I would like to see the ability to use a Tesla as a Powerwall. A backup battery for the house of the grid goes down, and a way to smooth demand so I draw more on the grid when the price is low and less when the price is high. That of course would depend on your electric company, if they charge consumers variable rates.
It would reduce the life of the batteries, but it would also save needing a Powerwall or a generator. It might complement rooftop solar well.
It would be less useful if you use the vehicle to commute and it's parked at work all day.
My parents live in a remote area and suffer frequent power outages. They'd love something like that.
The cybertruck should be able to do this "out of the box". It has a 240V output (though they did not reveal the amperage, it must be at least 30), so your house should not care whether it's running off a small generator or the truck, nor should the truck care whether it's running a tool or a house.
People have tried to estimate the truck's battery size from it's drag coefficient (via it's watts per mile consumption) and it seems the 500 miles version should have like 150-160kWh of storage. You can run your house for a long time on that.
150kWh it my my montly consumption for my apartment. Sure, you use more on a house, but would be more than enough for a serious outage in the country side (like my parents have in the winter, lasting even 2-3 days)
Look at the software defined intelligent power inversion pioneered by Enphase (https://enphase.com). These systems will ultimately be the lynchpin of the dream-world you describe, which I very much believe will come to pass. You'll even be able to connect to neighbors.
Fantastic. The thing is a 100kwh in a car battery is a fantastic amount of power - our condo ranges from 50kwh to 125kwh usage per month.
I would love if my smart charger could be wired with a transfer for switch or similar to send 40Amps back into the house. This would make a major difference in the decision to buy an EV.
Nissan's Leaf has the ability to do this (V2G or V2H) and the devices needed to enable it are starting to become available[1].
It's a shame they're not more widespread though. A lot of 1st generation EVs are available secondhand for much less than the cost of a Tesla PowerWall, despite larger batteries.
The issue I have with it is that you can find yourself with an empty battery when you need your car the most.
Not as much a problem if you also have a gas car, something that many people recommend if you have an EV. Many families have two cars anyways.
But otherwise, maybe if with a mode that lets you use just a small part of the battery capacity. For example keep at least 50% charge, do not charge over 75%, use the 50%-75% range as a buffer. Lithium batteries last a while when used in that limited range, full charges and full discharges is what tends to wear them out. And on a Tesla, 50% is still plenty of range.
You can buy a 1000W inverter for < $100 and use that with a normal car. [1] A true sine wave inverter is more than double that.
Presumably this is very inefficient, but a lot of power needs can be satisfied by running it for shorter periods of time to run compressors on refrigerators and charge batteries.
I would imagine this should work very efficiently for a Tesla as long as the computer doesn't stop you.
In either case though you want to have a full tank/battery. If your Tesla is low it won't help much, so although it would work really well most of the time it would be difficult to rely on it. In a remote area it is usually relatively safe and relatively cheap to store some gallons of extra gas.
Perhaps what they are hinting at here about having cheaper recycled batteries (not in cars) will make more sense for these kinds of applications: cheaper powerwalls. But I agree it would be nice to be able to put power back into a power wall from a Tesla. Particularly given that the default setting will assume a temporary outage and start charging the Tesla from the powerwall.
The problem is your alternator is going to be pissed off if it's running at idle speeds all day, and still trying to keep the battery charged while you're pulling an 80 amp load on it. Most alternators are designed to operate above idle speeds. Sure they can work at idle, and it might get you by in a short emergency... but it's probably not a great idea.
200$ for a 1000W pure sine wave inverter? That's a ripoff. Motor controllers are essentially three-phase variable frequency intelligent inverters, and you can get a 2340W ESC for less than 60$.
You can definitely find this for a bit < $200, its just kind of hard to find a trustworthy brand (maybe you know of one)? I think these may be reasonable markups to actually run a business with a finished safe product, to pay employees, ship these things, and offer warranties and handle returns.
