PowerWall and "The Missing Piece..." Event

[DriverOne]

They used to be supply-constrained in the battery department. I'm fairly sure (based on past quarterly conference calls) that the battery supply is not the limiting factor anymore.

Have heard "production constrained" lately and had not thought that was anything other than battery supply. What changed to make you think otherwise?

 

[aronth5]

I think annoucement could also be about their Commercial storage solutions as well. They can save companies a lot on peak electric demand charges

While I believe it is more likely for the announcement to be related to the home solution the commercial storage solution has been in use at Tesla's Fremont Factory since 2013.
According to JB Straubel it can support up to 10% of the peak factory load. (30:57) So maybe the announcement will cover both.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWSox7mLbyE#t=1005

 

[Todd Burch]

Have heard "production constrained" lately and had not thought that was anything other than battery supply. What changed to make you think otherwise?

It used to be that Panasonic couldn't make cells fast enough to keep up with demand. Sometime, about a year ago (maybe slightly more), either the quarterly report or Elon himself (during the quarterly conference call) said that battery supply constraints would be freed up. It's been over a year since then. Now, the constraints are in other areas of production (perhaps paint, for instance).

 

[spentan]

My P85D notified me of the update. I told it to "Install Now". It counted down from 2 minutes, then made the "you're about to hit something, STOP!" noise and displayed "Never Insert Charge Cable Using the Charge Port Lever" / "Using Lever to Insert Cable Will Prevent Charging" and doesn't seem to have done anything else.

I have no idea what the charge port lever is? Is this a normal quirk of the installation process, or did something go wrong? Googling for this phrase doesn't seem like anyone else has ever received this before.

View attachment 76452

After seeing this in the Firmware 6.2 Thread, I am wondering if it is not just battery storage, but the "snake-like" metal gear solid style charging cable that plugs itself in?

Hmmmmmmmm

 

[bluenation]

I hate these announcements about going to announcing something. Fine to tell people a few days prior so they can make themselves available for the announcement but one month prior is ridiculous. They know exactly what it is -- but it's like, we're not telling you (nanananana!), we're just announcing that we will be announcing it, one month from now. That's just plain annoying to me.

why do you think elon is so good at PR, without spending a single marketing dollar?

it works. this thread is a great example.

 

[woof]

I'd settle for a 60 with supercharing.

I don't think you want supercharing. This is what they last guy who asked for that option got:

What..too soon?

 

[stevejust]

why do you think elon is so good at PR, without spending a single marketing dollar?

it works. this thread is a great example.

I don't know. There's a blog entry out there about how Musk created a $1billion with the tweet ($900 million). But, if it's not the stationary storage announcement most people believe it will be, then what happens to the value of the stock? I'm not sure it can handle an announcement other than stationary stoarage. Unless it's an announcement even more awesome, followed by an, 'oh, yeah, and stationary storage packs will ship this year for $5k installed for 10 kWh.'

 

[dmckinstry]

Speculation thread right? It's a submarine

Right. It's the 007 submersible with the wheels removed. What other vehicle can go to a depth of 20000 leagues? Well beyond the diameter of the earth, so it must be a space ship as well.

 

[dhanson865]

Home battery storage that allows fast DC (Supercharger speed) charging at home.

It doesn't even have to be insane supercharging speeds like 90KW+. If it can do anything faster than a HPWC it'd be a plus.

Heck if it can match the 20KW charge rate on cars that don't have dual chargers it'd be a double plus.

So say it could do 30KW in short bursts tapering down to 20KW until it is tapped out (around 20 minutes worth of charging) it'd be even faster charging at home and could still buffer so that your peak power usage doesn't show on the electric bill. If it could be a pass through at that point and still charge at equivalent rates as a HPWC that'd be nice as well but even if not you could get your 20 min boost and switch to the HPWC while the home battery system spends the next few hours recharging at a much slower rate (like a 3KW or less recharge rate that tapers down to zero as needed based on pricing and other home loads).

 

[bluenation]

I don't know. There's a blog entry out there about how Musk created a $1billion with the tweet ($900 million). But, if it's not the stationary storage announcement most people believe it will be, then what happens to the value of the stock? I'm not sure it can handle an announcement other than stationary stoarage. Unless it's an announcement even more awesome, followed by an, 'oh, yeah, and stationary storage packs will ship this year for $5k installed for 10 kWh.'

1) if you judge company health from stock price, you are doing it wrong.

I believe Jim Kramer is hiring interns

2) on the bold: if after all these years you still have incommensurate expectations, & can't control your Charlie Brown football syndrome, perhaps it's time to take a small break from tesla news

 

[rolosrevenge]

I don't think you want supercharing. This is what they last guy who asked for that option got:
View attachment 76481

What..too soon?

Well played. But who was they last guy?

 

[bonnie]

I predict Elon comes out with a series of *things* he's announcing. He likes to ratchet things up when the shorts are getting a little too bold.

 

[Alexander]

Yeah, they are going to have to come up with some sort of benefit beyond saving the $500 of food in my fridge for the once a decade long outage.

Well, one of the benefits I can see is that you can charge the home battery during off peak hours for (in my case) 11 cents a kilowatt, and switch to battery power during peak hours where (in my case) its 32 cents a kilowatt.

I could use that feature everyday when I'm home and want to run the air conditioner, or when I want to charge my car between the hours of Noon and 9PM.

 

[jkliu47]

A timely news item:

Bracing for a Big Power Grid Attack: 'One Is Too Many' - NBC News

 

[mwulff]

Well if they bring out a home storage solution that would totally awesome. In many european contries we pay a tax on kWh drawn from the grid, but we don't get it back when our solarpanels produce more. So in my case that means that I pay about $0.30 for a single kWh, but I can only sell it at about $0.15.

Storing the energy makes a huge amount of sense in this scenario. Especially since I would only need about 10 kWh of storage to run the house for a day or maybe two. But in between the two days my solar panels would probably have recharged the pack.

This would be totally awesome back here in the old world.

 

[FredTMC]

It doesn't even have to be insane supercharging speeds like 90KW+. If it can do anything faster than a HPWC it'd be a plus.

Heck if it can match the 20KW charge rate on cars that don't have dual chargers it'd be a double plus.

So say it could do 30KW in short bursts tapering down to 20KW until it is tapped out (around 20 minutes worth of charging) it'd be even faster charging at home and could still buffer so that your peak power usage doesn't show on the electric bill. If it could be a pass through at that point and still charge at equivalent rates as a HPWC that'd be nice as well but even if not you could get your 20 min boost and switch to the HPWC while the home battery system spends the next few hours recharging at a much slower rate (like a 3KW or less recharge rate that tapers down to zero as needed based on pricing and other home loads).

Very interesting.

 

[Airwolf]

Probably a Tesla fragrance or spray.

It will be called "Musk"!

 

[Yggdrasill]

It could be a truck.

But my money is on energy storage. They'll probably show a range a of different sized batteries for different applications, while focusing most on the home storage solution.

 

[Kevin Harney]

My first guess was the Home Storage Unit as well but then I thought. "Is that really a Tesla product or is it a Solar City project?" So, based on that, I am guessing that TM is partnering or acquiring Zero or EGO and coming out with an Electric Motorcycle. Thus NOT A CAR. AND as an added bonus that would go over HUGE in the failing China market !!

 

[HHHH]

Did anyone catch the latest thinly veiled hint? 3/31/15 at 8:55am PST "With all that solar power being generated, it almost feels like something is needed to complete the picture..." by Elon Musk