Tesla announces "Powerwall" batteries

[SunEagle]

This thread has no concept of Power Shifting / Time Shifting and that is what this battery is all about. You'll never save anything with a backup Battery / Generator. This Battery is about saving instead of using $.30 a KWH power during a 4-5 hour period during TOU pricing for Grid support.

So do the math and tell me that even shifting your usage from the $0.30/kWh Tier grid power to that battery is going to save you money after spending $7000 to install it?

[donald]

This thread has no concept of Power Shifting / Time Shifting ...............

No reason the system can do some of both arbitrage and backup. In the developed world, 90% most outages are predicted by the weather forecast. Simply don't use stored power when the weather forecast is bad.

Doing this function with software is easy. The problem may be figuring out the warranty. So I don't think this is a v1.0 feature. But there are a lot of possibilities.

[SunEagle]

realizing that this could go in any of the 1,233,456 tesla threads ... I found this most enlightening regarding the potential of these batteries :

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3132996-the-silliness-of-teslas-10kwh-back-up-battery?auth_param=10e4qn%3A1akc9ia%3A8c030ccd5cfa7abf3a090511d3ed9276&uprof=82&dr=1

it made me decide to sit back and watch this unfold for at least a couple of years yet

Nice article. Thanks for adding some clarity to what some of us have been trying to say.

Yes this is new battery technology and yes it may be useful to some people some time in the future, but for now don't jump in without knowing how shallow the water is.

[Willy T]

realizing that this could go in any of the 1,233,456 tesla threads ... I found this most enlightening regarding the potential of these batteries :

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3132996-the-silliness-of-teslas-10kwh-back-up-battery?auth_param=10e4qn%3A1akc9ia%3A8c030ccd5cfa7abf3a090511d3ed9276&uprof=82&dr=1

it made me decide to sit back and watch this unfold for at least a couple of years yet

This thread has no concept of Power Shifting / Time Shifting and that is what this battery is all about. You'll never save anything with a backup Battery / Generator. This Battery is about saving instead of using $.30 a KWH power during a 4-5 hour period during TOU pricing for Grid support.

Meanwhile, for the same price, a natural gas back-up generator can run all your appliances for as long as the power is out.

Thus, for anyone with access to natural gas, there's no rational reason to buy the Tesla back-up battery.

[donald]

realizing that this could go in any of the 1,233,456 tesla threads ... I found this most enlightening regarding the potential of these batteries :

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3132996-the-silliness-of-teslas-10kwh-back-up-battery?auth_param=10e4qn%3A1akc9ia%3A8c030ccd5cfa7abf3a090511d3ed9276&uprof=82&dr=1

it made me decide to sit back and watch this unfold for at least a couple of years yet

This article is silly. A retrofit of an automatic natural gas generator will cost a lot more than $2K installed. A Kohler water cooled generator that will run my AC is close to $20K installed. But I can't run my dryer and AC at the same time with that system. The 10 year cost of a maintenance contract on an installed unit will almost double the cost for inexpensive automatic systems.

The author also thinks Tesla introduced two residential battery models. He's obviously not a software guy.

In my experience living five years on an unreliable power grid, I would choose battery plus quality portable generator that does not run AC.

The interesting residential question is how this system compares to higher end FLA in an offgrid system. Not if it competes with cheap backup generators.

[russ]

realizing that this could go in any of the 1,233,456 tesla threads ... I found this most enlightening regarding the potential of these batteries :

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3132996-the-silliness-of-teslas-10kwh-back-up-battery?auth_param=10e4qn%3A1akc9ia%3A8c030ccd5cfa7abf3a090511d3ed9276&uprof=82&dr=1

it made me decide to sit back and watch this unfold for at least a couple of years yet

That is what we are saying all along - now is not the time to jump.

Contrary to what some would like to think, we are looking forward to better solutions arriving and will be using them as they are available.

[Rdjntx]

realizing that this could go in any of the 1,233,456 tesla threads ... I found this most enlightening regarding the potential of these batteries :

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3132996-the-silliness-of-teslas-10kwh-back-up-battery?auth_param=10e4qn%3A1akc9ia%3A8c030ccd5cfa7abf3a090511d3ed9276&uprof=82&dr=1

it made me decide to sit back and watch this unfold for at least a couple of years yet

[russ]

And I've never figured out this internet bullying thing. we've not taken over your browser, you have an off switch.

It seems to be a modern day thing thrown out when one of the spoiled generation doesn't get their way.