For example, here is a reseller [0] that sells a 72V 120A (8640W peak, 4320W continuous) three phase pure sine wave motor controller for 126$, with warranties, logistics (plus shipping). I'm fairly certain that you could get a similar, or even lower price for only two phases and a fixed frequency at the same wattage. If you really want to use them as inverters though, they are programmable so you could set a fixed frequency, though I don't recommend it. I've heard of people running some other models at 120V, but I really don't recommend it :)
In any case, I think this shows that a 4320W inverter can be built and sold profitably for a lot less than 200$, if a 4320W+ three phase multi-frequency programmable inverter can be.
I should that 4320W is with passive cooling. With active cooling (from sticking a fan in the box to water cooling) you can get away with >12kW continuously.
I would like to see a general purpose DC-DC connector that could be used to hook up your car to other battery power equipment. It would be nice to be able to recharge your battery powered lawn mower / string trimmer / chainsaw without having to go through an AC/DC converter.
In a perfect world it would be great to be able to share your juice with another car. This would come in really handy for places that you aren't familiar with or don't have great charging station coverage. Imagine your on vacation and your hotel doesn't have charging; borrow some charge from a fellow traveler. Or your on a road trip and see a fellow electric car owner stranded at a rest stop; slip them some of your charge.
It might make more sense to get a Powerwall if it becomes cheap enough. The batteries that go into a Tesla car are the same batteries that go into a Powerwall. This implies that improvements in battery cost posited by the article will mostly likely apply to Powerwalls as well as to cars.
A Powerwall would be always available. What if your car isn't there when there is a power outage? What if your car isn't there when you are collecting solar energy? You wouldn't have to lose power when you drive your car during a power outage.
A Tesla with this ability could definitely serve as a supplement but the cheaper batteries are, the more it makes sense to have one permanently wired to your house. This ability would be an interim technology assuming battery costs go down enough.
Absolutely - the question is if it makes sense as a business move for Tesla, it would basically destroy the Powerwall as a product (though I am skeptical they sell a lot of them, compartively). And if they could also overcome the regulatory hurdles, electrical code is fairly strict (for good reason!) I have a roof full of PV I'd love to use during power outages, and a PHEV in the driveway I'd happily swap for a Tesla if they could connect the dots.
> With a global fleet of more than 1 million electric vehicles that are capable of connecting to and sharing power with the grid, Tesla’s goal is to achieve the status of a power company, competing with such traditional energy providers as Pacific Gas & Electric and Tokyo Electric Power.
Is this an apples to apples comparison? Power generation, distribution, and storage are quite different aspects. And then there's also the fact that Tesla would manufacture the batteries but not own them.
The battery is analogous to a fuel tank. When not used to power the car both can be used as an energy buffer as any car could be used as a source of electricity. This doesn't make any of the major car manufacturers "power companies". Is the statement coming from Musk/Tesla or is it Reuters' interpretation?
>And then there's also the fact that Tesla would manufacture the batteries but not own them.
This can be changed easily. Most Zoe owners lease their batteries from Renault and it might possible to set up a deal to share the revenues generated from the batteries.
>This doesn't make any of the major car manufacturers "power companies". Is the statement coming from Musk/Tesla or is it Reuters' interpretation?
Would this change the fact that they just manufacture the "vessel" not the contents, or distribute the contents from the source? I see this more as "democratizing power", giving people more flexibility, and indeed maybe even changing the way we use the grid. But it certainly wouldn't put Tesla in the same segment as companies like PG&E or TEPCO.
Hard drive manufacturers are never considered "content companies" regardless of how they sell or lease the drives, and what content they store. And Toyota or VW are not considered oil companies even if their cars probably move more gas than many small ones.
They would not be competing with PG&E (which has monopoly on power grid) but with companies that generate energy to PG&E e.g. the companies that burn coal or run gas peakers.
Currently Tesla mostly sells batteries to such companies and they in turn make money selling energy to PG&E (for example PG&E instead of buying energy from a company using gas peakers to generate it, they would buy it from company that "cached" energy in a battery and is selling it to PG&E during peaks).
