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Tesla's 'Dangerously Ambitious' Gigafactory Could Save U.S. Battery Business

forbes.com

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Re: Tesla's 'Dangerously Ambitious' Gigafactory Could Save U.S. Battery Business

#21

Post by BariumBlue »

just2n wrote: post #10

What kind of draw can you put on these batteries? An 85kWh battery may be more useful in every garage than this article claims. The added expense is claimed to "keep consumers away", but really it means things like solar panels become more useful. If you are able to charge your car via power you generate and it can supply enough power back to run your home, you can get some huge benefits. You can have power at night…

Using it to power your home would drastically impact the lifetime of the battery. Depending on costs, possibly not worth it.

Re: Tesla's 'Dangerously Ambitious' Gigafactory Could Save U.S. Battery Business

#23

Post by frik »

just2n wrote: post #12
derekp7 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how would this work? During the daytime, you have your car with you at work, away from your solar panels at home. When your car is at home, it is night, so it is not charging then. During a power outage, are you really going to drain your source of transportation to power your house? Especially if you don't know when the power is coming back on to refresh your car batteries? I know I wouldn't -- I'd just fire up a…

During the daytime, your solar panels are dumping power onto the live grid. The same grid your car at work is plugged into. And all your neighbors'. And every other car in the garage or parking lot. During an outage, unless it's a weather-critical incident or a disaster, the convenience of not needing to go and power a generator (and thus mess with needing to refuel it, and depleting your supplies which will be more…

We have this situation already in Austria.

Solar panels dump power onto the grid and you get paid by industry electricity price. But at night solar panels don't produce and one has to pay "consumer" electricity price that is 7 times higher!

So a battery system that covers nights and that has a durability of at least 10 years and with a price tag that allow for a amortisation within 8 years would be the way to go.

Re: Tesla's 'Dangerously Ambitious' Gigafactory Could Save U.S. Battery Business

#24

Post by danmaz74 »

analyst74 wrote: post #2

Interesting fact presented in the beginning of the article: all the government funded research/companies went belly up. Food for thought: Is it because of the sheer difficulty of such ventures? Or is it because the money went to the wrong hands?

Food for thought: Tesla used government money too. Food for thought 2: Most tech startups go belly up.

Re: Tesla's 'Dangerously Ambitious' Gigafactory Could Save U.S. Battery Business

#25

Post by Someone »

just2n wrote: post #10

What kind of draw can you put on these batteries? An 85kWh battery may be more useful in every garage than this article claims. The added expense is claimed to "keep consumers away", but really it means things like solar panels become more useful. If you are able to charge your car via power you generate and it can supply enough power back to run your home, you can get some huge benefits. You can have power at night…

"If you are able to charge your car via power you generate [...] During outages [...]"

What outages? If every house is self-supporting, I can think of few disasters that would simultaneously kill all those power sources, and those likely would kill your house and you, too.

Re: Tesla's 'Dangerously Ambitious' Gigafactory Could Save U.S. Battery Business

#26

Post by swalsh »

just2n wrote: post #10

What kind of draw can you put on these batteries? An 85kWh battery may be more useful in every garage than this article claims. The added expense is claimed to "keep consumers away", but really it means things like solar panels become more useful. If you are able to charge your car via power you generate and it can supply enough power back to run your home, you can get some huge benefits. You can have power at night…

So this is musk solving a problem for Solar City at the same time as Tesla?

Re: Tesla's 'Dangerously Ambitious' Gigafactory Could Save U.S. Battery Business

#28

Post by jjoonathan »

baddox wrote: post #15
analyst74 wrote: post #2

Interesting fact presented in the beginning of the article: all the government funded research/companies went belly up. Food for thought: Is it because of the sheer difficulty of such ventures? Or is it because the money went to the wrong hands?

I don't know the details of these government funded companies, but it doesn't seem to surprising. I wouldn't expect a government funded restaurant to be able to compete with privately funded restaurants either. It's pretty basic economics regarding how incentives work.

Solyndra was beaten by government funded companies. Just not the US government.

Re: Tesla's 'Dangerously Ambitious' Gigafactory Could Save U.S. Battery Business

#29

Post by ZenoArrow »

derekp7 wrote: post #11
just2n wrote: post #10

What kind of draw can you put on these batteries? An 85kWh battery may be more useful in every garage than this article claims. The added expense is claimed to "keep consumers away", but really it means things like solar panels become more useful. If you are able to charge your car via power you generate and it can supply enough power back to run your home, you can get some huge benefits. You can have power at night…

So how would this work? During the daytime, you have your car with you at work, away from your solar panels at home. When your car is at home, it is night, so it is not charging then. During a power outage, are you really going to drain your source of transportation to power your house? Especially if you don't know when the power is coming back on to refresh your car batteries? I know I wouldn't -- I'd just fire up a…

You don't just have one battery, you can have multiple. So for example first day you charge battery 1, next day you use battery 1 and charge battery 2, next day you use battery 2 and charge battery 1, etc...

Re: Tesla's 'Dangerously Ambitious' Gigafactory Could Save U.S. Battery Business

#30

Post by lotsofmangos »

DaniFong wrote: post #4
analyst74 wrote: post #2

Interesting fact presented in the beginning of the article: all the government funded research/companies went belly up. Food for thought: Is it because of the sheer difficulty of such ventures? Or is it because the money went to the wrong hands?

I'm a founder of an energy storage company, Lightsail Energy. To say all government funded energy storage companies went belly up is an exaggeration. Many still survive, although you will note a strange anti-correlation between government funding and survival. In my opinion a lot of money did go in the wrong hands. The main problem is that the government is totally confused as to its actual funding strategy -- you ne…

Hi, I've been following your company. You lot are amazing. That is all. :)

edit - oh, I do have one thing to ask, how do you think your tech compares with Gravitypower http://www.gravitypower.net/ and Isentropic http://www.isentropic.co.uk/ ?

edit 2 - and when can I expect to be able to buy a small one, say enough storage for my house? Or are you only doing the grid-scale?

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