Are Electric Cars Collectable?

I'm pretty sure that if you had an original EV1 right now it would be worth a fair bit on BAT.  GM never sold them, only leased, and after the leases were up they took pretty much all of them back and crushed them.  I think there are a few in museums.

Collectible? Prices are already through the roof.

Why should full sized be any different? 

We also have no straight answer for this because we genuinely don't know where battery technology will go in the next few years. Dyson still alleges that they're about to produce solid-state batteries, and the science behind Lithium-Sulphur from compaies like this one could contain up to 3 times the energy density of Lithium-ion from some sources.

So I think I just have to repeat what someone already said- people will collect it because for whatever reason, they like it. People today go though huge lengths to keep something period-correct and working, and with people building their own battery packs out of trashed cells for free I'd say they'll still be around.

Lacks excitement, lacks passion, was derivitive of (and also worse performing) an existing design, yet... it's unique. Someone will want one, so depending supply and demand of the future, maybe? These cars, apart from being a footnote in EV history, always seemed odd to me. I think a quality sedan would have been the smarter move to debut with, to be honest. It didn't look much different from the Elise, cornered like a cement truck in comparison, and was three times as expensive. So, normal people AND car people would both be equally likely to ignore it.

Now had they simply launched with the Model S...

I'd put money on an Exige being more collectible though. Look what good Elans and Cortinas go for these days.

In reply to te72 :

So the car that sold every one they could make you're claiming was a bad move? Why, exactly? They were hot commodities when new.

They couldn't go straight to the model S, that was too big a leap. The Roadster seemed to be a good first step to me.

I still say that the early RWD Model S will be the Blue Chip EV collector car, specifically the P85+. That was in essence the first real Tesla and the first real EV that could actually be used every day and it will likely stay compatible for a long time.

Plus it'll be one of the very very few that can do burnouts.

I guess I must be weird for liking the Tesla Roadster then. 

In reply to rezisehtnys :

Yes. But there's nothing wrong with that. 

Way too many Model S made, that is not a recipe for increasing value if that is what is meant by 'collectible'.

However, if you have an all-original one that stills works after 30 years, that will be rare, as the electronics will certainly fail, just look at any luxury car 10 years old to see that.

Only 2500 Roadsters were made, that is much better as collectibles go, but they were always expensive, so not sure I see too much upside, can you buy one today cheap?  don't think so

The Tesla Roadster wasn't a bad car. Didn't look bad, didn't drive bad. It wasn't as good a car as the Elise, sure. But I think they'll have some collector's value just because they're rare, unusual, and Tesla's first car. I don't think there will be any trouble making replacement li-ion batteries for the foreseeable future - ni-cad, ni-mh and even lead-acid batteries are still available off the shelf. It could even be possible to build packs with a different type of battery that simulates li-ions at the module or pack level.

I think we need to also bear in mind that there are historically important cars and there are collector cars and there are blue chip investment cars, and they're not necessarily the same things. The original Mini is historically important, but is only marginally a collector car (with the possible exception of genuine Cooper S), and far from blue chip. I think Tesla as a company will prove to be historically important (the Model S more than the Roadster), because they were the first mainstream electric car, and caught the imagination of the general public as cool, with an appeal beyond the environmentalist demographic. Who knows if they will be good investments - that's been hard to predict in the past. But I predict they will be seen as marking a turning point in automotive history.

As for keeping them running, I bet there will be enough of an enthusiast community to create work-arounds for most problems. I remember when electronics  and emission controls first crept into cars in the 70s, and it was widely seen as the end of performance. In the 80s we started to get fully ECU controlled cars, which was going to mean the end of DIY mechanics. Grassroots motorsports was going to mean keeping the MGs and Triumphs running forever, because no-one would be able to do anything with those #@$!* computers. What we got instead was an enthusiast community of clever, resourceful people and the golden age of grassroots performance. The skillsets required are quite different in some cases (very few MG tuners could envision plugging a laptop into the ECU to change the mixture, rather than the arcane witchcraft of swapping SU metering needles), but there's never been so much performance in the aftermarket, much of it clean and reliable.

Change brings fear, but it also brings opportunity. Some things will pass into history, others will change our lives for the better. My 15 WRX outperforms my 58 XK150S in every way, and is clean, reliable and economical - things that the Jag couldn't even contemplate.

