Gigafactory

Tesla hopes to make as many batteries in one factory as are made in the entire world .
Tesla’s selling price to installers is $3500 for 10kWh and $3000 for 7kWh. (Price excludes inverter and installation.) Deliveries begin in late Summer.

Quote: Powerwall specs:

Mounting: Wall Mounted Indoor/Outdoor
Inverter: Pairs with growing list of inverters
Energy: 7 kWh or 10 kWh
Continuous Power: 2 kW
Peak Power: 3.3 kW
Round Trip Efficiency: >92%
Operating Temperature Range: -20C (-4F) to 43C (110F)
Warranty: 10 years
Dimensions: H: 1300mm W: 860mm D:180mm

Now the grand predictions for the great glory of mankind are all well and good, and I am sure that Michael Bluejay would love to get off the electrical grid, I have to say what the hell would the average person want with this Powerball. A gasoline generator will produce 3 Kw of power for about $200.


For $4K you can get a 20,000-Watt (LP)/18,000-Watt (NG) Standby Generator with Generac OHVI® engine which should run most homes with no loss of any powerthrough the most severe outages.

If you are going to use the battery to time shift so that you can charge it late at night and use it during the day, I presume you can save a few pennies per kWh. At what point can you pay down the $3.5K cost.

Am I missing something or is this just another device for people with a lot of money to make them feel better about themselves?

Have you factored in the "avoided cost" concept that a local utility has, by not building a new plant, avoided saddling its rate holders with added costs. So a buyer of a BOB (Big Old Battery) will get fifty percent off from his utility.

Quote: Pacomartin

Am I missing something or is this just another device for people with a lot of money to make them feel better about themselves?

You are missing something: time.

The same argument could possibly have been made about the locomotive, the car and the airplane. I know they were made about the helicopter (there's a video where Igor Sikorsky uses the word "never" a lot). Not to mention things like the telephone. Arthur Clarke liked to relate this quote: "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." -- Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876.

Anyway, in time batteries will cost less and solar cells will be more efficient and cheaper. By then, you'll wonder how we ever did without them.

Oh, and also:

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

Quote: Nareed

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

Early TV was thought of as a culture tool
only, a place where you could watch
operas and ballet in the home. Bill
Gates dismissed the internet as late
as the early 90's. He said in 1997 that
if you'd told him 5 years earlier that
we'd be seeing McD commercials on
TV with a web address at the bottom,
he would have thought you were crazy.

Before Henry Ford, nobody even tried
to make cars for the average person. It
was a rich mans toy only.

Quote: Nareed

The same argument could possibly have been made about the locomotive, the car and the airplane.

No doubt, there was many a man who faced with car problems said, we never had this problem with the horses.

Perhaps I was being a little judgemental. There are many urban dwellers who can't run a cheap gasoline generator or a liquid natural gas. I had friends who lived through the great blackout of New York City (about 20 hours in the midst of a brutal heat wave in July 1977). They said the finest penthouse without air conditioning, the ability to open windows, or even to flush toilets or get water pumped to your sink becomes a prison hellhole. You were better off on the streets trying to stay out of the way of the looters.

For people like that, $3500 is a painless way to keep yourself in some essential services. With LED lights, low power electronics, and fans and an emergency way to tap into a water heater to flush toilets and wash your face, you could make a few hours in relative comfort.

On 3 April 1973 the prototype handheld phone weighed 1.1 kg and measured 23 cm long, 13 cm deep and 4.45 cm wide. The prototype offered a talk time of just 30 minutes and took 10 hours to re-charge. So we can all be greatful for advances in battery technology.

Quote: Pacomartin

Perhaps I was being a little judgemental.

Not exactly. New technology is usually expensive and only a few wealthy people can afford it. Remember cell phones? I remember when Color TVs were not within reach of everyone yet.

Also keep in mind: predictions are difficult, especially about the future.

Some technologies which looked useless, redundant, superfluous and/or expensive did flop. The Segway, for instance, or instant movies. For that matter the Concorde was an expensive flop, or perhaps ahead of its time? While you're at it, look up "The Great Eastern," I think you'll find it interesting.

Quote:

So we can all be greatful for advances in battery technology.

And perhaps Tesla jumped the gun. I've been hearing early rumblings about aluminum-ion batteries.

Quote: Pacomartin

A gasoline generator will produce 3 Kw of power for about $200.

I live in northern New Jersey.

After Hurricane Sandy, many gas stations were closed because they didn't have power for the pumps. Those that were open had a long line of cars, plus a long line of people with gas cans in hand, to bring home to their gas generator. They generally had one pump dedicated to the gas can people.

A gas generator is not a great choice for a backup system. Emergency? Sure, but not for a reliable backup.

Quote: Pacomartin

For $4K you can get a 20,000-Watt (LP)/18,000-Watt (NG) Standby Generator with Generac OHVI® engine which should run most homes with no loss of any powerthrough the most severe outages.

Am I missing something or is this just another device for people with a lot of money to make them feel better about themselves?

I work at an electrical supply company. In the first months after Sandy, we've sold a lot of those type of generators. It's slowed down lately. No longer a hot item.

(In the days after Sandy, we also sold plenty of connection kits for people who had gas generators, but hadn't installed the necessary home hookup outlet.)

Frankly, I think either is overkill. In this area, its very rare for a blackout to last for more than a couple hours. Yeah, my own house was out for two weeks, but I had friends and relatives nearby. I made do. I ain't shelling out $4K to be prepared for the next "Hundred Year Storm".

---

On a side note, why does the hot water heater continue to work in a blackout? I mean, I get that it's gas powered, but isn't the thermostat electrical? We were home and spent the night during Sandy. In the morning, I was surprised that I had hot water.

Quote: Nareed

Also keep in mind: predictions are difficult, especially about the future..

To be fair, I did lead off with what makes this practical today at this price point. Not in some distant future when it is twice the energy for a third of the cost.

Initially, I was thinking that gasoline generators at 5%-10% of the cost, or LPN generators at the same cost but with more power and longevity makes much more sense than batteries for a home. But I wasn't thinking of people who pay $1000 per square foot for their homes.

The article below discusses some of the pros and cons of a home battery.

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/get-tesla-home-battery-let-physics-explain/


A newly constructed home could have a whole network that functions as a data network, but also a low power network. If you wire it and put it right to a battery you would have USB plugs for not just your computer and video equipment, but also for fans in hot weather or battery chargers for electric socks and places to make hot cup of soup and tea for power outages.

Airbus pulls a Tesla.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2015/05/03/airbus-does-a-tesla-with-e-fan-electric-plane-assembly-line/

At the risk of bringing this topic up again, Eton Musk makes reference to the "Darwin Award" in his introduction of the Power Wall. He uses it in the ordinary sense that most people do, mankind will get the Darwin award for making ourselves extinct.

Nareed can send him an email to correct him.