“Satellites with phased array antennas are sort of the communications jacks of all trades, capable of offering high-bandwidth connectivity to stationary user terminals, large ground stations, and moving vehicles simultaneously from with the same antenna array.”
SpaceX board member says Starlink prototype satellites "are working wonderfully"
Does anyone have an estimate for Spacex internet services value add to vehicle, storage, and solar products?
As a benefit of Spacex relationship with Tesla, it appears to me not many have really been able to value effectively this internet service to Tesla motors and energy.
Any suggestions for insight?
Musk has downplayed Starlink's applicability to Tesla vehicles. Sounds like he doesn't like the idea of adding a pizza box-sized antenna in the cars (also, not sure what their power requirements are, but surely far more than GSM due to the far greater distances that signals need to propagate).
I’m thinking internet service with solar+storage products— package deal.
The network could also improve local, regional, and national weather estimates as well.
As more neighborhoods become solar+storage, that network information can provide energy capacity information for aggregation services as well as market signals of energy value for sales between neighbors and regions that require it. A whole new way to buy and sell energy, essentially an evolved economy.
Some significant real-time applications that may extend Tesla market advantage
I would not expect any direct integration into the vehicle any time soon, for three main reasons.
1) packaging is a bit annoying. It's technically doable, but to do so without either ugly protrusions or filling the roof glass with electronics, you'd have to put it in the hood most likely, which means using RF transparent skin on the hood, which makes the hood more expensive. You'd lose a little bit of interior volume of the frunk but that loss won't be much of an issue itself.
2) The system is not expected to be operational for several years yet, so there's not much point in building it into cars now, especially since the user terminal hardware may not yet be finalized.
3) It would only really be useful outside of cities or in the middle of nowhere (due to sky occlusion issues with buildings and also population density and the limitations on the number of user terminals that can be served in one area), so they'd still need LTE (or whatever cellular standard) most of the time, Starlink can't replace the LTE service.
Instead, where I think there might be likely usage:
a) Free Wifi at Superchargers for Tesla owners via Starlink, with "unlimited" bandwidth (there would be limits, but you'd be able to stream a couple of HD/UHD streams to either the car or your personal device probably)
b) Remote monitoring of Superchargers via same Starlink connection as a) (as in the past there were reports that some Superchargers were down after hurricanes but in fact were operational, it was just all the internet service was out so they were "down" from the perspective of Tesla HQ)
c) Remote monitoring of utility scale powerpack installations (for same reasons as b), though not for powerwall and smaller building scale powerpack installations (for same reasons as 3)
As for internet service itself, they will certainly offer it in more population dense areas (versus not at all) but it won't be a free-for-all. I'm not sure how they'll decide who gets service but there is an upper limit and they may simply price it high enough to prevent overcrowding. In more rural areas, I expect the service to be reasonably priced (possibly lower than incumbents, almost certainly lower than incumbents in a price per performance comparison). Service might be free or nearly so to 3rd world communities.
Foghat's idea of bundling service with TE products isn't a terrible idea but ideally enough TE customers should be in a given area that they can't all be serviced by Starlink