There are this many responses to the original post?  Sure sounds like they'll be collectible.

dculberson said:

In reply to te72 :

So the car that sold every one they could make you're claiming was a bad move? Why, exactly? They were hot commodities when new.

They couldn't go straight to the model S, that was too big a leap. The Roadster seemed to be a good first step to me.

I can't say I was paying attention when they were new, barely even registered. Why were they a hot commodity? I say it was a bad move because it was a bad platform to use for an electric car. Electric doesn't suit, for the time being, sporty driving, due to the excessive weight in comparison. Yes, I know the Model 3 and even the Model S can be quick around the cones, but I've yet to see one take FTD, or even top 10 at any event I've been to.

Electric propulsion certainly didn't help the Elise platform. It was designed to be as lightweight as possible, to handle as optimally as was possible. What part of adding 1200 lbs to that platform makes any sense? Our LS400 weighs just under 3900 lbs. If it weighed 4900 lbs, I genuinely believe I'd struggle to notice. This would not be the case with my Miata. See where I'm going here? The shoe just didn't fit, hence why I say they should have started with the Model S.

I don't see why that would have been all that big of a leap? Perhaps acquiring a suitable pre-existing chassis from another manufacturer? I'm sure Lotus was MORE than grateful to see cash headed their way, from literally anybody. Others may not have been. I suppose I can see your point there, if that's what you were going for.

In reply to te72 :

You do realize that the collectability of a car does not hinge on what you think of the car- it's up to what others think of the car.  There's more than enough people who love Teslas that every one of them will be collectable.  

There are tons of cars out there that I don't like, and there are massive numbers of people who don't like the cars I have.  Neither of those factors means cars are not collectable.  

te72 said:

I can't say I was paying attention when they were new, barely even registered. Why were they a hot commodity? I say it was a bad move because it was a bad platform to use for an electric car. Electric doesn't suit, for the time being, sporty driving, due to the excessive weight in comparison. Yes, I know the Model 3 and even the Model S can be quick around the cones, but I've yet to see one take FTD, or even top 10 at any event I've been to.

I think that was part of the point - at the time the Tesla Roadster came out, previous EV designs were marginally scaled up golf carts, with glacial acceleration and sub-80 mile range. With a few interesting home-brewed exceptions. The Roadster's 200 mile range and good acceleration were a game-changer - suddenly we had an EV that was a luxury item that people wanted instead of the automotive equivalent of a hair shirt, a display of how much you were willing to torture yourself to show off your virtue.

The other reason Tesla started with converted Elises was the startup cost was a lot lower - a way to get the company off the ground and prove they were viable before they tackled making an entire car from scratch.

Collectibility is dumb. It's literally just a a bunch of people with money suddenly deciding something is worth more because of whatever reason they decide upon. That being said. I would guess the Tesla Roadster does have potential because of it's place in Tesla's history. I personally don't like Tesla in general and especially the original Roadster but I'm not one of the rich guys that's going to bid one up unreasonably high at auction.

Somewhere in the late 19th century: Members of Ye Olde Stagecoach Club ruminated about whether those new automobiles will ever be collectable.  "Coaches were designed to be pulled by horses.  Self-propulsion mechanisms make the coach too heavy and ruin the chassis dynamics.  Reach coaches = real horses!"

There is a Tesla Roadster in space.  I think they'll be collectable.

Robbie said:

ShawnG said:

And I restore cars for a living.

That's exactly right. I find I collect many different types of garbage. Not just cars.

rcutclif

 I do that, too.  Occasionally the garbage even becomes parts of cars

te72 said:

I can't say I was paying attention when they were new, barely even registered. Why were they a hot commodity? I say it was a bad move because it was a bad platform to use for an electric car. Electric doesn't suit, for the time being, sporty driving, due to the excessive weight in comparison. Yes, I know the Model 3 and even the Model S can be quick around the cones, but I've yet to see one take FTD, or even top 10 at any event I've been to.

