Tesla Motors Home Battery called the "Powerwall"

[James McDonald]

Hi All --

Elon Musk built his car battery factory with more in mind then just the Tesla electric
car. See his stackable batteries for your home at $3500.00 dollars per 10 kWh.

http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall

James

[Bradley Malone]

very interesting...Thanks for sharing.

[John_Koorn]

This looks pretty cool. Is it the solution to the world's energy problem? It does look promising...

John K.

[wrtner]

It's a battery; that's all. And the punters are to be charged $2000 for a mains inverter.

The real question is: What is inside and could we build one?


Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2015/05/01/why-teslas-powerwall-is-just-another-toy-for-rich-green-people/

[Rhino101]

John,

I see they come in 7Kws and 10Kws, can be cycled daily, has 20 year guarantee, and has been designed to be used with Solar.

specs...
Power - 2.0 kW continuous, 3.3 kW peak
Voltage - 350 – 450 volts
Current - 5.8 amp nominal, 8.6 amp peak output

Question... seems like a big battery bank, but do you think you could build a Berdini energizer/generator to recharge it?

William

[John_Koorn]

wrtner, in my opinion that was a very poorly written and biased article. Tesla Energy is not claiming that you have to disconnect from the grid or that one 10kWh weekly cycle backup unit or one 7kWh daily cycle system will be enough for your energy needs.
The writer also incorrectly states that the average home uses 1,200 watts of power around the clock. Everyone knows that power consumption has peaks and troughs throughout the day and night.
Other references to SolarCity and the associates costs of getting power from the grid or putting power into the grid are simply not relevant to Powerwall announcement.
Yes, it is just a battery - which is just one component of an alternative energy system. Those who are looking to supplement their existing system with battery backup or replace their existing battery bank should look at this an alternative to what else is currently available on the market.
According to the Tesla Motors website http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall there are some advantages of this technology over current battery technologies. Easily scalable and low maintenance are a couple that piqued my interest. The cost also looks comparable to existing technology.

just my thoughts....

John K.

[Bradley Malone]

Most batteries that I have seen, given that I have not done a LOT of research, seem to be only 60% of their normal capacity after only 12 months of usage. So if these are stated to have a 10 year warrenty...that says something for me. The way i see it there has been two main drawbacks of solar. The main one is the cost of batteries and replacing them over the years. The other would eb the cost of panels. The good portion of the panel cost is the case that holds the cells it needs to be waterproof and all that. I have seen quite a few people build panels in a few cheap ways...buy the cells in bulk solder them yourself then encase them in epoxy on a backboard...cheap and simple. So with the ability to build panels diy (1500 watts would be about $600 in cellshttp://www.amazon.com/Solar--Cells-S...ds=solar+cells , guestimate $50 in solder and tabs to connect the cells and around 100-200 for the cases or however you mount them) for about $900. Then the batteries would be $6000 plus an inverter for $2000. so for under $10,000 you could have a 14kwh a day system. that should last at least 10 years. It would take 20 for the investment to be worth it as far as the cost of electric but if you want tohave back up power it does not seem to bad.

[Faraday88]

wrtner, in my opinion that was a very poorly written and biased article. Tesla Energy is not claiming that you have to disconnect from the grid or that one 10kWh weekly cycle backup unit or one 7kWh daily cycle system will be enough for your energy needs.
The writer also incorrectly states that the average home uses 1,200 watts of power around the clock. Everyone knows that power consumption has peaks and troughs throughout the day and night.
Other references to SolarCity and the associates costs of getting power from the grid or putting power into the grid are simply not relevant to Powerwall announcement.
Yes, it is just a battery - which is just one component of an alternative energy system. Those who are looking to supplement their existing system with battery backup or replace their existing battery bank should look at this an alternative to what else is currently available on the market.
According to the Tesla Motors website http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall there are some advantages of this technology over current battery technologies. Easily scalable and low maintenance are a couple that piqued my interest. The cost also looks comparable to existing technology.

just my thoughts....

John K.

Let alone the battery just marry this with the Bedini technology and LOL ! we have a Free Energy system already..
Rgds,
Faraday88.

[Rhino101]

Let alone the battery just marry this with the Bedini technology and LOL ! we have a Free Energy system already..
Rgds,
Faraday88.

Agreed Faraday88,

Question? What size system would you need

William

[Aaron Murakami]

If he wanted to move the energy market forward, he would also start manufacturing lithium iron phosphate batteries, which are non-toxic, environmentally safe and has more life cycles than the lithium cobalts he is pushing. They may have 14% less capacity (the LiFePO4s), but they have their benefits. Give people an option while dropping the cost for the entire market that the battery companies are keeping inflated for these batteries.

And the LiFePO4's are compatible with the type of charging technology we use.

[John_Koorn]

I agree there Aaron. When I watched the announcement I thought to myself - "Oh, they must be LiFePO batteries". I gotta admit, I was disappointed as well when I read they are Li Ion

John K.

[ZPDM]

I agree there Aaron. When I watched the announcement I thought to myself - "Oh, they must be LiFePO batteries". I gotta admit, I was disappointed as well when I read they are Li Ion

John K.

Would be very interesting to know Elon's take on Tesla. Okay obviously he (Elon) is very bright and a business genius etc, etc, blahblah, but is he an ignoranmus regarding Tesla? Has he taken a glance and figured the old man was a mad scientist? Or does he with his space ships have at least some clue, where I guess most of us are at, what Tesla was saying? I don't know, doubt business people know. At the very least Tesla's name is kept alive and a lot more people that would never have looked into his science will because of Elon. I think it was a marketing ploy but really I don't know. His whole attempt at making the electric power grid distributed seems to me to be a way forward and quite important.

[John_Koorn]

Good question. I haven't researched Elon much. On the surface, my uneducated guess is marketing ploy. I just hope there's more to it than that.

Still I wouldn't mind my garage looking like this:

[ZPDM]

Good question. I haven't researched Elon much. On the surface, my uneducated guess is marketing ploy. I just hope there's more to it than that.

Still I wouldn't mind my garage looking like this:

Don't know much about him either, but really I don't think he believes in COP >1, if he did it would seem pretty brash to name his company Tesla. Imagine he did it after the motor, which I suppose is DC, and has some hint that there is some strange Tesla stuff that could help give the company marque cars. Still, he seems to be in that "better to light a candle then curse the darkness zone". He is popularizing Tesla, attempting to forward electric cars, a distributed electric grid, (his previous paypal attempt at distributed payments) and a renewal of space travel. Maybe he suspects pretty strongly about Tesla, I don't know. As regards your electric car photo, maybe that is the future, Jetson's whirring electric car, yes probably more efficient, I have to say though it is not really what I would want. Give me a large fire breathing V-8 roaring to life any day. While we're at it some one remake a good steam locomotive. Can't put my finger on it but there is something just "right" about those engines, don't you think?

[aln]

While we're at it some one remake a good steam locomotive. Can't put my finger on it but there is something just "right" about those engines, don't you think?

Maybe cause they burn wood as a fuel

20 hp Mike Brown steam engine