
Tesla Energy - tga_d
http://www.teslamotors.com/presskit/teslaenergy
======
wiremine
What I'd love to see is a ROI calculator that:

* uses my zip code to figure out what my non-peak costs might be.

* allows me to optionally calculate solar energy capture (so I can see what impact having solar would be, given the average sunny days in my area)

* takes into account the wear and tear average cold weather would have on the lifetime of the batter and the payback period.

For example, I live in Michigan, and I don't know what my off peak cost is off
the top of my head. I also have no idea how much sunshine I get, or how 10
degree lows for two months would impact the battery's ability to keep a
charge.

Anybody know if something like this exists?

~~~
ams6110
I would guess for most people it would show an ROI number that is not
conducive to sales.

Also, what is the environmental impact of the manufacture of LI batteries at
this scale? Lithium mining, processing, assembly, delivery... we can't just
ignore that.

~~~
at-fates-hands
I agree.

Strangely, all of these issues were conveniently left out of the article.

Not sure everybody knows this, but its not economically feasible to recycle
these batteries:

 _" Recycled lithium is as much as five times the cost of lithium produced
from the least costly brine based process. It is not competitive for recycling
companies to extract lithium from slag, or competitive for the OEMs to buy at
higher price points from recycling companies. "_

Add in the fact there are currently very few dedicated LI recycling companies
in the world, let alone in the US:

 _" With lithium recycling in its infancy, there is currently no main
recycling infrastructure in the world that treats only automotive Li-ion
batteries. A few pilot plants, such as Umicore's Hoboken plant in Belgium that
are at a demonstration stage exist. Lack of standardisation in battery
chemistries and changing landscape with respect to different elements under
research for battery production other than lithium have made evaluation of the
recycled value of the components uncertain for the recyclers."_

source: [http://www.waste-management-
world.com/articles/print/volume-...](http://www.waste-management-
world.com/articles/print/volume-12/issue-4/features/the-lithium-battery-
recycling-challenge.html)

Call me skeptical, but I'm not sure Tesla has really given consideration to
these issues. Their approach to these obvious issues are not addressed at all
in their press release.

~~~
revelation
So I recently needed a special cable to make some old gear work. It was only
available from a single source and they charged me an arm and a half for it.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because the price of something has very,
very, very, very, very little to do with how _feasible_ something is, how much
work is required on a _fundamental_ level.

So what? Recycling lithium isn't profitable _right now this very instant_?
Because _the price_ is too high? Apart from the circular logic here, this
means nothing.

(This kind of thinking is disappointingly common here. We will never get
anywhere when we do some adhoc "price" analysis on every new technology and
obviously deduce it's infeasible and should not be explored. Cars were
_economically infeasible_ back when you bought petrol from the pharmacy.)

~~~
czottmann
Yes. Thank you. I wish I could upvote your comment more than once.

------
spiritplumber
Funny that something called Tesla Energy brings back direct current to the
home. I wonder how many people will catch that.

~~~
andrewtbham
I wonder if technology becomes prevalent if we will see appliances change to
run on DC.

~~~
krschultz
I would take a wall plug standard for low current DC. If I have a giant
battery pack in my garage full of DC, why do I need to convert it back to AC
to run 15 feet into my house where it then gets turned back into DC to charge
my phone & laptop?

I had a boat with both AC & DC sockets, but we had the normal socket for both
and the label plates showed you which was which. I don't think that solution
is acceptable for the wider marketplace, the plugs should probably be
physically distinct. Maybe USB-C is the solution, though I don't know how long
the cables can be.

~~~
jessriedel
From an efficiency standpoint, the only thing that matters is how you handle
the high drain equipment. It doesn't make sense to worry about inefficiencies
in your 5V phone charger because its power draw is trivial anyways.

~~~
aharonovich
oh but think how much nicer the cable looks without the bulky box of the
transformer.

------
ChuckMcM
Nice, that came in lower than I was expecting. I was thinking $5K for the 7kWh
unit. Of course that is the "installers" price so who knows what those folks
will consider the 'retail' price. My wife still has her solar installer
certification so we could presumably get one that way.

It also makes for a really interesting opportunity for grid tied solar
inverters. Now you want the inverter to power the house first, then push power
to the batteries and only if they are full push it back to the grid. Software
update for sure :-) of course it might make more sense to leave it DC for the
push into the battery and only have the AC conversion happen post battery, so
charge controller between the battery and the DC disconnect.

On a safety note I'd also really like to mount this outside, preferably
against firebrick rather than my house. I realize the batteries are much safer
than they have ever been, but still a cascading lithium battery failure inside
my garage is not my idea of a party

~~~
miratrix
On the grid tied solar inverter front - the spec sheet says the battery
voltage is 350~450 V, so we're looking at 108 lithium ion cells (25 x 18650
cells?) at 400 VDC nominal. This is quite different from typical lead acid
battery pack voltage of 12, 24, or 48VDC that's used for battery backup
storage, so a lot of existing solar battery storage infrastructure may not
even work... this means that people may need to buy a whole new set of
supporting hardware to integrate this into the existing solar systems instead
of being able to update the software on existing hardware.

Lithium Ion also has quite a different (and much less forgiving!) charging
cycle that requires much more monitoring of things like temperature, though
I'd imagine a lot of that would be built-in as a safety mechanism directly
into the Powerwall.

What I've heard is that National Electrical Code becomes much more stringent
on battery systems greater than 48V, with the line drawn at 48V due to it
being used widely in the phone landline system. I'm not sure how true that
story is, but I'd imagine extra care is probably warranted. 10kWh is about 9kg
of TNT. :-)

~~~
mauricemir
Yes talk to telco Engineers from the power side of the biz and they will have
war stories about accidents and close misses with the Central Offices
(Exchanges) DC power.

High Voltage/Amperage DC is quiet different to AC power and i suspect that
building/wiring codes are going to need to be updated if this local storage
takes off.

~~~
iamthepieman
dropped a wrench across the terminals on the deep cycle backup batteries
inside a telco switching center. Had to disconnect the whole bank of batteries
to fix it because the wrench welded itself to the terminals. it wasn't a tack
weld either.

~~~
mauricemir
The one I remember is decorators placing a paint tin across the bus bars -
which explosively painted the walls

------
ZoFreX
This is a three-pronged stroke of genius:

1) Immediate benefits to just about anyone. If you have your own solar panels,
you need this (or something like it). Even if you don't, you can benefit by
drawing more power during cheaper off-peak times.

2) If lots of people get in on this, we'll have the storage capacity we need
on the grid to be more dependent on renewable energy. Lack of storage capacity
is one of the biggest obstacles to increasing renewable generation.

3) If lots of people buy this, the price per unit goes down, and it's the most
expensive component of Tesla's main product, their cars - which are
effectively batteries on wheels.

~~~
eli
> power during cheaper off-peak times

Pretty sure my rate is the same all the time. I wonder what percentage of
electricity customers have variable rate pricing.

~~~
geoffharcourt
NYC has it now, but I think as generation/fuel prices rise (in the long-term)
and utilities get slightly more sophisticated, we're going to see more on-
demand pricing as utilities seek to apply the same price changes they pay
generators for peak-demand supply to consumers.

In a situation where many people were doing load shifting, I think this could
even benefit those who aren't doing load shifting themselves (by reducing peak
demand across the network).

~~~
danielweber
For each person that load-shifts, it slightly reduces the payoff for the next
person to load-shift.

In the UK, the peak demand is already in the evening[1], because solar has
eaten the cheap lunch during the day (which it was supposed to do, but it
means that each additional solar panel is going to have a harder job paying
for itself). And the demand difference between low and high is about 30GW to
40GW.

[1] [http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/](http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/)

~~~
geoffharcourt
Great point about marginal benefits of load shifting. I do think we're so far
from that reduction being significant at this point that it's worth
attempting.

I believe peak demand in most non-industrial areas is already evening, because
residential areas tend to have less efficient energy use than commercial
spaces due to density, and everyone is home at the same time, often doing
energy intensive tasks such as cooking, using the A/C, opening the fridge. I
heard from someone at a power company that advertisements during the Super
Bowl are a major issue, because everyone opens their fridge and flushes the
toilet at the same time, and power supply has to spike for 3 minutes and then
return to normal.

------
colinsidoti
One thing that might go overlooked: Load shifting could, in theory, lower
electric bills such that there's ROI without solar panels.

