mitch672
Active Member
yup, Elon has people check the threads for him, looking for the best ideas.
it could happen, but i doubt it
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Surprise R and D project
- Thread starter Chickenlittle
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yup, Elon has people check the threads for him, looking for the best ideas.
it could happen, but i doubt it
Raffy.Roma
Rome (Italy)
RobStark
Well-Known Member
How about lithium air supplemental battery packs as range extenders?
265 EPA rechargeable range plus 500-1000 mile recyclable battery pack for when recharging is impossible or very inconvenient.
265 EPA rechargeable range plus 500-1000 mile recyclable battery pack for when recharging is impossible or very inconvenient.
I think it needs to be something directly related to Tesla Motors revenue, etc. Wall Street will not be pleased if that kind of shareholder money is being spent on some side project, even one as cool as HyperLoop. Everything should be feeding into making MX and M3 successful or its going to be viewed as a distraction.
Hah! That is my favorite idea so far: They really need something to work on so, he says "we got secrets" then logs onto TMC.com to find out what his secrets should be, then goes and does that.
Or, maybe you are suggesting a direct TMC geek -> propulsion conversion tech. Also excellent.
On a different note, I hope they do allow vehicle-to-house transfer. I would install solar so fast. Also, I would suddenly become enthusiastic about charging at work
They couldn't afford to do the hyperloop. It's obviously the submersible car project.
That would be awesome! But how would one connect the car to a residential breaker panel to provide power while protecting the car from grid power surges when the power comes back on? And to use the car to store output from a residential PV system the car would have to be home during the day, yet typically that is not the case.
pz1975
Active Member
I think it is the semi-autonomous driving project. We here know about that as it has been eluded to a few times but there is no way that the public and analysts on Wall St are aware of that as a potential major selling point of future Tesla cars (I rarely if ever see it mentioned in any analysis of the company). So it would fit the criterion of something "something you don't know of yet".
Raffy.Roma
Rome (Italy)
I've been thinking home backup power, and experimenting with vehicle to grid since the call. Good point re the pack likely having many more cycles than Tesla has suggested or estimated. One of the members here who seems to have a strong battery background has suggested something like 300K+ mile packs retaining ~90% capacity.
Past couple of days I've been trying to remember whether Elon has deflected suggestions of V2G because he doesn't see it as a good option or because it's an interesting idea but they simply cannot do everything, as he's tried to point out at a few times while fielding questions at QAs with the public. Quite sure this came up in Europe this past January/Feb, I think it was in Norway.
This would add value to owning an EV and putting up solar panels… obviously two things Elon wants to see accelerated.
No worries if there's no simple answer, but does it seem plausible that using the battery pack in the car as backup for power loss at one's home could be separated from vehicle to grid? That is, initially focusing on the benefit of having that battery pack in your garage during a power outage, without having to sort things out with the utilities for vehicle to grid?
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fwiw, that's another one I'd be excited to see. In the first half of 2013 Elon had tweeted (I think in a reply tweet) some new battery tech may be ready for the Gen III. I don't remember the exact words, but my impression at the time was his wording implied something other than simply incremental lithium ion battery improvement.
I do think semi-autonomous driving was likely part of what Elon was referring to this week, but as one of the cards, not the whole set. I read his tone and wording to suggest some of the cards we don't really have any idea they are going after. As he's already said we'll see something pretty impressive on the auto pilot front in 2015, I suspect it would not be the only card he had in mind when he spoke on Thursday.
here's the tweet I was referring to… interesting, could be a reference to metal air, though not necessarily related to the battery:
Elon Musk @elonmusk · 23 Mar 2013.@benmacy $30k in 2013 $ (ie + inflation) w 200+ mile range w some really cool tech that we can't talk about yet.
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At TMC Connect, Diarmuid made a statement that I interpreted to mean that the Model S already has the hardware capability for V2G (that is, moving power OUT of the battery). If that's so, V2G just a software update away -- at the car's level, anyway. There will need to be break-then-make protection circuits in your house to enable safe operation.
Johan
Ex got M3 in the divorce, waiting for EU Model Y!
I believe V2G is a bit premature yet. Emergency back-up would be cool though, as well as V2V (one Tesla Supercharges the other). Also I don't think these things would be qualified as "some really cool tech" by Elon.
