PowerWall vs Model S,X,3,3X etc...

[GregHudson]

G'Day. Here's a semi hypothetical question for you...
I have read numerous comments telling me the Model S (in particular at the moment) is limited in its delivery due to a lack/shortage of batteries.
Similar comments re the Model X as well, however, if this is in fact true, how is it that battery backed up SuperChargers exist, and, most of all, the Tesla PowerWall is going to be draining (pun) the battery supply for vehicles (at least until the Gigafactory comes online).

Does it make any sense to have 38000+ orders for powerwalls, when all the batteries for them should be going into cars (first) ?

Comments anyone ?

 

[Gabz]

when the power wall first came out i saw the limited output of 2kW steady and throught this is where tesla are sticking the batteries that don't pass car QA. the powerwall batteries will get a nicer life than car batteries.

so that was one theory, tesla don't exactly have a great record of hitting deadlines so there could be a 1000 reasons the cars are slow to be built.

 

[GregHudson]

when the power wall first came out i saw the limited output of 2kW steady and throught this is where tesla are sticking the batteries that don't pass car QA. the powerwall batteries will get a nicer life than car batteries.

so that was one theory, tesla don't exactly have a great record of hitting deadlines so there could be a 1000 reasons the cars are slow to be built.

Hmmm... Use the PowerWall as a reject dumping ground... (My words not yours or theirs.)
I doubt this would be the case, as I imagine PowerWall owners would not be too happy (and I intend being one of them once I recalculate my usage).

IMO, we should be using the VEHICLE as storage/backup for the house. 60 to 86Kwh is way better than the 7 to 10 in a single PowerWall pack.
I've heard Renault already do this with the Zoe in Europe.

 

[Mark E]

IMO, we should be using the VEHICLE as storage/backup for the house. 60 to 86Kwh is way better than the 7 to 10 in a single PowerWall pack.
I've heard Renault already do this with the Zoe in Europe.

Not a lot of use when I have the car with me during the day and the panels at home are generating...

 

[GregHudson]

Not a lot of use when I have the car with me during the day and the panels at home are generating...

I guess it depends on your circumstances. As for me, I'm home all day, car sits in the garage doing nothing mostly. However consider this...
You drive home, plug into the house, and your power bill drops to $0 whilst drawing power from the car... Come 11pm (when the off peak rate kicks in) and you then start sucking power from the grid (at the cheapest rate possible). Makes sense to me...

 

[baillies]

I guess it depends on your circumstances. As for me, I'm home all day, car sits in the garage doing nothing mostly. However consider this...
You drive home, plug into the house, and your power bill drops to $0 whilst drawing power from the car... Come 11pm (when the off peak rate kicks in) and you then start sucking power from the grid (at the cheapest rate possible). Makes sense to me...

You can find some videos for this by Nissan, especially regarding disaster zones like after the Tsunami. Note that Telsa provides supercharging for 'free' so would need a mechanism to stop people charging at the supercharger then running their house from the car...

I think the bigger issue is the integration needed from utilities and powerwall is an easier first step on the V2G (vehicle to grid) path.

On your original question I think a lot of the batteries have come from old battery packs, a lot of rev A batteries failed and were completely replaced (BJorn and KMan on youtube have episodes on this) these were not cell failures but issues with connections, the cells have to go somewhere and cannot be sold.

The other reason for Powerwall is probably credit related, they needed to show the demand so they could justify the overdraft increase they wanted to expand the GigaFactory, I am sure it is easier to get credit when you have reservations for the first 12 months of production of the factory...

They are still installing lots of superchargers without battery backup and even paying for substation upgrades (St Leanards) and I am sure if they had enough batteries available they would be using Powerpacks everywhere. Tesla is expanding very fast but still cash constrained so they cannot add PowerPacks and Solar power to all stations, there investments need to be more directly towards building cars and getting part supply at volume, The Gigafactory was always supposed to have greater supply than they needed for cars to allow capacity for Powerwall.

Lastly since your post the 90 pack has come out so I guess some 60's may upgrade to 70 and some 85 may upgrade to 90 (not sure if 60 can upgrade to 90 easily) and this may provide some supply for powerwalls although I guess second hand cells can only be used internally by Tesla or when arranged with utilities. Other EV/PHEV manufactures also have fixed storage from used EV's packs but only internally that I have seen so far.

 

[paulp]

I guess it depends on your circumstances. As for me, I'm home all day, car sits in the garage doing nothing mostly. However consider this...
You drive home, plug into the house, and your power bill drops to $0 whilst drawing power from the car... Come 11pm (when the off peak rate kicks in) and you then start sucking power from the grid (at the cheapest rate possible). Makes sense to me...

You have missed an important problem though, go to tesla, fill up for free at supercharger, go home and drain batteries at tesla's expense at night.