\---

Edit for why: On-demand power is expensive. "Spinning up" additional power
during the day is more expensive than having certain types of power generation
running all the time. In theory, pumping power into a battery at night during
non-peak hours will cost less than consuming directly off the grid during the
day.

I'm forgetting all the details of energy economics, but IIRC there would also
be far less emissions by having consistent load on the grid all day long.
Something about the ones we "spin up" also being the worst for the
environment.

~~~
kmod
If what you say is true, then with better economies of scale and longer
investment horizons, utilities would quickly erase any peak-vs-non-peak
arbitrage opportunities.

~~~
colinsidoti
It's hard to wrap your head around all the challenges in energy. If you're
REALLY good at it you can find some incredible arbitrage opportunities...see
Enron.

Consider the power output characteristics of some common energy sources:

Gas, Nuclear, Hydro, Wind, Solar

Our "sustainable" sources of power - hydro, wind, and solar - are also the
ones with the most irregular and unpredictable power output. This creates a
problem, because even if there was enough cumulative power output from
sustainable sources today, it most likely wouldn't align with our usage
schedule.

So there are two solutions: 1) find a way to map the sustainable power output
to our usage 2) find a way to store energy

Today, our most readily available form of energy storage is gas. We just put
it in a container and burn it when we need to. "Spin it up," if you will.

An alternative to gas is a crazy network of Powerwalls. The hope is that,
eventually, instead of spinning up gas turbines during peak demand, we can
just draw from our Powerwall.

There was another alternative on HN recently. Basically a super-deep hole in
the ground with super heavy object falling into it, but suspended by a rope.
You run a motor to lift the object during off-peak hours, then let it fall and
spin a generator during peak hours. I can't find it right now but I remember
thinking they had a great name.

\---

That said, power output is only part of the problem. If you're looking to
factor the potential disappearance of arbitrage opportunities into your buying
decision, you also need to consider the time until regulatory changes allow
for perfect pricing, and the time until these Powerwalls have precise enough
information to decide exactly when to draw from the grid versus the battery.

tl;dr: "quickly" is probably optimistic. We're a long ways away from economies
of scale.

~~~
tfinniga
was it a gravity battery?

------
tarmigan
(Posting from my phone after the event). If you are excited about this and
want to work on it then please email me at tcasebolt@teslamotors.com. We are
very excited about the technology and future!

------
vanadium
$3,500. That's crazy good for your average household, on par with natural gas
backup generators with half the logistics. I might just be ordering sooner
rather than later given some of the grid instabilities in my area over the
past year, and through the mid-term in preparation for a solar switch here in
Chicago.

While Elon might not be the best orator, you can easily derive his
authenticity and belief in the product by virtue of his delivery. You can't do
that with accuracy in the canned and carefully rehearsed.

~~~
tlb
$3500 doesn't include the inverter or transfer switch. Transfer switch is
maybe $200, and it's not clear what the inverter might cost. It's a nontrivial
part, since it would be responsible for daily cycle estimation and cost
optimization.

For $3300 you can get a 17 kW generator with inverter and transfer switch [0],
which will run for days on a house-sized propane tank. At my house in the
woods, we do sometimes get multi-day power outages after storms. Though, to be
fair, you need a concrete pad and 30 square feet to install the generator.

It doesn't seem like a competitive backup system, but load shifting is still
appealing.

[0] [http://www.costco.com/Honeywell-17-kW-Automatic-Standby-
Gene...](http://www.costco.com/Honeywell-17-kW-Automatic-Standby-
Generator.product.100144364.html)

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Some people (like me) are simply unwilling to keep using carbon-based sources
of energy. At some point it just feels awful to be contributing to such a
terrible problem. I'm counting the days till I can sell my worn out petrol car
and get an electric car. If I had a home and dollars, I'd want one of these
batteries.

~~~
SCAQTony
Batteries are not clean; lithium mines are one ugly slight and recycling is
difficult: [http://whenonearth.net/awe-inspiring-aerial-images-worlds-
me...](http://whenonearth.net/awe-inspiring-aerial-images-worlds-mega-mines/)

In my clueless opinion these batteries should be used strategically in places
where solar, wind, and hydro power are unavailable.

~~~
Zombieball
Yes the real breakthrough tech needed is a new battery! Which hopefully Tesla
is on track to develop,because as is, electric cars are just not scalable.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
People say that, but from what I've heard there is plenty of lithium in the
world to increase use 20% every year for 30 years before we need to get more
creative in how we mine it. That's a huge total increase and means that
electric cars totally are scalable.

Do you have information supporting the idea that electric cars aren't
scalable? My understanding is that they definitely are scalable.

~~~
CamperBob2
Charging is where the scaling problems come in. If everybody in your
neighborhood plugs in their Tesla at their home at night and/or at their
office during the day, it will likely cause brownouts and blackouts in areas
with grid service that's already marginal for current demand. Hence Musks's
interest in load-shifting technology.

~~~
Shivetya
it isn't so much how many people charging, its the ability of people to charge
where they live and the lack of ability to truly quick charge the battery.

As in, damn the kids left the car unplugged and I have to work. even thirty
minutes at a super charger is not a good solution.

So it comes down to a compromise, a good range extender technology and
batteries for the majority of driving. That until truly faster charging can be
achieved with house hold wiring.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _As in, damn the kids left the car unplugged and I have to work. even thirty
> minutes at a super charger is not a good solution._

I don't see this as something to worry about - it's just a household habit
problem. Pretty much every new device introduces some, and people quickly
adapt to use the device properly.

~~~
dpark
The argument is silly. The kids could also forget (or just not bother) to put
gas in the car and leave it on empty. Yet strangely we manage to make do with
gas-powered cars.

------
amai
The competition doesn't sleep:
[http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/sungevity-and-
so...](http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/sungevity-and-
sonnenbatterie-to-undercut-tesla)

In fact they seem to be ahead. Sonnenbattery offers
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery)
since 2011 in Germany.

For technical details see [http://www.sonnenbattery.com/strom-energie-
speicher/sonnenba...](http://www.sonnenbattery.com/strom-energie-
speicher/sonnenbatterie/technical-data/)

~~~
dazzla
The article has been updated as the price is $3,000 and not the predicted
$13,000.

------
beloch
Questions:

1\. How is this different from a UPS? (Similar capacities can be obtained for
less money.)

2\. How many cycles can we expect to get out of these? (One assumes these are
designed to be cycled more often than a UPS)

3\. What are the risks when temperature is outside the operating range? (If
non-negligable, the stated operating range of -20C to +43C limits use in some
applications, such as field stations without heating (or AC, depending on
locale).

4\. Is this technology viable on the scale of an entire powergrid? If it's
advantageous for individual users, one would think economy of scale would make
this more efficient to implement grid-wide.

5\. Do these present an additional hazard in the case of fires, floods, etc.?

------
frakkingcylons
A notable beta user:

AWS will be running a 4.8 megawatt hour pilot program with Tesla's batteries
in the us-west-1 AZ (Northern California).

Hopefully this allows AWS and other hosting providers to use intermittent,
renewable sources of energy more often.

EDIT: I'm guessing AWS will be using a cluster of 48 power packs (100 kilowatt
hours each).

~~~
GigabyteCoin
This might be a reason to move your production environment out of us-west-1
for a few years.

I wouldn't want any experiments going on around my main servers.

~~~
jonknee
If you don't want experiments going on around your servers you better host
them in your own data center. Amazon is guaranteed to be running many
experiments in all of their data centers (and not just with power, with the
actual server hardware!).

------
prostoalex
This was offered to SolarCity customers in late 2014, I see that the image
here [http://www.solarcity.com/residential/backup-power-
supply](http://www.solarcity.com/residential/backup-power-supply) now reflects
Tesla branding.

~~~
BorisMelnik
Iinteresting how they are branding it as a backup solution, while Tesla is
branding it as a complete replacement.

 _" What if we could move the electricity grid off of fossil fuels"_ (Tesla)

vs

 _" Be prepared the next time the power goes out."_(Solar City)

~~~
curiouscats
"Models

10 kWh $3,500 For backup applications

7 kWh $3,000 For daily cycle applications"

From
[http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall](http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall)

Maybe Solar City has been using the ones meant for daily cycle - that would
make sense.

