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Cool. Introduced by Chris Paine. Not much new except the announcement of SolarCity doing installs at Walmarts.
Here's an article on it: SolarCity to install solar panel and battery combo for Walmarts -- Gigaom.com
Here's an article on it: SolarCity to install solar panel and battery combo for Walmarts -- Gigaom.com
The solar cells are for powering the store. The batteries are stored energy for non-daylight power.
If it is a grid tied system, the batteries are not really necessary. The grid is your bank and battery! Emergency Power???
Elon is clear that the way to grow solar into a major part of electricity supply is via storage batteries. He describes storage batteries with a high value as emergency power source as an entry field where batteries make economic sense on their own. Keep the deep freeze running overnight in case of power outage or throw away $1m in food store inventory.
Edit: ckessel beat me to answer Lloyd. well done!
Edit: ckessel beat me to answer Lloyd. well done!
Humm. Solar City will be doing installs at a bunch of Wal-Marts. Wall-Mart stores probably have healthy (high power) grid connections that could add a Supercharger or two. The installs will include batteries, which could shave peak loads and reduce the demand charges that Wal Mart pays. Big Supercharger announcement comming soon, "as soon as some equipment is installed....". Humm.
GSP
PS. But, who wants to spend an hour at Wal-Mart while their car charges up?
GSP
PS. But, who wants to spend an hour at Wal-Mart while their car charges up?
Citizen-T
Active Member
Wal-Marts often have a McDonald's, Starbucks, or Subway inside where you could spend some time while your car charges...
My gut says that this Wal-Mart thing and the Supercharger announcement are unrelated, but you make a good case. If someone from Tesla is reading this, you might want to pass it on.
Imagine a power outage that lasts several days in your community. E.g. Irene. How would you like a Wal-mart within range of your electric car that's still open, sells food & beverages & whatnot, while you can charge your car in the parking lot? 
How would you like a Wal-mart within range of your electric car that's still open, sells food & beverages & whatnot, while you can charge your car in the parking lot?
Except for the Wal-mart part, that sounds okay. Wal-mart is fine if you are interested in sending your money to China, but not otherwise.
I used Wal-mart not because it is my favorite shopping experience but because it was mentioned in the SolarCity deal. You can go and talk the manager of your preferred grocery into a similar deal. This should work OK on every level from independent shop to big chain.
I saw a documentary on the hurricane flooding in Louisiana. Afterwards the Wallmart was overun by locals and was emptied in 3 days. The entire store bone empty in three days. Not sure how charging an electric car falls in there (would the power be on during that desperation time?) but I guess the point is that after a regional disaster, it's not always civilized.
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Another interesting speculation would be that in the future, Tesla could buy back used battery packs from their car owners and re-use the batteries for their solar power grid installations. That would make Model S, X and Gen III car owners happy as they could get brand new state-of-the-art battery packs at a subsidized cost from Tesla. It would also minimize the arguments about battery recycling and future replacement cost. The batteries wouldn't go into the land fill, they would go into building out the solar grid battery infrastructure.
Maybe this is a part of what Elon was referring to during a shareholders meeting or conference call where he said something like 'you need to have all the crystals in place to make them glow'. Perhaps TEG could dig out the exact quote!
Maybe this is a part of what Elon was referring to during a shareholders meeting or conference call where he said something like 'you need to have all the crystals in place to make them glow'. Perhaps TEG could dig out the exact quote!
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