Tesla Powerwall: SA pricing questions

[Kevin Lancaster]

Tesla Powerwall: South African pricing questions

The Tesla Powerwall offers great battery technology in a sexy form factor, but its price may limit its appeal in South Africa.

 

[TJ99]

Basically, Tesla seems to be positioning the Powerwall as a bit of an iPhone for the backup power market.

So it will be less powerful and do less than the competition, only power approved, expensive Tesla appliances, need to be tied to a Tesla account to Just Work(TM) need to be hacked to work properly and can only be repaired by Tesla at great cost and will mostly be bought by people who neither know nor care about batteries?

But that's ok because it has PREMIUM electricity! Which is better than regular old electricity! Just don't ask us how!

 

[elvis_presley]

I watched the keynote, and I came away with a totally different impression to the 'iPhone of the backup power market". Musk wasn't really punting it as backup power at all, he was positioning it as a way to transition to alternate energy; I think it has a lot more intelligence and scalability built in to it than current solutions, and he assumes the price will be driven down over time and tech like this (his patents are open-source to help others make the batteries) will bring power to people who would never have been able to get it otherwise.

I think it's more "the Nokia 3310 of the battery market" - just right now it's expensive for early adopters.

 

[raind33r]

No it's the Motorola of battery market

 

[Pythonista]

With any luck this could shake things up a bit. The first CD-Roms, colour printers, digital cameras, cell phones etc were ALL initially expensive, some even prohibitively. Look where we are now - all of that stuff is cheap. Realistically we're 2 to 4 years away from home batteries being as ubiquitous as TV's and home internet - but it will come.

 

[Drunkard #1]

There are many systems available to suit various budgets that can do just as good a job at providing backup power and are far more affordable to the man in the street.

Exactly. Panasonic VRLAs retail at R23 000 for the same energy as the 10kWh unit, will last just as long, are available for collection today, but have a peak power in excess of 25kW (Powerwall: 2kW). You need to add a few grand to pretty the whole system up (enclosure and switchgear), but it still comes it at less than Tesla's R42 000 excl VAT and customs and shipping and margins and... Basically R55 000+.

 

[Cicero]

Watch Teubner change his cynical view once he sorts out becoming a distributor and installer for them

At the end of the day though, Musk has the marketing reach and credibility to sell these things on a mass scale. That in turn will push sales, and drive more research and innovation into batteries, research which has been neglected and lagging in relative terms. This could be the catalyst for great things in the renewable energy market, and a few years down the line might bring costs down so the rest of us can go this route as well.

 

[system32]

I watched the keynote, and I came away with a totally different impression to the 'iPhone of the backup power market". Musk wasn't really punting it as backup power at all, he was positioning it as a way to transition to alternate energy; I think it has a lot more intelligence and scalability built in to it than current solutions, and he assumes the price will be driven down over time and tech like this (his patents are open-source to help others make the batteries) will bring power to people who would never have been able to get it otherwise.

I think it's more "the Nokia 3310 of the battery market" - just right now it's expensive for early adopters.

+1
For those who would like to see the keynote it's available on
http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall
http://player.vimeo.com/video/126637913

Teubner said the Tesla Powerwall is a clever marketing drive. “Basically, Tesla seems to be positioning the Powerwall as a bit of an iPhone for the backup power market.”

He said the Tesla Powerwall is turning a battery into a fashionable and desirable accessory.

“At the end of the day, systems like these are currently only the preserve of the upper echelons.”

I think that Herbert Teubner is somewhat like to Steve Ballmer of MS who scoffed at Apple when Jobs launched the $500 iPhone 1

There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item.

What SA should be doing is building a GigaFactory locally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1
http://www.teslamotors.com/gigafactory

 

[mister]

So it will be less powerful and do less than the competition, only power approved, expensive Tesla appliances, need to be tied to a Tesla account to Just Work(TM) need to be hacked to work properly and can only be repaired by Tesla at great cost and will mostly be bought by people who neither know nor care about batteries?