------
kondro
Doesn't include inverter or installer markup and can only provide 2kW output.

It will get expensive by the time you actually have all the bits you need
inside your house.

How is this better than deep-cycle batteries (with 20+ year lives) again? Why
does it need to be slimline?

~~~
roel_v
"and can only provide 2kW output."

 _only_ 2kW? 2kW is enough to power any residential, single-family house for
95-98% of the time; you only need (a little bit) more than that at very short
(few minutes) peak intervals - when heating up an oven, or some cycles of
doing laundry. A second unit would provide that headroom, and otherwise (when
the extra $5k for a second unit is prohibitive) you could still draw from the
grid for peak loads and just not run an oven and washing machine at the same
time during grid blackouts.

It does require a 21st century house - led lighting (but it's 2015 - who still
uses incandescent except for those places where you don't turn on the lights
more than 4 times a year anyway?), energy-conscious appliances, moderate need
for A/C (sane insulation and ventilation, localized and intelligently
controlled A/C needs - i.e. no 'bring all room in my 3000 square feet sheet
rock and tin roof house down to 75 degrees when it's 110 degrees outside').
But whoever doesn't have that, has options to start reducing their bills that
are much better than buying energy packs.

~~~
jacobolus
I use incandescent lights. They produce a much more pleasant spectrum than
“white” CFLs or LEDs.

~~~
roel_v
LED's are available in various color temperatures, including 2700K (commonly
referred to as 'warm white' which is basically the temperature of
incandescent). It's true that the dollar-bin Chinese LED's have all sorts of
bad characteristics that used to be associated with all things LED - pale
color, bad spread, bad (or no) dimming capabilities, etc.

It's 2015 though - take a 20$ Philips Master LED for example (I decided upon
those for myself so I looked into them more heavily; I have about 20 in use
now, with another few boxes in my basement awaiting installation). The GU10
socket halogen-replacement version is available in 3 temperatures and 3 spread
bundles, has a 20k burn hour rating (vs 1-2k for incandescent!) and can be
dimmed very well using a 50$ leading edge electronic dimmer.

I'm no tree hugger - even purely economical (apart from the convenience of not
having to replace lamps every year), in 2015 it doesn't make any economic
sense to buy incandescent (in those places where it's possible to buy them at
all...) for all purposes where the light is used on a 'regular' basis (more
than an hour a day or so).

Of course it does require an initial 'investment'. But one that would be
spread over 1 or 2 years - the normal replacement cycle of incandescent bulbs.
Throwing out working incandescent bulbs to replace them with LED is not
rational either, of course.

~~~
TheLoneWolfling
Color temperature is nowhere near everything. Or rather, it would be, were
LEDs actually anywhere near a blackbody in terms of radiation output over the
visible spectrum. But they aren't. Nowhere near.

~~~
roel_v
There is no every-day use case where the difference in light perception from
an incandescent bulb is different, or even distinguishable without
measurement, from an LED bulb. Feel free to try it yourself in a light studio,
or otherwise, please cite any studies with modern lamps that conclude that the
'light quality' (by whatever metric) of an incandescent bulb is higher (that
is, 'higher' as in 'makes a material difference for normal use cases', not 'in
the lab using our spectrometer we measured a difference').

As always, there are people (analogous to 'vinyl produce a richer sound'
idiots) who have 'opinions' on light quality, but well, we all know what they
say about 'opinions'. In 2015, it's plain nonsense to take 'light quality' as
a reason not to use LED light for domestic purposes, full stop.

~~~
nsxwolf
The subjective experience of a home lit with incandescents is very different
than one lit with LEDs. I don't care if the color temperature is the same.
Things just look different. The bulbs cast their light differently.

There may not be a difference in "light quality", photons are photons, but if
you convert a home from one to the other things will look different, and you
may prefer one way or the other.

And don't forget about fixtures that were designed to work with clear
incandescent bulbs for aesthetic reasons. LED bulbs will look downright
hideous in those even when the lights are off.

There are people who like how vinyl sounds better because they like the hiss
and the pops, not because they fall for audiophile silliness. The same holds
for lighting.

~~~
rconti
Yes, but being unwilling to spend 1 day adjusting to a different look is a
pretty silly reason to continue to run a bunch of spaceheaters in your house
that, as a byproduct, happen to produce some light.

Particularly if you ever use air conditioning.

------
sidcool
Live Stream:

0\. Tesla will open source its patents for the Gigafactory.

1\. Elon thinks all the world's energy needs can be served with 2 billion
Tesla GW powepacks.

2\. Elon: "This is something we can do, need to do and should do."

It's over.

~~~
makomk
Tesla doesn't own most of the patents related to the Gigafactory. They're
licensing the battery technology and manufacturing techniques from Panasonic.

------
bhauer
I have four rack-mount uninterruptible power supplies that provide battery
backup to my workstations and servers in my house. My curiosity here is
whether this Tesla battery pack will obviate those UPSs, providing automatic
and immediate in-line switching to battery whenever there is an interruption.

That alone would be compelling at this price.

Edit: Incidentally, when I submit the reservation form, there is no
confirmation.

~~~
toomuchtodo
That would be determined by the inverter, not the batteries. And yes, almost
all grid-tie inverters will serve your load with a switching time fast enough
that computer equipment would continue running.

------
Animats
The wall mount surprised me, but 10KWh at the same density as the Model S
battery should be only 155lb. That's not too bad, although you need a solid
connection to the building structure. Having it above floor level is a good
thing, since it won't be shorted out by minor flooding.

If you get a new solar installation, installing one of these seems an obvious
win. The solar installation already includes the inverters and control gear.
Without solar, it's probably not worth the trouble for residential.

The average American house uses 30 KWh per day. If you have daily sun and a
low nighttime air conditioning load, 10KWh should get you through the night.
Hawaii - perfect. Southern California - looks good. Texas - get two to get you
through the night with A/C.

~~~
willholloway
As I've learned more about heat pumps I've been wondering why we all use air-
source cooling for central A/C. We are cooling our condensers with hot summer
time air when the temperature is much lower just four feet under the yard.

The energy requirements would drop way down by cooling the condenser with a
water ground loop.

Ground loops are seen as expensive for installation, but I don't understand
why. It's just plastic tubing buried in the yard. I've been wondering if a
hole digging robot could lower the price. The carbon and money savings would
be huge if we could bring down the cost of ground loop installation.

~~~
danans
I very briefly looked into this. It seems to be the same reason that simple
and obvious things like solar water heating systems are so expensive in the
US, but not elsewhere: Lack of awareness & low demand but few installers who
target the eco/luxury niche product at a high price. These systems usually get
installed only in high-end homes.

~~~
Animats
Climatemaster has about a million US ground-heatsink heat pump installations.
In their system, the ground loop is water with antifreeze, not Freon, so
there's an additional heat exchanger.

Rheem, the big water heater manufacturer, sells solar water heating systems.
That's progress; previous solar-only sellers were kind of flaky. (See
"hot2o.com", which disappeared.) Solar water heating systems have a reputation
for leaking. Buying something that is supposed to last 10-20 years from a
small company is a problem.

------
billiam
I am just going to cut and paste my previous comment on Musk.

The Musk M.O: 1\. Identify industry with big inefficiencies that depends on
huge government subsidies. That's cars, commercial space vehicles, mass
transit and now: colonizing another planet with the 0.1%. 2\. Convince the
media and envious government officials you are Tom Swift, boy inventor. Have
these governments fight over how many billions to give you to build your space
car factory. 2\. Use these taxpayer dollars and gigantic tax breaks to create
iconic products and services for the elite class, effectively transferring
huge dollars from the poor to the rich. 3\. Rinse and repeat.

I see no evidence at all that Musk cares any more about technologies to enable
several billion of us to live together without slaughtering each other than he
does about money.

Add the utility business to the growing list of government supported
industries Musk wants to "disrupt" by which I mean establish a publicly
funded, government subsidized mechanism to siphon off dollars for himself,
just like Tony Stark in fact. The electricity generating and distribution
system is one of the most provably useful "common goods" in the history of the
human race-- why not convince people to spend more than 10 grand to power
their house for 24 hours?

His reasons:

Load Shifting - residences generally have NO economic incentive to ride the
demand curve, only businesses do in some cases. It is one of the most
important things about the electrical system--these huge monopolies manage
that curve collectively for us. Sure, transmission is inefficient, but so is
decentralizing that task, while adding the risks of keeping your battery from
breaking/catching fire.

