So to power the house in the event of a power outage? And if not, anybody know if any are in development?

  • aca9876@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    Honestly, I don’t see the value of this. I don’t want my EV battery supplementing the power grid or supplying power to the house. I wouldn’t want to have a dead car in the morning if the power went out and it’s trying to power the house. Installation cost is another factor. You will need an ATS to isolate your house from the grid, you can backfeed power. It’s a safety issue. At this point if your are worried about the power going out, buy a generator. I think we would need like 12 Powerwalls to power our house during the summer for 1 day. Air conditioning sucks the power up. A standby generator is $10k, it’s a lot cheaper.

    • RoboRabbit69@alien.topB
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      10 months ago

      The reason is avoiding doubling the the battery needs (car+house) when solar panels are available. A modern compact house with proper insulation and heat pump needs overnight less then 20 kwh in the worst winter days. Being able to use one quarter of the battery when the sun is down, recharged the day after, would be really money and environmentally effective. Why buying a fixed home battery like powerwall in a future where most of the time at least a mobile battery (a car) would always be connected to the home grid?

    • deg0ey@alien.topB
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      10 months ago

      I wouldn’t want to have a dead car in the morning if the power went out and it’s trying to power the house.

      I’d assume you set it up in a way where you have to actively switch the direction to avoid this - would be a pretty big oversight if they haven’t thought of that before bringing these things to market

      I think we would need like 12 Powerwalls to power our house during the summer for 1 day. Air conditioning sucks the power up.

      I guess that part is going to depend hugely on location - I’m in New England and have whole home AC but I don’t think I get above 35kWh/day in peak summer. Seems like the Lightning would be a pretty ideal backup solution in my case; extended range battery holds 131kWh, so theoretically I could run off that for almost 4 days if it could supply enough current to keep everything running.

    • chr1spe@alien.topB
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      10 months ago

      It sounds like your needs are extreme. I live in Florida and commonly end up without power for about a week after hurricanes. The F150 lighting could cover my peak draw and could cover my average usage in summer for at least four days on a single charge. If I tried to cut down at all, it could probably hit nearly a week. Why would I want to spend more to burn gas that costs more to use a generator? Why would I pay a bunch of money for a home battery when I need it rarely and have what I need in my car? For me it’s by far the cheapest and best solution.