It's a natural progression for Tesla to become such company themselves as they make the most costly part of running such business (i.e. battery).
It'll take several years (there's regulation around this stuff and Tesla needs to learn the new business) but that's where they are heading.
Tesla was installing 1,000 solar roof per week in the US, just before COVID19. They plan to ramp that quickly and roll this out globally. If they're able to deploy solar roofs in volume for both residential and commercial building, you can expect them to slowly become one of the biggest generator of renewable energy.
Knowing the pace that Musk dictates I would love to know what else Tesla is working on or what the pipeline is. Perhaps 2-3 years ago legacy car companies could have caught up if they focused their efforts, but I think Tesla is so far ahead now they will be impossible to catch.
The biggest risk is running into cashflow issues but I believe at the last report they had about 2 years worth of capital expenses in the bank, so this is also unlikely to be an issue.
Battery day for investors will supposedly show off cells that will experience only ~10% degradation over 1 million miles of wear (roughly 83 years of driving the average 12k miles/year an American drives), while also removing as much conflict cobalt as possible from the cell chemistry. Their autobidder software used at the Hornsdale Power Reserve for utility scale storage is in the process of being extended to allow Tesla to act as a virtual utility in the UK. Components of this are used in Sweden to provide Tesla owners with low cost power to charge their vehicles based on market pricing signals from the utility (charge when the cost of electricity is low or negative).
Prices go negative because it's basically a grid control service at that point. You have a load you need to have taken, and are willing to pay someone to help you manage the grid.
It's the other way around; prices go negative because you have too much power, not enough load, and you're paying someone to take that power because you can't curtail like solar or wind (perhaps you're a gas turbine or coal/nuclear generator that must run for frequency control purposes).
Check out the Hyperchange YouTube channel it does a really really good job of following Tesla battery developments and has had a number of scoops that I haven't seen reported in the media. This article also seems to confuse Tesla's relationship with CATL and their efforts to research, develop and manufacture their own cells independent of their parties like Panasonic or CATL.
Actually yes, they are noticeably more efficient than other electric vehicles in their class (similar weight and range). One example shows Tesla as 20% more efficient:
Comparing Model 3 vs Bolt on efficiency is just aerodynamics. A lower, longer car is of course more efficient than a taller, shorter one.
The Hyundai Ioniq is a similarly shaped EV as the Model 3, and it gets very similar numbers - 133 MPGe (Ioniq) versus 141 MPGe for the best version of the Model 3 Standard Range, a difference that's smaller than going from 18 to 20 inch rims on the Model 3 Long Range Performance.
It is essentially useless to compare cars that are within 10 MPGe of each other at 130+ MPGe. If your tires are slightly off optimal pressure, or you've left something heavy in the trunk, or you've chosen different rims than standard, you've lost more than this. God forbid if you've put on a roof rack, probably drops you 30 MPGe down to 100-ish.
This discussion also underpins why MPG is a poor unit to measure efficiency with. The inverse measures used in Europe like L/100km or kWh/km are much easier to compare, as differences can be compared directly between a low and a high efficiency car
I agree that subtraction is not especially helpful when comparing two cars fuel efficiency using MPG. A simple way to frame it is that doubling MPG halves your fuel needs for the same distance.
It's tough to find fair comparisons. The Ioniq for example weighs 500 lbs less than the Tesla and has significantly less range as well.
In addition to aerodynamic improvements (which is of course a non-trivial engineering effort), Tesla does have a unique rear motor design that is more efficient, an industry-leading inverter design, and many incremental engineering efforts that cumulatively save several percentage points. Because they are "all-in" on an EV design they don't have to compromise because of a shared EV/Hybrid vehicle frame design for example.
The EPA listings also provide kWh/100 miles which I use for comparison to avoid the unfair MPGe equivalency.