Increasing self consumption- a battery does not stimulate this at all - the
grid needs your power most when the sun is shining. Solar power and an
inverter provides that incentive today.

Backup - One day of power in the event of a true natural disaster for $10,000
is expensive and not sufficient.

I am not a Luddite and I am a libertarian, and certainly our society needs
technology visionaries right now, but I find Musk's increasingly cynical ploys
and the adulation they receive pretty annoying. They seem designed to distract
from the overall failure of his businesses, even if he continues to generate
ideas and hype.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Your comments on his reasons are clearly counter-factual:

Load shifting on a consumer scale has been happening for decades in various
places around the world (e.g. cheap nuclear energy at night powering storage
heaters)

Self-consumption: in a grid increasingly fed by solar power all those peaks
hit at the same time and there's been multiple recent news stories about power
prices going negative at those peaks.

Backup - no-one said anything about "true" natural disasters. Backup from
short power outages is already an established market in many outlying areas
and a fringe benefit for almost anyone. And no-one said that you had to buy it
and use it for this single purpose.

This whole area has been predicted as a growing market for years, there's
others in this thread complaining that it's nothing new compared with less
famous competitors, so complaints that it's a product dreamt up to soak up
subsidies is a bit odd.

Having said that, if I was in charge of a government, I'd be subsidising these
kinds of decentralised grid backup right now as they are already useful when
viewed at a national scale. It seems likely that in a few short years they'll
make economic sense for more and more people without any subsidy though.

~~~
billiam
Not at all trying to pick a fight. But:

>Load shifting on a consumer scale has been happening for decades in various
places around the world (e.g. cheap nuclear energy at night powering storage
heaters)

Sorry, but as a consumer I pay the same rate day and night, and I think most
in the US are like me. I personally have no incentive for load-shifting. Why
do I need PowerWall?

>Self-consumption: in a grid increasingly fed by solar power all those peaks
hit at the same time and there's been multiple recent news stories about power
prices going negative at those peaks.

Solar, including concentrated solar which is outside this discussion, is
currently 0.48% of all US electricity generation. Not a big effect for many
years, unless one of the other Musk businesses (Solar City) gets a big boost.

>Backup - no-one said anything about "true" natural disasters. Backup from
short power outages is already an established market in many outlying areas
and a fringe benefit for almost anyone. And no-one said that you had to buy it
and use it for this single purpose.

Okay, but it seems like a pretty expensive way to ride out a few hours of
blackout.

> This whole area has been predicted as a growing market for years, there's
> others in this thread complaining that it's nothing new compared with less
> famous competitors, so complaints that it's a product dreamt up to soak up
> subsidies is a bit odd.

I've been called worse, but my point here is that these predicted schemes
haven't taken off because they would depend on MASSIVE subsidies, and Mr. Musk
does dream big.

The main point is that everyone should probably have a battery in their
garage, but that battery should be in a car, and since business is not working
out so well for Musk he is trying to access another source of regulated
government support. The economics/policy of electric cars seem much better
than home electricity storage, and all the benefits of PowerWall, if they
materialize, can and hopefully will be delivered by lithium under your hood.
Battery-powered cars will take over America, I just doubt most of those
batteries will be made by Tesla.

~~~
dpark
> _Sorry, but as a consumer I pay the same rate day and night, and I think
> most in the US are like me._

Where do you live? I pay the same rate 24 hours/day as well, but I could
switch to a plan with different rates if it provided value to me. I suspect
most power companies provide the option at this point.

> _Okay, but it seems like a pretty expensive way to ride out a few hours of
> blackout._

Is there actually a cheaper option, aside from sitting in the dark with
flashlights and making sure that no one opens the fridge or freezer? If you
want to ride out a blackout without basically sitting in the dark, you need
either a big battery backup or a generator. My in-laws put in a whole-house
generator and I think the total cost was nearer to 30K than 3K. (Edit:
Actually, just looked at generators and they seem closer to 3K, so I have no
idea why their setup would have cost nearly 30K. Edit2: They probably
installed something closer to a 25kW generator, which would explain much of
the cost.)

> _The economics /policy of electric cars seem much better than home
> electricity storage, and all the benefits of PowerWall_

A battery in my car will spend a large chunk of its time somewhere else. It's
in intriguing idea to use the car battery this way, but it means when I take
my car out, my backup power is gone. If I have solar panels, it also means my
daylight charging is also gone (assuming I'm gone, with my car, during the
day). So I think this would be great, but would not obviate most of the value
of a home battery.

~~~
ghaff
With respect to blackouts, I guess it depends on what's the typical pattern
where you live. If it's a short outage (<= few hours), my personal reaction is
"who cares?" The main one I worry about, living in the Northeast, is an
extended outage in winter that could result in frozen pipes. Spoiled food due
to an extended outage in the summer would be annoying but that's a much more
bounded cost associated with a rare event. And a battery probably wouldn't
last long enough to help in a > 24 hour outage situation--which is when
protection would be needed.

I agree that $30K sounds like a lot for a generator. I periodically think
about looking into it; I've never seriously priced the whole thing out--
generator, connection to house, installation, enclosure--but my expectation us
that it would be less than $10K. In such an event I certainly have no problem
minimizing my electricity use so long as there's enough juice for the furnace
in the winter and the refrigerators.

I'm not aware of an option for non-fixed rate electricity where I live.

------
marze
This is much more groundbreaking than it may appear. The innovation is
entirely in the price.

At $3500, you can put in two and be entirely off grid. Solar panels are cheap
enough you only need batteries to last one night, as you can size the array to
operate your loads even on cloudy days.

~~~
kondro
2 is not enough. 4kW seems to be the maximum potential drain from the battery.
That wouldn't power an oven… let alone anything else at the same time.

4kW inverters seem to be around the $1000 mark… but they don't seem to
increase linearly (10kW inverter $4000 for example).

Of course you could go totally off-grid, but the cost isn't going to be just
$7k… it's likely to be at least $15-20k by the time you get everything you
need and installed. At that price, you could've bought a larger capacity deep-
cycle storage solution already readily available on the market with batteries
that will last 20+ years.

~~~
roel_v
" 4kW seems to be the maximum potential drain from the battery. That wouldn't
power an oven… let alone anything else at the same time."

4kW is enough to power an entire home continuously, without thinking about
energy use, even a large one with a home office with several people working in
it + washing machine + oven + electrical stove _at the same time_. I have the
data to prove it, too - 10 second interval power consumption logs for the last
4 months for my house/office, and I never had a load of more than 3.5kW. To be
fair, this is all with modern, top of the line appliances, so yes that 199$
no-brand Chinese oven will probably draw a lot more power, but still.

Worst case, you'd need a second 'peak power' supply, which could provide e.g.
6 or 8 kw for 10 mins max, maybe using some sort of XXL capacitor. I don't
know about the EE side of this, or whether such a thing exists already, just
saying - 4kW is perfectly feasible and even heavy users would maybe need just
a little bit more.

(of course this also assumes you have a better quality house than the standard
American cardboard 'house' in which you need A/C running 24/7 just to not die
in summer).

~~~
brc
My air conditioner is 12 kW. No chance.

~~~
roel_v
If your air conditioner actually draws 52 amps at 230 volts (or 110 @ 110 if
you're in the US), you must be air conditioning a gym hall with a black, tin
roof somewhere in a desert.

But you're probably not, and that was my whole point - my stove top is rated
at 10kW, too, yet _even when using alongside all other appliances in my house_
I have never gone above 4kW actual use. Actual need != summing all the nominal
maximum rated loads of all appliances. In other words, it's not because your
AC is rated 12kW, that you'd need 3 of these battery packs just for the AC.
You might need 2, or maybe 3, I'm not saying that 2 (or 4) kW is enough
always, everywhere for everybody - but there is no 'normal' (middle to upper
middle class) home anywhere that would _need_ 5 or 10 of these units, as is
suggested at various places in this thread.

~~~
brc
To be honest, I don't know. It has 12kw on the outside. It's a DC inverter
ducted system. I had to get the wiring to the house upgraded with 3 phase when
it was put in. It doesn't use 3 phase but one of the phases is dedicated to
the aircon. My electricity bill in summer is 20% higher.

