5000... you'll be paying $20k
Re:Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey by jesusmichael on Monday April 14, 2014 @07:28PM (#7589506)
Analysis estimates of the cost of the car are about $56K

http://green.autoblog.com/2014/02/26/why-teslas-35000-model-...

That $20k motor is much less advanced than what's in a Tesla... So @ $24k I think its a bargin... what is the rest of the car? Aluminum and Plastic and a couple of computers...