Tesla Introduces Their New Whole House Batteries

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Apparently, some folks know what they want. Tesla has sold out of the Power Wall through the first half of next year. Sales have been through the roof.

Tesla announces 38,000 pre-orders for Powerwall home battery | The Verge

Always have to have the first adopters so they can help the manufacturers de-bug the tech and figure out how to make it better and cheaper for the rest of us.

 

[Leadeye]

Lots of rich green technophiles out there, Tesla knows their market. Nothing like having the taxpayers finance your boutique products so you can make a killing selling to wealthy greenies. The right connections in dc and it's like printing money.

 

[CathyInBlue]

What were the figures on the price drop? 40-50% over the next 3-5 years? I'll roll those dice then. Maybe. Still liking a pair of Xantrex Freedom SW 3024s (for 240VAC) and a bank of flooded lead acid deep cycle batteries.

 

[shibumiseeker]

What were the figures on the price drop? 40-50% over the next 3-5 years? I'll roll those dice then. Maybe. Still liking a pair of Xantrex Freedom SW 3024s (for 240VAC) and a bank of flooded lead acid deep cycle batteries.

Xantrex are ok for their smaller inverters, but if you are going to spend that much you are far better off going with an Outback or one of the better companies. The problem with Xantrex is that if something gets fried, you just junk them and buy a whole new inverter. Outback is more expensive initially but very easy to repair. Download their manual for some amusing reading. I speak from direct experience here.

At $150kWh I will consider the Tesla, as I would love to not have to deal with the maintenance of my FLA cells, but the VRLA cells I have now for one bank are proving to be almost as easy to deal with, but this bank is only on year one.

 

[Iroquois]

I've been waiting for costs to go down on this stuff since Jimmy Carter. Consider that a vcr cost $1500.00 in the seventies, and the last blue ray I bought was under $100. Include inflation, that's an incredible improvement in cost to quality of a product. I've seen oil companies invest and buy out solar energy companies.
This Tesla battery nonsense sounds hinkey, like they're trying to justify the hundreds of millions of subsidies by delving in to a market with a hyped up product. I see no advantage to buying over priced batteries, that only advantage is weight. There are low maintenance batteries out there already.

 

[shibumiseeker]

I've been waiting for costs to go down on this stuff since Jimmy Carter. Consider that a vcr cost $1500.00 in the seventies, and the last blue ray I bought was under $100. Include inflation, that's an incredible improvement in cost to quality of a product. I've seen oil companies invest and buy out solar energy companies.
This Tesla battery nonsense sounds hinkey, like they're trying to justify the hundreds of millions of subsidies by delving in to a market with a hyped up product. I see no advantage to buying over priced batteries, that only advantage is weight. There are low maintenance batteries out there already.

Some of this stuff has gone down substantially. In Carter's era, home photovoltaics were about $12 a watt. In today's dollars that's about $45. The last batch of panels I bought last fall were about 85 cents a watt delivered, AND are much better built and simpler to install. So there is substantial improvement.

Inverters too have gotten cheaper. In 1989 I bought a Trace 2012 1.5 kW inverter. It cost $1100. That's about $2100 today. A comparable inverter in quality and capacity is about $400 today.

Batteries are the sticking point and the only part of this stuff that haven't come down in price, even adjusted for inflation.

 

[6mm Shoot]

I don't know anything about Teslas stuff. I do know that I have a travel trailer that will run the furnace and lights for two days off of one 12 volt deep cycle battery. Now if I was building a new house I would use a 12 volt system to run the main lights and the furnace and run a bank of 10, 12 volt batteries as back up. You would be good for at least 2 weeks with out power. If you had a small generator to recharge the batteries you would be good as long as you had fuel for it plus 10 days.

Now the batteries I used for the old trailer had lasted five years when I sold it. The new trailer I added 2 and have had them for going on 3 years and have had no problems. I think it is a great system. It comes down to what you can afford and how long you think you will be with out power. If you want to live off the grid then you better have deep pockets or get ready to live like a cave man.

 

[shibumiseeker]

If you want to live off the grid then you better have deep pockets or get ready to live like a cave man.

Hardly. Though I am a cave man.

I have less than $8k in my power system and that was accumulated over the last 8 years as the current systems expanded. I have 5 separate battery banks and inverters along with about 3.5kW of solar. Walking into the house or shop you'd never know I was off-grid. There are a few compromises I have to make: I can't just run everything all the time as long as I want, unless I want to fire up a generator. I can't run anything 220v unless I fire up a generator.

But I run a wood shop with planers, routers, saws, sanders, etc, window air conditioners, water pumps, normal fridge, all that stuff. I have to think about when I use some power a little more than if I were hooked up to the grid, but it's not living like a savage, and it wasn't hugely expensive, about what most people pay in their power bill in 3-5 years.

 

[mrjarrell]

Tesla made $800 million in their first week on the batteries. That's pretty damned impressive.

Tesla's Battery Grabbed $800 Million in Its First Week - Bloomberg Business

 

[Leadeye]

Hardly. Though I am a cave man.

I have less than $8k in my power system and that was accumulated over the last 8 years as the current systems expanded. I have 5 separate battery banks and inverters along with about 3.5kW of solar. Walking into the house or shop you'd never know I was off-grid. There are a few compromises I have to make: I can't just run everything all the time as long as I want, unless I want to fire up a generator. I can't run anything 220v unless I fire up a generator.

But I run a wood shop with planers, routers, saws, sanders, etc, window air conditioners, water pumps, normal fridge, all that stuff. I have to think about when I use some power a little more than if I were hooked up to the grid, but it's not living like a savage, and it wasn't hugely expensive, about what most people pay in their power bill in 3-5 years.

The Shibumi is a woodland creature that spends a great deal of time underground. It builds black monoliths to worship the sun. Raccoons fear it.

 

[shibumiseeker]

The Shibumi is a woodland creature that spends a great deal of time underground. It builds black monoliths to worship the sun. Raccoons fear it.

Smart raccoon do, dumb ones act as if nothing is wrong.

I have two of their skulls up on pikes around the chicken yard as a warning.

 

[John317]

I think this is a step in the right direction and will hopefully lead to future units which are better and cheaper. Nowadays it seems as companies just put new spins on old products but this is an area in which some new technology can be created in which will change the way we live. I would like to think that sustainable energy whether solar/wind/thermal can become as commonly used as the internet/cell phones which at one point didn't exist. We might not be close to that yet but it's a step in that direction.

 

[mrjarrell]

Looks like Australia is getting the first Powerwalls. Looks pretty cool. We'll have to see how they work out.

The Tesla Powerwall is finally rolling out. First stop: Australia

 

[dieselrealtor]