------
thewarrior
Wow

This thing could sell like crazy in places like India. 10 kwH is enough to
power an Indian home for more than a day and at 3500 dollars most middle class
people would consider buying it seeing how frequent power cuts here are.

~~~
latch
Really? According to wiki, India's middle-class makes anywhere from $10 to $50
per day. When you factor in that this will cost a lot more than $3500, would
these really sell like crazy?

~~~
meric
They can afford scooters, which cost one quarter that much. On $50 a day, it
could be saved for in less than a year even if it costs $5000. Relative to
their income, Indians have a lot of savings, due to their high savings rate
(30%+). India's accumulated household wealth per adult is $5500. If you have
two pairs of parents and one pair of grand-parents in one house, that is 6 *
$5500 = $33000. Could be worth it, IMO it depends what is the lifetime of one
such installation.

EDIT: Thanks for the correction on scooter pricing.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
You'll find about 50 million people in middle class in India, who'll earn
about $1k a month. Once you buy it, ship it, install it etc, I think $5k is a
pretty typical cost figure.

That's quite steep. It's nearly 50% of your income. Also consider that as a
rule, generally, the less affluent you are, the smaller percentage of income
will be 'disposable' income. i.e. if you make $100k, you might have $60k in
essential expenses, the remaining 40% of your income can be spent on savings
or non-essential consumption like holidays. But if you make $5k like an
average person in India might, you'll be hard pressed to not spend the vast
majority on essential spending. So an investment that's 50% of a 1-year income
may sound reasonable, but not when 95% of your income normally goes to
essential expenses. That'd mean that you'd have to forgo 10 years of your
entire disposable income to finance this.

Now how essential is it? I've traveled both in Africa and Asia and am familiar
with powercuts (hell, I'd get em monthly in Montreal, too!) Generally though,
it's not something I'd spend a lot of money on to fix. Cooking and heating is
still gas powered. Essential lighting tops out at 100W, no need for a $3.5k
battery that can deliver 20x that power. My smartphone/laptop are battery
powered.

I mean, don't get me wrong, power cuts suck and nobody likes them. And for
businesses (different story) they can be a disaster. (e.g. check out the World
Bank 'Doing Business' reports [0], they look at power cuts affecting industry.
It's a big factor)

But for homes? Most people cope just fine. You lose your TV and maybe your
wifi if you don't have mobile internet, the rest can be managed.

Anyway India is obviously going to become a huge market, but that's a pretty
long-term thing. You have hundreds of millions of middle class consumers in
OECD countries who have the purchasing power and different motivations
(environmental), backed by governments that are shifting to pro-solar, and
huge profits-first industries that are seeing solar drop to super competitive
prices within the next 10-20 years. India probably won't be a huge market in
comparison. China perhaps, they're bigger, have more solar capacity and more
purchasing power.

As for the scooter, you can buy 5-6 of them for the price of installing one of
these, new, let alone second hand. And they're an essential part of
transportation for which having nothing, or public transport is often not a
viable alternative.

[0]
[http://www.doingbusiness.org/reports](http://www.doingbusiness.org/reports)

~~~
meric
True, and also it would have to compete with a typical generator using petrol.

------
localhost
I'm going to install a 9kW solar grid on my roof in the next couple of months
- capital cost is ~$40K USD. Without the Power Wall, I'd be selling power back
to the utility at around $0.10 / kWh, and buying it back at $0.09 / kWh in the
evenings. The Power Wall will also let me endure grid outages as well (you
can't run your house on your solar panels directly).

I'm really curious about what the end-user cost is going to be for one of
these batteries, after distributor markup and utility company rebates. Would
be interesting to see if it pays for itself over the 10 year lifespan of the
batteries.

I just reserved one.

~~~
sremani
$40K for 9kW solar sounds really expensive, I advice you to shop a bit or
consider Solar lease. I have a 10 kW plant from SolarCity installed in late
2013. It is a prepaid 20 year lease, meaning I own the electricity and they
own the panels, and the total cost (including installation, pv, inverters) to
me is about 10K.

You seem to be getting a 1 cent more for the electricity, so your only
motivation for this must be to have a back-up. But the 7kW powerwall is daily
cycle, it may be a OK backup but not beyond a day or two.

~~~
localhost
Where I live (WA state USA), there are some crazy tax incentives here for
solar. Rough math:

1\. 30% rebate on federal income tax, so that's $12K back in the first year.
2\. $0.54 / kWh WA state energy production credit which is capped at $5K /
year. The estimated power production of a 9kW array over 1 year should get me
pretty close to $5K back. The production credit expires in June 2020, which
means that best case I get $25000 back from the state.

Without factoring in energy cost savings, I nearly break even in 5 years.
Energy cost savings are somewhere in the neighborhood of $1200 / year with
solar.

If the only rationale was energy savings, it's not a good investment. However,
the tax incentives make it very attractive indeed.

More details on WA state incentives here:
[http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/washington/](http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/washington/)

~~~
sremani
That is some killer state energy production credits. Now your plan makes
complete sense.

------
milesf
Today is a big deal.

Open sourcing the patents to build fully solar-powered electrical grids around
the will be a paradigm shift in the power structures of the world. I expect
from today onward there will be a full-scale attack from those who stand to
lose because of the reduced dependency on oil.

First they ignore you.

Then they laugh at you.

Then they fight you. <\--- WE ARE HERE

Then you win.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> I expect from today onward there will be a full-scale attack from those who
> stand to lose because of the reduced dependency on oil.

Maybe. But remember we don't have the technology yet to completely move away
from fossil fuels. The biggest issue I know of is making Airplanes electric
which so far has not proven really feasible (as far as I can find anyway).
This solves a huge chunk of issues but there are still plenty more before we
can claim we have the technology to completely transition.

I'm excited for the possibility however.

~~~
milesf
Well, not jets, but propeller craft might be within reach:

[http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/design/power/siemens-e...](http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/design/power/siemens-
electric-airplane-motor-2015-04/)

~~~
BinaryIdiot
While it's a long way off that's pretty neat! Thanks!

------
chrisamiller
A quick analysis of our local (St Louis) rates for an average (1700 sq ft)
suburban house indicate that time shifting to get peak rate savings isn't
worth it:

Payback time on the 10kWh battery would be around 26 years, and on the 7kWh
battery would be 33 years.

So, at least in the midwest, I think you'd have to be either using a _ton_ of
peak energy or coupling the battery pack with solar to make the investment
worth it.

~~~
bloaf
Isn't that the idea though? Solar + battery + electric car = no gasoline,
electricity, or natural gas bill.

If the average car gasoline bill is $3000/year, electricity is $1000/year, and
we demand a 5-year payback, we can spend at most $20,000 on a
solar+battery+car system over what we would spend on a conventional gasoline-
car and grid-house.

~~~
chrisamiller
Yeah, that's the primary use, but there has been speculation here and
elsewhere that a battery could be worthwhile just for exploiting the
difference between peak and off-peak rates. This indicates that, at least for
my area and usage, the answer is no, it's not worth it.

------
daemin
The maximum temperature will be an issue here in Australia. In a typical place
where it will be mounted, i.e. the garage, the temperatures will readily get
over 40, close to 50 during summer.

I could see this also being a problem in places like Nevada and Arizona in the
USA.

~~~
chrissyb
If your garage is getting to 50°C you've got a major insulation problem! Where
are you located?

In both cases if min and max operating temperature are an issue it may be best
to install in an FIP enclosure and use ducting to keep the enclosure and an
optimal temperature.

~~~
azernik
In many houses, the garage is outside of the insulation; the garage itself has
very little insulation between itself and the outdoors, and there's lots of
insulation between the garage and the "habitable" parts of the house.

------
JacobAldridge
Proof, if anyone still needs it, that Tesla is a battery company that builds
cars, not a car company that builds batteries.

~~~
adventured
How big is their battery business compared to their car business?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Very shortly, its going to be as big as the entire world's lithium cell
consumption currently.

------
kondro
So why not solar power (1kW), storage (3.6kWh) with 25+ year life, inverter
(2.8kW) and other electrical systems for just USD$8,702.

The batteries are only USD$2,910 of that.

[http://ironedison.com/edison-power-plus-system](http://ironedison.com/edison-
power-plus-system)

~~~
frik
What if one has already dozens of photovoltaic solar panels, and just need a
good energy storage solution that lasts many years? I trust Tesla more than
some others companies that they can deliver it.

~~~
kondro
You shouldn't. Tesla have a much shorter track record than someone like Iron
Edison.

Also… if you read my comment, you'll see the batteries are cheaper than
Tesla's… and if you look online, you can see they come in various
configurations… rather than predefined 10kWh bricks with 2kW output.