Yeah, I'm not saying the Tesla is poorly engineered. But OTOH it seems hard to argue they have some special sauce that gives them 20% advantage over everyone else. I don't see how they have a moat - partly because designs are already running close up against the fundamental physical limits e.g. in aerodynamics and power electronics.
Another example: the Hyundai Kona is a purely electric platform that doesn't need to compromise, and it matches the efficency of the Model Y.
The Hyundai Ioniq is a similarly shaped EV as the Model 3, and it gets very similar numbers - 133 MPGe (Ioniq) versus 141 MPGe for the best version of the Model 3 Standard Range
The Ioniq has substantially less range than the Model 3, and is a much smaller car. If the Model 3 still gets slightly better MPGe despite those differences, I'd say Tesla still has a pretty significant efficiency advantage in this comparison.
According to the specs on interior dimensions listed on fueleconomy.gov, the Ioniq is actually bigger - 96 cu ft passenger and 23 cu ft luggage volume, vs. 97 cu ft passenger and 15 cu ft luggage for the Model 3.
So they've sacrifised range by installing less batteries, gaining more luggage space, lower weight and lower price.
They have some advantage in technology, but so far they are just ahead, but usually not by leaps and bounds. They have the most experience with the drive train, the battery and the self driving. However the real 'moat' they have, is producing EV profitably, as far as we know, the other auto makers, at least until this year, were never making money of EVs. At least Ford/GM will probably continue like that, the new Electic Mustang on paper competes with Tesla but uses a battery twice the size, meaning that it can not be very profitable, if at all.
Tesla last Qt showed 25% margin on their cars. That is higher then most OEM get on their cars (usually its cheaper cars to be fair). Other OEM don't report the margins on their EVs, but most analysis shows that they make basically no money, and very often negative money.
Tesla is pushing on batteries like crazy and trying to vertically integrated and innovate both on the chemistry and on the packaging. Most OEM buy battery cells from the same 3 companies, and that often leads to delays for all of them. LGChem in Czech Republic had shortages and that lead to like 5 different EV being produced in numbers far bellow announcement. With every car maker claiming to massively increase EV sales, those battery companies are standing to make huge money but they will capture much of the margin as well, because the battery is like 1/3 of the cost of the car.
The next generation drive train Tesla has announced for their S, X, Cybertruck and Roadster will blow out of the water even what you can get from a 200k Porsche Tycan. Nobody else has announced anything like it. Breakdowns of Tesla shows that their cheaper drive trains are both lighter and cheaper to produce then the competition (see Sandy Monro).
In terms of Self Driving, among OEM so far as I know they are the only ones that are building their own self driving computer. They costume design their own hardware solution including their own designing their own dedicated chip and software to run on those chips. Plus, their tight fleet integration of cars that already have the sensor suited necessary allows them to query the fleet and use driver to train the network. Also, these computers are pretty cheap and light to build compared to the hardware that is in a Waymo car.
There are other things like software updates, business model innovation (no franchise dealership) that other car makers struggle with. The franchises is specially important because those dealers make their money on servicing, so they don't want to sell EVs.
All in all its fair to say that they do have a lead on a number of fronts. The competition has been catching up slowly, but mostly because they stared from nothing basically.
I think their main advantage at this point is that they make batteries that are well over 200 watt hours per kilogram and they can make them cheap, whereas most other EV batteries are in the neighborhood of 150.
“Perhaps 2-3 years ago legacy car companies could have caught up if they focused their efforts, but I think Tesla is so far ahead now they will be impossible to catch.“
Car companies have deep pockets and catching up is always easier than going first. I can’t think of many industries where the first mover was the winner. Usually it’s the second movers who succeed and gain dominance. Tesla is still bound by the law of physics and chemistry so what they do, others can do too.
And yet, even Volkswagen recently admitted that they only intend to follow Tesla on BEV, not lead them. Toyota has no skin in the game (they completely missed the switch to BEV), BMW and Daimler are unable to compete (even when they join force), etc.
