Tesla Wants to Build a Battery for Your House

[Sunking]

There are two big issues at play here. The majority of Ev's use either LiCo (Lithium Cobalt) which is what Tesla uses, or LiMn (Lithium Manganese) used in the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt. Both have inherit problems of cost, cycle life, and thermal runaway.

LiCo has the highest energy density of all the lithium batteries of around 250 wh/Kg which is why Tesla can claim up to 300 miles on a charge. LiCo has two huge problems; cost and safety. On the cost side is you are looking at more than $2/wh. Ever notice how expensive your laptop and cell phone batteries are. Along with the cost side is cycle life and with LiCo is the lowest of all lithium batteries. On cost alone it would be insane to even consider using them for energy storage for home use. You would be looking at $3 to $5 per Kwh just in battery cost. The second problem which is by now a moot point is safety. LiCo is very unstable and requires thermal management. Tesla has to use both liquid cooling and heating. LiCo is very prone to thermal runaway, and when they burn you cannot put the fire out. The heat is so intense and hot it melts steel.

LiMn on the other hand is less expensive, safer, and slightly better cycle life. However it is very sensitive to heat and doe snot work well in warm climates. Even though it is less expensive, when you combine initial cost, thermal management, and cycle life you are still looking at $1+ per Kwh hour. Again no one would do that when you can generate electricity for 4-cents per Kwh. What country, company, or person would do that to their economy?

Lithium Iron Phosphate aka LFP is really the only chemistry that stands a decent chance sometime in the future. There are the safest, least expensive, and longest cycle life of any lithium battery. Today the cost have bottomed out and starting to go back up of about 40 - cents per watt hour and a cycle life of 2000 cycles or 7 to 10 year calendar life whichever comes first. However that still is no where near cost competitive to conventional generation cost. That still puts you in the 60 to 70 cents per Kwh battery cost. You do not see them used much in commercial EV's because they have the lowest energy density of al the lithium batteries of roughly 90 to 100 wh/Kg. Unfortunately most are not made in the USA, rather China. Chi-Com LFP cells cost 40-cents per wh. USA made cells are $1.50 per like those made by the bankrupt A123 Systems which are now owned and made in China.

[Roil]

Let's see if we can get this thread back on track

The topic is about Teslas alleged intention of supplying battery packs for "home use"

I must admit that so far the best argument against, has come from Derek (Sunking) - and it's all about safety. Do we want a bomb in our basement? On the other side at some point in time we probably have to leave the old fashion world of FLA's. It's just an outdated technology. We drive much faster on our Norwegian slippery winter roads today then we did 50 years ago, but then we have much safer cars, better winter tires with advances soft rubber compound, ABS brakes, airbags, EMS and all the other f. 3-letter acronyms. We use the increased technology to drive faster not safer - just our human nature I guess. Tesla owners on have accepted the risk driving around with this battery pack.

Maybe it is the same with energy distribution systems and batteries?

Norway has some of the biggest batteries in the world - our hydroelectric water dams. We are currently investigating whether we can use them as batteries for the less flexible output of europe's nuclear power plants. Charging them at night by pumping water up again them from the sea. But because of distance it's not without a power loss. It would have been nice and more safe from an crises point of view if this energy could have been stored more locally.

In Norway where grid reliability is very high and no one has a grid backup solution, such a batteripack could however be used to save us from extend the grid in very remote areas where the grid construction cost and the following depreciation wildly exceeding the cost of actually producing the power. This could be for people living in such areas or of grid cabin's like me.

Just to give you all a flavour of how energy prices might influence the views on this topic:

Kw electricity in Norway 0.11-0.12$/kwh (2015)
Pump gas: 6.5$/US gallon

[Mike90250]

The alternator?

Nope, the gas or diesel or propane engine that spins the alternator/generator It powers the wheels and the battery gives it some extra kick. No idea how it does towing up a 6% hill for 5 miles.
See Grapevine @ I5 http://www.crashforensics.com/tejonpass.cfm

[russ]

I vaguely remember seeing an ad years ago for a hybrid pickup truck with a 120VAC outlet. The ad showed a Rugged Carpenter at a remote job site with his power tool plugged into the truck.

For that purpose it is great but not more.

[pleppik]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5838[/ATTACH]

This is what powers a Hybrid truck... not the battery.

The alternator?

[Alisobob]

Alternator-Repair-Bolingbrook-IL.jpg

This is what powers a Hybrid truck... not the battery.

[pleppik]

That is silly stuff!

I vaguely remember seeing an ad years ago for a hybrid pickup truck with a 120VAC outlet. The ad showed a Rugged Carpenter at a remote job site with his power tool plugged into the truck.

At the time it struck me as a nifty idea, especially since I've been known to occasionally use power tools at remote sites.

But I don't remember which truck it was (best bet seems to be the Siverado Hybrid), and I can't seem to find any references to this feature anymore. I'm guessing that in the real world, Rugged Carpenters don't often work at sites without power.