~~~
ody42
History repeats itself :) Prepare for the 2nd round of Edison vs. Tesla!

------
sidcool
I must say Elon is a brilliant engineer but not the best of orators.

~~~
rio517
I was thinking the same as I watched it. I was wondering if there were some
technical issues to explain the slow start of his speaking part and if he
might have been frazzled from whatever happened behind the scenes.

~~~
uberdog
He was the same at the Dragon 2 launch. I get the impression that he doesn't
rehearse for these events much, probably because he's probably got much more
important things to work on.

------
rexreed
This is very clever! They're trying to increase demand for batteries
independent of sales of vehicles, thus driving the economics of battery cost
down and driving their vehicle prices down as a result. Get more batteries out
there in different forms and use that demand to make the rest of their
portfolio more affordable. Very rational strategy! Let's see what demand is
like for their battery products.

~~~
thomasahle
Also given they just built the world's largest battery factories, it makes
sense to sell some more batteries.

------
davidw
> 7kWh or 10kWh

Can anyone speak to what that could power? Could I run a load of laundry with
it? How about dry it afterwards? Here in Italy people mostly take advantage of
"solar power" by hanging clothes to dry, but just to get an idea of what the
battery could run.

~~~
kenrikm
To put it in perspective: in Florida, in the summer, using a 4ton very
old/inefficient AC in a 2000sqft house in 100 degree summer weather, electric
oven, refrigerator, washer/dryer and all other household stuff. I would burn
about 3kw / hr in the middle of the day. So in theory the 10kwh would power a
extreme case like this for ~3hours, and 9 of them could do it for ~27hrs. So
yes you could do everything you would normally do with household electricity
with this.

~~~
lsaferite
Interesting numbers if you contrast them to another comment on this article
saying his A/C was 12kWH.

~~~
kenrikm
I'm not aware of any consumer level ACs that draw that kind of juice. Given
10¢/kwhr (for easy math) that would still cost $1.20/hr or ~$8xx in
electricity per month just for the AC.

------
DigitalSea
I hope they have taken the safety technology from their Tesla vehicles and put
it into their Tesla Energy batteries, because the thought of a 10Kwh lithium-
ion battery exploding in my garage does not sound like the kind of mess I
would want to be cleaning up. I couldn't see it mentioned anywhere, but
presumably these batteries will be available in Australia for the same price?
We always get charged more. If I can get one for $3500 AUD, count me in!

~~~
GigabyteCoin
They certainly won't be $3,500 AUD.

3,500.00 USD = 4,447.86 AUD according to xe.com right now...

That, and the factory is in the USA. I would assume shipping something that
large and heavy would add to the cost in Australia.

~~~
eru
> That, and the factory is in the USA. I would assume shipping something that
> large and heavy would add to the cost in Australia.

Put it on a boat. Shouldn't cost more than shipping inside the US.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
You still need to ship it inside the US to the boat dock, and then pay to put
it on a boat, and then pay to ship it from the australian dock to the
homeowner.

~~~
yen223
Freight costs are so cheap they're essentially negligible. There's a reason
why it's cost-effective to make stuff in China, and ship it all the way across
the Pacific to the US, instead of just making them in the US.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
It's still $1,000 AUD above what OP was hoping for even at free shipping
costs.

------
guelo
The main advantage of Lithium Ion is the high energy density which is good for
reducing the weight of laptops and electric cars but doesn't seem that useful
in a house, especially when you compare it with cheaper and longer lasting
battery technologies.

This feels more like them trying to find a new business line for their
existing technology than coming up with the perfect technology for the home
market.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
There's been some talk about end-of-life electric car batteries getting
recycled into these kind of devices, they may be priming that market too.

------
robmcm
You should be able to put this thing on the top of your Tesla (it even looks
like a roof box) to double your range!

~~~
fr0sty
Tesla car batteries are between 60kwh and 85kwh. These packs are 7kwh or
10kwh. Not going to get you that much farther with only a 10-15% increase in
capacity...

------
bronz
To those who say that this battery doesn't do anything new and lead acid is
cheaper, I would like to refer you to this article.

[http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone](http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone)

------
digitalzombie
How hacker friendly is this?

I'm not crazy enough to do anything fancy. But I would like to build some
metric system to see the data and usages. If I can some how hack it so that it
keep track of which devices uses the Tesla battery the most.

~~~
mryan
I highly doubt that will be possible. Actually I think it is entirely
impossible, but I'm trying to future-proof my statement :-)

The battery system will just know how much power is currently being used. It
will have no way to identify which devices are currently drawing power. For
that, you'd need something like this on each outlet:
[http://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-
Monitor/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-
Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU)

Maybe future smart homes will have the Kill A Watt built-in to electrical
outlets for monitoring purposes.

I imagine you will be able to get metrics on current usage, peak usage periods
et cetera.

~~~
doublerebel
It may be possible to use non-intrusive load monitoring to determine the
devices. However, I'm not aware of any products on the market using this tech.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonintrusive_load_monitoring](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonintrusive_load_monitoring)

------
mrtron
I live in a condo in Toronto, and peak hour electricity is more than double
non-peak. How do I install this and have it charge during off hours and use
the battery during peak?

------
ddingus
Germany has implemented so much solar they can overload the EU grid.

Batteries are the next thing for them. Many of the comments here aimed at the
States make sense. Use cases aren't as broad here for many reasons.

But, who says these have to be sold here?

Great move, IMHO. Storage is a growing concern. Most all of the renewables
suffer from variances in production.

Elon is likely thinking globally. Just get storage production moving and boot
strapped into self-sufficiency. Doesn't matter who buys it, just that they do.

Costs drop, scale improves on things, and he's positioned to take advantage of
materials science as it yields better / more diverse options. Think of those
aluminum batteries just announced at Stanford. The energy density is lower,
but they charge very quickly.

If those prove viable, they can be added to the Tesla catalog, and if their
life time is high enough, might just be perfect for augmenting things like
solar and wind.

------
amaterasu
Any news on international orders? I live in Australia, and would love to
integrate this as a full off-grid solution.

------
stevewepay
I wonder how many years this battery will last before requiring replacing?

Storing power over the course of the day is an intriguing idea, because the
house is generally empty then. Instead of selling back to the power companies,
I would rather have it power this battery so that my night time use is "free".

------
andyrebele
See an analysis of whether this makes sense for home, business, and utilities:
[http://www.purewatercraft.com/thinking-about-energy-
storage-...](http://www.purewatercraft.com/thinking-about-energy-storage-
using-lithium-ion-batteries/)

------
KhalPanda
For those interested in investing and finance, I have a question.

Why would this news not cause Tesla's share price to go up?

It seems generally well-received (well, as much of an indicator as 812 points
on HN is). Surely that's a good sign? Or did the announcement not live up to
the hype, causing people to dump stock?

~~~
souljaswag
Tesla stock price has been gradually increasing the last week or so in
anticipation of the event, so the event has already been "priced in." Further,
the FOMC (fed) recently scared the market, because interest rates may be
rising some time in the future (September? December? who knows), causing
people to switch from investing in equities (stocks) into treasury bills. In
short, this information was already anticipated but it also had to fight the
FOMC announcement.

~~~
KhalPanda
Thanks. Makes sense.

------
breischl
I know they pitched this for solar, but I bet that won't be the most common
use, at least initially.

My power company (XCel, if it matters) keeps trying to install a "Saver
Switch" in everyone's house to shut down their A/C when demand is high.
Basically they want to load shed your air conditioner, and they're willing to
pay you for the privilege.

This is a lot more expensive, but it's also a hell of a lot more versatile.
How much would it be worth for them to subsidize installing these with a
switch that would let the utility remotely toggle you off the grid at their
discretion? Plus it would actually save consumers money in any market with
tiered electric rates. Plus it would help them deal with the intermittency of
solar power.

------
estefan
_Massive_ news for doomsday preppers everywhere...

