4 ms·

Are they off by an order of magnitude or two? A Tesla Powerwall2 retails for about $13k for 13kWh. No way the raw manufacturing costs are $65 for 77 of them.

• jdyer9 10mo ago
  So, in doing a bit of research from a link in one of the other comments, this is lcos, levelized cost of storage. I understand that to be roughly equivalent to the marginal cost of using it, including the capex divided over the unit volume. That same article uses $125/kwh as the capex, which is in line with your (and my) expectations of the cost to install. $65/mwh works out to $0.065/kwh, so that makes sense. Effectively you can read this as "it costs $65/mwh to store and then consume electricity using these batteries"
  • CyanLite2 10mo ago
    You’re right, upon further review you can get budget Lifepo4 batteries shipped to your door from Amazon for as low as $75/kwh, which includes cables, a BMS, and various Bluetooth connectivity. So $65/kwh seems fairly reasonable for raw battery capacity in very large quantities. But now it’s time to better understand why a Powerwall or other wall-mounted units are so much more expensive. I understand UL-listing costs, marketing, warranty, and other things are thrown in, but it’s $75/kwh versus $1000/kwh, a 13x difference. If even at a $100/kwh price point all homeowners need to get 10-20kwh in batteries just to help peak shave the grid and save tons of money since batteries will be a fraction of the cost of grid power.
    • toomuchtodo 10mo ago
      Because Tesla wants their ~25-30% gross margin on Powerwalls.