The deep pockets of the non-electric car companies are evaporating fast nowadays, they margins keep dropping while Tesla's increase. Things are moving quickly, and far too quickly for those who couldn't change while they were massively profiting from internal combustion engines.
Toyota is still focusing on fuel cells, which, I think is dead for consumer cars, however I think makes sense in long distance travel for large vehicles (trailers, for example).
I think the death of ICE manufacturers is overblown right now, pending a major increase in battery tech by Tesla, which would just be awesome - but Buying an electric car right now is not a financially smart move for most buyers. First, the biggest market in automotive, crossovers and SUVs, there are not any affordable options for electric vehicles. Even in the sedan segment, with gas so damn cheap, the Model 3 just isn't worth it if you care about saving money.
Fuel cells don't really win compared to gas. Its hard to see any adoption of them even in those areas. For utility vehicle the price matters very much, and hydrogen is not cheap.
The ICE manufacturers are not gone die just like that for many years, however the question is, when they have all made the transition, what will the market share of Tesla be and who will they take it from.
The problem for old manufactures is that they have a gigantic capital investment in things like engines. A lot of that investment has not been amortized. Switching to EV requires both a massive investment in redesigning all cars to be EVs, huge investment in retooling your manufacturing and a lots of margin if you don't build batteries.
All that goes into your margin for EVs, and thus they are terrible for most automakers. So you are forced to sell a product that doesn't make much profit and requires a huge capital base, when you already have a huge capital base for producing marginally profitable ICE cars that are dropping in resale value quickly.
I think I disagree with the point about finaces. Sure a cheap ICE car is better, but when buying an car comparable with a Tesla in price, I rather have the Tesla. Gas is cheap now, but power is still cheaper usually. Gas could be more expensive again for many reasons. In 5 years ICE car will have basically no resale value while EV should hold their value much better.
All that said, buying a cheap ICE car with an efficient engine is the way to save money. Or use public transportation like me :)
Fuel cells win in one extremely important area - they're far cleaner. If we can find ways to make it cheaper (funny, everyone always gives Tesla this benefit of the doubt), it could be viable.
This isn't like Google. There will be some brand loyalty, but tastes change, and 99% of car sales today are not all that dependent on the drivetrain. People buy cars on things like how they look and the features they have. Eventually when battery tech is competitive there will be more options.
Ultimately it's not a huge loss - you still need wheels, brakes, drivetrains, and all of the other work that goes into making a car, a car. Only now you have a much simpler motor, without a need for a gearbox. Really, I'd argue that Tesla's only advantage is the battery. That market, imo, is far more lucrative - making batteries for other carmakers is eventually what will happen. Retooling happens relatively often - when new platforms are developed. It's not like cars are manufactured today like they were 50 years ago.
> I think I disagree with the point about finaces. Sure a cheap ICE car is better, but when buying an car comparable with a Tesla in price, I rather have the Tesla. Gas is cheap now, but power is still cheaper usually. Gas could be more expensive again for many reasons. In 5 years ICE car will have basically no resale value while EV should hold their value much better.
I don't see how you can disagree about finances and then argue "but if I'm buying a luxury car..." That's exactly my point: it's a luxury car. I've been hearing gas prices will go up for over a decade now - they haven't, and I'd bet they won't in 5 years. There's too much supply now, and more supply coming (arctic reserves, for example). It will be awhile before prices go back up. And on top of that - it's a luxury car. Why care? No one cares about luxury car resale value - everyone just leases them anyway.
It's just argument after argument about how this is better but the bottom line is they're too expensive, and really not economically better than most ICEs. Without a doubt, no better than any hybrid, in terms of cost.
> In 5 years ICE car will have basically no resale value while EV should hold their value much better.
Clean itself doesn't sell, specially in utility vehicles. And the reason Tesla gets the 'benefit of the doubt' is because they are already selling 100ks and have many more orders and they are riding a cost curve of battery improvement that doesn't exist with fuel cells.
Some people want luxury cars, so I don't know what to tell you.
