Comment by lazide
10 hours ago
Uh, car batteries are much heavier than most ICE’s. The curb weight on teslas’s are crazy high.
BYD can be lighter because they skip on safety gear and proper structural elements - in my experience.
10 hours ago
Uh, car batteries are much heavier than most ICE’s. The curb weight on teslas’s are crazy high.
BYD can be lighter because they skip on safety gear and proper structural elements - in my experience.
I'd love to hear more about your experience with BYD. The ex just bought one and my kids ride in it daily. I helped negotiate the sale - I drive a Tesla and I'm very happy with the BYD.
Brazilians got a bunch of them and they are super common in Brazil. Also common - broken suspension parts from driving them in Brazil.
Also, the only cars I’ve ever ridden on that the top of my head literally touches the headliner while sitting in the back seat. Other than that, they seem good?
BMW M3. Curb Weight: 3988 lb [1]
Tesla Model 3. Curb Weight: 3721 lb [2]
[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/bmw/3-series
[2] https://www.caranddriver.com/tesla/model-3
The Model 3 performance model (more equivalent to the M3) weighs over 4K lbs. The model you are quoting is the lowest range and lightest of all Teslas.
The Tesla model S (actually more equivalent to the M3) is over 4500 lbs [https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2026/features-specs/].
No one is realistically saving weight by switching to batteries. Because batteries are heavy for the energy and gasoline is hella energy dense.
Top-of-the-line NMC cells have energy density around 250Wh/kg at the pack level. The newer solid-state batteries can reportedly increase this to 400Wh/kg.
So a reasonable 75kWh battery pack is going to weigh around 300kg and in future around 200kg. This is... not a lot, actually. To a point where shaving off 20-30 kg from the electric motor weight is going to result in a noticeable performance/price difference.
Teslas also don't have "crazy" weight. Model 3 is 1700kg and a comparable (in size) Ford Focus is 1300kg.
If you stop cherry picking the lightest Tesla, you’ll see what I mean.
400 kg == 881 lbs, and that is their lightest model with lowest range.
Model 3 LR with 360 miles of range is 1820 kg. Still nothing crazy.