Order a car without a battery?

I seriously doubt that you'd ever be able to order a new car without a battery.

Even if you could do it, the difference in the amount paid by just trading in and trading in sans-battery would be zero as you'd get far less for the trade-in.

I'm having trouble grasping the purpose...

If you're buying a new Model S to replace an existing one....... why wouldn't you want a new battery to go with it? At best if you did a trade as you describe you'd be looking a net cost difference of $0, most likely would cost you more to do it the way you describe (they're not going to swap your battery for free...)

Just trying to understand the purpose.

Now, if you had a wrecked Model S with a good battery that you owned, and didn't want to pony up for a new battery on the replacement, that might make sense...

Hmmm. What value do you think a new pack would add to your trade in/car?

My aunts car got a new pack at 30k (moving from A to at least a B pack). Its around 48 k now. How much value do you think this fresher, better pack adds?

I'm having trouble trying to grasp why you are asking the internet and not, you know, Tesla.

invisik said:

I already own a perfectly good 85kw battery pack in my S85. If the packs are the same in the 85D, I'd love to keep my pack and have my service center put it into an 85D. Then I'd trade my S85 in and Tesla can put a returned pack in it it something. This seems like a better way to upgrade with few downsides......

-m

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I recommend that you ask Tesla if you can do that, instead of asking your question here.

Once the Tesla person you ask recovers their composure, their answer will be "Sorry but no we can't do that". Extra work for them for no compelling reason. They can sell more cars then they can manufacture right now and for the foreseeable future.

ecarfan said:

Once the Tesla person you ask recovers their composure

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Well put! Rofl

invisik said:

I was thinking something along the lines of the price of the without the battery is maybe half or a third of the total price.

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Tesla's CTO said that the battery is less than 1/4 of the cost of the Model S in most cases. With an ASP around $100K that could mean the battery may cost less than ~$25K. This is consistent with recent reports of Tesla quoting $25K for a replacement 85 kWh pack.

I tried to do that back in 2012 when I ordered. The reason? It became apparent that the car was not eligible for duty-free import to Canada under NAFTA because of the value of the Japanese cells in the battery pack. I figured I could import the car duty free, then pay the import duty on just the battery pack. No dice.