Tesla announces "Powerwall" batteries

[Ben25]

Might as well just close the thread if you're gonna keep deleting posts that call you out... Try posting something useful every now and then...

[Sun Tzu]

Do any of you know what Tesla Warranty entails? I did not think so.

But we have an excellent track record from the EV division which has landed Tesla in court. The EV's batteries are warranted for 8 years or 100,000 miles. Sounds great don't it?

Well not until you make a claim as thousands have found out. All Tesla warranty implies is the battery will operate the vehicle. It makes no claims of capacity or performance. Many Tesla owners tested this in court to find out even if your EV only goes 10 miles after a charge, it still works and lost their case.

Tesla even admits to get the claimed mileage requires you to replace the battery every year or every 25K miles whichever comes first, but at your expense, not covered under warranty.

On the flip side Nissan is better as they warrant their battery to retain 80% capacity up to 5 years or 50K miles whichever comes first. So far it has costed them a forutne in warranty claims with the first 3 model years.

I know a lot of you want to believe it, but don't let your blind passion misguide you.

The DOT once required HEV's (EV's too but not sure) to report when their batteries reached 75% SOH. It was a fools requirement that did not take any consideration as to what effect that had on range or vehicle performance. They blindly assumed that the battery could no longer function well at 75% SOH. So instead of investigating real requirements, they 86'd it totally. Knowing that most people throw a perfectly good car away after 2 years...ummmm...see where I'm going with this?

Now transposing that the unregulated energy storage market, who is going to warranty capacity? The fine print will read something like, "You break you buy so sorry." At best some fork tongued grease ball in a fancy suit will promise some "guaranteed" throughput. Which might sound good to the uninformed, but will amount to your green delight battery putting out a third of the power it did the first year you bought it, all the while the manufacture will not honor the warranty because it is technically still providing energy. "Well you can still power your desk light can't you!?"

[Sun Tzu]

Sunking,

Where did you here that Aquion is going bankrupt ?

I will admit that if some serious amounts of product don't materialize
soon those boys are going to begin to look like
All hat, no cattle.

However I thought that they were still at the 'raking in the millions'
stage with the investors.

Bill Blake

Bill, I think Sun King is taking some liberties, but my guess is that he is talking about this:

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2015/04/29/exclusive-aquion-energy-cuts-jobs-in-pittsburgh.html

Although it isn't a chapter 11 announcement, but it is never a good sign in the startup world when a company that has made 4 product changes since starting production a year ago, starts cutting people. All hat and no cattle indeed.

As for investors...these big money tycoons get bored with Vegas and play roulette with startups. Kleiner Perkins has been looking like degenerate OTB gamblers for the last decade:

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/a-humbled-kleiner-perkins-adjusts-its-strategy/

Fortunately for those guys, Sammy Gravano is not one of their investors.

[Sundetective]

Hi Sunking Tzu,

Aqueon Energy still my man - for a little while.

Perhaps they are like the gal in the window in Amsterdam
who ran out on the sidewalk saying
' I give you good position'.

By 2016 we will see what type of position they have put themselves in.
It's a mighty big game they wish to play.
At least it's not an EEStor deal where no one ever gets anything.

There IS a little taste of product here and there.

Amy could probably tell us a bit more - if she feel Likes it

Bill Blake

Bill, I think Sun King is taking some liberties, but my guess is that he is talking about this:

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2015/04/29/exclusive-aquion-energy-cuts-jobs-in-pittsburgh.html

Although it isn't a chapter 11 announcement, but it is never a good sign in the startup world when a company that has made 4 product changes since starting production a year ago, starts cutting people. All hat and no cattle indeed.

As for investors...these big money tycoons get bored with Vegas and play roulette with startups. Kleiner Perkins has been looking like degenerate OTB gamblers for the last decade:

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/a-humbled-kleiner-perkins-adjusts-its-strategy/

Fortunately for those guys, Sammy Gravano is not one of their investors.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.