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My new solar and Powerwall installation
- Thread starter ecarfan
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- Powerwall Tesla Energy
"Being made."
There was something very Truman-Show-esque about that part of the tour, wasn't there?
The whole tour was odd. They must have spent a couple of million dollars building that one time use hospitality area. Felt very over the top and reeked of Silicon Valley excesses. Meanwhile the tour itself made me think they were a long way from cell manufacturing. Even ignoring that they didn't show us anything (except half built giant ovens), what they did show us was a skeleton.
SureValla
Member
"Out of sorts"? No one I have dealt with at Tesla Energy has seemed unhappy or disgruntled.
Not sure what you mean by that phrase in this context.If you are referring to the temporary tents for the Gigafactory event, $2 million would be an exaggeration. I would say less than $100K. It's relatively inexpensive and effective marketing and resulted in extensive media/social media coverage, raising awareness of Tesla and the Gigafactory.
The cell manufacturing will be done on the upper floor of the Gigafactory, which we didn't see. I do agree with you that all the equipment we saw on the first floor that will be used for vehicle cell and pack manufacturing was clearly not in active use. But Powerwalls and Powerpacks are obviously being produced in the building. That production line is its first iteration. It's like the Fremont Line #1 in 2012. But just three years later there were two production lines in Fremont and vehicle production had increased dramatically.
I don't think so. When I submitted my name/email to Tesla Energy last year my Roadster wasn't even on "My Tesla" account, only my Model S was (I'm not the original owner of my Roadster, and it was only recently that Tesla added it to "My Tesla" account).
I do think that my good fortune in getting a Powerwall installed this year is primarily due to the fact that it was able to be done during a new solar system install (as opposed to adding a Powerwall to an existing install) and secondarily due to my being a Tesla owner. I do not think it is related to my living within a 15 miles of Tesla HQ in Palo Alto. I know of other Powerwall owners in the US who are located all over the country.
ArtInCT
Always Learning
Is it possible that Powerwall production is hampered by power cell availability? Do you think that once the Gigafactory can produce cells at a better cost, then the Powerwall production rates will increase?
I just recently read that Samsung is going to build their own version of the Gigafactory in Hungary. I may be mistaken but that is what I recall.
Lastly, Ecarfan, now that you are up an running on Solar, how many AMPS and VOLTS can your array supply to the Tesla for charging? And how long did it take to do the initial Powerwall charge up? (hopefully all done from Solar and not Grid power).
Have you been able to test the Powerwall by forcing a test outage?
I just recently read that Samsung is going to build their own version of the Gigafactory in Hungary. I may be mistaken but that is what I recall.
Lastly, Ecarfan, now that you are up an running on Solar, how many AMPS and VOLTS can your array supply to the Tesla for charging? And how long did it take to do the initial Powerwall charge up? (hopefully all done from Solar and not Grid power).
Have you been able to test the Powerwall by forcing a test outage?
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I suspect the real reason Tesla Energy isn't selling more Powerwalls and Powerpacks is that they haven't figured out an effective sales force/marketing strategy yet. I suppose they could also be slow rolling it out due to yet another design change (the rumored integrated inverter), but I can't see that new Powerwall coming out for a while yet (car inverters and solar inverters are quite different). And that reason wouldn't account for poor Powerpack sales. I think Tesla is just struggling to sell products that don't sell themselves, and in the case of Powerpack, have real competition.
When the grid is working, my solar system supplies power to my main panel where all my circuits are located, including the circuits powering my Model S charger and Roadster charger. The solar doesn't not have a specific path just to my EV chargers, so I don't think I can answer your question.
Nor can I answer your question about how long it took to charge my Powerwall, I didn't notice. I think it was about half charged when installed. So it would have taken another 3kWh to charge, which is only about $1 at peak rates. It makes no difference to me whether that energy came from my solar or the grid.
After system power up the Tesla Energy person did test the Powerwall by turning off the solar system disconnect switch and after less than 2 minutes (I don't recall the exact time) the solar and the Powerwall was feeding energy into the "critical loads" sub panel. So I know it works.
With way over 100,000 people in the US signed up and saying they want a Powerwall (my source for that is someone high up in Tesla Energy) they can take their time figuring out an effective marketing strategy. So far the product is selling itself.
In my opinion, the obstacle to installing more Powerwalls is not marketing or manufacturing it is training installers in the field to do it correctly. Tesla Energy does not appear to be planning to have a large number of employees who do the installations, I think that for now they plan to train third party solar installers to install Powerwalls. Tesla Energy does have some people who are doing that training and are they are onsite supervising installs.
When Tesla absorbs SolarCity and starts selling solar systems under the Tesla Energy brand then I believe that Tesla Energy will train the ex-SolarCity installers to install Powerwalls.
SureValla
Member
correct me if I'm wrong but the only advantage to having a powerwall is for power outages? Sort of a generator replacement type device?
It can also be used for arbitrage. (Buy power when it is cheap at night to either offset your peak daytime usage or sell it back to the utility at higher rates.)
That is only one of the advantages. @MP3Mike pointed out another. And it can store excess solar power generated during the day for use at times when solar generation is minimal or absent.
I'm personally pretty certain the delay in Powerwall sales is a production cost thing. Until the Gigafactory is running, they're too expensive to produce; I'm sure they make a profit at the stated price, but not enough of one, and the price is a deterrent to sales and is *not* what they were aiming for. Since they're already planning Powerwall 2.0 with various fixes, I'm guessing they just decided to stop manufacturing Powerwall 1.0 until they finished designing 2.0 and got the battery production lines running at the Gigafactory.
SolarCity is not in the business of installing home EV charging. And I don't think the Powerwall fits into their business model so they aren't interested.
It wasn't SolarCity.
Where are you located? My installer is on the San Francisco Peninsula. Your TMC profile does not give you location other than "United States".
I thought I saw a post today on TMC stating that Tesla just dropped the Powerwall price by 5% but now I can't find it....
If true, that indicates that Powerwall production costs aren't an issue.
They were originally describing costs *50%* lower than what they're selling it for right now. Think about it.
PaulRocket
Member
I think this is because they can charge 450$ per kWh and the demand is still there. They are production constrained and with the Powerwall V2.0 I expect the price to drop to 300$ per kWh and I expect them to really deliver a lot of Powerwalls. Volume shipments won't happen until early next year.
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