Tesla boosts output for Powerwall battery storage from 2kW to 5kW

An upbeat reunion confronts a variety of shareholder concerns.

Greentech Media

An upbeat reunion confronts a variety of shareholder concerns.
An upbeat reunion confronts a variety of shareholder concerns.

CEO Elon Musk preached today at the annual Tesla shareholders meeting, with services at the house of Musk yielding mostly positive portents.

Vegan seat covers, auto-pilot rollout timing, and Powerwall specifications appear to be the major issues on the minds of Tesla shareholders, judging by the questions posed. Matters of finance, production and sales were not addressed in detail at this forum.

Model X and Gigafactory on track, battery swap DOA

The Model X SUV is on track for deliveries in the third quarter of this year, and the Gigafactory will be ready for battery-pack production by the middle of 2016, according to Musk. He said, “I am looking at the latest iteration of the Model X every week. And it really is — it’s turning out to be a really great car. I think the Model X may arguably be a better SUV than the Model S is as a sedan.”

The battery swap program appears to be a non-starter.  Musk said, “Yes, we have basically the LA-to-San-Francisco pack-swap capability in place. And I believe all Model S owners in the California area have been invited at this point to try it out. And what we’re seeing is just a very low take rate. […] So, we did an initial round of invitations…like, 200 invitations. And I think there were a total of four or five people who wanted to do that, and they all did it just once. So, OK, it’s clearly not very popular. He added, “And based on what we’re seeing here, it’s unlikely to be something that’s worth expanding in the future.”

Musk also noted that Deepak Ahuja, CFO since 2008, is planning on retiring.

Major battery business will be with utilities, not consumers

Despite the hype around the residential battery pack, Musk noted, “We expect most of our activities to be with the Powerpack, not the Powerwall. So it’s probably 80 percent, maybe more than that, of our total energy sales that are likely to be at the Powerpack level to utilities and to large industrial customers. And that’s where the economics are very compelling, because there is an important difference between price and cost. The cost to the utilities of between day and night is quite substantial, because the power usage is often sort of 2:1, at least, if not greater than 2:1, sometimes substantially greater than 2:1, between peak day usage and trough night usage.”

Regarding the home battery, he said, “We actually took some of the negative feedback to heart. And I am very happy to announce that we’ve dramatically increased the power capability of the Powerwall. So it’s actually going to go from having 2 kilowatts steady, 3.3 kilowatts peak to a 7-kilowatt power, 5-kilowatt steady. Price is unchanged. So, [we] basically more than doubled the power output of the Powerpack, and the price is going to stay the same.”

Musk added, “We’re going to prioritize delivery of the Powerwall to people who have an existing solar installation or are getting a solar installation, because the solar installation comes with an AC-to-DC inverter, which means you don’t need to buy an additional AC/DC inverter for the Powerwall, and because that cost is already there with your solar system.” He continued, “We’re also going to be prioritizing delivery of the Powerwall to partners that minimize the costs to the end user, so the net result is we’re expecting people to be able to purchase and install the Powerwall for about $4,000. That’s basically $3,500 for the Powerwall with the increased power capability and then $300 to $500 for installation, labor and cost — that’s the expectation.” He suggested that the cycling application is not suitable for the U.S. residential market but makes great economic sense in Germany or Australia.

More reflections from Musk

  • “It’s really unprecedented for a car company to grow, to have this level of percentage growth. I’m going to try to maintain it for as long as possible, but…as I’ve said before, it seems likely that we’ll be able to maintain a roughly 50 percent average growth rate per year for several years to come.”
  • “This year, we introduced the dual-motor all-wheel drive. And I think, actually, I’d like to admit…in introducing it, we probably didn’t do an ideal job of explaining that ‘dual-motor’ meant ‘all-wheel drive.’ So…there are two motors and they’re connected to the four wheels, but that connection was not clear for a lot of potential customers.”
  • “We also introduced autopilot, initially starting with the hardware suite, and now we’re gradually updating the software. So the current autopilot version 1 hardware consists of a forward radar, a camera, a forward camera, and 360-degree ultrasonics that go out to about 5 meters, or roughly 16 feet, around the car. So that allows us to do what we call…’highway autopilot,’ as well as some cool features like auto-park and being able to summon the car on private property. I am actually…testing the latest version of autopilot every week. In fact, I have typically two or three builds per week that I’m testing in my car.”
  • “We also introduced the dual-motor 70-kilowatt-hour car. […] That’s been very well received by customers; We’re seeing upward of one-third of customers choose the 70D.”
  • “So, this is sort of interesting: In terms of looking at the North American market share of high-end premium sedans, we’re actually the number-one seller.”
  • “Regarding SpaceX going public: I’m trying to build a city on Mars. […] I think it would not be super-loved by the public markets. I’d expect with SpaceX…that we will probably go public once we have regular flights to Mars.”

