Anybody buying a Tesla battery?

[Mikey]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ener ... -big-deal/

I don't think I've ever seen so much hype built around something that has so little use for the customers they're targeting.

At least an Apple Watch will tell time.

[Wolfman]

always wonder about the environmental impact in manufacture and eventual disposal of such "game changing" technology. Also still wonder if Tesla's idea about wireless electrical energy was possible or just the product of a mad man's mind.

[Mikey]

Different Tesla.

[Wolfman]

Ya think?



His name is probably public domain.

[smackaholic]

Super duper hi-tech batteries is definitely a technology that needs more development......for vehicles. Affordable power storage to weight ratios needs to get better. But, we are talkin' 'bout home batteries here. Weight is pretty much irrelevant. I think we will continue to see 200 year old lead acid technology used. It is cheap and it works well.

Mikey, I assume the magic shade tree used LA?

[Mikey]

I don't have any batteries on my PV system. Unless I wanted them for backup or to get off the grid completely they would not do me any good.

I used to do technical reviews of applications in the CA program that pays incentives for self-generation and PV. I (confidentially) saw a bunch of applications for these come through a couple of years ago from an unnamed company that's working with Tesla to sell (or lease) them to the public. Naturally, I gave a lot of thought to the economics of using them with or without PV. I even went as far as calling the company to see if I could get in on the ground floor of their initial roll-out (wanted to see how much they were charging for them) but they told me they were only dealing with their existing PV customers. I was wondering at the time if any would ever actually get installed. There were a bunch of regulatory hurdles involving net metering that they had to get over, but I guess they're moving forward now.

In CA we have something called "net metering". Other states have it as well in one form or another, but I'm not sure if all the states do. Basically, when I'm gone during the day my magic shade tree produces a lot more kWh than I can use. It gets fed back into the grid and my meter runs backward. When the sun goes down and I'm watching TV and running my blender and electric wine decanter the meter runs forward. At the end of the month I pay for the net usage. The meter might run forward for 900 kWh and backward for 800 kWh, then I only pay for 100 kWh. So, my system uses the grid like a virtual battery. The Tesla system would do basically the same thing for a $3,500 investment, plus buying a new inverter. No point in doing that here when I get the same thing for free, with no losses charging and discharging the battery. That's why I don't understand the pundits claiming that these things are great for people that have solar.

[smackaholic]

Ohh, yeah, I suppose it makes sense to have the grid be your battery.

There is one situation where batteries might make sense. Imagine a grid system where a substantial number of the users had PV systems. The power company would go batshit crazy trying to load match as all those little generators out there tried pumping too much juice back into the grid.

Lets say eventually we do get to a point where there is a large percentage of the grid users pumping back into the system. The power company would have to either do something like large scale water storage or just shut peoples systems down if they couldn't take it all. If people did have an site batteries, it would help.

[Mikey]

That could be a problem and the utilities are already trying to limit net metering until they figure out how to deal with it.

Here's how it looks in CA, real time.

The blue line is that actual total demand, the green line is what the utilities see after renewables are subtracted out.






http://www.caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html

[Rooster]

As I understand it, Nevada is throwing some $1.3 billion at Tesla to build the factory there. That works out to some $190k per position, which, if the job pays, say, $50k --the state average income, it'll take almost four years just to make that back, assuming the company lasts that long. It doesn't look like a terribly good bet to me.

[smackaholic]

As I understand it, Nevada is throwing some $1.3 billion at Tesla to build the factory there. That works out to some $190k per position, which, if the job pays, say, $50k --the state average income, it'll take almost four years just to make that back, assuming the company lasts that long. It doesn't look like a terribly good bet to me.

It is likely a good deal for Nevada because the Feds will likely bankroll most of that 1.3 billion. It sucks for the rest of us

[Felix]

As I understand it, Nevada is throwing some $1.3 billion at Tesla to build the factory there. That works out to some $190k per position, which, if the job pays, say, $50k --the state average income, it'll take almost four years just to make that back, assuming the company lasts that long. It doesn't look like a terribly good bet to me.

Elon Musk is smarter than the combined intelligence level of this board.....he's definitely a "big picture guy"
he doesn't put his name on a lot of projects that fail....

[Mikey]

As I understand it, Nevada is throwing some $1.3 billion at Tesla to build the factory there. That works out to some $190k per position, which, if the job pays, say, $50k --the state average income, it'll take almost four years just to make that back, assuming the company lasts that long. It doesn't look like a terribly good bet to me.

Elon Musk is smarter than the combined intelligence level of this board.....he's definitely a "big picture guy"
he doesn't put his name on a lot of projects that fail....

I haven't seen any projects called "Musk" or "Elon" for that matter.

[Wolfman]

Reminds me a lot of this back where I lived in Cortland NY. Looks like Elon has taken it to a higher level.



http://barthworks.com/cars/electriccars ... largen.htm

[Felix]

I haven't seen any projects called "Musk" or "Elon" for that matter.

yeah well lets be honest....if you called a project musk, it would probably be assumed you were peddling something like this.....



and if you were to name a project elon, people might mistake it for........



but there's no mistaking PayPal, which was his idea and no doubt contributed to the fact that he's like a jillionaire.....