Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

Re:Elon Musk on How to Build the Future by marvin on Thursday September 15, 2016 @03:35PM (#12509111)

Tesla's energy storage enables people to use solar energy at night, without the process being a big hassle. If it gets cheap enough, it will make solar power competitive with fossil power in most scenarios. Currently, the battery installations are a cost-competitive alternative to fossil ways of covering peak load. Calling it useless is probably a stretch.

Ditto with Tesla's cars; they aren't a drop-in replacement for gasoline cars in all scenarios but I've heard more than one Tesla owner say that they will never buy a gas-powered car again. So obviously that implies greater utility for the person in question than any current gas-powered car.

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Re:Elon Musk on How to Build the Future by jsprogrammer on Thursday September 15, 2016 @04:44PM (#12509676)

Are Tesla's energy storage solutions available anywhere outside their vehicles?

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Re:Elon Musk on How to Build the Future by dv_dt on Thursday September 15, 2016 @04:51PM (#12509710)

Yes. Tesla Powerwall, a home battery.

https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

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Re:Elon Musk on How to Build the Future by jsprogrammer on Thursday September 15, 2016 @07:53PM (#12510864)

I don't think those are planned to ship until 2018.

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Re:Elon Musk on How to Build the Future by dv_dt on Friday September 16, 2016 @01:14AM (#12511990)

"During the first quarter of 2016, Tesla delivered over 25 MWh of energy storage to customers on four continents. Over 2,500 Powerwalls and nearly 100 Powerpacks were delivered in North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa.[33]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Powerwall

I don't know if those were still pilot program devices or if they've hit some level of regular production. 2500 units is still a good start.

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Re:Elon Musk on How to Build the Future by intended on Friday September 16, 2016 @02:02AM (#12512153)

So what happens to the batteries when they go bad or old?

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Re:Elon Musk on How to Build the Future by collinmanderson on Friday September 16, 2016 @06:00PM (#12517672)

Yes, likely you'd need to get all-new batteries every 10 years[1] or so. (And likely recycle the old ones.)

The good news is that batteries are getting about 8% more efficient every year (price per kwh) [2]. So 10 years from now batteries will be 1.08^10 = ~2.15x as efficient [3].

So when you replace them, they'll cost half as much for the same amount of energy storage (and probably half the space too). It's basically Moore's law for batteries except slower.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

[2] https://cleantechnica.com/2015/03/26/ev-battery-costs-alread...

[3] or is it 1/(.92^10)? That would be 2.3x

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Re:Elon Musk on How to Build the Future by soufron on Thursday September 15, 2016 @04:41PM (#12509646)

You're kind of right. Let's say they find the right uses for existing tech that's not being used as it should.

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