4 ms·

Yes, it's starting to look as though the cars are merely a shell for the very profitable batteries they're going to be cranking out in Nevada. Perhaps the whole

Yes, it's starting to look as though the cars are merely a shell for the very profitable batteries they're going to be cranking out in Nevada. Perhaps the whole Tesla car idea was a buyout play -- get established, build a name, then sell the whole thing to GM for $30 billion. Once the battery plant has economies of scale, they'll be fueling a whole new generation of electric vehicles by other makers, perhaps including the upcoming Apple and Google auto-pilot offerings (the Nexus car? the iCar?). Then there is the home and small office market for backup power, storage of daytime solar energy, off-grid and remote locations e.g. ranger stations in national parks. It'll be interesting to see how this shakes out.

dragontamer 11y ago
Except those uses of energy are better solved by Redox-flow batteries, Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES), or pumped hydro. http://energy.gov/oe/services/technology-development/energy-storage http://energy.gov/oe/services/technology-development/energy-... A single $5 Billion pumped-hydro plant can store 30 Gigawatt-hours of energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta... The energy demands of this country will be met by utility companies and their massive infrastructure projects. A few hundred MW-Hrs from Tesla is pretty small in the great scheme of utility energy storage.
- crabasa 11y ago
  I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that Telsa is competing with utilities to store energy at scale. I meant storing energy for personal use (vehicles/homes/etc). They will certainly source all of their energy from said utility companies.
  - dragontamer 11y ago
    The large scale energy use projects are leveraged by personal users however. If you have net-metering, then you sell your energy back to the grid. I mean, California's energy situation sucks (and will continue to suck until they build some large-scale energy storage solutions). But the majority of the country can just use net-metering... sell the energy back to the grid and get all the benefits of stored energy without actually having to buy Tesla's Batteries.
    - encoderer 11y ago
      Home solar is more valuable with an attached battery. Without it, most setups as sold will shutoff if your home loses grid power. A battery is not the only way to solve this but it's the best solution if you can afford it.
      - dragontamer 11y ago
        But that's not what people use Solar Panels for. They use Solar Panels to reduce (or even negate) electricity costs. Spending tens of thousands of dollars on batteries that only last a few hours when grid-power is lost is not a luxury the typical person can afford. But solar panels that are cheaper (and provide revenue through net-metering) will revolutionize the energy industry. The average homeowner uses 30 kW-hrs of electricity a day. So... what, three Power-Walls per day of backup energy for $10k + installation costs + inverter costs? With a power output of only 2kW? This is going to cost maybe 20k or 30k for a solution that gives you power for more than a day. In contrast, a simple gasoline generator will get you 5kW of power (6kW peak) and run for as long as you have gasoline. This crazy solution costs like $600 from Home Depo... and has several decades of experience to prove its effectiveness. http://www.homedepot.com/p/Powermate-5-000-Watt-Gasoline-Powered-Portable-Generator-PM0105007/202919571 http://www.homedepot.com/p/Powermate-5-000-Watt-Gasoline-Pow... Generator + Solar Panels is still looking a hell of a lot more practical than Solar Panels + Battery. $50 of gasoline is going to run you ~25 gallons, enough to last 2+ days without any power. And if a crazy hurricane "Sandy" situation occurs again, you can always go out to the local gas station to grab more gasoline for day 8, day 9, or day 11 without power. I mean, seriously? 10kWh per PowerWall is laughably small. ---------- I mean, when do you lose power for extended periods of time? Answer: when major hurricanes or snowstorms hit. That's what. It isn't like your Solar Panels will work while they're completely covered in snow. You'll need the generator if you actually want reliable off-grid energy anyway.
        blisterpeanuts 11y ago
        Maybe get a generator + Tesla 10 kWh wall battery? Then you get the best of both worlds. The Tesla will grandfather your solar energy advantage in the evening after the sun goes down, and the generator kicks in when the grid goes down. So your primary use of the grid will be, say, midnight to 6am while you're sleeping.
  - threeseed 11y ago
    We've had energy storage devices for homes for a while now. It isn't exactly tearing up the market. Very few people are willing to pay the significant upfront cost for the benefit of ongoing but small reductions in power bills. And that is with government subsidies (at least in Australia). I don't see how Tesla's superior technology is going to affect the product proposition.
    - blisterpeanuts 11y ago
      Similarly, we've had electric cars for a while, and we've had high end sports cars and sedans for quite a while, but Tesla came along and blew most of them out of the water. Except for range, which will be solved sooner or later, it's a stunning tour de force, especially coming from an American manufacturer. I have faith that Elon Musk will also think of a way to disrupt the home energy storage market, which in my opinion scarcely exists anyway. People have clunky, loud generators for emergencies, and it's possible to get rechargeable batteries to store your solar power, but there's not really an elegant solution yet to the after-dark problem. A quiet, high capacity "home battery" such as Tesla is planning might just be the ticket.
      - dragontamer 11y ago
        http://www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com/power/10-kw-home-standby-generators.html http://www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com/power/10-kw-home-sta... You can get 10kW of power from a Gas generator for $3000 (hooked up to a Propane fuel tank... or to a gas line if you trust those). A 500 gallon propane tank will keep you running virtually indefinitely, and will only cost a few thousand after installation costs. So you're realistically looking at $5k to $6k for a gas generator solution for a lot of people. In contrast, Power Wall is $3500 for a paltry 2kW of power... not enough to even run my air conditioning unit let alone the rest of my house. This cost does not include the inverter, the additional batteries that need to be built out, or the electrician who needs to come out and set this all up. After that extra money spent... it is unlikely to run for much longer than 24-hours. It is clear what the sane, reliable solution is. A gas generator. The Power Wall doesn't come anywhere close to the specs.