(But the idea isn't entirely dead. While I was googling for the old ad I remember, I found a concept truck from last year with hybrid power and 120/240VAC plugs.)

[Solarnemo]

Using hybrid car battery as an optional backup source

Solar generates energy.

Batteries store energy.

Batteries dont "power" anything. The energy comes from somewhere else.

Musk is panicing....

Thanks all for the input. Thought was that with Grid Tie solar systems, the options are not so good for emergency power to keep the furnace going in Minnesota where it gets very cold and to power the refrigerators and freezers in the summer. (The food keeps pretty good outside in the Minnesota winters)

1. Generator sets are noisy and require fuel.

2. Batteries are expensive and require venting.

I am not a greenie yet, but if a hybrid or PHEV car could be easily used to power the refrigerators in the summer of the furnace in the winter is would be better than the alternatives above.

With gas prices so low now, Pug in electric cars do not get much press except for the true enthusiasts.

You can buy a two year old Volt car with relatively large battery for a deep discount ($19K). However, after driving one, I would probably prefer to drive something higher end with a better ride.

Thanks for the comments.

[Alisobob]

Solar generates energy.

Batteries store energy.

Batteries dont "power" anything. The energy comes from somewhere else.

Musk is panicing....

[russ]

Is anyone familiar with the concept of using the Prius hybrid car Battery and car generator as an emergency generator system?

There is an internet reference for something called a Plug out kits. http://www.converdant.biz/plug-out/

That is silly stuff!

[pleppik]

From a Tesla forum:
"Nissan has just announced a $5500 replacement charge for the 24kWh battery so it's reasonable to expect to get a 85kWh battery for (way) under $20,000 in the future."

0.25$/wh should be interesting when knowing you could use all the watts.

Presumably this price has some sort of trade-in allowance or even direct subsidy built in. Nissan wants to make sure buyers don't get too scared by the prospect of replacing the battery at some point.

That said, there are a lot of smart people in the EV business who think the price of battery packs is going to drop a lot in the next few years, and auto manufacturing can drive efficiencies of scale like few other industries. I wouldn't be surprised if there's already more kWh of battery packs in electric cars than in all the off-grid homes on the planet.

(Plausibility check: From Wikipedia, Tesla has sold 56,782 Model S sedans through the end of 2014, so this model alone represents between 3.4MWh and 4.8MWh of installed battery capacity. Also from Wikipedia, in 2007 there were 180,000 off-grid families in the U.S., but no word on what percentage of them have battery storage or how much; if they average 10kWh of battery storage, this would be 1.8MWh total. So the notion that there may be more battery capacity in EVs than in off-grid homes is at least not laughably wrong.)

[Sunking]

From a Tesla forum:
"Nissan has just announced a $5500 replacement charge for the 24kWh battery so it's reasonable to expect to get a 85kWh battery for (way) under $20,000 in the future."

0.25$/wh should be interesting when knowing you could use all the watts.

But you cannot buy them for that price, that is dealer cost and you must own a Tesla or Leaf and have a battery to trade in. Secondly last thing you want is a large LiCo battery in your house or garage. LiCo is a short lived battery. LFP is the long lived safe battery.

[Roil]

Not if it cost you $1/wh you won't.

True, but for that price you get the whole car, the non battery stuff probably do have some value?

If you search the Tesla forums you will see that price estimations for the 85kwh batteri of a Tesla goes from 45000$ all the way down to 12000$. This is replacement prices so not the same as buying a separate unit

From a Tesla forum:
"Nissan has just announced a $5500 replacement charge for the 24kWh battery so it's reasonable to expect to get a 85kWh battery for (way) under $20,000 in the future."

0.25$/wh should be interesting when knowing you could use all the watts.

[Solarnemo]

Alternate battery backup system

The plan is to sell stationary battery packs to both homes and utilities.

Tesla's claim is that by cranking up the manufacturing volume of lithium batteries on a massive scale, they can bring down the price by a big fraction (like half or more). I have no idea if this will work or not, but at least they're putting their money where their mouth is.

I also saw a recent article (sorry, no link) that Tesla is planning to bid on some utility-scale battery storage projects which would be installed in California in five years or so.

Since the battery factory in question is still under construction, and the cars get first dibs on the output, it will probably be 3-5 years before you can buy a Tesla battery for your home.

Thank for the Information.

With grid tie system everything goes dead when power goes down. Off grid with battery system is expensive. Option for backup system without paying a fortune is interesting.

Is anyone familiar with the concept of using the Prius hybrid car Battery and car generator as an emergency generator system?

There is an internet reference for something called a Plug out kits. http://www.converdant.biz/plug-out/

[Sunking]

Tesla uses LiCo cell, sames as in your laptop that requires extensive battery and thermal management that requires liquid cooling. Way too expensive and dangerous.