 

Electric propulsion certainly didn't help the Elise platform. It was designed to be as lightweight as possible, to handle as optimally as was possible. What part of adding 1200 lbs to that platform makes any sense? Our LS400 weighs just under 3900 lbs. If it weighed 4900 lbs, I genuinely believe I'd struggle to notice. This would not be the case with my Miata. See where I'm going here? The shoe just didn't fit, hence why I say they should have started with the Model S.

 

I don't see why that would have been all that big of a leap? Perhaps acquiring a suitable pre-existing chassis from another manufacturer? I'm sure Lotus was MORE than grateful to see cash headed their way, from literally anybody. Others may not have been. I suppose I can see your point there, if that's what you were going for.

Again, they quickly sold every single one they could make. Your take on why it is or isn't a great car has no bearing on whether it was a good place for them to start. They needed to get their footing as a manufacturer, they needed money, they got both. A good start.

And yes, making a chassis from scratch is much more demanding than modifying an existing one. That's what I meant by the S being too big a leap.

te72 said:

I can't say I was paying attention when they were new, barely even registered. Why were they a hot commodity? I say it was a bad move because it was a bad platform to use for an electric car. Electric doesn't suit, for the time being, sporty driving, due to the excessive weight in comparison. Yes, I know the Model 3 and even the Model S can be quick around the cones, but I've yet to see one take FTD, or even top 10 at any event I've been to.

 

Electric propulsion certainly didn't help the Elise platform. It was designed to be as lightweight as possible, to handle as optimally as was possible. What part of adding 1200 lbs to that platform makes any sense? Our LS400 weighs just under 3900 lbs. If it weighed 4900 lbs, I genuinely believe I'd struggle to notice. This would not be the case with my Miata. See where I'm going here? The shoe just didn't fit, hence why I say they should have started with the Model S.

 

I don't see why that would have been all that big of a leap? Perhaps acquiring a suitable pre-existing chassis from another manufacturer? I'm sure Lotus was MORE than grateful to see cash headed their way, from literally anybody. Others may not have been. I suppose I can see your point there, if that's what you were going for.

"Electric doesn't suit sporty driving"? Then how did NIO and their electric EP9 make a Nurburgring lap record this year?

At the end of the day my guy, you're arguing against someone's personal tastes- and making some false equivalency arguments at the same time. Electrics have come a long way in 10 years, and that's just with facts we have reverse-engineered from Moody's, software data dumps and tesla wrecks.

I get that collectibility is a matter of taste, and there's no accounting for it, no matter the flavor. That's just a reflection of the hobby in general.

I do also understand that electrics have come a long way in the last ten years, but I'll stand by my original point that in 2008, they were a long way from where they are today. Nio's EP9 wasn't running an admittedly amazing and freaky to watch (I'd seen it a while back, actually) ring lap back then, it was doing it after 20 years of modern EV development. Still impressive, but not the subject of the original post here. =)

My main point here is that not all things suit all vehicles. An electric drivetrain does not suit a sports car any more than a highly strung sports car engine suits a pickup truck. Each tool has a purpose, and until batteries and electric motors become as power dense (pound for pound here, so a 500 lb electric setup vs a 500 lb ICE + fuel supply), I won't find myself getting on board with them for sporting applications. For things like pickup trucks and more normal cars? Perfect, and getting better by the year. In time, I'll be with you guys, but for now... not so much. In 2008? Definitely not.

Tesla wanted the roadster to be light and they knew nothing about building cars, so Lotus was a great match for them.  The fact they spent huge time and money to change everything was their own fault and failure.  Tesla in fact has been a huge failure at every turn.  It only shows that if you have billions to lose, you can look successful, or put another way, you can sell anything if you have enough money to promote it.

In reply to nimblemotorsports :

To add some balance, a lot of car companies have failed throughout history, yet contributed some great innovations to the industry. Much as I don't care for EV's, I'll be happy to put Tesla right alongside Lotus themselves. Financially, both have been bleeding money more often than not. However, both have done things quite well and made the big companies take notice (and ideas) about what they do in their particular specialty.

Lotus did racing really well. Tesla has done EV really well. Both are specialist companies, and I admire the risk taking that both have put forth over the years.

Perhaps a better comparison would be Tucker. Tucker was also a company with ideas far ahead of its time...

In reply to te72 :

Tucker struggled to sell 50 cars.

I think Tesla is doing better than that.