Unicorn Dust Powerwall 3.0 [Speculation]

[willow_hiller]

And, to add, these cycle life improvements are within the range of the recent electrolyte improvements of the Dahn lab.

Didn't they also recently patent that "range-extender" battery formulation (high-cycles within the first X%, and the ability to extend capacity into a low-cycle portion)? I only heard theories about how it could be useful for vehicles, but it could be useful for storm-watch Powerwalls. Daily charging/discharging in the high-cycle percentage, and the ability to occasionally charge the extra portion in an emergency.

 

[SMAlset]

Something to be said for living in the moment and enjoying it. Installation starting tomorrow and happy to know we’ll be enjoying our system during the next PSPS or rolling blackout or when power is out due to storm or construction work or car accident taking out a power line in our neighborhood during summer or winter. Ability to WFH, use internet, keep refrig/freezer cold, have A/C or heat depending on season. Worth buying now to us and glad we got in line for installation.

Oh and while waiting for our scheduling date, Tesla let us add another PW at the discounted price when they did a promo; then they substituted a GW2 when it became available during our wait; they matched the new lower solar panel pricing. Over the last few days we found out from receiving our tech drawings that they had substituted the new 340 panels for the 315s we contracted for when they ran low on 315 inventory, and redid our layout at the same time! If we kept waiting to place our order for when the GW2 or panels, etc. came out, we wouldn’t be getting our install on Monday. Just saying..

 

[jjrandorin]

I agree - the PW2 is a nice product.

Another way it could get even better would be to increase it's useful lifespan.

Currently the warranty sits at 10 years.

The warranty sits at "at least 70% capacity, in 10 years". The way you have it stated here ( and frankly the way a lot of other people always state it) is if the warranty says it will only "work" for 10 years.

Its also not "7500" for a powerwall, if you are counting it on its own, its 6500, before any federal tax credit at all. Most (not all, but most) people who could afford to get a powerwall likely qualify for the tax credit, so if you are counting the cost of a powerwall itself, its 6500 minus 26%, or 4810 for a powerwall (again not counting install costs etc).

I mention this because I am not sure where this 7500 number is coming from. Powerwalls are 6500 each, before any rebates. The gateway is 1100, you need one of those though, and then installation, tax.

Where is 7500 before any tax credit coming from?

 

[niveknow]

Funny how the MODs renamed this thread to "Unicorn Dust Powerwall 3.0"... and added "Speculation" to differentiate it from any real PW3 discussion. lol

I did the math for me on adding PWs by taking the full installed 12.24 base price (after tax incentives ) w/o any PWs, adding PWs, and subtracting from the total. This gave me the incremental cost which for me was $6600 for ONE PW and $10,730 incremental for 2 (or $4130 added to the single price). This $4130 is what lead me down the path of going back to 2 PWs. I'm sure it'll continue to get cheaper as you add 3th, 4th,

Gist is the current GWs are still valuable to me as is otherwise I wouldn't have ordered 2. Just speculating what the next gen will be like with the "unicorn dust inside" sticker on it. .

 

[RabidYak]

The warranty sits at "at least 70% capacity, in 10 years". The way you have it stated here ( and frankly the way a lot of other people always state it) is if the warranty says it will only "work" for 10 years.

Its also not "7500" for a powerwall, if you are counting it on its own, its 6500, before any federal tax credit at all. Most (not all, but most) people who could afford to get a powerwall likely qualify for the tax credit, so if you are counting the cost of a powerwall itself, its 6500 minus 26%, or 4810 for a powerwall (again not counting install costs etc).

I mention this because I am not sure where this 7500 number is coming from. Powerwalls are 6500 each, before any rebates. The gateway is 1100, you need one of those though, and then installation, tax.

Where is 7500 before any tax credit coming from?

It's a number with nothing complicated behind yet - and it yes, it came from a fudge-factor for the cost of installation and maybe even some opportunity cost sprinkled in for good measure. Feel free to use your own number(s).

The goal was to keep things simple to explain the point of doubling the lifetime of the battery would halve the cost of ownership (all approximations of course) and provide it in the context of some $$. Again, feel free to use your own $$ numbers, as every situation will be different.

As far as how could battery day make the PW even better, IMO, if the lifetime doubled, even if costs per kwh didn't drop, I think it would be huge. In fact, even a 50% increase in lifetime (a.k.a., a decrease degradation) would still be huge.