Logs of several engineering service providers prove according to a report that the electric car Tesla Model 3 can be produced profitably. The service providers have bought four cars on behalf of German car companies and disassembled in their works.
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Stefan Hajek/ Wirtschaftswoche
June 1, 2018, 8:53 am
The material and supply costs of the Model 3 are only around $ 18,000
(Photo: Tesla)
When disassembling Tesla’s Model 3 engineers on behalf of German auto companies came to surprising conclusions. The German Tesla competitors wanted to investigate previously secret technical solutions of the electric car and to examine its economic calculation. Result of the dismantling report for a German premium manufacturer according to one Report of the Wirtschaftswoche (Paywall): The material and supply costs of the $ 35,000- $ 78,000 car are only around $ 18,000; In addition, according to the calculations of the burglars, which are the Wirtschaftswoche, about $ 10,000 in production costs per car. “If Tesla manages to build the planned 10,000 pieces a week, Model 3 will deliver a significant positive contribution to earnings,” a test engineer told the magazine.
Job market
PTV Group, Karlsruhe
Haufe Group, Freiburg
The service providers acquired the cars of ex-Tesla employees who were able to order a Model 3 early and now sell it at a high profit. The prices on the gray market are at 100,000 to 130,000 dollars.
Tesla achieves breakthrough for scarce battery resources
Tesla has obviously succeeded in significantly reducing the share of the notoriously scarce metal cobalt in the batteries of his new Model 3. This is the result of laboratory analyzes exclusively available to Wirtschaftswoche. Cobalt is needed in the cathode of lithium-ion cells; It is considered irreplaceable there. More than 60 percent of the global cobalt deposits are in the civil-war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the cobalt is partly funded by child labor and used to finance warlords.
In the world market, the price of cobalt last tripled within 18 months. Due to the flood of new e-models of numerous car companies, which should come on the market from 2020, the demand for the scarce metal will multiply again. Individual corporations like VW had recently tried to conclude direct delivery contracts with mine operators, but without success.
Battery manufacturers and their suppliers are therefore working hard to develop new cathode materials that use less cobalt. Tesla and his partner Panasonic are obviously ahead of the competition: According to the laboratory analyzes leaked to Wirtschaftswoche, the cathodes of the Panasonic cells used in the new Tesla Model 3 consist of only 2.8 percent cobalt. The current state of the art is currently eight percent cobalt. “That would be a significant competitive advantage for Tesla, Kobalt is currently very difficult to get on the world market,” says Sven Bauer, head of Germany’s largest independent battery producer BMZ.