Several shareholders expressed interest in the company building a “vegan” Model S that eschews leather seat covers. I would suggest that leather seat covers are surely not the only animal products in this or any car. Musk just appeared in New Orleans at the annual EEI conference to ease the worries of the electric utilities. He is now considering an appearance at next year’s PETA conference.

Baird has set a $335 price target for Tesla shares.

Source: Greentech Media. Reproduced with permission.

Comments

8 responses to “Tesla boosts output for Powerwall battery storage from 2kW to 5kW”

  1. phred01 Avatar
    phred01

    Great improvement 2kw to 5W Someone needs to proof read before posting article

    1. disqus_3PLIicDhUu Avatar
      disqus_3PLIicDhUu

      Yes very poorly written and not a clear indication of the new continuous and peak output.
      If you’re in the game, you can understand what it’s on about, but can be a confusing article.

      All said, I think they should just go for a ‘one size fits all’, 10kW unit that is capable of daily cycling, this would be better to cover most senario’s, including energy efficient ‘off grid’ homes, excepting the more energy hungry installations, which might require multiple units.

      1. phred01 Avatar
        phred01

        I have 3.8kw grid connected but planning to install a further 6kw for battery storage & use. So 10kw is what I figured out that would be enough to go off grid. There is a new wind generator that is bladeless. This potentially will be a game changer so the rabbit better watchout
        http://news.yahoo.com/whirlpool-windmill-produces-power-without-blades-134826563–finance.html.
        I c the title has been increased fro 5W to 5KW

        1. Miles Harding Avatar
          Miles Harding

          Sizing an off-grid system is always a tricky. It is controlled by the worst days of the year. Adaptation strategies for those periods will reduce the size of the PV array substantially.
          Worthwhile trade-offs are to increase the size of the battery, install a diesel generator for occasional use, or keep the mains for those 6 days a year when it is needed. (the mains option may be a better choice then a diesel that needs maintenance)

          With the rabbit loving coal and hating anything renewable, especially kinetic art masquerading as wind turbines, those eddy shedding poles may be the idea. While the story didn’t mention the wind speed, cloudy and windy often go together.

    2. Miles Harding Avatar
      Miles Harding

      I wasn’t concerned about the original peak capability when multiple units can be ganged. The 2kw limit means a relatively short 3.5 hour run time to empty. The upgraded power will match better to a 5kw inverter, but will only have a 90 minute run time at maximum, although it will be better able to track peaks.

  2. john Avatar
    john

    Being able to deliver 5Kw of power now this does make sense instead of buying 2 rated at 2 Kw possibly a 5 Kw Powerwall especially at the same price looks attractive.
    It escapes me but how many KwH of power is deliverable?
    Perhaps still buy 2 so they are not discharged too low and fail early.

    1. WR Avatar
      WR

      7kWh for the 7KWh powerwall, 10KWH for the 10KWh. See the photo in yesterday’s article: https://reneweconomy.wpengine.com/2015/energy-storage-dominates-at-launch-of-intersolar-europe-2015-53933

  3. Miles Harding Avatar
    Miles Harding

    The whole Power Wall concept just made more sense in this story.

    It looks to be all about the software doing the smoke and mirrors part of the magic trick.

    If you already have a PV system with a suitable panel configuration (voltage) and AC grid inverter, only the Power Wall units, some integration bits and software are needed to make the battery able to store solar energy during the day and give it back at night through the original grid inverter.

    The fancy bi-directional converter in the power wall really makes sense when it can be so nicely multiply used to protect the battery inside, match it to the PV panels (solar MPPT) and maintain the DC bus for night time generation.

    Where we may have a problem in Australia is the reluctance of the retailers (those most useless billing shims between the customer and the network) to embrace the concept of energy storage that interacts with the power supply. In my previous inquiries, here in WA, the network (Western Power) doesn’t have any fundamental objections, the issues are all with the retailer, Synergy.

    With sort of smart software on Tesla’s products, I would expect the battery export power to be configurable and set it to zero until we get enlightened network operators that are willing to buy some peak kwhs at a reasonable price.

    If considering a power wall, and obvious accessory is a Model-S, which is like buying 8 power walls (is there a business case for the discount wheels on this battery?). In a peak buyback environment, it would only be matter of time (weeks?) until a power converter is available that makes use of the DC (direct to battery) charge port for bi-directional energy conversion. My analysis indicates the the sort of shallow cycling will make no difference the life of an EV battery.

Get up to 3 quotes from pre-vetted solar (and battery) installers.