But that's ok because it has PREMIUM electricity! Which is better than regular old electricity! Just don't ask us how!

rofl

 

[Zyzzyva]

Pricing will come down once the gigafactory begins production. Telsa is hoping to reduce the price of the batteries by 30%.

 

[The_Unbeliever]

The Register did also a review of the Tesla Powerwall, it can be found here.

 

[Nephew_]

So it will be less powerful and do less than the competition, only power approved, expensive Tesla appliances, need to be tied to a Tesla account to Just Work(TM) need to be hacked to work properly and can only be repaired by Tesla at great cost and will mostly be bought by people who neither know nor care about batteries?

But that's ok because it has PREMIUM electricity! Which is better than regular old electricity! Just don't ask us how!

Brilliant!

 

[ToxicBunny]

I get the impression that Teubner is actually worried that if the PowerWall does come to SA it will price his ridiculously marked up equipment out of the market.

 

[quovadis]

Anyone who's every investigated a basic battery installation for backup power or solar/wind installs will appreciate the advantage of what Tesla is trying to do here especially considering the life of traditional deep cycle batteries being sold/marketed in SA - interestingly what a lot of the articles are missing is the 10kwh is for backup power and 7kwh version is for daily cycle applications.

 

[MrGray]

Can somebody explain why this isn't just an inverter with battery backup in a nice case?

 

[Gaz{M}]

Can somebody explain why this isn't just an inverter with battery backup in a nice case?

Because these batteries are stackable. So you can connect multiples together and increase capacity. It wouldn't make sense to include an inverter in each battery pack then as they would not work in parallel then.

You can attach your own inverter of the correct power output for your needs.

 

[konfab]

Can somebody explain why this isn't just an inverter with battery backup in a nice case?

Basically it is just that, but it also has some clever tech on the battery side.

The real innovative thing IMO is the fact that it is open source.

If I were the South African government, I would commission a gigafactory in each city, then sell them at as lower cost as possible to reduce the peak power usage. Once you factor in that you can reduce the massive cost of open cycle gas turbines, they could prove quite a good way to sort out our capacity problems. It would also pave the way for solar power in this country. But alas, that is too forward thinking for out lot

 

[reactor_sa]

Basically it is just that, but it also has some clever tech on the battery side.

The real innovative thing IMO is the fact that it is open source.

If I were the South African government, I would commission a gigafactory in each city, then sell them at as lower cost as possible to reduce the peak power usage. Once you factor in that you can reduce the massive cost of open cycle gas turbines, they could prove quite a good way to sort out our capacity problems. It would also pave the way for solar power in this country. But alas, that is too forward thinking for out lot

Subsidise maybe 20%,then add 40% "tax" (profit)... Ya I can see luthuli house doing that.

 

[itareanlnotani]

The thing is that its about half the price of existing solutions for Lithium based battery tech.
That puts it at an equivalent price to premium lead acid, which is a lot more hand holdy/needy.

My own look at it is here - http://goingsolar.co.za/2015/05/03/teslas-powerwall/

 

[Chris.Geerdts]

Teubner said the Tesla Powerwall is a clever marketing drive. “Basically, Tesla seems to be positioning the Powerwall as a bit of an iPhone for the backup power market.”

You need to get the deep irony of this. Teubner correctly identifies that this is the 'iPhone' of backup, but then responds with talk of technology and pricing.

That's exactly why the iPhone caught the industry off guard. People missed the point. Musk has done his homework and realises the key to success is to hit the mass market (not a niche market), to simplify the technology, and make it usable and desirable.

Two key extras though : the first is he understands the funding challenge - subsidies and monthly payoff programmes are the way to enter the mass market ("you pay monthly the amount you save"). The second is to use the battery on a daily basis (charging it from the sun or from cheaper rates and discharging during the evening peak). That makes it central to the lives of users.

This is really just round 1 of Musk's strategy.