Autonomous driving has the lowest odds in my book. But I'd love to be blown away by something amazing.
Autonomous driving has the lowest odds in my book. But I'd love to be blown away by something amazing.
Two years ago I had sent tesla an e mail suggesting the car being a battery back up for the house. At the time I was installing a lead battery backup for my house (we loose power if there is a cloud in the sky where we live). Actually got back a reply from Blankenship saying they had no intension of ever doing that. Figured they had already thought about that but perhaps the liability was too high if not installed properly
You not only have liability issues, but it raises potential problems with the battery warranty. Also, people seem to forget that cycling the battery reduces its capacity, and I'm guessing that Tesla doesn't want to see press coverage of people with 30% degradation after 40,000 miles -- only to find that the owner had been cycling the pack daily to run his off-grid house.
My back-of-the-envelope calculation puts the cost of energy drawn from the drive battery at about $0.25/kWh (assuming 1,000 cycles of useful life, $20,000 pack replacement cost), plus the cost of the energy used to charge the battery. That's expensive, but not crazy-expensive. (The battery can do a lot more than 1,000 cycles, of course, but the degradation will have been steep enough by then that most people would find it providing unacceptable range.)
mitch672
Active Member
To do backup power and/or V2G, that technology is well understood, and is used on every emergency generator. A simple contactor that is installed where the main power to the house, and the breaker panel meet. The system could be designed to function in backup mode, meaning it only comes online in the event of main utility power failure,
So the contactor isolates the inverter from the utility in that case. For use as V2G, it can only supply power if the utility is working since you can't risk electrocuting a lineman working on the utility wires during an outage.
I think they could do this design in 2 hardware pieces, the contactor that is installed at the service entrance, and an inverter that basically replaces your HPWC with a piece of hardware that is the car interface, and the inverter. It would of course have to be on a large breaker (100A), to be most effective. The contactor and HPWC/inverter could communicate with each other over AC power wiring, or wifi/Bluetooth, or many other technologies. In many cases it wouldn't be possible to have the contactor and car interface/inverter all located together, so some type of communication link would be needed.
So the contactor isolates the inverter from the utility in that case. For use as V2G, it can only supply power if the utility is working since you can't risk electrocuting a lineman working on the utility wires during an outage.
I think they could do this design in 2 hardware pieces, the contactor that is installed at the service entrance, and an inverter that basically replaces your HPWC with a piece of hardware that is the car interface, and the inverter. It would of course have to be on a large breaker (100A), to be most effective. The contactor and HPWC/inverter could communicate with each other over AC power wiring, or wifi/Bluetooth, or many other technologies. In many cases it wouldn't be possible to have the contactor and car interface/inverter all located together, so some type of communication link would be needed.
Sounds cool but I think there are too many practical obstacles: getting local permits from your county or city, and getting your utility to approve it. Utilities will hate this idea. Already in California the utilities have made it almost impossible for SolarCity to install Tesla 10kW backup battery systems connected to PV.
Sorry, I don't think what you describe is going to happen.
Sorry, I don't think what you describe is going to happen.
NigelM
Recovering Member
mitch672
Active Member
For backup power only, no one can stop them. You can buy a generator and automatic transfer switch from hundreds of manufacturers, this is just a generator that uses an 85KW battery pack and inverter, nothing different than any number of generators availble commercially, other than it runs on stored battery power rather than fossil fuel, and is much quieter.
For V2G, that's utility interactive, and a different story, however, the utilities are actually in favor of alternative power sources on the grid to smooth out peak demand, so I think you'll see a lot more cooperation in the future.
Chicken, but what surprise are you referring to? Also you are probably right in a way about the pickup truck, it will probably be the next high volume platform for Tesla after the 30-35k car, considering that Ford alone sells about 80k pickup trucks a month, although it might not happen for a few years.
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Johan, a month or two ago I recall hearing Musk saying that they will have hands free driving from highway on ramp to off ramp in less than a year, so the odds for at least partial auto-driving seem pretty good, and that timing coincides pretty well with the Model X ramp. Even if the software wasn't quite ready it wouldn't be surprising to see them equip new cars with the hardware and then add the software.
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