------
ekianjo
Great, except that all these nice batteries are produced with extremely toxic
processes, involve heavy metals, and consume a whole bunch of fossil fuel
during their production. Hardly a good case for the environment when you
factor everything together.

~~~
rdl
Lithium-Ion batteries aren't all sweetness and light, but it's not a
particularly dirty process compared to Ni-Cd, and certainly you have to factor
in benefits of reduced generation.

~~~
makomk
Ni-Cd batteries are so bad for the environment that the EU is forcing
companies to phase out their use. Saying that Lithium Ion batteries are better
than something that's been banned for most purposes because it's so toxic is
not exactly high praise.

------
frik
I would like to buy one. Can we use it in Western Europe? Will it be certified
for the EU power grid network? How long will the battery last (expected
battery life)? About 7-8 years would be the minimum, but is that the lifespan
of lithium batteries?

------
iandanforth
I might spend $480 on electricity per year. I can't see this thing having an
ROI within its lifespan. I also don't have solar panels, and have a very
reliable power grid. Any reason I should consider buying one?

~~~
josephagoss
We spend over $2,000 per year and it's just me and my girlfriend. From the
sounds of it you have either very good rates or perhaps a frugal lifestyle?
Either way it's impressive.

~~~
pkaye
I think it depends on local weather. We spend about $600 on electricity and
$600 is gas per year for 4 people in the Bay Area. And this is with an older
water heater and furnace in an old house with moderate insulation. We would
replace the heater, furnace and improve the insulation before even considering
solar ourselves.

~~~
danans
+1 to first upgrading your home. I live in the Bay Area but in a tightly
sealed late 90's 1600 sqft house. No A/C. Recently upgraded our furnace and
water heater to high efficiency models, and now spend about $400/year
electricity, $400/yr for gas. Even accounting for the warmer winter this year,
the gas savings was about 14%. There are pretty good incentives in the Bay
Area for home energy upgrades if you do multiple at once:
[https://www.bayareaenergyupgrade.org/program-
overview](https://www.bayareaenergyupgrade.org/program-overview)

------
antaviana
While I think this announcement is great news, there are at least two caveats
to keep in mind that can mine the long term value proposition:

\- If there are many users, the peak/non-peak price differences (arbitrage)
will disappear. This is because of supply/demand law.

\- If solar energy/battery storage takes off, it will be heavily taxed. There
is an impending "Sun tax" being implemented in Spain, that aims to make more
expensive running a home solar source than taking power from the grid. If
necessary, they will tax Lithium.

So the Tesla value proposition is in all cases short term.

~~~
army
Your analysis of the arbitrage is faulty - if there's a cost associated with
time-shifting energy, then the gap will only narrow to the extent that it's
still economically justifiable for people to invest the money in time-shifting
energy. What you're describing (no peak/non-peak difference plus people still
buying batteries to time-shift energy) isn't a steady state - why would people
continue to buy the batteries when they're going to lose money on the deal?
You'd actually expect the gap to be the price difference per watt plus some
additional amount for the capital and inconvenience.

Also, if there's significant arbitrage, it will also reduce peak prices -
because of reduced demand, and also because of reduced costs of expensive
additional capacity. I.e. it can reduce energy costs for people who _don 't_
use it.

~~~
antaviana
Yes, what I meant is that each Tesla battery sold will contribute to reduce
the peak price and to increase the non-peak price, effectively reducing the
gap that is the basis for the value proposition.

Because of this effect, the value proposition for existing Tesla battery
owners will lower over time. Ironically, the ones that benefit at long term
are the non-owners because their peak time price will be lower.

------
TenDecigrams
I wonder if Elon and the owner of SolarCity will get in touch. Oh wait... ;)

------
rio517
I actually really wanted him to put his "blue square" in context. Would have
been interesting compared to land area dedicated to rooftops, parking lots or
something.

------
malandrew
How well do you think these would work in RVs when paired with the number of
solar panels that fit on top of an RV? Would this work well at burning man vs
running a generator?

~~~
seanp2k2
You'd have to calculate it and your expected power usage. You probably
wouldn't be able to run AC on full all day without a massive solar array.
Check out how big a 100w solar array is, how many of those can fit on your RV
roof, and how much power your AC uses. You'd also need a big (and not 100%
efficient) inverter. Also take heat and dust inefficiencies into account.

TL;DR you're better off going in on that industrial diesel 3-phase generator
rental which comes on its own trailer.

------
IkmoIkmo
I felt the 'area needed in the US' to be a bit disingenuous. I very much
recommend David Mackay's Without the Hot Air, a great talk he did at Harvard
on area required can be found here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFosQtEqzSE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFosQtEqzSE)

Beyond that, very glad to see this happen. It's one of the factors necessary
to push a sustainable electrified future forward.

------
gadders
I suppose this must be better than storage heaters. Not sure how big these are
outside the UK, but basically they use off-peak electricity to heat bricks
that then slowly release the heat the next day. We had them when we were a kid
and they were rubbish.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_heater](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_heater)

------
emforce
Is there anyway to model the energy saving costs of these in like a small
town?

I mean if power stations only had to produce N/kW/h at a constant rate to
power every home in the region then would there be any energy savings? Instead
of the typical, scale back at night, boost up during the day system?

If we could calculate the energy usage of every home down to the Watt then
surely there wouldn't be any waste?

------
methodin
I'm curious if local governments will give subsidies to aid in distribution of
such devices - many places have issues with the power grid.

------
jasonkostempski
If everyone had these and they were all attempting to "charge during nonpeak
hours" wouldn't those hours become the peak hours?

~~~
aqzman
If enough people had these in their homes then there would no longer be "peak
hours" or "non-peak hours", I would think that this would normalize the grid
so that pricing is always fairly consistent.

~~~
mikeash
Which is more or less the point, of course. If you can even out the peaks and
troughs then you can make all this stuff much more efficient.

Of course, that assumes that generation can be consistent. Right now, that is
the case. If we took the existing grid and just gave everybody batteries, we
could make power consumption flat throughout the day, which would greatly
reduce costs. That would be cool!

The idea is that in the future, solar dominates. There you inherently have
peak and non-peak hours, because you generate more electricity at noon than at
midnight. This is completely impractical if you go straight from generation to
use, because the times don't match up. But throw in storage to flatten it all
out, and it works.

------
amirmansour
Implementation of such technologies is exactly what I worked on in grad
school, and now I'm happy that a company like Tesla is actually gonna bring it
to the masses. Batteries are essentially the "killer app" for the power-grid,
and will accelerate the adoption of renewables with stochastic power outputs
such as solar and wind. Thank you Tesla!

------
ryanmarsh
The max temperature basically makes it a no-go in much of the so-called "sun
belt" where solar power conditions are optimal.

~~~
lockes5hadow
In those areas I guess you just install it inside the home somewhere, which is
the whole point of making it look decent.

------
chrisjlee
This would all make more sense if they made solar panels to go with the
powerpack. Otherwise, it's just a huge battery.

~~~
geerlingguy
SolarCity is another startup that Elon chairs... The idea is that the
batteries and the energy generation process/supplier don't have to be the
same.

------
robot
I think this is a move that will break the focus rule for a startup. Batteries
_and_ cars. There is room for only one.

~~~
DaniFong
Wright brothers: focus on wings or controls or engines! you only have room for
one!

Apple: focus on hardware or software! Macs or iPods. You only have room for
one.

Edison: focus on lights or electricity! You only have room for one.

Uber: focus on the driver network or the app! You only have room for one.

It's not a hard and fast rule. The point of focus is to get you to prioritize
what important, but something you need to do multiple things.

~~~
robot
The problem with all of your examples is they still only sell one thing. Tesla
now sells 2 things. That means sales, marketing team, strategy, support, for 2
things. Like, having 2 companies.

~~~
DaniFong
Another example, Standard Oil: don't just sell the oil. Refine it, and sell
the kerosene, and the lamps, and also sell the gasoline, and when you're left
with paraffins invent paraffin candles and sell those too...

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Ha! The aboriginal Americans have nothing on Standard Oil. They just used
every part of the buffalo. Standard Oil invented uses for every part of the
oil.

------
zeristor
With the hoped roll out of more electric cars charging them will place an
undue load on the grid, if it isn't orchestrated. Tesla plan to be able to
control when they discharge to the grid, so this could go some way to reduce
stresses on the electric grid when more people want to recharge it. Just a
thought.

------
sidcool
$3500. Nice!!!

