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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

That is a complete misinterpretation of Tesla's document.

That part of the document is calculating the global annual battery demand once we're fully electrified. The chart says that 42M compact cars are sold annually by all vendors across all countries, and that if electrified, those 42M compact cars will have an average battery pack size of 53kWh, leading to an annual demand for 36TWh of batteries for that segment.

Telsa obviously doesn't believe they're going to get 100% of the market, they don't believe they're going to sell 42M compact cars per year. The 53kWh figure is no more meaningful.

Heck, that TBD in the table doesn't even promise that Tesla will even enter the segment, internet commentary to the contrary.

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They don't even believe the size of that market will be 42M compact cars. Autonomous cars will not be privately owned and be utilized very differently than privately owned cars. And of course, Tesla is investing in that as well.

A privately owned car is useless battery capacity that is sitting there not driving and fully charged for most of the time while you are sleeping, working, or whatever (i.e. not driving). An autonomous car owned by a company that sells rides is very different. It will be ferrying around people whenever it can. You need a lot less of those to satisfy demand.

Tesla will be selling lots of vehicles and batteries before we get there of course. But it would be a mistake to think of the market in terms of how things currently work. Which is the mistake this article makes.

> A privately owned car is useless battery capacity that is sitting there not driving and fully charged for most of the time while you are sleeping

That’s not necessarily true in the future. One idea I’ve heard is to use charging cars for energy grid balancing.

True, except domestic batteries will be cheap enough and more convenient. So we actually won't need the additional capacity from vehicles. Vehicle 2 grid will be possible but mostly redundant.

42M is the current number and Tesla would argue the worst case scenario. If you're calculating the cost of something you'd rather have a number closer to the worst case than the bad case.

If Tesla said that it would cost $5T instead of $10T to electrify the world because of FSD the world would laugh and dismiss the argument wholesale. 42M is the only defensible number they can use in their public calculations.

> Autonomous cars will not be privately owned and be utilized very differently than privately owned cars

Source? I find that to be a pretty bold statement.

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