dragontamer 11y ago

Except those uses of energy are better solved by Redox-flow batteries, Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES), or pumped hydro. http://energy.gov/oe/services/technology-development/energy-storage http://energy.gov/oe/services/technology-development/energy-... A single $5 Billion pumped-hydro plant can store 30 Gigawatt-hours of energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta... The energy demands of this country will be met by utility companies and their massive infrastructure projects. A few hundred MW-Hrs from Tesla is pretty small in the great scheme of utility energy storage.

crabasa 11y ago
I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that Telsa is competing with utilities to store energy at scale. I meant storing energy for personal use (vehicles/homes/etc). They will certainly source all of their energy from said utility companies.
- dragontamer 11y ago
  The large scale energy use projects are leveraged by personal users however. If you have net-metering, then you sell your energy back to the grid. I mean, California's energy situation sucks (and will continue to suck until they build some large-scale energy storage solutions). But the majority of the country can just use net-metering... sell the energy back to the grid and get all the benefits of stored energy without actually having to buy Tesla's Batteries.
  - encoderer 11y ago
    Home solar is more valuable with an attached battery. Without it, most setups as sold will shutoff if your home loses grid power. A battery is not the only way to solve this but it's the best solution if you can afford it.
    - dragontamer 11y ago
      But that's not what people use Solar Panels for. They use Solar Panels to reduce (or even negate) electricity costs. Spending tens of thousands of dollars on batteries that only last a few hours when grid-power is lost is not a luxury the typical person can afford. But solar panels that are cheaper (and provide revenue through net-metering) will revolutionize the energy industry. The average homeowner uses 30 kW-hrs of electricity a day. So... what, three Power-Walls per day of backup energy for $10k + installation costs + inverter costs? With a power output of only 2kW? This is going to cost maybe 20k or 30k for a solution that gives you power for more than a day. In contrast, a simple gasoline generator will get you 5kW of power (6kW peak) and run for as long as you have gasoline. This crazy solution costs like $600 from Home Depo... and has several decades of experience to prove its effectiveness. http://www.homedepot.com/p/Powermate-5-000-Watt-Gasoline-Powered-Portable-Generator-PM0105007/202919571 http://www.homedepot.com/p/Powermate-5-000-Watt-Gasoline-Pow... Generator + Solar Panels is still looking a hell of a lot more practical than Solar Panels + Battery. $50 of gasoline is going to run you ~25 gallons, enough to last 2+ days without any power. And if a crazy hurricane "Sandy" situation occurs again, you can always go out to the local gas station to grab more gasoline for day 8, day 9, or day 11 without power. I mean, seriously? 10kWh per PowerWall is laughably small. ---------- I mean, when do you lose power for extended periods of time? Answer: when major hurricanes or snowstorms hit. That's what. It isn't like your Solar Panels will work while they're completely covered in snow. You'll need the generator if you actually want reliable off-grid energy anyway.
      - blisterpeanuts 11y ago
        Maybe get a generator + Tesla 10 kWh wall battery? Then you get the best of both worlds. The Tesla will grandfather your solar energy advantage in the evening after the sun goes down, and the generator kicks in when the grid goes down. So your primary use of the grid will be, say, midnight to 6am while you're sleeping.
- threeseed 11y ago
  We've had energy storage devices for homes for a while now. It isn't exactly tearing up the market. Very few people are willing to pay the significant upfront cost for the benefit of ongoing but small reductions in power bills. And that is with government subsidies (at least in Australia). I don't see how Tesla's superior technology is going to affect the product proposition.
  - blisterpeanuts 11y ago
    Similarly, we've had electric cars for a while, and we've had high end sports cars and sedans for quite a while, but Tesla came along and blew most of them out of the water. Except for range, which will be solved sooner or later, it's a stunning tour de force, especially coming from an American manufacturer. I have faith that Elon Musk will also think of a way to disrupt the home energy storage market, which in my opinion scarcely exists anyway. People have clunky, loud generators for emergencies, and it's possible to get rechargeable batteries to store your solar power, but there's not really an elegant solution yet to the after-dark problem. A quiet, high capacity "home battery" such as Tesla is planning might just be the ticket.
    - dragontamer 11y ago
      http://www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com/power/10-kw-home-standby-generators.html http://www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com/power/10-kw-home-sta... You can get 10kW of power from a Gas generator for $3000 (hooked up to a Propane fuel tank... or to a gas line if you trust those). A 500 gallon propane tank will keep you running virtually indefinitely, and will only cost a few thousand after installation costs. So you're realistically looking at $5k to $6k for a gas generator solution for a lot of people. In contrast, Power Wall is $3500 for a paltry 2kW of power... not enough to even run my air conditioning unit let alone the rest of my house. This cost does not include the inverter, the additional batteries that need to be built out, or the electrician who needs to come out and set this all up. After that extra money spent... it is unlikely to run for much longer than 24-hours. It is clear what the sane, reliable solution is. A gas generator. The Power Wall doesn't come anywhere close to the specs.