~~~
markbnj
I'm intrigued at the backup possibilities, because we live in a forested area
of the northeast where outages are common during storms. But at 3Kw a single
unit isn't large enough to power our entire home, and I didn't see a figure
for how long it can operate at peak load. If I need two then we're getting
closer to the cost of a natural gas fired generator. This analysis, of course,
is completely ignoring the environmental benefits.

~~~
toephu2
can we just try living without electricity for 2 days? millions of humans did
it for hundreds of years prior to us and they managed just fine

~~~
markbnj
During hurricane Sandy our family was without power for 12 days. What's the
longest you've gone?

------
dz512
The AWS roll-out also seems like big news. Last I checked, data centers
accounted for 2-3% of domestic energy spend, and they typically feature backup
batteries and generators. Tesla may have entered the (enormous) data center
market the moment it broke ground in Nevada.

------
swamp40
Tesla vs Edison, Round 2.

Interesting twist that this time around, Tesla is pushing for DC, while Edison
is behind AC.

------
g8oz
I believe the Chinese innovator BYD has a portfolio of similar products
already. BYD got some press play in the West when Warren Buffet invested in
them. They are making a slow patient push in the U.S with electric buses after
flopping with electric cars.

------
nickbauman
A German company is doing this too. Nice to know it's more like an industrial
movement not just one company doing it. There is hope.

[http://www.asd-sunstorage.com/](http://www.asd-sunstorage.com/)

------
ignoramous
Here's the link to live stream:
[http://www.teslamotors.com/livestream](http://www.teslamotors.com/livestream)

One interesting thing to note is the collaboration with Amazon...

------
arielby
> The world currently consumes 20 trillion kWh of energy annually.

> Enough energy to power a single family home for 1.8 billion years or supply
> energy to a nuclear power plant for 2,300 years.

That's, ..., not the way I would have written it.

------
intrasight
The map graphic at the beginning was pretty powerful (please excuse pun)

------
daveloyall
You can buy a used Mitsubishi i-MIEV (early electric car with very short
range) for less than $8,000.

So, do that. Then strap one of these Tesla home batteries on it.

Bam!

(NB some experience with heavy-duty DC electricity required.)

------
jcfrei
I can't wait to see the first users proudly cutting their connection to the
power grid, claiming they are now energy independent and free from oppressive
utility companies...

------
knivets
It would be cool if Tesla could also come up with something to improve
batteries used in portable devices, so we can use phones or laptops more than
1-2 days without recharging.

------
joelthelion
How sustainable is putting a large lithium battery in every home?

------
timmaah
I doubt they would install one in an RV... but I can dream.

~~~
wtallis
Likewise for boats. It's high time we stop using lead batteries in vehicles
where weight matters, and the pricing on this looks _great_.

~~~
dzhiurgis
I thought about boats as well.

Do you know the weight and dimensions of this?

It looks like it is equivalent to 835 Ah @ 12V. That is 10 lead batteries. You
probably can buy more than 3 lead batteries for 300 dollars, but the weight
and 10 year warranty does look attractive.

~~~
timmaah
Those would be crap lead acid batteries at $100.

I have 500 Ah in 4 AGM batteries that cost me $1200. If all that 835 is usable
I'd have to spend $3600 to come close with the same AGM's I'm using now.

------
CamperBob2
_Enough energy to power a single family home for 1.8 billion years or supply
energy_ to _a nuclear power plant for 2,300 years_

I think I see the problem...

------
curiousDog
Do these green numbers take into consideration the energy expended on
producing the Li-ion batteries? Surely that must be a messy mining operation.

------
rokhayakebe
Can someone please share what a single family home can do with 10kWh?

If I pay for this do I have to plug this thing into my own electrical grid to
keep charging it?

~~~
Turing_Machine
According to
[http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=97&t=3](http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=97&t=3)
the average U.S. home uses 10,908 kWh/year, so this would be enough to keep
the home running at full load for about 8.4 hours. Not bad.

If you took steps to reduce consumption (avoiding using heavy demand
appliances like electric ovens, etc.) it would last a lot longer. With a
little care, you could probably run for a couple of days on one of these,
particularly if you had LED lights, etc.

~~~
_delirium
Due to the fairly low peak power draw the battery supports (3 kW) you would
have to avoid using those heavy appliances anyway, especially simultaneously.

------
Thiz
I predict Venezuela will be the biggest importer of powerwalls to cope with
daily outages.

Who knew oil-rich but impoverished countries would help fuel innovation.

~~~
saryant
Venezuela has almost no dollars. They don't have the money to import toilet
paper much less multi-thousand-dollar battery installations.

~~~
Thiz
Venezuela has plenty of money from oil which goes to the hands of the power
elites and their cronies and families.

So yes, while 29 million people lives in total poverty, there is one million
families that would benefit a lot from that invention, and they will get it,
believe me.

------
mrfusion
Do we know the prices they're charging for the utility versions? Does it make
it a viable option for a lot of utilities?

------
mrfusion
I'm amazed at the price. This actually makes it competitive with whole house
generators at least for backup electricity.

------
orsenthil
As the picture shows, can this evolve into a battery station residing within
the garage? Experts please share your opinion.

------
dharma1
Pretty decent pricing, good enough for developing nations with power cuts
where people currently use diesel generators.

------
datashovel
Well done Tesla. Next project? I have an idea. How about standardizing battery
packs for robots.

------
TheHeasman
Forget the USA.

Imagine what these decreased battery prices are going to do for solar power in
LEDCs.

------
pbreit
How is lithium mined and disposed of? Is that much of an issue?

------
lerouxb
Feels like we're finally living in the future.

------
Siecje
I thought Panasonic made batteries for Tesla?

~~~
butwhy
With _

------
ljk
it sounds so awesome, are there any reasons why I _shouldn 't_ get this?

------
agumonkey
2 billion battery packs, and how many solar panels to feed them ? Did I miss
the number ?

~~~
cmelbye
A lot of the stuff Tesla is saying about this is quite weird. (In the press
kit and in Musk's live stream.) For example, the _first sentence_ of the press
kit:

> The world currently consumes 20 trillion kWh of energy annually. Enough
> energy to [...] supply energy to a nuclear power plant for 2,300 years.

Am I missing something, or is that an entirely bizarre comparison to make?
What does this even mean?

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> Batteries are not a source of energy. They store energy. (You'd be surprised
> at how many people don't grasp that.) Talking about how many batteries we
> need to power the world without talking about where that energy is coming
> from is silly.

I'm not sure why you got such a weird impression. In his talk he clearly
states that the power would be coming from solar energy. He even explained how
much space you'd need for solar arrays and batteries if you want to provide
the entire United States with power day and night (the biggest need for
batteries).

He also mentioned there is utility for the battery to be used with your
powergrid but the big win is using it with solar energy.

------
mladenkovacevic
My tweet from a few days ago:

It would be poignant if Tesla (the company) decentralized power generation &
storage considering free energy was Tesla's (the man) dream

~~~
hnnewguy
Everyone has known what this announcement was going to be for a month.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
I wasn't implying that I predicted the future. I'm commenting on how this
brings their product mission more in line with their company name.

------
aerovistae
Hey, for fun let's use this to do a rough math check on Tesla's future plans.

The battery is $3500 for 10kWh.

Model S with a 270kWh battery is advertised with a range of 240mi.

Model 3 aims for a minimum range of 200mi, or 5/6, a.k.a. 225kWh battery.

225 is 22.5 * 10.

22.5 * $3500 = $78,750.

Model 3 is supposed to be $35,000.

I believe in Elon Musk completely and I want nothing more than to see him
succeed and I have been blown away by what Tesla Motors and SpaceX accomplish
at every turn.

But even so, I will be amazed again if the Gigafactory can truly make the
price point feasible. I really believe they'll do it, I just don't see how.

Can the factory's massive gains in efficiency really change things by such a
huge factor in 2 years? (Model 3 targets 2017, doubtful.)

~~~
breser
Your battery sizes for the cars is way off. The Model S has come with a 60 (no
longer available), 70 and 85 kWh battery. The 240 mile vehicle is the newer 70
kWh battery.

70 is 7 * 10. 7 * $3500 = $24,500.

~~~
aerovistae
Yeah I have no idea how I managed to add 200kWh in there. Thanks for pointing
that out. Wow.