EV are gone expand increasingly fast every year, in 5 years buying a new ICE Porsche will seem idiotic, mark my words.
With gas prices what they are and likely to be there for the next few years, now is a great time for Tesla to hit purchase price cost-parity with ICE vehicles. Hopefully this new battery can deliver on that promise. In theory, we could look at total cost of ownership and say that a Tesla is a good buy, but unless the sticker price looks good there are plenty that will keep buying sub-$2 gas guzzlers.
It's also lethally good for consolidating their lead in tech and manufacturing cost. Fossil car manufacturers have been given the apparent gift of lower gas prices, but this is really a curse in disguise.
While fossil-fueled cars may now be a good cost proposition for a few years more, this means that there will be even less incentive for the established manufacturers to develop their EV programs. Meanwhile, Tesla keeps charging ahead, investing billions per year and iterating with feedback from three generations of vehicles in the field. Battery prices were dropping 14% per year even before Tesla's insane R&D programs. It won't stop.
Assuming Tesla can stay somewhat profitable and don't hit any liquidity-induced catastrophes on the way, the established manufacturers will be in big trouble when the other shoe drops along with a possible oil price comeback in a few years. This has been two decades in the making, but everyone will still act surprised when EVs are suddenly the obviously best option.
It's rather disappointing that Tesla is still completely focused on the niche luxury market, though. The entire lineup of new models (Y, Roadster, Cybertruck) are still just expensive toys for the upper class. They could build a stripped down "Model 2" with a 60kWh pack right now for $25k MSRP and totally change the car buying equation for most new buyers in the US.
>The cheapest Model 3 price is within the ASP of the average US car, and it is good value.
The average, sure. But nowhere near the median. Average prices in the US are heavily weighted by pickups and luxury sales. The median for new buyers is somewhere around $25k [0]. The cheapest Model 3 you can actually buy is still ~$40k without incentives. That's an $800 car payment - firmly in luxury territory. It won't be until the average joe can buy a 60kWh electric car for a $200 payment with a couple thousand down that EVs will go mainstream. At $80/kWh there's no reason Tesla couldn't do this right now.
What would be the incentive for this? There is still a heavy demand for cars 30k+, why would they stop doing that for a cheaper car when they are selling every car they are producing at a higher profit?
This is currently an issue of manufacturing capacity, accompanied by a demand curve the 3 set in place.
Brought to you by the people who promised 1 million robotaxis for this year.
They just need to raise capital again. I wish for once they were just honest - need more cash because of the virus. Instead they are going to promise batteries that break the laws of physics.
Musk successfully achieved his three quarter of a bilion paycheck by keeping Tesla's stock price up during the biggest global depression in a hundred years. This is the sign of an insider financial genius.
https://www.bloombergquint.com/technology/tesla-s-musk-clear...
Did he? He recently said the stock was too damn high, but I guess some investors only followed what Jeff Dahn has been working for the past few years (cf. what Reuters is just revealing but you can learn about his results elsewhere too). They expect Tesla's financials to keep improving thanks to price reduction and performance improvements, while competitors realize they haven't even started to dip their toes in EV technology.
It might be too late for the rest of the industry, but this has nothing to do with the recent stock price (this is about battery technology and production ramp, something that very few journalists/analysts have covered correctly while Tesla kept increasing its lead).
I'd counter argue the reason Tesla stock remains so high is due to brilliant PR about 'aims' rather than actual performance. The carrot is always dangling for investors. It's genius that Tesla retains such a high stock price in the face of global realities, not least of which is the current US China trade war headwinds.
The competition is simply not coming (most of them are actually going bankrupt, as we speak) and Tesla keeps delivering and improving its margins and cash position.
It would reduce the life of the batteries, but it would also save needing a Powerwall or a generator. It might complement rooftop solar well.
It would be less useful if you use the vehicle to commute and it's parked at work all day.
My parents live in a remote area and suffer frequent power outages. They'd love something like that.