[dahur]

If Tesla is using the same cells that currently go into the Model S pack, they have many years of experience with them. Those cells are related to the NCR18650BE and Panasonic has tested them. Why do you believe that Panasonic and Tesla have not tested their cells? Do you believe that they don't have the same torture tests that have been running continuously? All the EV manufacturers do this. The cells have been inside automobiles, a far more strenuous environment since 2011, with shipping end user product since mid 2012. Pulse discharge easily in the 4-5C range and Supercharging is about 1.5 to 1.7C.

Of course, you can wait for independent testing lab results. That will take a while. In the meantime, the battery degradation levels for Model S vehicles with > 100,000 miles is pretty impressive.

Great argument..! So good, I knew you'd put a burr under the saddle with it.

[Mike90250]

How do the other moderators feel about this?

Is bullying ok in moderation?

This is a technically oriented solar site. Ask a question, you get a free answer. Ask an inane question, you get a suitable answer. But we'll still hold your hand and direct you on a honest path. If you want a back rub and some yes sir, there are other sites that will give you that, but they are less technical, and don't care if you blow your money on junk.
Brutally honest here, since the mods don't get any sales commission, or any compensation at all.

And I've never figured out this internet bullying thing. we've not taken over your browser, you have an off switch.

[Sunking]

Here's a historical writeup. Looks like Musk did risk quite a bit of his money when it got rough.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmul...anies-arent/2/

I have read the article two years ago and a good part of the reason I do not see Musk in a positive light. His company was built on tax payer money and using Carbon Trading scam, and that is exactly what carbon trading is, a scam developed by Al Bore himself. Yep Musk receives $35,000 extra profit for every car he sales ripped off from other auto manufactures in the form of a Carbon Credit and Al Bore gets a commission from every Carbon Trade there is as a Broker. Do you know who David Blood and Generation Management Investment firm is? It is the Brokerage firm that all Carbon Credits go through. The company receives a commission and transaction fee for every trade. David Blood and Al Gore are the founders and majority stock holders. They started it in 2004, and then Al Bore came out with the movie Inconvenient Truth in 2006. Connect the dots my friend.

Does that not bother you? Can you not see what is going on? Do you not understand why both Democratic controlled Senate and Congress told Obama to go pound rocks in 2010 when Obama's Cap and Trade law was shot down in flames? They know it is a SCAM and who is at the top of it.

[DanKegel]

Here's a historical writeup. Looks like Musk did risk quite a bit of his money when it got rough.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2013/05/11/the-real-reason-tesla-is-still-alive-and-other-green-car-companies-arent/2/

He's been very lucky, too -- but you have to be prepared to make use of luck, so kudos to him for pulling it off so far.

[Sunking]

Skepticism when a company like Tesla stretch the current technology , stretch the rules and are willing to take the risk of deploying a product like the Powerwall into the marked.

Surly they share the risk with the customers, the early adopters, but so they did with the cars - .

Excuse me. What risk did Musk (Tesla) take? They used Tax Payers dollars and damn near went Bankrupt until Toyota bailed them out and took them public. Same with the Tesla Mega Factory is using Tax Payer money to build the damn thing. If it works Musk wins huge profits. If it fails tax payers get the bill.

[Sundetective]

Making Product Changes

If making product changes makes an outfit Look bad I guess they
should have executed the King of it, the Legendary Thomas A. Edison.
Not only did he make CONSTANT Changes but has the expensive Patents
to prove it.
Then after countless changes the man closed his battery factory down, dead,
in order to make even more changes.

When World War One came they went into overdrive and spent more money,
brilliance and effort
(in todays dollars) than Aquion Energy has ever seen
just to make even more changes and run more thousands of experiments.

Then Decade after Decade even after his death it was not unusual
for a change to be made to his Nickel Iron Battery.

People around the world are still experimenting with changing the
badhammer well over a Century later as we speaks !

So old Bill says let the changes continue.
We need all the good dat we can get.
Long Live Aquion Energy and everybody else.
In the name of Con Edison, GE and all the Edison Empire
improve and change on the fly.
That's how we got here - no Lie.

Bill Blake

[Roil]

I must admit I find it interesting the level of skepticism among many of the participants on this thread.

Skepticism when a company like Tesla stretch the current technology , stretch the rules and are willing to take the risk of deploying a product like the Powerwall into the marked.

Surly they share the risk with the customers, the early adopters, but so they did with the cars - the cars has proven excellent, and that includes the battery, the charging solutions - the total energy efficiency of it. I am sure there has been warrenty issues - I know at least of one owner getting a new battery after 100.000 km driving, so Tesla do seem to honor their warranty, at least for some.

The cars are not fancy corporate promised BS any longer - they are real. I see them every day on the streets of Oslo, Norway, thousands of them. I have tried one, it was excellent, the user interface is one million time better than my Audi and my previous Volvo.

I would be very surprised if Tesla will not make success with the Powerwall.